Apples innovative self-branded credit card, Apple Card, was expected tooverturn the existing retail banking industryand transform relationships between bankers and customers. Equipped with generous benefits and unique integration between Apples ecosystem and a users financial relationships, the card quickly generated many thousands of US users afterits 2019 introduction.With such a great start, how could it fail?And yet, somehow it found a way.To be fair, the six-year-old card hasnt really failed. It still exists and many enjoy itsperks and benefits, including cash-back deals and a savings account offering some of the best interest your money can buy. They enjoy it very much. In fact, the Apple Card ranks highest in customer satisfaction among co-brand credit cards,according to JD Power.But all is not wellBurned by its foray into retail banking during a period of global instability and pandemic, Apple Card partner Goldman Sachs wants out, and while it and Apple will continue working together for the duration of the existing contract, the open secret is that the iPhone maker is seeking a new card partner. That the two partners got fined $89 million for negligence and mismanagement by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau didnt help. As recently as last week, Goldman Sachs CEOwarnedthat the arrangement between the two firms could end early, so it looks as if that company is eyeing a rapid exit from the deal.Right now, Apple is reportedly in conversation with Barclays on the matter,Reuters claims. Barclays is no stranger to taking on existing credit card services; it recently replaced Goldman Sachs as credit card partner for General Motors. Talks between Apple and JP Morgan Chase and Synchrony Financial have also been alleged in recent months.Despite these chats, nothing has been announced, which suggests Apple is encountering challenges finding a new partner.Whats in the way? Holiday season speculation told us potential retail banking partners just dont want to deliver on the features and benefits Apple Card currently provides.I think Apple is at a disadvantage here. Its important when thinking about the nature of those closed-door negotiations to ponder the power balance in these chats. After all, while Apple drives legendarily hard bargains, when it comes to negotiation, banks are banks, and they know that when it comes to real unearned wealth creation, the financial system they own always works in their favor.After all, when it doesnt, we bail them out.Look at it this way, while Apple has to sell and invent real products and services to make its money, banks just need to increase property values to charge interest on mortgage money they notionally lend which doesnt actually exist. A little like artificially manipulated crypto value spikes, its a lot easier to create scarcity than to meet it with what people need. In this scenario, the banks have the upper hand.Theres a certain irony to that. When it was introduced, Apple Card posed a titans challenge to the industry.Eating with the enemyThe features, including app-driven features, were second to none. The business proposition tilted hard toward customer convenience, and Apples foray into the financial system (in conjunction with even deeper stabs at retail bankings most profitable markets by other challenge banks) arguably helped force established financial institutions to get their act together and improve their customer offerings.(If that proposition were correct, youd see evidence of it and you can find that evidence in all the new features suddenly added to banking apps and services after Apple Card arrived.)Most people deeply resent the banking industry. Many millions continue to experience hardships following the 2008 crash. The idea that Apple Card and other challenge banks would somehowundermine the status quo remains quite attractive.Unfortunately, this doesnt seem to be happening. Instead, established banking services (such as Barclays) will now do the Big Fish, Little Fish predator tango and assimilate the competitor, neutralizing the threat.Was Apple Card too good? It was so good an established vendor may yet buy it, you might say.If that happens, Apple Card customers will be OK. (Theyll also be OK if the card fades away as their interests will be protected.) Apple will still make a profit. But the challenge will be defanged, and the industry will carry on its own sweet way while occasionally raising arguments about competition when vendors like Apple invent something they want to extract wealth from, such as Apple Pay.Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, as Leonard Cohen once sang. Thats how it goes.Even at Apple.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

Fair warning: This isnt your average article about whats happening with all the newfangled AI hullabaloo in this weird and wild world of ours.Nope therell be no oohing and ahhing or talk about how systems like Gemini and ChatGPT and their brethren are, like, totally gonna revolutionize the world and change life as we know it.Instead, I want to look at the state of these generative AI systems through as practical and realistic of a lens as possible focusing purely on how they work right now and what theyre able to accomplish.And with that in mind, my friend, theres no way around it: These things seriously suck.Sorry for the bluntness, but for Googs sake, someones gotta say it. For all their genuinely impressive technological feats and all the interesting ways theyre able to help with mundane work tasks, Googles Gemini and other such generative AI systems are doing us all a major disservice in one key area and everyone seems content in looking the other way and pretending it isnt a problem.Thats why I was so pleasantly surprised to see that one tech giant seemingly isnt taking the bait and is instead lagging behind and taking its time to get this right instead of rushing it out half-baked, like everyone else.Its the antithesis to the strategy were seeing play out from Google and virtually every other tech player right now. And my goodness, is it ever a refreshing contrast.[Get level-headed insight in your inbox with my Android Intelligence newsletter. Three new things to know and try each Friday!]The Google Gemini Bizarro WorldI wont keep you waiting: The company thats getting it right, at least in terms of its process and philosophy, is none other than Amazon.Ill be the first to admit: Im typically not a huge fan of Amazon or its approach. But within this specific area, it really is creating a model for how tech companies should be thinking about these generative AI systems.My revelation comes via a locked-down article that went mostly unnoticed at The Financial Times last week. The reports all about how Amazon is scrambling to upgrade its Alexa virtual assistant with generative AI and relaunch it as a powerful agent for offering up complex answers and completing all kinds of online tasks.More of the same, right? Sure sounds that way but hang on: Theres a twist.Allow me to quote a pertinent passage from behind the paywall for ya:Rohit Prasad, who leads the artificial general intelligence (AGI) team at Amazon, told the Financial Times the voice assistant still needed to surmount several technical hurdles before the rollout.This includes solving the problem of hallucinations or fabricated answers, its response speed or latency, and reliability.Hallucinations have to be close to zero, said Prasad. Its still an open problem in the industry, but we are working extremely hard on it.(Insert exaggerated record-scratch sound effect here.)Wait what? Did we read that right?!Lets look to another passage to confirm:One former senior member of the Alexa team said while LLMs were very sophisticated, they came with risks, such as producing answers that were completely invented some of the time.At the scale that Amazon operates, that could happen large numbers of times per day, they said, damaging its brand and reputation.Well, tickle me tootsies and call me Tito. Someone actually gives a damn.If the contrast here still isnt apparent, let me spell it out: These large-language-model systems the type of technology under the hood of Gemini, ChatGPT, and pretty much every other generative AI service weve seen show up over the past year or two they dont really know anything, in any human-like sense. They work purely by analyzing massive amounts of data, observing patterns within that data, and then using sophisticated statistics to predict what word is likely to come next in any scenario relying on all the info theyve ingested as a guide.Or, put into laymans terms: They have no idea what theyre saying or if its right. Theyre just coughing up characters based on patterns and probability.And that gets us to the core problem with these systems and why, as I put it so elegantly a moment ago, they suck.As I mused whilst explaining why Gemini is, in many ways, the new Google+ recently:The reality is that large-language models like Gemini and ChatGPT are wildly impressive at a very small set of specific, limited tasks. They work wonders when it comes to unambiguous data processing, text summarizing, and other low-level, closely defined and clearly objective chores. Thats great! Theyre an incredible new asset for those sorts of purposes.But everyone in the tech industry seems to be clamoring to brush aside an extremely real asterisk to that and thats the fact that Gemini, ChatGPT, and other such systems simply dont belong everywhere. They arent at all reliable as creative tools or tools intended to parse information and provide specific, factual answers. And we, as actual human users of the services associated with this stuff, dont need this type of technology everywhere and might even be actively harmed by having it forced into so many places where it doesnt genuinely belong.That, mdear, is a pretty pressing problem.Allow me to borrow a quote collected by my Computerworld colleague Lucas Mearian in a thoroughly reported analysis of how, exactly, these large-language models work:Hallucinations happen because LLMs, in their in most vanilla form, dont have an internal state representation of the world, said Jonathan Siddharth, CEO of Turing, a Palo Alto, California company that uses AI to find, hire, and onboard software engineers remotely. Theres no concept of fact. Theyre predicting the next word based on what theyve seen so far its a statistical estimate.And there we have it.Thats why Gemini, ChatGPT, and other such systems so frequently serve up inaccurate info and present it as fact something thats endlessly amusing to see examples of, sure, but thats also an extremely serious issue. Whats more, its only growing more and more prominent as these systems show up everywhere and increasingly overshadow traditional search methods within Google and beyond.And that brings us back to Amazons seemingly accidental accomplishment.Amazon and Google: A tale of two AI journeysWhats especially interesting about the slow-moving state of Amazons Alexa AI rollout is how its being presented as a negative by most market-watchers.Back to that same Financial Times article I quoted a moment ago, the conclusion is unambiguous:In June, Mihail Eric, a former machine learning scientist at Alexa and founding member of its conversational modelling team, said publicly that Amazon had dropped the ball on becoming the unequivocal market leader in conversational AI with Alexa.But, ironically, thats exactly where I see Amazon doing something admirable and creating that striking contrast between its efforts and those of Google and others in the industry.The reality is that all these systems share those same foundational flaws. Remember: By the very nature of the technology, generative-AI-provided answers are woefully inconsistent and unreliable.And yet, Googles been going in overdrive to get Gemini into every possible place and get us all in the habit of relying on it for almost every imaginable purpose including those where it simply isnt reliable. (Remember my analogy from a minute ago? Yuuuuuup.)In doing so, its chasing short-term market gains at the cost of long-term trust. All other variables aside, being wrong or misleading with basic information 20% of the time or, heck, even just 10% of the time is a pretty substantial problem. Ive said it before, and Ill say it again: If something is inaccurate or unreliable 10% of the time, its useful precisely 0% of the time.And to be clear, the stakes here couldnt be higher. In terms of their answer-offering and info-providing capabilities, Gemini and other such systems are being framed and certainly perceived as magical answer machines. Most people arent treating em with a hefty degree of skepticism and taking the time to ask all the right questions, verify answers, and so on. Theyre asking questions, seeing or hearing answers, and then assuming theyre right.And by golly, are they getting an awful lot of confidently stated inaccuracies as a result something that, as we established a moment ago, is likely inevitable with this type of technology in its current state.On some level, Google is clearly aware of this. The company had been developing the technology behind Gemini for years before rushing it out into the world following the success and attention around ChatGPTs initial rollout but, as had been said in numerous venues over time, it hadnt felt like it was mature enough to be ready for public use.So what changed? Not the nature of the technology nope; by all counts, it was just the competitive pressure that forced Google to say screw it, its good enough and go all-in with systems that werent and still arent ready for primetime, at least with all of their promoted purposes.And that, my fellow accuracy-obsessed armadillo, is where Amazon is getting it right. Rather than just rushing to replace Alexa with some new half-baked replacement, the company is actually waiting until it feels like its got the new system ready with reliability, yes, but also with branding and a consistent-seeming user experience. (Anyone whos been trying to navigate the comically complex web of Gemini and Assistant on Android and beyond can surely relate!)Whether Amazon will keep up this pattern or eventually relent and go the good enough route remains to be seen. Sooner or later, investor pressure may force it to follow Googles path and put its next-gen answer agent out there, even if it in all likelihood still isnt ready by any reasonable standard.For now, though, man: I cant help but applaud the fact that the companys taking its time instead of prematurely fumbling to the finish line like everyone else. And I cant help but wish Google would have taken that same path, too, rather than doing its usual Google Thang and forcing some undercooked new concept into every last nook and cranny no matter the consequences.Maybe, hopefully, thisll all settle out in some sensible way and turn into a positive in the future. For the moment, though, Googles strategy sure seems like more of a minus than a plus for us, as users of its most important products and especially in this arena, it sure seems like getting it right should mean more than getting it out into the world quickly, flaws and all and at any cost.Get plain-English perspective on the news that matters with my free Android Intelligence newsletter three things to know and try in your inbox each Friday.

Its happened yet again this time to Apple.Apple recently had to disable AI-generated news summaries in its News app in iOS 18.3. You can guess why: the AI-driven Notification Summaries for the news and entertainment categories in the app occasionally hallucinated, lied, and spread misinformation.Sound familiar?Users complained about the summaries, but Apple acted only after a complaint from BBC News, which told Apple that several of its notifications were improperly summarized.These were major errors in some cases.The generative AI (genAI) tool incorrectly summarized a BBC headline, falsely claiming that Luigi Mangione, who was charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself. It inaccurately reported that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship hours before the competition had even begun and falsely claimed that Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.Apple summarized other real stories with false information: The tool said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested, Pete Hegseth had been fired, that Trump tariffs had triggered inflation (before Donald Trump had re-assumed office), and spewed dozens of other falsehoods.Apple rolled out the feature not knowing it would embarrass the company and force a retreat which is amazing when you consider that this happens to every other company that tries to automate genAI information delivery of any kind on a large scale.Microsoft Starts travel section, for example, published an AI-generated guide for Ottawa that included the Ottawa Food Bank as a tourist hotspot, encouraging visitors to come on an empty stomach.In September 2023, Microsofts news portal MSN ran an AI-generated obituary for former NBA player Brandon Hunter, who had passed away at the age of 42. The obituary headline called Hunter useless at 42, while the body of the text said that Hunter had performed in 67 video games over two seasons.Microsofts news aggregator, MSN, attached an inappropriate AI-generated poll to aGuardianarticle about a womans death.The poll asked readers to guess the cause of death, offering options like murder, accident, or suicide.During its first public demo in February 2024, Googles Bard AI incorrectly claimed that the James Webb Space Telescope had taken the first pictures of a planet outside our solar systemsome 16 years after the first extrasolar planets were photographed.These are just a few examples out of many.The problem: AI isnt humanThe Brandon Hunter example is instructive. The AI knows enough about language to know that a person who does something is useful, that death means they can no longer do that thing, and that the opposite of useful is useless. But AI does not have a clue that saying in an obituary that a persons death makes them useless is problematic in the extreme.Chatbots based onLarge Language Models(LLMs) are inherently tone-deaf, ignorant of human context, and cant tell the difference between fact and fiction, between truth and lies. They are, for lack of a better term, sociopaths unable to tell the difference between the emotional impact of an obituary and a corporate earnings report.There are several reasons for errors.LLMs are trained on massive datasets that contain errors, biases, or inconsistencies. Even if the data is mostly reliable, it may not cover all possible topics a model is expected to generate content about, leading to gaps in knowledge. Beyond that, LLMs generate responses based on statistical patterns using probability to choose words rather than understanding or thinking. (Theyve been described as next-word prediction machines.)The biggest problem, however, is that AI isnt human, sentient, or capable of thought.Another problem: People arent AIMost people dont pay attention to the fact that we dont actually communicate with complete information. Heres a simple example: If I say to my neighbor, Hey, whats up? My neighbor is likely to reply, Not much. You?A logic machine would likely respond to that question by describing the layers of the atmosphere, satellites, and the planets and stars beyond. It answered the question factually as it was asked, but the literal content of the question did not contain the actual information sought by the asker.To answer that simple question in the manner expected, a person has to be a human who is part of a culture and understands verbal conventions or has to be specifically programmed to respond to such conventions with the correct canned response.When we communicate, we rely on shared understanding, context, intonation, facial expression, body language, situational awareness, cultural references, past interactions, and many other things. This varies by language. The English language is one of the most literally specific languages in the world, and so a great many other languages will likely have bigger problems with human-machine communication.Our human conventions for communication are very unlikely to align with genAI tools for a very long time. Thats why frequent AI chatbot users often feel like the software sometimes willfully evades their questions.The biggest problem: Tech companies can be hubristicWhats really astonishing to me is that companies keep doing this. And by this, I mean rolling out unsupervised automated content-generating systems that deliver one-to-many content on a large scale.And scale is precisely the difference.If a single user prompts ChatGPT and gets a false or ridiculous answer, they are likely to shrug and try again, sometimes chastising the bot for its error, for which the chatbot is programmed to apologize and try again. No harm, no foul.But when an LLM spits out a wrong answer for a million people, thats a problem, especially in Apples case, where no doubt many users are just reading the summary instead of the whole story. Wow, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arrested. Didnt see that coming, and now some two-digit percentage of those users are walking around believing misinformation.Each tech company believes they have better technology than the others.Google thought: Sure, that happened to Microsoft, but our tech is better.Apple thought: Sure, it happened to Google, but our tech is better. Tech companies: No, your technology is not better. The current state of LLM technology is what it is and we have definitely not reached the point where genAI chatbots can reliably handle a job like this.What Apples error teaches usTheres a right way and a wrong way to use LLM-based chatbots. The right way is to query with intelligent prompts, ask the question in several ways, and always fact-check the responses before using or believing that information.Chatbots are great for brainstorming, providing quick information that isnt important, or being a mere starting point for research that leads you to legitimate sources.But using LLM-based chatbots to write content unsupervised at scale? Its very clear that this is the road to embarrassment and failure.The moral of the story is that genAI is still too unpredictable to reliably represent a company in one-to-many communications of any kind at scale.rrorSo, make sure this doesnt happen with any project under your purview. Setting up any public-facing content-producing project meant to communicate information to large numbers of people should be a hard, categorical no until further notice.AI is not human, cant think, and it will confuse your customers and embarrass your company if you give it a public-facing role.

If youre a Microsoft 365 subscriber with a Personal or Family subscription, Microsoft just flipped a switch and activated Copilot AI features for your account. Its a new part of your subscription, along with that 1TB of OneDrive storage and access to Office apps like Word and Excel. But there are some big catches including a price hike and some limits.Microsofts latest changes follow in Googles footsteps, with AI features appearing in the standard subscription for much less than youd pay for those AI features separately but with the standard subscription price also going up at the same time.Lets dive into how Microsoft just transformed some of the worlds most popular productivity apps, what you can do now and how you can avoid paying more.Want to keep track of the latest Windows and Office developments in just a few minutes each week? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Plus, get free Windows Field Guide downloads as a bonus when you sign up!How Copilot works in Microsoft 365 plansFirst things first, the basics: Microsoft announced that all Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family plans now include Copilot features as of Jan. 16 in most markets worldwide. This wont affect you when using a Microsoft 365 plan provided by a workplace businesses still have to pay separately for AI features but it will affect your individual plans. And plenty of professionals do pay for their own Microsoft 365 subscriptions. (I should know; Im one of them!)In other words, if you pay for Microsoft 365 and use apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook, youll now find the Copilot button popping up in these applications. Previously, you had to pay $20 per month for a Copilot Pro subscription to unlock these features.Heres the first big catch: The newly expanded paid 365 plans dont give you unlimited access to Microsofts AI features. Instead, you get a monthly allotment of credits that Microsoft says should be enough for most subscribers. In practice, that appears to be 60 credits per month meaning you can use AI features 60 times per month. After that, youll need to pay for a $20-per-month Copilot Pro subscription to keep using those AI features.Youll see an informational pop-up window the first time you open an app like Word.Chris Hoffman, IDGNote: These AI credits are actually shared across various other Microsoft apps including for AI image generation in Designer, Paint, and Photos and text-editing work in Notepad. Theyre not just for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.Plus, again, Microsoft is raising its 365 subscription prices, with Copilot bundled into the mix. Theyre going up by $3 per month in the US, though the exact price increase will vary by country. For the yearly plans in the US, Microsoft 365 Family goes from $100 to $130 per year, and Microsoft 365 Personal goes from $70 to $100 per year.This is the first time Microsoft has raised prices since launching the subscription service originally called Office 365 back in 2013. While its true that Microsoft is using these AI features as a way to hike prices, these subscriptions were overdue for a price increase anyway, and its nice to at least get something out of it. (In my opinion, between the 1TB of OneDrive storage and access to Office apps, its still a good value.)Its worth noting that this Copilot change is only for Microsoft 365 plans. If you buy a more traditional one-time purchase version of Office like Office 2024, your setup isnt changing and you wont have access to these newer AI features.Using Copilot AI in Microsoft 365 appsWith the new adjustments in place, Copilot AI is easy to find in Office apps: Youll find a Copilot icon on the ribbon, or you can also select some text and click the little Copilot icon that appears next to it, or just press Alt+i. Then you can prompt Copilot to write or rewrite text in a document for you. You could also ask it questions about the document youre viewing from the Copilot sidebar.For more information on exactly how Copilot works in these Office apps, check out my Copilot Pro review from last year. The new built-in Copilot features are exactly the same as what you get with Copilot Pro; the only difference is that youre limited to 60 uses per month in the 365 setup.If you run out of credits, Microsoft will encourage you to upgrade to Copilot Pro. In a way, then, these AI features are a bit of a trial for Copilot Pro.To check how many credits you have left, you can click the little menu icon in the Copilot sidebar in an Office app and then click AI credit balance. This will take you to your Microsoft 365 account subscription page, where you can see a running balance of the AI credits youve used.Your AI credit balance is just a few clicks away.Chris Hoffman, IDGGenerating images with Microsoft DesignerThe same credit system also applies to Microsoft Designer, which is a useful AI image-generation tool. (At our newsletter-focused small business The Intelligence, we use Microsoft Designer to create some feature image illustrations for our articles were writers, not visual artists!)That means with any paid Personal or Family 365 plan, you can opt to use your 60 monthly AI image credits directly within Designer, too. This is actually quite a downgrade: Previously, everyone got 15 credits per day for AI image generations. Now, subscribers get a total of 60 credits per month, while free accounts only get 15 credits per month.If you need more than that, you can upgrade to the $20-a-month Copilot Pro plan, which gives you many more AI image generations in Designer and beyond. (Microsoft says you get at least 10x more credits for Designer with Copilot Pro, compared to the 15-credits-per-month free setup so roughly 150 credits per month, then, compared to the 60 monthly credits in the base 365 subscription.)AI tools are expensive to create and operate, and companies have lost a lot of money on them. Its no surprise to see many AI tools offering less for free and looking for more payment from their users; thats whats happening here.How to avoid the AI features (and costs) entirelyThere are ways to avoid the Microsoft 365 subscription price increases, if you dont anticipate using them and dont want to pay for them. (The price increase doesnt take effect until your next subscription renewal, by the way.)If you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription, you can keep your old subscription price and opt out of the AI features for a limited time. Microsoft says you can switch by canceling your subscription and choosing one of the Classic plans during the cancelation process. Here are Microsofts instructions.You could also buy perpetual licenses of Office instead of using the more prominently offered subscriptions. In other words, with a one-time purchase of Office 2024, you could use Office for a few years for that one-time purchase price. Its not as good a deal as it sounds that one-time purchase price will only get you access to Office apps like Word and Excel on a single computer, and you wont have access to the 1TB of OneDrive storage. (Plus, while your license will be good in perpetuity, Microsoft will stop delivering security updates for Office 2024 in October 2029.)You can also buy Microsoft 365 subscription keys from other retailers. Without getting into the weeds too far here, its worth noting that days after Microsoft implemented the subscription price increase, Amazon is still selling Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions for $70 and Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions for $100 the old prices. But these are the standard plans and include those AI features. Thats a bargain.Of course, you could also turn to other office suites the web-based Google Docs, the open-source LibreOffice, or the Apple-focused iWork suite but Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are the business standard for a reason. And even with these AI-adding price increases, getting that 1TB of OneDrive storage at those prices is still a great deal.Want more insights and helpful tips? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter! Youll also get three new things to try every Friday and free copies of Paul Thurrotts Windows Field Guides as a special welcome gift.

Perplexity has introduced an API service named Sonar that would allow developers and enterprises to embed the companys generative AI search technology into their applications.The company has rolled out two initial tiers a more affordable and faster option called Sonar, and a higher-priced tier, Sonar Pro, tailored for handling more complex queries.In a blog post, Perplexity described Sonar API as lightweight, affordable, fast, and simple to use, noting that it includes features such as citations and the ability to customize sources. The company said the API is ideal for businesses requiring streamlined question-and-answer functionalities optimized for speed.For enterprises with more complex requirements, Perplexity will offer the Sonar Pro API, which supports multi-step queries, a larger context window for handling longer and more detailed searches, and higher extensibility.It will also provide approximately twice the number of citations per search compared to the standard Sonar API, the company said.Competing with bigger playersThe launch positions Perplexity as a stronger, more direct competitor to larger players such as OpenAI and Google, offering its real-time, web-connected search capabilities to users.Perplexitys real-time data retrieval and citation-backed responses cater to enterprise demands for reliable, transparent, and actionable information, said Prabhu Ram, VP of the industry research group at Cybermedia Research. By prioritizing verifiability and up-to-date insights, it offers a specialized approach that sets it apart from broader conversational models like GPT-4 and Claude, which serve a wider range of use cases but may lack the tailored features enterprises need for effective decision-making and compliance management.However, significant challenges remain in areas such as data privacy, depth, scale, and audit trails before any company can establish itself as a leader in the field.Although real-time information capabilities offer clear advantages, they also introduce additional complexities to an already intricate landscape.Enterprises tend to take cautious steps when exploring new technologies like enterprise research, especially when handling sensitive company data, said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research. Beyond concerns around data privacy, security, and compliance, any large company would first evaluate accuracy and performance. Whether Perplexity can outpace Google and OpenAI in this space will depend on the aggressiveness of Googles and other competitors strategies.Real-time information and search is an area where Google excels. To stay competitive, Perplexity will need to explore other differentiators, such as compliance, Gogia said.Use cases for enterprisesAnalysts note that Perplexitys latest offerings have diverse applications, ranging from basic tasks such as identifying service management issues in IT functions to broader use by leaders in supply chain, finance, sales, marketing, and operations.Sonar Pro, [especially] caters to the needs of compliance-driven industries such as healthcare, BFSI, and energy by offering robust tools for security reporting, portfolio management, and seamless DevOps integration, Ram said. These capabilities not only enhance operational efficiency but also ensure adherence to regulatory standards, positioning it as an indispensable solution for improving software development practices.But for the tool to succeed, significant customization may be necessary, tailored to specific industries and individual companies.Initially, and in the near term, use cases are expected to remain highly customized before gradually evolving into industry-standard templates, all while adhering to local compliance requirements, according to Gogia. Early adopters may come from industries like banking and manufacturing with a mature data posture, which is an essential foundation for any such deployment, Gogia said. Architectural maturity is another key requirement for success, as it enables the embedding and native use of such a tool within the architecture.

Todays AI models do a poor job of providing accurate information about world history, according to a new report from the Austrian research institute Complexity Science Hub (CSH).In an experiment, OpenAIs GPT-4, Metas Llama, and Googles Gemini were asked to answer yes or no to historical questions and only 46% of the answers were correct. GPT-4, for example, answered yes to the question of whether Ancient Egypt had a standing army, likely because the AI model chose to extrapolate data from other empires such as Persia.If you are told A and B 100 times and C one time, and then asked a question about C, you might just remember A and B and try to extrapolate from that, researcher Maria del Rio-Chanona told Techcrunch.According to the researchers, AI models have more difficulty providing accurate information about some regions than others, including sub-Saharan Africa.

Windows Insiders can now download a new beta version of Windows 11 that offers support for Microsofts new search engine based on artificial intelligence (AI); that means, among other things, it is possible to use natural language when performing a search.For now, search functions are limited to finding images and documents in jpg, png, pdf, txt and xls formats.To use the new AI search, a Copilot+ computer is required. And thanks to the special NPU chip in these PCs, users can try out the new search feature without being connected to the internet, The Verge reports.As of now, the search tool works with English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese or Chinese.

Apple is about to improve its email application, Mail, on iPads and Macs. Both platforms will soon gain the sameApple Intelligenceemail summary and prioritization systems already available on iPhones though not every iPhone user seems to have embraced the new systems.Whats coming?If you use an iPhone, youll already have experienced the system, which introduces a new user interface in Mail and uses artificial intelligence (AI) in an attempt to prioritize incoming email communications with smart categorization. The latter means your device can look at incoming correspondence and assign it to categories, which currently include the following groupings:All Mail:All your Mail in order of receipt.Primary: All the messages Apple Intelligence thinks might be important to you within this category.Transactions:Invoices, shopping receipts, and key messages from services and organizations, along with banking messages.Updates:All the stuff you subscribe to. (I see this as a quick list of things to unsubscribe from.)Promotions:Most marketing emails, which Apple describes as capturing special offers, deals and more.Dont worry about time-sensitive messages. Apple says these should automatically appear in your Primary account, even if the message belongs to a different category. That means you shouldnt miss an important delivery when it arrives. Mail also uses AI to prioritize mails it believes might be more important, placing these at the top of the Primary mailbox.How to manage categoriesYou can sort of teach Mail how to make better decisions when categorizing incoming emails. When you find an email gathered within an inappropriate category you can intervene. On an iPhone, you do this by opening the message and tapping the three dots at the top right of the message page. A menu will appear, including an option to Categorize Sender. Tap this and you can assign emails from that sender to a more relevant category or leave automatic categorization on if you choose.You cant yet create your own custom groupings, such as for specific projects or workgroups, though you can use Smart Mailboxes to achieve this to some extent. Most observers believe that the capacity to build your own categories will be introduced eventually.Had you noticed?Apple has equipped email with a tool that lets you dig more deeply into the categories active on your device. Open Mail and tap the three dots icon at top right. Here you can switch between Categories and the traditional List view and also tap the About Categories item. When you do, youll be taken to an About Categories page in which youll find interesting information, such as:How many of your messages are seen as being ones that matter the most.How many receipts, orders, and delivery-related emails you received in the last seven days.The frequency and magnitude of promotional email received.What else is coming?The new tools will likely appear as Apple introduces new contextual awareness to its devices, which means Siri will be able to answer questions that relate to whats on your screen or in your apps. That means youll be able to engage in tasks such as adding address data to contact cards, or checking your next dinner date with your gran while looking at a message from her.What people thinkApple drew criticism when it first introduced these features, with some users not adapting to them at all. They complained about the icons used, and didnt seem to understand how to manage the new features or the layout within Mail. But control remained in their hands; disabling Categories is simple.On an iPhone, you open Mail, tap the three dots at the top right of the app, and then tap List View. This returns Mail to the time-based list view of incoming messages you are used to.Which devices can use the feature?Unlike other Apple Intelligence features, these Mail tools are available to most Apple devices capable of running the latest version of Apples operating systems, which basically means you dont need to be using a recent device such as an M-series Mac if you want to use these tools.When will these tools reach iPads and Macs?We anticipate the new Mail features will arrive on iPads and Macs starting with the next major update, which isexpected to arrive in Aprilafter extensive beta testing. That means you can expect the new Mail tools to arrive with iPad OS 18.4 and macOS 15.4, which should appear in spring. It is not clear whether these tools will form part of a wider introduction of more contextual intelligence across Apples devices.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

A new study by researchers from four universities claims artificial intelligence (AI) models can predict career and educational success from a single image of a persons face.The researchers from Ivy League schools and others used photos from LinkedIn and photo directories of several top US MBA programs to determine what is called the Big Five personality traits for 96,000 graduates. It then compared those personality traits to employment outcomes and education histories of the graduates to determine correlation between the personality and success.The findings highlight the significant impact AI could have as it shapes hiring practices. Employers and job seekers are increasingly turning to generative AI (genAI) to to automate their search tasks, whether its creating a shortlist of candidates for a position or writing a cover letter and resume. And data shows applicants can use AI to improve the chances of getting a particular job or a company finding the perfect talent match.I think personality affects career outcomes, and to the extent we can infer personality, we can predict their career outcomes, said Kelly Shue, a study co-author and a Yale School of Management (SOM) finance professor.Shue also noted there are many disturbing moral implications related to organizations using AI models to determine personalities. I do worry this could be used in a way to put lightly it could make a lot of people unhappy, she said. Imagine using it in a hiring setting or as part of university admissions. A firm is trying to hire the best possible workers, and now in addition to screening on standard stuff, such as where you went to school and what degrees you have and your work experience, theyre going to screen you on your personality.I think our study may prompt [the technologys] use, although were careful in the way we wrote it up in that were not advocating for adoption, Shue said.Organizations have been screening job applicants based on personality for years using behavioral assessments such as Pymetrics games, which measure up to 91 personality traits that fit into 9 different categories.In fact, Shue said, a ton of companies already heavily use these more obvious estimates of someones personality, they just havent been doing that from pictures of a persons face, she said. Ive known students who dont get a callback after the behavioral assessment. So, presumably they were screened out based just on personality.Derived from a psychology framework, the Big Five personality traits (also known as the OCEAN model) comprise: Openness (curiosity, aesthetic sensitivity, imagination); Conscientiousness (organization, productiveness, responsibility); Extraversion (sociability, assertiveness, energy level); Agreeableness (compassion, respectfulness, trust); and Neuroticism (anxiety, depression, emotional volatility).Yale School of ManagementDepending on which personality trait surfaces in the AIs assessment, a school or company might pass an applicant by. For example, someone whose photo shows a tendency toward neuroticism is less likely to be hired.Neurotic is a very important personality trait, Shue said. In much of our analysis, it seems to have substantial predictive power for labor market outcomes, often going in a negative direction.Or, for example, someone who is less conscientious might be passed over by college admissions. I think its possible personality matters for admissions, Shue said. Maybe schools want people who are going to be successful in their future careers, maybe they want diversity in personality, but certainly personality does matter for a lot of outcomes.To the extent that a school wants to admit a class thats more likely to have [successful outcomes] theyd want to screen on personality.Using a combination of computer vision and AI natural language processing (NLP) technologies, the researchers from Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Reichman University, and Indiana University, were able to determine how the personality traits played into career and educational outcomes.While someone changing their expression in a photo could play into how the AI perceives personality, Shue said the researchers seen stability in results using different photographs of the same individual. We can also use separate algorithms to determine whether a person is smiling or not and if theyre holding that smile fixed, she said.There has already been pushback on the use of AI in culling job candidates, as the technology has proven to be flawed based on its data sources. As AI continues to influence hiring practices, this research invites further exploration into its ethical, practical, and strategic considerations, the study states.Shue said the research highlights how cognitive skills and personality traits are key to labor market success, and that if a photo can uncover personality, it could be equally important to other factors on a resume.The reason we think it matters is when first companies are looking to hire, the key thing theyre looking at is education, or GPA and standardized test scores sometimes, she said. So, then, what were saying is our personality measures is in the same ballpark as those other measures or variables for how much they predict career success.The study also highlights that individual pay varies widely, and factors like race or education explain only a small portion of this variation. For example, while education matters for income, it doesnt account for much of the variation in pay, which also includes experience and proficiency.Another way of looking at it, Shue said, is among people with say 12 years of education, theres still huge variations in income within that group.The study also drew from previous research conducted on how personality traits could be revealed through an analysis of someones face. For example, a 2020 paper published in the scientific journal Nature noted a growing number of researchers had shown a link between facial images and the Big Five personality traits.Other follow-on studies revealed how facial recognition technology could pick up on a persons political affiliations through a facial image. That study used more than one million images to predict their political orientation by comparing their similarity to faces of liberals and conservatives.Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberalconservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%), the study published in Nature revealed.The newest study focused on four main objectives:Human Capital: Cognitive skills and personality traits are crucial for labor market success, but scaling personality measurement is challenging.Methodology: Researchers developed Photo Big 5, extracting personality traits from facial images of 96,000 MBA graduates, with strong predictive value for career outcomes.Predictive Power: The Photo Big 5 predicts school rank, compensation, seniority, industry choice, job transitions, and career growth, with modest links to GPA.Ethics: The method improves accessibility and resists manipulation, but raises concerns about discrimination and autonomy.A subsection of the study also cites literature about how a persons facial image can uncover someones genetic makeup or even how pre-natal environment can contribute to personality.Genetics, Shue said, can explain 30% to 60% of the variation in personality across individuals. Theres also research showing early childhood hormone exposure affects personality and how people look.So, then, I dont think theres a stretch to say theres a strong genetic as well as environmental component to how we look, theres a strong genetic-environmental component to our personality, she said.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has said it is unlikely to equip its new US plant in Arizona with its most advanced chip technology ahead of its Taiwan factories, raising concerns about supply-chain hurdles for tech companies.Speaking at a university event in Taiwan, TSMC CEO and Chairman C.C. Wei attributed the delays at TSMCs Arizona factory to a combination of complex compliance requirements, local construction regulations, and extensive permitting processes, according to aReuters report.

Microsoft began 2025 with a hefty patch release this month, addressing eight zero-days with 159 patches for Windows, Microsoft Office and Visual Studio. Both Windows and Microsoft Office have Patch Now recommendations (with no browser or Exchange patches) for January.Microsoft also released a significant servicing stack update (SSU) that changes how desktop and server platforms are updated, requiring additional testing on how MSI Installer, MSIX and AppX packages are installed, updated, and uninstalled.To navigate these changes, the Readiness team has providedthis useful infographicdetailing the risks of deploying the updates.Known issuesReadiness worked with both Citrix and Microsoft to detail the more serious update issues affecting enterprise desktops, including:Windows 10/11: Following the installation of the October 2024 security update, some customers report that theOpenSSH(Open Secure Shell) service fails to start, preventingSSHconnections. The service fails without detailed logging; manual intervention is required to run the sshd.exe process. Microsoft is investigating the issue with no (as of now) published schedule for either mitigations or a resolution.Citrix reported significant issues with its Session Recording Agent (SRA), causing the January update to fail to complete successfully. Microsoft published a security bulletin (KB5050009) that says: Affected devices might initially download and apply the January 2025 Windows security update correctly, such as via the Windows Update page in Settings. Once this situation occurs, however, the update process stops and proceeds to rollback to the original state.In short, if you have the Citrix SRA installed, your device was (likely) not updated this month.Major revisionsFor this Patch Tuesday, we have the following revisions to previously released updates:CVE-2025-21311: Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. Microsoft has released an updated group policy (SkuSiPolicy.p7b) to better handle security related issues with VBS scripts included in the knowledge note, Guidance for blocking rollback of Virtualization-based Security (VBS).CVE-2025-21308: Windows Themes Spoofing Vulnerability. Microsoft recommends disablingNTLMfor desktop systems to address this vulnerability. Guidance on theprocess can be found here:Restrict NTLM: Outgoing NTLM traffic to remote servers.Microsoft also releasedCVE-2025-21224to address two memory related security vulnerabilities in the legacy line printer daemon (LPD), a Windows feature that has been deprecated for 15 years. I cant see things improving for these print-related functions (given the problems weve seen for the past decade). Maybe now is the time to start removing these legacy features from your platform.Windows lifecycle and enforcement updatesThe following Microsoft products will beretiredthis year:Microsoft Genomics: Jan. 6, 2025Visual Studio App Center: March 31, 2025SAP HANA Large Instances (HLI): June 30, 2025Of course, we dont need to mention the elephant in the room. Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in October.Each month, we analyze Microsofts updates across key product families Windows, Office, and developer tools to help you prioritize patching efforts. This prescriptive, actionable, guidance is based on assessing a large application portfolio and a detailed analysis of the Microsoft patches and their potential impact on the Windows platforms and apps.For this release cycle from Microsoft, we have grouped the critical updates and required testing efforts into different functional areas including:Remote desktopJanuary has a heavy focus on Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) and network protocols, with the following testing guidance:RD Gateway Connections: Ensure RD Gateway (RDG) continues to facilitate both UDP and TCP traffic seamlessly without performance degradation. Try disconnecting RDG from an existing/established connection.VPN, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth Scenarios: test end-to-end configurations and nearby sharing functionality.DNS Management for Operators: Verify that users in the Network Configuration Operators group can manage DNS client settings effortlessly.Local Windows file system and storageFile system and storage components also get minor updates. Desktop and server file system testing efforts should focus on:Offline Files and Mapped Drives: Test mapped network drives under both online and offline conditions. Pay close attention toSync Centerstatus updates.BitLocker: Validate drive locking and unlocking, BitLocker-native boot scenarios, and post-hibernation states with BitLocker enabled.Virtualization and Microsoft Hyper-VHyper-Vand virtual machines receive lightweight updates:Traffic Testing: Install the Hyper-V feature and restart systems. Monitor network performance and ensure no regressions in virtual network traffic or virtual machine management.Security and authenticationKey areas for security-related testing include:Digest Authentication Stress Testing: Simulate heavy loads while using Digest authentication to uncover potential issues.SPNEGONegotiations: Verify Secure Negotiation Protocol (SPNEGO) functionalities in cross-domain or multi-forest Active Directory setups.Authentication Scenarios: Test applications relying onLSASSprocesses and ensure that protocols like Kerberos, NTLM, and certificate-based authentication remain stable under load.Other critical updatesThere are some additional testing priorities for this release:App Deployment Scenarios: Install and updateMSIX/Appxpackages with and without packaged services, confirming admin-only requirements for updates.WebSocket Connections: Establish and monitor secureWebSocketconnections, ensuring proper encryption and handshake results.Graphics and Themes: TestGDI+-based apps and workflows involving theme files to ensure UI elements render correctly across different view modes. Some suggestions include foreign language applications that rely on Input Method Editors (IMEs).Januarys updates maintain a medium-risk profile for most systems, but testing remains essential especially for networking, authentication, and file system scenarios. We recommend prioritizing remote network traffic validation, with light testing for storage and virtualization environments. If you have a large MSIX/Appx package portfolio, theres a lot of work to do to ensure that your package installs, updates and uninstalls successfully.Each month, we break down the update cycle into product families (as defined by Microsoft) with the following basic groupings:Browsers (Microsoft IE and Edge)Microsoft Windows (both desktop and server)Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft Exchange and SQL ServerMicrosoft Developer Tools (Visual Studio and .NET)Adobe (if you get this far)BrowsersThere were no Microsoft browser updates for Patch Tuesday this month. Expect Chromium updates that will affect Microsoft Edge in the coming week. (You can find the enterprise release schedule for Chromiumhere.)Microsoft WindowsThis is a pretty large update for the Windows ecosystem, with 124 patches for both desktops and servers, covering over 50 product/feature groups. Weve highlighted some of the major areas of interest:Fax/TelephonyMSI/AppX/Installer and the Windows update mechanismsWindows COM/DCOM/OLENetworking, Remote DesktopKerberos, Digital Certificates, BitLocker, Windows Boot ManagerWindows graphics (GDI) and Kernel driversUnfortunately, Windows security vulnerabilitiesCVE-2025-21275andCVE-2025-21308both affect core application functionality and have been publicly disclosed. Add these Windows updates to your Patch Now release schedule.Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft Office gets three critical updates, and a further 17 patches rated important. Unusually, three Microsoft Office updates affecting Microsoft Access fall into the zero-day category withCVE-2025-21366,CVE-2025-21395andCVE-2025-21186publicly disclosed. Add these Microsoft updates to your Patch Now calendar.Microsoft Exchange and SQL ServerThere were no updates from Microsoft for SQL Server or Microsoft Exchange servers this month.Microsoft Developer Tools (Visual Studio and .NET)Microsoft has released seven updates rated as important affecting Microsoft .NET and Visual Studio. Given the urgent attention required for Office and Windows this month, you can add these standard, low-profile patches to your standard developer release schedule.Adobe and third-party updatesNo Adobe related patches were released by Microsoft this month. However, two third-party, development related updates were published; they affect GitHub (CVE-2024-50338) andCERTCC patch (CVE-2024-7344). Both updates can be added to the standard developer release schedule.

In a few years, every new employee entering the workforce will already have become accustomed to using AI to solve problems and help with tasks and theyre going to want the same tools at work as those they use at home. Thats the important take-away from new research that shows about a quarter of US teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork.We know, because weve seen it already; once powerful technologies take hold in the school room, they tend to proliferate across business markets later. Weve seen it happen before with the Mac, the PC, iPad, and iPhone. Weve seen it happen in the evolution of photo-sharing sites and social media.Were going to keep seeing this happen in the future. You dont have to like it, but you have to accept that once a technology reaches critical mass in the schoolroom, it appears in business later.Tomorrows worldTomorrows employees have grown up with that tech, meaning Gen Z is also set to be Generation AI. This is going to become increasingly important to business users, who will need to make the right investments today to ensure they have appropriate tech (including experience and policy) in place.This is something thats evidently important to device, service, and operating system vendors, as each and every one of them is now engaged in a rapid sprint to deploy AI in their offerings. Apple, of course, is a little unique in that it is attempting toweave privacy into the systems it provides,including Apple Intelligence, something that will be seen as of increasing importance to business users as they seek to lock down their information, both in competitive terms and also to meet data protection requirements.For digital natives, privacy is a currency they want to controlIts interesting to see how Generation Z sees privacy. These digital natives want to control the digital narrative concerning their lives, have grown up with the internet, and are more likely to digest information in video than written form.They also understand how things work. That means theyknow about the privacy settings on their devices and are more likely than older generations to use them.They are prepared to share personal information in exchange for personalized services, but areconcerned about misuse, abuse, or tracking of them or their data and dont have much faith in the ability of companies to protect that information.This implies that, when they begin their working lives, they will prefer workplace solutions that provide both convenience and privacy. But as the digital transformation experience accelerated by the iPhone-led smartphone revolution showed, they will still use AI even if companies dont approve the services they prefer.This is why it is important today to test and rate existing AI systems against your own business security and privacy policies.Invest in infrastructureBy the time your next generational employee intake takes place, youll want to ensure the use of AI across your organization has been tested, verified, and has become mature. Otherwise (and not for the first time), current generations will be leaving it to subsequent ones to figure out how to shave the corners off the wheel, giving those whove already figured out how to build better roads for those circular objects the edge when it comes to supporting any kind of customer journey.It remains to be seen the extent to which AI will either unleash the creativity and innovation itsproponents promise us, or confine human endeavor to an Overton window defined by the people who build the AI systems we use. But we already seem unable to leave the vehicle.There is one more thing for business users planning their AI deployments to consider, and thats Apple. You see, despite Siri, Apple already has astrong grip on Generation Z its market share among US teens continues to grow. Theylike Apple and its services.While they dont see Apple Intelligence as aparticularly big draw yet, in the fast-moving long game of AI deployment, so long as Apple focuses on things they care about such as privacy and delivers AI that does what it says it does, the companys resurgence in enterprise markets will continue. That means demand for Apple in the workplace will continue to grow, and it will remain essential to open things up with employee choice schemes and consider Mac, iPad, and iPhone deployments across US business.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

Support for Microsoft 365 ends along with Windows 10PixieMe/ShutterstockAlthough Microsoft announced some time ago that Windows 10 will only be supported (free of charge) until October 14, 2025, the switch to its successor Windows 11 is only taking place slowly. According to calculations by security provider Eset, 32 million PCs in Germany are still running Windows 10. The situation is similar in other countries. One reason for this is that although the switch to Windows 11 is free, there are stricter hardware requirements which , according to studies by Lansweeper, around 50 percent of computers in Germany do not meet.Functional, but not supported To urge more users to upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft recently announced in a blog post that Microsoft-365 apps will no longer be supported on Windows 10 devices after October 14, 2025. To use Microsoft 365 apps on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11, it continued.The blog post raised numerous questions, and has since been deleted by Microsoft. However, there was no correction or explanation.What the software giant was actually getting at is shown by a support page on the subject that was updated in December. Here, too, Microsoft points out that Microsoft 365 apps will no longer be supported under Windows 10 after the end of support in mid-October. At the same time, however, the company explains that the applications will continue to work as before. However, to avoid performance and reliability problems over time, an upgrade to Windows 11 is strongly recommended.The reasoning: Microsoft 365 is subject to the Modern Lifecycle Policy, which requires that customers keep the product or service up to date according to maintenance and system requirements and use Microsoft 365 on a Windows operating system for which support is currently provided. License versions not affected The situation is somewhat clearer for Office versions with a one-time license: Based on the Fixed Lifecycle Policy, Office Home & Student, Office Home & Business or Office Professional Plus will continue to be fully supported under Windows 10 as long as they do not reach the end of support themselves. Support for Office 2016 and 2019 will also end at the same time as Windows 10.

When we talk about Android upgrades, its all too easy to miss the forest for the trees.Its a familiar tale here in the land o Googley matters and with some wacky-seeming changes on the way for Android upgrades in 2025, the myopic musings are only getting louder.Surely youve seen these sentiments, right? One just popped up in my feed the other day, in fact, with a saucy-seeming headline stating that the current Android 15 update is a waste of a software upgrade.In it, the author notes that Android 15 doesnt introduce many obvious front-facing changes to a phones look and feel and is consequently, as he puts it, a useless update.Its a dj-vu-inducing view one we inevitably hear after virtually every Android update. Now, though, it includes a new variable as part of its argument: the fact that Google is shifting away from its annual cadence for new Android versions in 2025 and moving instead toward a twice-yearly pattern for official operating system rollouts. And thus, the thinking goes, each individual update is bound to become even less significant.For anyone staring only at the surface and without the deeper context of everything happening in the Android software ocean, it sure sounds like an sensible conclusion. But my, oh my, youd better believe theres a lot more going on here and Google, unfortunately, has never been great about making regular phone-owning folk aware of that bigger picture.Specifically, weve got two pesky misconceptions were gonna hear plenty more of in the months to come. Lets tackle em both and get to the bottom of why theyre misguided, shall we?[Get level-headed knowledge in your inbox with my free Android Intelligence newsletter three new things to know each Friday and my free Android Notification Power-Pack as a special welcome bonus!]Android upgrade misconception #1: Android updates dont matterAh, yes a classic complaint and one weve been hearing for ages: This update barely changes anything! I guess I didnt really need it after all.And look: I certainly get why it could seem that way. Theres a reason why each new generation of a physical product tends to look different from the last. We mealy-mouthed mammals need an obvious, front-facing visual that confirms to us something is new and exciting, lest it seem like more of the same.But as Ive been reminding folks for years now, an Android update is about much more than what you see on the surface.Sure, the shiny new stuff is nice. Who doesnt love exploring fun new features and interesting interface improvements? Those are the elements most of us relate to most readily.But the most important parts of an Android update are typically whats under the hood and often even invisible to us from the outside.Each new Android update, ysee, includes an array of engine-room enhancements along with noteworthy privacy, security, and performance strengtheners things that go beyond the little fixes provided in those separate monthly patches. Beyond that, each update introduces both expansions and restrictions to APIs, which are what permit third-party apps to interact with your phone and data and perform a variety of advanced functions. Frequently, the updates better control how and when apps are able to access different types of data and make it more difficult for them to take advantage of permissions.You may not immediately see all that stuff, but oh, yes youd better believe it matters.That aside, even in terms of front-facing features, Android 15 actually includes a surprising amount of interesting stuff everything from the introduction of a platform-level place for securely storing important files to an intelligent auto-adjusting vibration control, a new and more effective system volume panel setup, and a useful new charging-time home control screensaver. And thats just the start.Now, could Google do a better job of (a) showcasing this stuff and (b) educating everyone about the importance of all the less visible advantages each new update introduces? Absotively. Thats been a soapbox subject of mine for something like 737 years now.But just because it isnt in your face doesnt mean it isnt there or that the update itself doesnt matter. At this point, at least, its just up to you to do a little discovering (or, ahem, to read a pithy weekly newsletter that points you to all the pertinent info) and wrap your brain around the benefits both front-facing and unseen.Android upgrade misconception #2: iPhones get more with their annual updatesWhoo, boy is this ever a fun one.From the earliest days of Android, theres been a popular perception that Apple does way more for its iDevices and gives iPhone owners a major advantage over us Android-appreciating animals.With no disrespect to the Apple adorers among us, this couldnt be more off-base.Again, Google doesnt do a great job of highlighting this and helping average Android phone-owners appreciate the bigger picture but, well, go go gadget self-quote summoner:With Android, operating system updates are only half the story. For well over a decade now, Googles been pulling what were once core operating system elements out of the operating system proper and treating them as standalone apps instead. That means those elements all of which are still considered part of the single-bundle operating system in the land of iOS get updated numerous times a month, all throughout the year. And those updates reach every single Android device within a matter of days, regardless of which company made it or how long ago it was released.A perfect example of that principle in action is how Google recently made a quiet under-the-hood update to a system-level utility called Google Play Services that gave all Android phone-owners with 2019s Android 10 or higher a trio of important new security features instantly, universally, and without any manufacturer or carrier involvement.Those types of underemphasized updates arrive on Android all the time with random rollouts like that as well as with the now-standard quarterly feature drops and monthly security patches, too.And all of that is still but one tiny example of the effect were talking about here.Back to that self-quoting magic:Time for the biggest and most rarely acknowledged reality check of all: At this point, nearly every single element thats considered a significant part of an annual Apple iOS update is handled in an a la carte manner on Android with multiple monthly updates that impact close to every still-functioning Android phone. In other words, even Android phones from eight years ago get updates numerous times a year that are all virtually equivalent to an entire iOS operating system rollout. Those updates just arent packaged neatly or presented cohesively, and most people dont consider how all of the small-seeming pieces add up.Its no exaggeration: When you look at an average Apple iOS update, nearly every high-profile addition tends to be something thats handled by a standalone app in Android and updated year-round whether were talkin updates to messaging and video calling, voice-to-text translation, or system-level tools like the browser, maps app, notes app, and mobile payment applications.Heck, the same even applies for updates to things like Gemini, which occur nearly constantly on Android but only as part of those annual bundled OS updates on the Apple side of the mobile divide, with its equivalent.The main difference is just that Google just doesnt do much to draw attention to it or emphasize how it all fits into the same broader picture. And wellWhats especially interesting is that with rare exception, there are virtually no limits to how and when those scattered Android updates apply. The nearly-nine-year-old Nexus 4 sitting in my desk drawer still gets every update to every one of those applications every month and receives the same sort of functionality Apple is delivering as part of its [latest] iOS update in small deliveries year-round. For as good as Apples support is, it typically stops entirely after a phone has passed the six-year mark since its release. And whats almost always overlooked in the glowing headlines about iOS updates is the fact that even devices from a year or two ago frequently dont get all of the features announced in a new iOS update. In fact, the vast majority of these latest additions and improvements have some manner of cutoff or restriction associated with em, even within that six-year window.So while an older iPhone is still getting the latest update and while thats undeniably a very good thing! its also very accurate to say that an equally dated Android device is ultimately getting more current features and updates even more regularly. Its just framed in a very different and generally less attention-grabbing way.Plain and simple, its an apples-to-oranges comparison. But all of that not-so-obvious nuance tends to get lost in the shuffle of most public discussions.Here in 2025, the level of nuance is only gonna grow greater. Weve got Android 16 on the horizon with its extra-early Q2 timeline, then a second smaller Android update set for the fourth quarter of the year (which may or may not sport its own new number).But that expanding framework aside, yknow all the smaller stuff we just went over? Yup all of that is also still present and pertinent as ever: the in-between-update quarterly feature drops, the separate monthly security patches, and perhaps most important, all the ongoing week-to-week updates of system-level apps both front-facing and under-the-hood, all year long.So, yeah: Android updates matter, all right. And with more of em slated to show up in the year ahead, that perspective is more important than ever to wrap your head around and remember even if the Apple marketing machine will do everything in its power to downplay that reality and make you forget.Want even more Googley knowledge? Check out my weekly Android Intelligence newsletter to get next-level tips and insight delivered directly to your inbox and get my free Android Notification Power-Pack the second you sign up.

Nvidia unveiled a new platform at CES called Cosmos. Its a world foundation model (WFM) development platform designed to advance and accelerate Physical AI for robots and self-driving vehicles (which are also, in fact, robots).Understanding digital twins and physical AIIve written beforeabout Physical AI in general and Nvidias initiativesin that space specifically.The Physical AI concept involves creating complex virtual environments that simulate real-world physics, where digital replicas of robots and systems can learn and optimize their performance.For factory robots, as an example, an Omniverse customer would create a digital twin of the factory in a virtual reality space. Every detail of the factory floor would be replicated, with the distances between objects exactly the same as in the real, physical factory. Internet of Things (IoT) sensors in the real factory feed data into the twin, keeping it in an identical state.Crucially, the virtual twin in Omniverse is programmatically endowed with physics gravity, inertia, friction, and other physical qualities that are applied to anything happening in the twin. Companies can design, simulate, operate, and maintain their factories virtually through twins. And they can train robots and robotic systems in Omniverse.The newly announced Cosmos works in conjunction with and dramaticallyamplifies the ability of Omniverse robot training through the creation and use of World Foundation Models (WFMs).What in the world are World Foundation Models?If youre unfamiliar with the phrase World Foundation Models, that makes sense, because its pretty new and most likely coined by Nvidia. It conjoins the existing (but also recent) concepts of world models (AI systems that create internal representations of their environment to simulate and predict complex scenarios) and foundation models (AI systems trained on vast datasets that can be adapted for a wide range of tasks).According to Nvidia, WFMs are an easy way to generate massive amounts of photoreal, physics-basedartificial datafor training existing models or building custom models. Robot developers can add their own data, such as videos captured in their own factory, then let Cosmos multiply and expand the basic scenario with thousands more, giving robot programming the ability to choose the correct or best movements for the task at hand.The Cosmos platform includes generativeWFMs, advanced tokenizers, guardrails, and an accelerated video processing pipeline.Developers can use Nvidias Omniverse to create geospatially accurate scenarios that account for the laws of physics. Then, they can output these scenarios into Cosmos, creating photorealistic videos that provide the data for robotic reinforcement learning feedback.Again, a great way to understand this is to compare it with the LLM-based ChatGPT.I recently wrote about how Googles LLM-based tool, NotebookLM,is fantastic for learning something complex. At the time, I described the following use case:Rather than reading advanced material, its far faster and more engaging to let NotebookLMs Audio Overviews feature create a life-like podcast for you to listen to. It will create a study guide, a FAQ, a briefing guide, and a timeline, enabling you to quickly look at dense content from multiple angles, perspectives, and levels. You can start by asking the chatbot to explain it to you like youre a sixth-grader, then a high school senior, then an undergrad, and on up until youve mastered the material.In this scenario, youre training your brain by taking an existing data set and telling the chatbot to give you that same data sliced, diced, and re-formatted in eight or more ways.This is also how WFMs work, in outline. The developer takes existing training data and feeds it into Cosmos, which creates more training scenarios that are as usable as the original set. They can turn 30 scenarios into 30,000, which the robot uses as if actual trial-and-error learning had taken place.Cosmoss output looks like real-world training data, but it can rapidly train robots in thousands of scenarios.Robotics ChatGPT momentNvidia implies that Cosmos will usher in a ChatGPT moment for robotics. The company means that, just as the basic technology of neural networks existed for many years, Googles Transformer model enabled radically accelerated training that led to LLM chatbots like ChatGPT.In the more familiar world of LLMs, weve come to understand the relationship between the size of the data sets used for training these models and the speed of that training and their resulting performance and accuracy.Elon Musk pointed out recently that AI companieshave exhausted human-generated data for training AI models.Weve now exhausted basically the cumulative sum of human knowledgein AI training, he said.Data for training robots is also limited but for a different reason. Training data in the real physical world is simply slow and expensive. Unlike human-generated text, which has already happened at scale over centuries, robot-training data has to be generated from scratch.Likewise, robots and self-driving cars can essentially learn how to do their jobs and navigate complex and unfamiliar terrain. Cosmos (working with Omniverse) should dramatically increase the amount of training that can take place in a much shorter time frame.Driving safetyThe idea of testing autonomous vehicles with massive sets of physics-aware data is a vast improvement over how self-driving cars and trucks have historically been trained which is that they drive around in the real world with a safety driver.Driving in the real world with a person as backup is time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes dangerous especially when you consider that autonomous vehicles need to be trained to respond to dangerous situations.Using Cosmos to train autonomous vehicles would involve the rapid creation of huge numbers of simulated scenarios. For example, imagine the simulation of every kind of animal that could conceivably cross a road bears, dear, dogs, cats, lizards, etc. in tens of thousands of different weather and lighting conditions. By the end of all this training, the cars digital twin in Omniverse would be able to recognize and navigate scenarios of animals on the road regardless of the animal and the weather or time of day. That learning would then be transferred to thousands of real cars, which would also know how to navigate those situations (with no animals harmed).If Nvidia is right, and we have arrived at a ChatGPT moment for robotics, then the pace of robotics advances should start accelerating, driving major efficiencies and mainstreaming autonomous vehicles on public roads globally for many companies (not just Waymo in a few cities).One fascinating aspect of the new generative AI world in which we live is that predictions are futile. Nobody knows how all this will develop.And this appears to be true with predictions about how long it will take for everything to become extremely robotic. Its probably all going to happen muchfaster than anyone thinks.

Apple hasbig plansfor satellite services,a new patent filing confirms. Its the latest nugget of information to roll down Apple Confidential mountain, a plan to make it much easier for devices to maintain connectivity as they move between satellites.If youve been able to use any of the companys satellite services, youll already know that it takes a while to reach a connection with your nearest satellite. Apple has built a handy little visual guide to help you point your device at the best available satellite, but connection takes time and as the satellite drifts over head on its orbit, you might eventually find you must reconnect to another station.Space oddityWouldnt it be better if your connection could automatically move between satellites once it is achieved? That kind of capability might support a more stable connection, and (conceivably) let you get more sophisticated tasks done perhaps even calls or at least extensive two-way messaging.Whats new is that Apple now appears to have achieved a way that could enable that.As first spotted byPatently Apple, the new patent describes a handover procedure that means the connection a device has with one satellite will smoothly shift over to a second. The technology means that a satellite will generate a group configuration message for all the devices currently connected to it that, when sent, tells the connected devices to transfer their connection to the second satellite.The idea is that each satellite then acts as a transparent network relay mode, according to the patent. That, the patent claims, would enable groups of smartphones to remain connected. Effectively, this turns those satellites into always moving mobile network masks above the sky.Just as mobile networks will serve all the smartphones connected to them in a local area, the satellites will do the same thing. I imagine the aim is to create a seamless satellite connection users dont have to think too deeply about, once the initial connection is made.Sun machineThis kind of stable connection is of course essential to support voice calls and internet browsing, though Apple might not be thinking about a future satellite communications service in quite the same way. It could, for example, be simply searching for a global backbone to support its Find My services, or to deliversmart device connectivityoff more traditional grids, or even be pondering a highly secure, network agnostic private and secure communications system as a premium service.Apple isnt alone.Carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, are also now working with satellite services to provide messaging and other features to devices, and Apple will not be investingbillions in its satellite partner, GlobalStar, simply to be a bystander in this race.It is also interesting, given thequantity of data shared with mobile networks, that Apples filing makes particular mention of this: It is well understood that the use of personally identifiable information should follow privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmental requirements for maintaining the privacy of users. In particular, personally identifiable information data should be managed and handled so as to minimize risks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of authorized use should be clearly indicated to users,.You can take a look at the new patenthere.FreecloudAll this investment isnt just focused on voice and messaging.Operators also recognize that as demand for mobile connectivity increases, it becomes essential to find ways to offload some of this activity to alternative networks. Thats why carriers support Wi-Fi calls because shunting relatively unprofitable voice calls off their network enables them to offer their capacity to support more profitable services.Ultimately, its all about demand management, and satellite (particularly as 5G tech advances and 6G looms) has a part to play in the tapestry of solutions emerging to help handle the rapidly growing pressure on communications networks. Though there is something to be said for highly private communications and messaging services. Fifty-five years since the first human landing on the moon, if Neil Armstrong landed there today, perhaps hed call Earth from his iPhone.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

OpenAI has started rolling out a number of new features to ChatGPT, according to Techcrunch.The big news is support for reminders; the feature allows users, for example, to ask ChatGPT to remind them when its time to renew an ID or passport. Users can also ask ChatGPT to deliver a news summary or weather forecast at the same time every day something OpenAI called Tasks.Initially, the new abilities will only be available to paying customers of Chat GPT Plus, Team, and Pro.

When considering new hires, 80% of corporate executives will prioritize skills over degrees, with half planning to increase freelance hiring this year to fill in for a gap in AI and other skills, according to a new study from freelancing platform Upwork.The study, released this week, showed unprecedented growth in specialized AI skills, which have surged 220% year-over-year.At the same time, degrees continue to lose relevance when it comes to hiring freelancers, with 74% of execs focused more on proven expertise. Moreover, 78% of CEOs say top freelancers deliver more value than degree-holding employees, emphasizing skills over credentials to stay competitive. And 29% of C-suite executives consider freelancers essential to their operations, with 51% saying their business would be difficult to run without freelancer support.Skills-based hiring has been on the rise for several years, as organizations seek to fill specific tech needs such as big data analytics, programing (such as Rust) and AI prompt engineering. In fact, demand for genAI courses is surging, passing all other tech skills courses and spanning fields from data science to cybersecurity, project management, and marketing.The top 10 highest paid skills in tech can help workers earn up to 47% more and the top skill among them is generative artificial intelligence (genAI), according to employment website Indeed and other sources.Skills such as genAI modeling now earn freelancers up to 22% higher hourly rates than traditional AI and machine learning roles, according to Upwork.Even as freelancers are reshaping workforce strategies, their rise doesnt necessarily threaten full-time roles. It complements them, said Kelly Monahan, managing director of the Upwork Research Institute.In a study released in October, Upwork found that 85% of top-performing companies which it labels work innovators view freelancers as vital, with 91% planning to expand their use over the next year. Only 71% of non top-performing companies see freelancers as critical to success, Monahan said.While cost savings, such as not paying benefits, could sometimes be a factor in hiring freelancers, it is not the primary driver of freelance hiring, according to Monahan.Businesses prioritize freelancers for their agility and specialized expertise, which enable them to scale resources up or down as needed and address skill gaps effectively, she said.According to Upwork, other reasons for the increase in freelance hiring include:94% of top-performing companies say hiring freelancers gives them access to specialized skills89% say freelancers make their business more innovative84% say hiring a freelancer is faster than a hiring full-time employeeIn addition to hard skills, soft, human-centric roles such as personal coaching have emerged among the fastest-growing skills on Upworks platform, with demand increasing by 74% year-over-year. This underscores the growing importance of guidance and adaptability as businesses invest in reskilling their workforces to navigate technological change, Monahan said. Freelancers are enabling companies to innovate rapidly and adapt to changing market demands.Upwork is not alone in its findings. According to research firm Gartner, organizations are struggling to find skilled talent, and universities once vital for workforce preparation are lagging in updating curricula to match modern demands. As technology and work methods advance, graduates are left with outdated skills, making specific competencies more important than degrees in proving a candidates value.According to Gartner, 74% of HR leaders believe organizations are shifting to skills-based talent management, but only 41% have implemented it, while 50% are still considering it.Approximately half of HR leaders say that a skills-based approach to talent management has the potential to solve many of the challenges their organizations face, though only one-third are actually investing in a skills-based approach to talent management, Gartner said in its report.HR leaders, Gartner said, should prepare for a skills-focused future by:Assessing: Review role requirements to reduce or remove degree mandates.Fortifying: Ready the organization to onboard and support non-degreed talent.Attracting: Target skilled non-degreed talent and adjust EVP messaging to appeal to them.Evolving: Plan for talent management changes to adopt a skills-based approach.New methods of assessing skillsCompanies are adopting more advanced approaches to assessing potential and current employee skills, blending AI tools with hands-on evaluations, according to Monahan.AI-powered platforms are being used to match candidates with roles based on their skills, certifications, and experience. Our platform has done this for years, and our new UMA (Upworks Mindful AI) enhances this process, she said.Gartner, however, warned that rapid skills evolutions can threaten quality of hire, as recruiters struggle to ensure their assessment processes are keeping pace with changing skills. Meanwhile, skills shortages place more weight on new hires being the right hires, as finding replacement talent becomes increasingly challenging. Robust appraisal of candidate skills is therefore imperative, but too many assessments can lead to candidate fatigue.In Upworks In-Demand Skills 2025 report, the skills that are growing in importance include:AI Development: GenAI modeling and AI data annotation are among the fastest-growing skills, reflecting the need for technical expertise in building and managing AI solutions. >Data Science & Analytics: >Skills such as data visualization and data extraction remain essential for making sense of complex information.>Project Management: >Both in supply chain logistics and business operations, project managers are critical for keeping teams aligned and projects on track.>Professional Development: >Skills such as personal coaching and training and development are increasingly sought as companies prioritize workforce reskilling.The shift toward skills-based hiring is further driven by a readiness gap in todays workforce. Upworks researchfound that only25% of employees feel prepared to work effectively alongside AI, and even fewer (19%) can proactively leverage AI to solve problems.As companies navigate these challenges, theyre focusing on hiring based onpractical, demonstrated capabilities, ensuring their workforce is agile and equipped to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving business landscape, Monahan said.According to Upwork, 47% of Gen Z professionalsalready engage in freelance or portfolio work, reflecting their preference for autonomy and skills diversification over traditional career paths.This aligns with modern businesses needs for agile talent who can deliver measurable results, driving the shift toward skills-based hiring, Monahan said. If you are just looking to fill job roles, you will miss out on the rising portfolio career talent.

When you think about your smartphone, apps and interfaces are probably the first things that come to mind. Beneath all that surface-level stuff, though, our modern mobile devices are filled with files folders upon folders of em! just like the clunky ol computers weve relied upon for ages.We may not come face to face with our phones file systems too often, but its valuable to know theyre there and to know how they can work for us when the need arises. Whether youre looking to dig up downloaded PDFs and presentations, open up ZIP files that a client emailed you, or move files from your phone to a computer, tablet, or even another Android phone or an iPhone, youve got all sorts of options to get down to business.Heres everything you need to know to tap into your phones file managing and transferring powers.Manage files on your Android phoneYou might not realize it at a glance, but Android actually allows you to access a devices entire file system even from the device itself.The key is finding the right file manager to handle the job. That type of app makes it incredibly easy to browse, search, and interact with all the files stored locally on your device as well as clean up your local storage to free up space. You can even compress or uncompress files and add extra encryption onto especially sensitive items.Youll likely need just a single standout Android file manager to handle all of that and then some. Ive narrowed down the field to two top contenders one thats the best all-around option for most professionals and one that offers an extra-advanced and robust file management experience with all sorts of interesting extras.Check out my Android file manager recommendations and see which path makes the most sense for you, then keep whichever app you end up with handy for on-demand file-wrangling right from your device.Supplement your phones local storageOne little-known feature of Android is its ability to connect with external storage devices like USB memory sticks and even larger-capacity portable hard drives. A phone just has to support something known as USB On-The-Go, or USB OTG, in order for the connection to work.A fair number of devices, including Googles Pixel phones and many Samsung Galaxy products, offer such support. If you arent sure if your phone does, your best bet is to Google its name along with USB OTG; odds are, youll find the answer fairly quickly.Provided your device supports USB OTG, all you need is a USB-A to USB-C adapter like this one made by Amazon. Use the adapter to plug the external drive into your phone, then look for a notification confirming the drive is connected.Tap the Explore option within the notification, and thats it: You can now browse and access all the files on your external drive. loading="lazy" width="400px">Look for the notification that pops up when an external drive is connected, and youll be browsing the drives contents in no time.JR Raphael / IDGWhen youre finished, dont forget to go back to the notification and tap Eject before disconnecting the drive.Android file transfers for Windows computersIn addition to supporting external hard drives, your Android device can act as an external hard drive for fast file transfers with any computer. And with a Windows system, its especially easy to make that connection.Just plug your Android device into any open USB port on your Windows computer, then turn on the phones screen and unlock it.Swipe your finger down from the top of the screen, and you should see a notification about the current USB connection. At this point, itll probably tell you your phone is connected only for charging.After you connect your phone to your computer, a notification will let you prepare it for transferring files.JR Raphael / IDGTap the notification and select Transfer files or File transfer in the menu that appears. If media files are all youre planning to move, you could also use the Transfer photos (sometimes listed as PTP) option, whichll treat your phone like a digital camera.Once youve made your selection, go to your desktop and open up a File Explorer window using whatever method lines up with your Windows workflow:Click the File Explorer icon in your taskbarOpen the Start menu and click This PC or ComputerClick the This PC, Computer, or My Computer icon on your desktopThen look for an icon representing your phone alongside other portable devices and drives. Click or double-click that icon, and ta-da: Youll be staring at your Android phones internal storage. You can now click around and browse folders, drag and drop files between your phone and PC, or manipulate the data in any way you want as if it were any other ordinary drive.Android file transfers for MacsGot a Mac? The Android file transfer process is a bit more complicated for you but fear not, for its still reasonably easy to get going.The main difference is that before things will work, youll need to download and install a program thatll allow your Mac to interact with your Android device. Google used to have its own program for this purpose called Android File Transfer, but the company seems to have quietly phased that app out over time (which isnt entirely surprising, as Mac owners had been complaining about its reliability for years).What youll want instead is the favorably reviewed third-party Commander One. It costs $30 for a single license or $100 for a five-user team license. Once installed and configured, itll let you browse your Android devices storage, transfer files in either direction, and even interact with data on the phone or tablet without transferring anything.Or well, skip down to the final section of this story for one other option.Android file transfers for ChromebooksYoud expect file transfers between Android phones and Chromebooks to be as simple as can be, considering that Googles the driving force behind both of those platforms and by golly, youd be absolutely right.Just like with Windows, all youve gotta do to connect your Android phone to a ChromeOS device is plug it into any open USB port on the computer, then tap the USB charging notification on the phone and select the appropriate option for file transferring.Once you do that, a prompt to open the ChromeOS Files app should automatically appear on your Chromebook, with your phone loaded as the active storage focus. You can then simply drag and drop files in either direction as needed.Pulling up your Android phones storage on a Chromebook is as easy as can be.JR Raphael / IDGTold ya it was easy! And youve got one more option yet.Wireless Android file transfersGood ol wired transfers are fast and reliable, sure but these days, you can also opt to move files from your Android device to another Android device, a computer, or even (gasp!) an iPhone without needing any physical connection.Youve got a few possible paths worth considering here:1. Quick Share (formerly Nearby Share)Googles own native-to-Android wireless sharing solution makes it effortless to beam files between any Android device and another Android device, a Chromebook, or a Windows computer. Just use the standard system share command within any app on Android, then select Quick Share from the list of options that pops up and follow the steps that show up to get started.If the other device is running Android or ChromeOS, search its system settings for quick share to make sure its set up and ready to receive. If the other device is a Windows computer, download the official Google Quick Share Windows app to connect it.And if the other device is running any other operating system, consider one of the next two wireless file-sharing strategies instead.2. PairDropPairDrop is a free and open-source service that lets you wirelessly send files between any devices on the same network, no matter what operating system theyre running.It works entirely on the web: All youve gotta do is open up the PairDrop website on both devices, then click the center area of the screen or drag and drop files to initiate a transfer.PairDrop brings wireless file transferring to any devices across any platforms Android, iOS, Mac, you name it.JR Raphael / IDGThats it: No downloads, no sign-ups, no hassles whatsoever. And the services open-source code makes it clear that no data is ever stored or even touched by a remote server as part of the process.3. Cloud storageIf PairDrop isnt for you and Quick Share isnt doing the trick, the time-tested tactic of embracing a middleman can get the job done.Simply pick any cloud storage you like Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, or any other such service. Upload the files you want to transfer into a folder within the respective app on your Android phone, then find the folder within the same app on the receiving device (or vice-versa). Or, if the sharing involves other people, share the folder with them within the same cloud storage service app.Android file transfer: Automatic syncing with a computerMaybe you like having certain files stored locally on your Android phone, but you also want those files to be backed up and saved on your computer. The best of both worlds, right?Believe it or not, this is actually quite easy to pull off. Just grab an Android app called AutoSync, which is available for use with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. Itll let you create pairings between a local folder on your phone and a cloud-based folder for free with a single folder pair and files smaller than 10MB or for a one-time $5 payment without any real restrictions.Install the appropriate computer-side app for whichever service you prefer, make sure its set to sync with your computers hard drive and there ya have it: Your Android devices folder is now effectively part of your PC.You can even have the folders stay constantly synced in both directions so if you add or update a file on the computer, the same changes will appear on your phone as well.Thats a wrap!Congratulations: Youve officially earned the title of Android file master. (For real you can even type it into a document, print it out, and tape it to your desk so everyone knows.)Next up: Make sure you understand the ins and outs of Android backups. Theyre ultimately made up of files, too, after all and pretty important ones, at that.This article was originally published in August 2017 and most recently updated in January 2025.

Google will no longer chargeWorkspacecustomers an additional fee for Gemini, expanding access to generative AI(genAI)features in apps such as Gmail, Docs,and Sheets. At the same time,the companyis increasingthe price of Workspace subscriptions by a small amount.Google is disrupting a market while some application vendors are still trying to monetize generative AI, said Wayne Kurtzman, research vice presidentfor collaboration andcommunities at IDC.Itsan unusually bold first move by Google, one that should result in paid user growth of their Workspace platform.We are moving to an economy where we will experience AI everywhere, so it makes sense that we see AI included in office and collaboration applications, said Kurtzman.Googlelaunched its Gemini AI assistant(formerly Duet AI for Google Workspace) in August 2023. There were two main add-ons:Gemini Businesspriced at $20 per userpermonth, and Gemini Enterprise, which cost $30 per userpermonth.Each representeda significant outlay for Workspace customers on top of their core subscriptions;Google later introducedmore affordable add-on optionsthat provided a limited set ofgenAI tools: AI Meetings and Messages and AI Security, both costing $10 per user a month.All ofthosesubscription costs willendas of March 17, Googlesaidin ablog post Wednesday.Instead, Gemini features will be included in regular paid Workspace plans from the Business Standard plan upwards.Thatwill allowaccess to Gemini in the side panel of several Workspace apps, as well as automated note taking in Meet video calls, image generation in Docs and Slides, and access to theNotebookLM Plus app.(Google has a detailed list of the AI features available and coming soon to each payment planatitsadmin help site here.)At the same time, the price of payment plans will increase. Business Standard willrisefrom $12 to $14 per user each month when paid on an annual basis;Business Plus customers will see a more substantial increasefrom $18 to $22 per user a month. The Business Starter plan, which will provide access to limited Gemini capabilities, willgofrom $6 to $7 per user a month.Google doesnt provide details on the Workspace Enterprise tier publically.The change to pricing will begintoday, Google said.The movecouldbeseenas the commodification ofgenAI;more than two yearsafterChatGPT 3.5 launched, AI assistant tools have become common and vendors haveshifted their attention to moreadvanced AI agents. OrGooglemay have moved onfromits attempt to convince customers to pay a premium for Gemini over and above the base subscription costs.While theres an element of truth to both, Googles sales channel and customers may well celebrate, J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst on Forresters Future of Work team,saidin ablog post abouttheannouncement.One implication of the decision is to makegenAItoolsavailable to all employeeswithaccess to Workspace;due to the high per-user cost, many customersmight have beenselective about handing out licenses,dividing knowledge workers intoAI haves and have-nots.This pricing change effectively removes a companys need to determine who will get an AI productivity boost, and who will not, said Kurtzman. This should expand the number of paid seats of Google Workspace,as the value prop of usability and AI are clear.It could also convince more companies to switch to the paid version of Workspace.Many companies still use the free version of Google Workspace toaccess collaborative features that their current applications do not support, said Kurtzman. The inclusion of AI and a price point much lower than manycompetitors should result in additional paid users to Google Workspace.Googles move will clearly put pressure on Microsoftwhich charges $30 per user a month for its M365 Copilot add-onto follow suit, as well as otherproductivity softwarevendors that charge an extra fee for access togenAI capabilities.(Zoom is a notable exception, having included its AI Companion in its apps at no extra cost since launch.)As the cost of running large language models(LLMs) drops, this isanatural direction of travel: Gartneranalystshave said they expectgenAI features to be included at no extra cost in office software subscriptions by 2028, according to arecent report(subscription required), as vendors seek broader adoption of their tools.Price cutswill likely spur wider adoption. Microsoft has found it difficult to convince large numbers of customers to adoptitsM365 Copilot widely across their organizations, with subscription costsone of the barriers. Microsoft has already bundled Copilot into consumer M365subscriptions in some countriesandwilllikely do the same for business customerseventually.How long can Microsoft hold the line and for how long on $30/user/month? Were betting the pricing strategy evolves, said Gownder.

File management may not be the most exciting subject surrounding smartphone ownership but if you use your device for productivity, my goodness, is it ever worth your while to chew over.Your phone, after all, is your on-the-go connection to the world. Its the always-available PC of our modern computing era. And whether your work involves presentations, PDFs, documents, or images, youre bound to find yourself fumbling around with files on your pocket-sized screen sooner or later.With the right tool for the job, though, managing files on your phone doesnt have to be a hassle. Androids got some outstanding file manager options, and best of all? You almost certainly only need one of em a single standout file manager to handle all of your file-wrangling requirements.Read on and see which path makes the most sense for you.The best all-around Android file manager for most business usersFiles by GoogleFirst and foremost, if your Android file needs are fairly simple and straightforward, Files by Google or Google Files, for short is the Android file manager you want.Google Files has come a long way since its inconspicuous 2017 debut. These days, Files is a fully featured file management tool, with all the basics youd expect and some compelling extras all packed into a nicely designed and easy-to-use interface thats compatible with any Android device (even if it typically comes preinstalled only on Pixels).At its core, Google Files makes it painless and almost even pleasant to browse through your phones local storage and find, share, or organize any files youve downloaded or transferred onto the device. The app lets you look through folders or sort items by type (documents, images, videos, and so on) and optionally move sensitive materials into an encrypted and password-protected Safe Folder.It has a spectacular search system, too, including the ability to search for text that appearswithinPDFs, images, and documents on your device. It even offers a convenient way to send any locally stored files directly to Google Drive with a couple quick taps though it doesnt, curiously enough, actually let youbrowseand interact with your Drive storage or connect at all to any non-Google cloud services. If that sort of more robust all-in-one control center for handling both localandremote storage is what youre after, the Android file manager in thenextsection will be more suitable for you.Files by Google lets you browse your phones local storage and perform a variety of actions on folders and files.JR Raphael / IDGGoogle Files can open and now also create compressed archives, too, and it even has a handy built-in option for scanning physical documents on demand and saving em as neatly cropped PDF files.Perhaps most helpful of all is Files integrated system for freeing up storage on your phone: Just tap the apps three-line menu icon, in the upper-right corner, and select Clean to see an ever-evolving set of intelligent suggestions for superfluous files you can safely delete. Files will also show you which apps you havent opened in a while and make it especially easy to uninstall em right then and there.All in all, Google Files is a well-rounded and intuitive file manager that handles all the file management tasks most business users will need on a phone. Its a significant upgrade from the default file managers that come preinstalled on most non-Pixel Android devices, and if you dont have any special requirements or advanced demands, its almost certainly the app for you.Google Files is free.The best advanced Android file managerSolid Explorer File ManagerFor anyone who needs a little more mobile file management oomph, Solid Explorer is the way to go.Solid Explorer has all the same file manipulation basics as Googles Files app but adds in advanced options like the ability to encrypt files and even create password-protected ZIP collections. Its also able to integrate with a wide variety of internet-based storage services including Google Drive, along with Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and your own private servers and then serve as a streamlined interface for managing all of your stuff and transferring data between different locations.Solid Explorer is overflowing with advanced options for manipulating files and working with cloud storage.JR Raphael / IDGSolid Explorer has a clever two-panel interface for fuss-free dragging and dropping between locations, too be they two local folders or a combination of local and cloud-based folders from any connected service. All you have to do is flip your phone sideways or open the app on a wide-screen tablet or foldable device for that setup to appear.Solid Explorers smart two-panel interface allows you to view two folders together and drag and drop files between them.JR Raphael / IDGFrom variable-based batch renaming to folder bookmarking and even support for casting content to a TV or other Google-Cast-compatible display, Solid Explorer is just jam-packed with useful stuff and yet it manages to remain reasonably simple and easy to use. (It also works exceptionally well on a Chromebook, and once youve bought it for your phone, you can install it onto any ChromeOS device without having to pay again.) The apps advanced elements wont be necessary for most people, but if your on-the-go work requires such next-level file management functions, Solid Explorer is the path to pursue.Solid Explorer costs $3 after a free 14-day trial.Beyond Android file managersImportant as they are, of course, Android file managers themselves are just one piece of the puzzle.Googles mobile operating system has some powerful native systems for beaming files between different devices, transferring files from your phone to a computer, and supplementing your phones local storage. With a few minutes of simple setup, you can even create special folders on your phone that automatically sync with matching folders in your favorite cloud storage service and vice-versa.Head over to my Android file management guide next to explore all the ins and outs of managing files on Android including the easiest ways to wirelessly transfer files on the fly.It may not be exciting, exactly, but youd better believe itll make a world of difference.This article was originally published in April 2018 and most recently updated in January 2025.

Technology innovations have made the digital transformation of public services essential to enhancing safety, efficiency, and accountability. Kazakhstan has taken a monumental step forward in this regard by implementing a continuous video surveillance system across 78 correctional facilities nationwide. This groundbreaking initiative has set a new benchmark for prison management, significantly improving safety conditions and operational transparency.A digital leap for safer prisonsIn response to a national mandate from the President in 2020, the Ministry of Internal Affairs launched a comprehensive video surveillance project. The system includes over 39,500 high-definition cameras strategically installed across correctional institutions and their perimeters. These cameras are connected to advanced AI-driven analytics, providing real-time facial recognition, event detection, and license plate identification capabilities.The results are nothing short of remarkable: since its implementation, the system has identified over 32,000 violations of detention protocols, prevented 62 suicides and six escape attempts, and de-escalated 27 potentially violent conflicts. It has also reduced corruption and abuse, fostering humane treatment of inmates and improving the behavior of staff. For the first half of 2024, no cases of torture by staff were reported, a testament to the systems effectiveness.Innovation meets human-centered designKazakhstans video surveillance initiative goes beyond mere technological deployment. It represents a harmonious blend of innovation, process improvement, and personnel training. Prison staff have been equipped with the tools and knowledge to harness the systems full potential, enabling proactive incident management and fostering a culture of accountability.The initiative also supports the broader goal of rehabilitation. By improving the physical, psychological, and social conditions within prisons, the system aligns with global trends emphasizing inmate welfare and reintegration into society.Overcoming challenges with strategic visionBefore the project, sporadic and poorly maintained surveillance systems plagued correctional facilities, resulting in inconsistent monitoring and inadequate evidence for investigations. Kazakhstan addressed these challenges by deploying a centralized, secure infrastructure that ensures uninterrupted video transmission to a Situation Center under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.This hub manages real-time monitoring and analytics while safeguarding data integrity and privacy. The adoption of a fiber-optic private network further enhances reliability and security, creating a scalable framework for future innovations.Charting the road aheadKazakhstans video surveillance initiative is just the beginning. Plans are underway to integrate more advanced algorithms for object and event recognition and to connect the system with other IT infrastructures, such as access control solutions. These advancements will further strengthen the nations ability to maintain order, prevent misconduct, and foster trust in correctional institutions.The nations achievement offers valuable lessons for countries aiming to modernize their correctional facilities. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, combining it with strategic governance, and emphasizing human-centered implementation, Kazakhstan has set a precedent for others to follow.For a deeper dive into the strategies, implementation, and impact of this project, download the full report. Explore how Kazakhstan is redefining correctional facility management through innovation and strategic foresight.Discover the full story behind Kazakhstans transformative initiative. Learn more about the strategies, technologies, and future opportunities in this in-depth white paper: Global Trends in the Digital Transformation of Correctional Facilities: The Value of Video Surveillance.

Microsoft has added a pay-as-you-go option to access AI agents alongside its free M365 Copilot Chat plan.M365 Copilot Chatis a chat interface powered by OpenAIs GPT4o that serves up responses based on web data (rather than information held in the Microsoft Graph, as per the paid M365 Copilot subscription). It also includes features such as Copilot Pages and image generation, as well as data protection and IT admin controls at no cost to users.Businesses using M365 Copilot Chatcan also now deploy Microsofts Copilot AI agents, the company announced Wednesday, with metered pricing based on the number of times agents are used.As withmany software vendors, Microsoft began a major push around its M365 Copilot agents towards the end of 2024. These range from chatbots that can answer questions about specific documents to autonomous software agentsthat can complete more complex tasks such as client onboarding or customer support.M365 Copilot Chat provides an on-ramp for business to access Copilot and AI agents, Microsoft said.Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat now has a pay-as-you-go option that allows access to agents.MIcrosoftM365 Copilot Chat reflects a broader change in the world of generative AI happening in 2025: The rise of agents to complement personal AI assistants like Copilot, said J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst on Forresters Future of Work team.The plan lacks many of the core features available in the main M365 Copilot subscription service which costs $30 per user a month notably the AI personal assistant embedded in apps such as Outlook, Teams, Word, and Excel. Microsoft hasstruggled to convince large numbers of customers to adoptits M365 Copilot broadly since the service launched in November 2023.Microsoft said it expects customers will have a mix of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilotour best-in-class offeringto drive AI transformation at scale.On the one hand, having access to a basic LLM is becoming table stakes, so it makes sense for Microsoft to offer a secure and managed Copilot Chat as part of the broader Microsoft 365 offering, said Gownder. On the other hand, this Copilot Chat can act as a conduit to agents, which will soon proliferate throughout enterprises.M365 Copilot Chat agent usage is measured in message credits. These are charged either with a pay-as-you-go model at 1 cent per message, or with pre-paid message bundles priced at $200 for 25,000 messages, Microsoft said in a blog post.Microsoft sets out four types of agent answers, or responses, that each consume a different number of message credits. For example, classic answers, used for pre-written responses that are manually authored when an agent is created, cost 1 message, while autonomous agent responses cost 25 messages.Consumption-based licensing provides a low-cost alternative for customers that want to get started with Copilot services grounded in M365 content, said Larry Cannell, research director at Gartners Technical Professionals Digital Workplace service.CIOs often prefer it to flat-based licensing of new products because they can better align value delivered to the cost of the product, he said. It is much easier to sell a solution based on demonstrated use rather than expected demand.

The whole world was watching when legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobslaunched the iconic iPhone in 2007. Mobile was the future. Apple knew it (and rebranded itself to reflect it). And Nokia had a fight on its hands. So, what did Nokia think about the iPhone launch?Now we know.Nokia, at one time the worlds leading mobile phone company, has made a huge archive of corporate assets available through a website curated by Finlands Aalto University, theNokia Design Archive. The fascinating collection provides deep insight into how the company operated; in particular, a 2007 Nokia Confidential report caught my eye, as it captureswhat the company thought when Apple introduced iPhone in 2007.Much of the document focuses on price Nokia believed the cost of the iPhone would put consumers off.The company was also less convinced about Apples touch interface; Nokia execs thought consumers would want to stick with those dinky little QWERTY keyboards everybody used at that time. But in the end, cost and keyboard didnt form the competitive moat Nokia anticipated, because the iPhone was all about the user experience, and the report shows Nokia executives were concerned.You and your UIUser interface has been a big strength for Nokia, the post-iPhone introduction report authors wrote, warning that at that time consumers were falling out of love with the UI Nokia provided. Urgent action needed to prevent further erosion of this position, they said.Apples new UI may change the standards of the superior user experience for the whole market, Nokia executives explained, noting it had been called visually stunning and incredibly responsive. Nokia also saw that Apple had protected its product with more than 200 patents, and once again argued that UI may be the biggest threat that iPhone presents.Nokia needs a chief UI architect to re-energize Nokias IO innovations across platforms and businesses, they wrote.Apples product also introduced an innovative user interface built around the companys powerful OS X system, something which integrated seamlessly with PC, Mac and the Internet, the executives noted.Be cool, like AppleApples cool factor was seen as another challenge. And the fact Apple had delivered a full-fledged internet experience in its phone was seen as an even bigger threat. The company confessed that its own high-end N-series devices, including the brand-new N800 it introduced just before iPhone in 2007, were challenged in comparison.Nokias executives delivered a strong and, in the end, accurate set of predictions about how iPhone would affect the wider smartphone industry at that time:A price war may emerge by Motorola trying to push their new models.It did. Apple did not lose and didnt shift prices much, either.iPhone will also hurt Sony Ericssons momentum and coherent music strategy.It did just that. iTunes was the dominant music service.N-Series and SEMC Walkman probably need to clearly undercut iPhone pricing to succeed in the market.They tried, but consumers were not prepared to compromise on user experiences, and the integration with the Mac added a front that no mobile incumbent was able to match certainly not Microsoft.Expect RIM and Palm to suffer their stock prices have been most badly beaten.Apple ate their lunch.All the high-end devices attract the enterprise segment expect that also for iPhone.Arguably, iPhone and iPad are what have led to Apples huge resurgence in the enterprise. Almost every company worldwide now users Apple products.Nokia introduced its own iTunes competitor,Ovia few months later, but this never really challenged iTunes.The fascinating document confirms that Nokia understood some of what was coming when Jobs introduced Apples mobile phone. It could see that the iPhone had the potential to stimulate demand for high-end devices, which it did and still does. iPhones became the de facto high-end market leader.When Android stole the marketEven today, Apple scoops up a vast share of industry profits as its customers continue to invest in the best model iPhone they can afford. They do this because they continue to enjoy the user experience Apple provides.But even back in 2007, Nokia saw that the exclusive US iPhone distribution relationship Apple reached with Cingular (later acquired by AT&T) was both a strength and a weakness. To compete, the industry was famously forced to rally round Googles Android, an operating systemSteve Jobs once vowed to destroy.However, the embrace of Android proved ill-judged. It led the market into homogeneity, eternal price wars, and enabled Google, rather than the mobile device makers, to take the lions share of any services-related income. Apple did this too, of course but Apple also took the risk of making and selling the hardware, software, and services used. Now, it sellsone in every four smartphones, and perhaps almost one in five of those sold is nowmade in India.The problem for Nokia was that it didnt make Android, either. Arguably, it failed to find a response in user interfaces and (looking through the online archive) seemed limited in its outlook when it came to designing operating systems to compete with Apples own. But I guess execs from around that time can console themselves in thinking that they accurately read the room. Its a fascinating archive (and theNokia research document about iPodis also interesting).You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

Microsoft is creating a new engineering group focused on artificial intelligence: Core AI Platform and Tools. The group combines the companys Developer Division with the AI Platforms work teams and some employees who previously reported to Microsofts CTO. According to The Verge, the group will be led by Jay Parikh, the former CTO at Meta and who joined Microsoft in October 2024.Core AI Platform and Tools will focus on building an AI platform and tools for both Microsofts own use and for the companys customers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a blog post that AI will require a record-breaking pace of development, which means Microsoft needs an AI-focused application stack to build AI apps and tools in the future.In this world, Azure must become the infrastructure for AI, while we build our AI platform and developer tools spanning Azure AI Foundry, GitHub, and VS Code on top of it, Nadella said. In other words, our AI platform and tools will work together to create agents, and these agents will work together to transform every category of SaaS application, and to build custom applications powered by software (i.e. service as software).

Save me from rich, white men who insist they and their kind are being discriminated against. Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, majority owner (not the founder) of SpaceX, Tesla, and numerous other leading companies, insists that DEI [Diversity, equity, and inclusion] is just another word for racism. He screams, DEI must DIE.The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination.Really? Im an older, relatively well-off, straight white man, and I know darn well that I owe a lot of my success to the fact that, except for my age, everything in the US economy has been set up to benefit me.In baseball terms, I started the game on first base. Black men have to get a hit to get on base. Black women step to home plate for their at-bat with two strikes against them.Musk and his ilk? He grew up with a millionaire, emerald-mine-owning father in South Africa and started on third base.It used to be worse in this country. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, while the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 laid the groundwork for equal employment opportunities and non-discrimination in the workplace.The laws were one thing. Making it a workplace reality was another.Over the next few decades, dedicated diversity professionals began emerging within organizations, often holding titles like Chief Diversity Officer. As businesses became more diverse, companies also started recognizing that diversity is good for business.While DEI is also about basic fairness, it turns out that businesses that adopt it tend to do better than their rivals. Dont believe me? How aboutGoldman Sachs would you believe it?The global investment banking giant decidednot to take companies public without diverse board representationin 2000. The financial powerhouse did so because evidence showed that companies with diverse boards outperformed those with all-male boards. Specifically, Goldman Sachs noted that companies with at least one woman on their board performed significantly better in their IPOs than those without women. Since then, the company has increased its minimum number of women board members to two. The company has also continued tosupport black women business ownersfor solid business reasons, not warm fuzzy feelings.This is nothing new. In 2012, the global management companyMcKinseyfoundthat US companies with diverse boards had a 95% higher return on equity.Get the picture? DEI helps businesses do well, and the results are right there in the balance sheets.Facts, even accounting facts, count for little asAmerican technology leaders bow to Donald Trump. For some, like Musk and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, its all about rising to power on the right-wing wave. For others, its simply about preserving their billions. Preserving the gains of blacks, gays, older workers whoever is not on their priority list.So,Amazon has halted some of its DEI programs,Meta is killing them, andMicrosoft has quietly shuttered its DEI efforts. While this trend has become more obvious since Donald J. Trump won the 2024 election, its been coming for a while now.Google and Meta have both shut their doors to diverse employeessince 2023.That year, theSupreme Courts Trump-friendly majority struck down affirmative action in college admissions. That decision prompted Republican activists and some state attorneys general to target corporate DEI initiatives as discriminatory. Given a choice between fighting a political battle and quietly shutting down their diversity efforts, all too many businesses have folded their DEI tents.Others, such as Meta where Zuck is suffering from a middle-aged crisis with his gold chain, newly curled hair, and sudden weird fascination with masculine energy appear to be on their way to getting rid of their existing diverse workforce. He says he wants to move out low performers faster. I expect the upcoming 5% cut to come mostly from people of color, older workers, and LGBTQ+ staffers.You get the picture.What it all comes down to is that if youre not a straight white guy, the job market is going to become a lot harder for you. As for companies? Theyll suffer as well. I fear, though, that were stuck with this trend until cold, hard financial facts convince corporate leadership that right-wing politics leads to poor business decisions.

One of the most prickly misconceptions around Android is that its completely incompatible with privacy. If you use Android, the wonky thinking goes, youre giving into a lifetime of unavoidable surveillance (gasp!) and the big, bad Google monster monitoring and monetizing everything you do (egads!).Well, surprise, surprise: Like so many conversations around Google and privacy, this line of thinking is oversimplified and shockingly short on nuance. (Dj vu, anyone?) The reality, unless you live inside Apples marketing department, is that (a) Android can be as private as you like and (b) its up to you to make educated decisions about what kinds of basic data-sharing youre okay with and what kinds of compromises youre willing to make.Ninety-nine percent of the time, the info Google and also third-party app developers collect across Android is completely impersonal and of little to no meaningful consequence other than potentially showing you more relevant ads in different places, programmatically and based on your online activity. But its absolutely possible to access and adjust all of that activity and stop any of it from happening entirely, if youre so inclined.I recently put together an extensive Android privacy guide that goes through every last area of Android privacy and all the most advanced adjustments along with what exactly youll sacrifice by making any such changes. While most of the knowledge there revolves around stuff at the operating system level, the guide also includes one third-party tool thats especially interesting for anyone eager to gain a complete understanding of what types of data apps on your device might be monitoring.Its interesting enough that I thought it warranted an extra spotlight especially since my privacy guide hit in the midst of the December holidays, when lots of us were hibernating or otherwise tuned out.Let me show you a little more about this standout Android privacy addition and why it might be worth your while to check out.[Keep the enlightenment coming with my Android Notification Power-Pack six powerful enhancements for any Android device next.]The ins and outs of Android app trackingFirst things first, an important reality to be aware of: In addition to all the higher-profile ways info about your activity can be accessed across Android, any apps you install are able to track a certain amount of data on their own, independently based on the permissions you give em.By and large, this is pretty innocuous stuff. Most apps monitor certain types of activity within their own environments so their developers can look at and improve performance across a variety of Android device types and also spot potential bugs before they turn into serious problems. Others follow common online ad patterns and use broad data on behaviors to influence what ads youre shown, anonymously, in order to pay the bills and offer you services at little to no ongoing cost.But still, knowledge is power and even if its typically not nefarious, its entirely advisable to make yourself aware of whats happening on your device and then make your own active decisions about what you are or arent okay with.And while Android itself doesnt have a native mechanism for analyzing this specific area, you can find an impressively effective blacklight into app-tracking activity in an unlikely place.I wont keep you waiting: Its the DuckDuckGo Android web browser. While DuckDuckGo may be known primarily as a search service and Chrome alternative, its Android app has a handy tool for seeing exactly what sorts of tracking activity is happening behind the scenes with apps on your device and, if you wish, for blocking any or all of that activity from continuing.You dont necessarily have to use DuckDuckGo as your Android search provider or default browser to take advantage of the option, either.In fact, all you need is about 30 seconds of simple setup then all the info imaginable will be at your fingertips, along with a helpful set of simple controls.30 seconds to Android app-tracking insightsAll right ready? First, go install DuckDuckGo from the Play Store, then open er up and wade your way through its slightly irksome welcome sequences. When DuckDuckGo prompts you to set it as your default system browser, remember: You dont have to do that. Just hit Cancel on that pop-up if you want to skip over that suggestion and stick with whatever standard browser youre already using.Then, once youre looking at the main DuckDuckGo home screen, tap the three-dot menu icon in the apps upper-right corner and select Settings followed by App Tracking Protection.Tap Continue a couple times, then tap the big blue Enable App Tracking Protection button and tap OK on the confirmation box that pops up.At that point, you can go about using your phone normally and you can just periodically peek in at your notifications to see how much tracker-like activity DuckDuckGo is detecting across all of your installed apps.DuckDuckGos app tracking notification shows you how much activity its blocking at any given moment.JR Raphael, IDGTap that alert or make your way manually back into that same App Tracking Protection area of the DuckDuckGo settings and youll see a detailed breakdown of exactly what types of invisible tracking activity DuckDuckGo is both sensing and blocking across your device.You can see detailed info on exactly what data different apps are collecting within DuckDuckGos App Tracking Protection area.JR Raphael, IDGAs you can see, theres quite a bit going on there! But as with most things in the modern tech universe, its all about the context. And, unfortunately, thats the one area where DuckDuckGos app-tracking blacklight is lacking.When you really dig in and examine what most of the apps in DuckDuckGos tracking list are doing, the vast majority of the activity will almost certainly come down to the two core areas we mentioned a moment ago first, performance monitoring and bug detection, and second, more effective advertising based on an anonymized view of your activity and alleged interests. (As always, if youre gonna see ads somewhere, youre unavoidably gonna see em no matter what. The only question is if the ads might be more aligned with things youre actually interested in or just random and irrelevant.)Alarming as it may be at a quick n casual glance, in other words, most of the activity youll see listed is no actual cause for concern. And by blocking it, its entirely possible youll cause certain areas of apps to stop working the way they should or, at the very least, make it more difficult for their developers to keep an eye on performance and keep things running smoothly, since DuckDuckGo may well block mechanisms that are crucial or in some way important to an apps overall operation.But, hey, its your phone. And its your right to understand whats happening behind the scenes and take control of it, if you so desire.On that note, that same section of the DuckDuckGo settings lets you selectively turn off tracking and blocking on an app-by-app basis so even if you do decide to leave it running in general, you can disable it for specific apps where you see strangeness or for whatever reason dont want to block whats happening. After a few days, you may well decide this knowledge is more nuisance than anything for you and not worth keeping active. If so, all youve gotta do is uninstall DuckDuckGo from your phone or just flip the switch within that App Tracking Protection area of the apps settings to disable it.But now you know how to find all that knowledge and decide for yourself whether that ends up being a short-lived glimpse into the inner-workings of your device or an ongoing blocking of any and all app tracking.The power is in your hands. And just like with every other Android privacy consideration, its up to you to decide what to do with it.Dont stop there: Snag my free Android Notification Power-Pack next to take total control over how your apps alert you in ways you never even knew were possible.

Generative AI (genAI) is seemingly everywhere these days and Windows is certainly no exception.The OS itself now has Copilot on its taskbar, and new PCs ship with a dedicated Copilot AI key on their keyboards. Microsoft is adding more and more genAI features as time goes by and its increasingly hard to search the web without getting a genAI answer from Google and other search engines.Ive heard from people who love the technology, and Ive heard from people who cant stand it. Me, Im right here in the middle: I keep experimenting with it, but articles like this one are 100% written by a real-life human. Personally, I want to see genAI features when I choose certainly not all the time, everywhere on my computer.Plain and simple, you might occasionally use genAI tools to get work done, but that doesnt necessarily mean you want to be bombarded with it everywhere. Thats what these tips are all about: easy ways to eliminate the AI elements integrated throughout Windows and Chrome or whatever other web browser youre using. Its your computer, your workday, and your online experience.Time to take back control.Want more Windows PC tips? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Plus, get free Windows Field Guide downloads as a bonus when you sign up!The Windows AI asteriskFirst, a quick bit of pertinent perspective: Despite all the hype, most Windows AI features arent actually doing anything in the background. They usually dont do anything at all, in fact, until you click a button to summon them.For example, the Microsoft Paint app has a built-in AI image generator tool. It does nothing whatsoever unless you open Paint and click the Image Creator button on the toolbar. Then, it will generate an image for you.If you dont want to use that image feature, just dont click that button. If you dont want to see the button, dont launch Microsoft Paint. Most genAI features in Windows are exactly like that so far.But there are some AI features that are getting awfully insistent. So lets get out the proverbial weedwhacker and trim them back.Windows AI elimination step #1: Start with GoogleMost genAI features lay low unless you go looking for them; Googles AI answers are an in-your-face exception. Youll often get answers written by Googles Gemini AI just when searching Google, whether you want them or not.There are many ways to avoid AI answers on Google. Heres a quick list:After searching for something on Google, click the Web category. Youll only see web links.Add the text -ai to any search to hide AI answers.Install the simple Hide Google AI Overviews Chrome extension to hide AI answers. This extension should work on other Chromium-based browsers like Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi. Its available for Firefox, too.You can also create a custom search engine in Chrome to default to Google web searches. Heres a guide to getting rid of Gemini with a custom search engine in Chrome on both computers running Google Chrome and Android phones.Windows AI elimination step #2: Hide CopilotMicrosofts Copilot AI chatbot app now comes pinned to the taskbar by default in both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Its just one click away.If you dont want it down there, getting rid of it is easy and the latest version of Copilot makes it even easier: Just right-click the Copilot taskbar icon and select Unpin from taskbar. Thats it.Copilot doesnt actually do anything until you open it and ask it a question, so it wont do anything on your PC as long as you leave it closed. You can also opt to completely uninstall it, though, if you like: Just open the Start menu, search for Copilot, then right-click the Copilot shortcut and select Uninstall.You can now unpin Copilot like any other app with just a right-click.Chris Hoffman, IDGWindows AI elimination step #3: Reclaim the Copilot keyAll on-screen implementations aside, many new laptops now come with an actual physical Copilot key on their keyboards. That key will launch Microsofts AI chatbot and its easy to accidentally tap. But you can stop it.To do so, open the Settings app on your Windows 11 PC, select Personalization, and then choose Text input. Scroll down to the Customize Copilot key on keyboard option. You can set it to Search to use it as a search key instead, similar to whats present on Chromebooks.(You can also make it launch a different app like the ChatGPT app, for example if youd prefer.)Windows lets you transform a Copilot key into a Search key in a few clicks.Chris Hoffman, IDGWindows AI elimination step #4: Tackle the toolbarIf you prefer using Microsofts web browser, youll notice it has a big Copilot AI chatbot icon right on its toolbar. You can get rid of that, too.To remove Copilot from Edges toolbar:Click the menu button at the top-right corner of the Edge browser window and select Settings.Click Copilot and sidebar in the left pane.Click the Copilot app under App and notification settings.Turn off the Show Copilot option.You can use Edge without the Copilot icon on your browsers toolbar.Chris Hoffman, IDGWindows AI elimination step #5. Total Recall removalWhile Ive mentioned that most AI features on Windows dont do anything unless you launch them, the one exception is the Windows Recall feature which runs in the background and saves snapshots of your PCs screen so you can search your PC usage later. Bear in mind, this is only on new Copilot+ PCs, and its disabled by default. Also: Your Recall data is never sent to Microsoft its processed entirely on your PC.At the moment (in January 2025), Recall is only available in Insider versions of Windows 11. Of course, it will almost certainly come to all Copilot+ PCs at some point this year.You can check whether the Recall feature is active on Windows 11 by opening the Settings app, selecting Privacy & security, and clicking Recall & snapshots under Windows permissions. From here, you can turn off Save snapshots if you dont want the AI-powered Recall feature capturing snapshots in the background.Dont see anything about Recall & snapshots in the Settings app? That means your Windows PC doesnt have Recall. Most Windows PCs dont!Recall only runs in the background if you choose to enable it.Chris Hoffman, IDGChoose your own AI adventureRemember: AI doesnt have to be all or nothing. You might prefer a traditional Google search experience and a Copilot-free Windows desktop, but you might still launch the ChatGPT app now and then or use whatever AI tools your workplace provides.The choice is yours and now, you know exactly how to make it happen.Lets stay in touch! Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Youll get three new things to try every Friday. Plus, Ill send you free in-depth Windows Field Guides as a special welcome bonus.

Demand for generative AI (genAI) courses is surging, passing all other tech skills courses and spanning fields from data science to cybersecurity, project management, and marketing. Coursera, in its fourth annual Job Skills Report, says demand for genAI-trained employees has spiked by 866% over the past year leading to strong interest in online learning. Over the past two years, 12.5 million people have enrolled in Courseras AI content, according to Quentin McAndrew, global academic strategist at Coursera.Mastering AI skills is essential to stay competitive now, McAndrew said, and students are shifting from understanding genAI to applying it in their roles to save time, work smarter, and deliver measurable impact.AI and GenAI have become the most in-demand skills across all industries, she said. AI skills now appear in almost every job posting, which unlocks opportunities for higher wages and career growth for job seekers.Demand for genAI learning has exceeded that of any skill weve ever seen on Coursera, and learners are increasingly opting for role-focused content to prepare for specific jobs, said Marni Stein, Courseras chief content officer.The rush for online learning about genAI isnt restricted to Coursera. Other online learning hubs, including Udemy, OReilly and Workera, are seeing much the same thing.At Coursera, the top genAI courses in 2024 were:Google AI Essentials (Google)Generative AI for Everyone (DeepLearning.AI)Introduction to Generative AI (Google Cloud)Generative AI with Large Language Models (Amazon Web Services; DeepLearning.AI)Generative AI: Introduction and Applications (IBM)Generative AI for Executives and Business Leaders Part 1 (IBM)Introduction to Generative AI for Software Development (DeepLearning.AI)Microsoft 365 Copilot: Personal Productivity for All (Vanderbilt University)Accelerate Your Learning with ChatGPT (Deep Teaching Solutions)Greg Brown, CEO of online learning platform Udemy, echoed what Coursera officials have seen. As genAI skills become the new standard for workplace tech proficiency, we are seeing a surge in demand for skills like ChatGPT and leadership for change management, he said.Udemy research found that while nearly 90% of employees see leadership as key to their companys genAI transformation, only 48% feel confident their top execs are prepared to lead the initiatives.AI proficiency is no longer novel or nice-to-have, Brown said. It is mission-critical for organizations to future-proof their workforce and for professionals to further develop their careers.On Udemys platform, students are choosing to upskill with AI tools such as ChatGPT, MidJourney, and DALL-E. The companysTop 100 Surging Workplace Learning Skillslist ranked ChatGPT and generative AI as the second fastest-growing skill, with AI in the sixth spot.Udemy said its top business courses over the past 90 days include:Machine Learning A-Z: AI, Python & R + ChatGPT Prize [2025]Artificial Intelligence A-Z 2025: Build 7 AI + LLM & ChatGPTChatGPT: Complete ChatGPT Course For Work 2025 (Ethically)!How to use ChatGPT and Generative AI to help create contentLLM Engineering: Master AI, Large Language Models & AgentsArtificial Intelligence & ChatGPT for Cyber Security 2025Learning about genAI for productivity at Udemy has surged 859% from a year ago, with more than four million enrollments. Numerous AI certification courses, including Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate and Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals, have also grown significantly up 311% and 197%, respectively.Forward-thinking companies understand the power of genAI, Brown said. Integrating genAI across the workforce is like migrating your infrastructure to the cloud,.According to a new study by tech learning platform OReilly, AI technologies are driving the most significant shifts in technology education. Interest in almost all of the top skills is up from 2023 to 2024: Prompt Engineering grew 456%; AI Principles grew 386%; Generative AI grew 289%; Natural Language Processing grew 39%; AI grew 190%; and Machine Learning grew 9.2%.Interestingly enough, among the top topics the most significant decline was for GPT itself, which dropped by 13%. Not a huge decline but certainly a significant one, said Mike Loukides, vice president of emerging technology content at OReilly.That loss of interest in some ways dovetails with what research firm Gartner said last August that genAI was slipping into the trough of disillusionment.Loukides said developers are now prioritizing foundational AI knowledge over platform-specific skills to better navigate across various AI models such as Claude, Googles Gemini, and Llama.This years report also highlights the rapid rise of critical AI-related skills tied to LangChain and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which have rapidly gained prominence and are now comparable in usage to established AI libraries like PyTorch and Keras, he said. These advancements empower developers to build more sophisticated applications on top of AI models, marking the next frontier in AI development.The biggest AI usage increases were in prompt engineering (up 456%), AI principles (up 386%), and genAI (up 289%). Notably, GitHub Copilot content saw a 471% surge, highlighting developers growing interest in productivity-enhancing tools, according to the OReilly report.The next wave of AI development will be building agents software that can plan and execute complex actions. This year marks a pivotal transition in technology, with AI evolving from generative capabilities to a transformative force reshaping how developers approach their craft, Loukides said.Loukides said interest in learning programming languages appears to be waning, with Rust being a notable exception. If thats happening because users expect AI to handle language details, that could be a career mistake, he said.But Kian Katanforoosh, CEO Workera, an AI-driven talent management and skills assessment provider, said people arent less interested in learning programming languages Python recently surpassed JavaScript as the most popular language.Instead, theres been a decline in learning the specific syntax details of these languages, he said. What most people should focus on is understanding what a programming language enables them to do and how it works at a high level, rather than memorizing syntax, Katanforoosh said. The mindset of programming remains crucial it fosters problem-solving skills that are widely applicable.Its also important, he added, to recognize the different tiers of AI learners:AI-aware individuals, who want to understand AI concepts and their implications.AI practitioners, who are focused on leveraging AI technologies to build applications.AI builders, who develop the models or infrastructure that power AI.Each group is learning distinct skills, and tailoring education to these tiers could unlock even greater potential for AI adoption and innovation, Katanforoosh said.Along those lines, Courseras fourth annual Job Skills Report, based on insights from five million enterprise learners and more than 7,000 institutional customers, found the key skills organizations and individuals are prioritizing for 2025. They included:GenAI using AI to generate text, images, and moreArtificial neural networks building computer systems that learn like human brains doComputer vision teaching computers to see and understand imagesPyTorch (machine learning library) using this tool to build powerful AI applicationsMachine learning teaching computers to learn from dataApplied machine learning using machine learning to solve real problemsDeep learning building advanced AI systems for complex tasksSupervised learning training AI using labeled examplesReinforcement learning training AI through trial and errorMachine learning operations (MLOps) managing and deploying machine learning systems effectively.According to Courseras Stein, the top three fastest growing skills for 2025 are Prompt Engineering (Vanderbuilt University), ChatGPT Advanced Data Analysis (Vanderbilt University), and Preparing Data for Analysis with Microsoft Excel (Microsoft).

Enterprise computers are often the ugly ducklings of the PC world, viewed as dull, slow and less feature-rich than their consumer counterparts. But vendors at last weeks Consumer Electronics Show launched a selection of business machines (alongside their consumer offerings) hoping to capitalize on the rise of generative AI (genAI).Despite the focus on AI PCs or Copilot+ PCs, analysts said the vendors might be a bit ahead of the market.I liken it to the dot.com era, said Tom Butler, executive director of portfolio and product management for Lenovos worldwide commercial notebook business. When the dot.com era kicked off, companies immediately said, I need a dot.com instance. So, its very much like that right now. Companies, as we move into this AI PC era, [say] I need an AI PC.Heres a look at some of the noteworthy business PCs announced at CES 2025 and analysis of whether vendors are hitting the mark for enterprise customers.AsusIn addition to its Zenbook and Republic of Gamers (ROG) offerings, Asus unveiled the enterprise-focused ExpertBook B5, ExpertBook B3, ExpertCenter P400 AiO, and ExpertCenter P500. Although theyre notCopilot+ PCs(their neural processing unit (NPU) isnt powerful enough), they qualify asAI PCs; both B5 and B3 laptops include Intel vPro for manageability and have passed the MIL-STD 810H durability tests. Neither is super light, tipping the scales at about 3 pounds.The B5 supports up to 64GB of RAM and up to a 2TB SSD with RAID support, has an all-metal design, 16-in. screen, and security features including a fingerprint reader, facial recognition, and a smart card reader.The B3 has either a 14-in. or 16-in. display, supports up to 64GB of RAM and up to 1TB storage in dual SSDs. And it offers a variety of ports USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, and even an Ethernet port. (The B5 lacks Ethernet, unless you have a USB dongle.)On the desktop side, the ExpertCenter AiO (all-in-one) comes in two models, one with a 27-in. display, the other with a 24-in. screen. The P500 is a mini tower supporting up to 64GB of RAM and up to 4TB storage on one SSD and one hard drive.DellWhileDells rebranding plans, announced at CES, might be a bit perplexing, the company did introduce several new Dell Pro models designed for professional-grade productivity. They come in several flavors: Base, Plus, and Premium, and all qualify as Copilot+ PCs, based on their specs.At the Base level, there are the Dell Pro 14 and Dell Pro 16, designed to deliver essential performance for everyday productivity, Dell said. They feature Intel Core Ultra 5 processors, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and screen resolution of 19201200 pixels.The company also announced Dell Pro desktops, powered by either Intel or AMD processors, available in micro, slim, and tower form factors. They are, Dell said, the companys first commercial desktops with NPUs.One step up are the Dell Pro 13/14/16 Plus, with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. They come in laptop or 2-in-1 form factors and use the same system BIOS to make ordering and management easier for IT departments. Dell claims up to 18.2 hours of battery life for the Pro 14 Plus, and 12.6 hours for the Pro 16 Plus.At the top of the heap are the Dell Pro 13/14 Premium models. Theyre the slimmest and lightest member sof the Pro portfolio, starting at 2.36 pounds. The Dell Pro 13 Premium offers up to 20.8 hours of battery life; the Pro 14 Premium provides up to 21.2 hours. Each can be ordered with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, up to 32GB RAM and up to 1TB of storage.HPHPs EliteBook line expanded with the companys announcement of a trio of Copilot+ PCs. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i Next Gen AI PC is, HP said, designed for executives, with its 14-in. UWVA OLED screen on the Intel-powered model. (The Qualcomm model offers WLED screen technology.) They can have up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage for the Intel version, or 1TB of storage for the Qualcomm version. HP touted studio quality microphones and a 9-megapixel camera for high quality video calls.The HP EliteBook X Flip G1i Next Gen AI PC has multiple use modes, including laptop, tablet, and tent configurations, with up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage. Like the Ultra G1i, it has a 14-in. screen, although touch comes standard (its an option on the G1i) and its a WLED display, not OLED.The HP EliteBook X G1i Next Gen AI PC is powered by either Intel or AMD chips. The Intel model can hold up to 32GB of RAM; the AMD version offers up to 64GB. Both models can have up to 2TB of storage.The EliteBook X machines will be available in March, with HP saying only that the Ultra G1i is coming soon.LenovoLenovo launched an impressive array of devices, and the two models specifically aimed at businesses both contained surprises.The ThinkPad X9 14- and 15-in. Aura Editions are sleek, thin and light notebooks tested to meetMIL-SPEC 810H standards. Lenovo claims all-day battery life,and says the machines are designed to allow easy servicing of the battery and SSD. They offer up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.One thing, however, is missing: the X9 is the first ThinkPad to forego the trackstick. Lenovo hastened to note that its just for this model other ThinkPads will continue to have the trademark red nub in the middle of their keyboards.Two years ago, Lenovo showcased a laptop concept with a rollable screen; this year, that concept became a reality. The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollables 14-in screen expands upwards at the touch of a button, growing to 16.7 inches and providing 50% more screen space. As with the other new models, it offers up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.It is not a budget-friendly device, though; prices start at $3,500.AI a gimmick?As for whether these systems meet enterprise needs, analysts weighed in on what theyre seeing in the current PC market and they were somewhat dismissive of the AI hype.Current AI features are over-hyped and largely invisible or are seen as thats nice to have tobusiness unless the users are proactive in finding more detailed features, saidRanjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner. All in all, businesses are unlikely to pay more than 5% above normal prices for an AI PC.I think the AI laptops are a gimmick for the most part, efforts by the OEMs to stay relevant and bottle lightning if they can, said Jeremy Roberts, senior research director at Info-Tech Research Group. I have yet to have any of my enterprise or mid-market clients profess to be excited or tell me theyre changing their refresh cycle or anything to incorporate AI features at the PC level.IDCsRyan Reith, group vice president, Worldwide Device Trackers, said he saw some interest in AI PCs early in 2024, but noted it has since waned.What we gathered throughout most of last year, especiallyaround the middle of the year, is that large enterprises and most developed markets around the world were allocating budget for these genAI PCs, Reith said. That enthusiasm declined in the second part of 2024 amid concerns that Microsoft and its partners had not delivered on expectations.Whats important to enterprisesAccording to Roberts, genAI features have not excited the enterprises he deals with. Things that excite enterprises are Autopilot compatibility for seamless deployment, TPM chips for encryption, specialized screens to limit viewing angles, decently powerful CPUs/GPUs depending on the use case, and repairability, he said.I dont think AI features even make the top 10, Roberts said. Most organizations wont be consuming AI features locally anyway theyll use cloud services like CoPilot or Gemini.Reith cited feedback from the head of commercial sales for a large OEM who said with tightened budgets and uncertainly about what can be achieved with genAI PCs, companies are shifting their spending to mid-range computers. They dont qualify as Copilot+ devices, but are still very good PCs.If you get 200 PCs at a mainstream level, as opposed to 50 at a premium level, theyre going more towards the 200, he said.Roberts agreed: Modern laptops are generally more than capable of handling the typical knowledge workers day-to-day. A Dell Latitude 5000 or 7000 (Dell Pro now?) series or a run-of-the-mill ThinkPad from Lenovo wont struggle with Slack, Teams, or PowerPoint.As for what corporate users want, size and weight are often key, Reith said and companies are now listening to their employees rather than choosing what they think they want.The thin and light PCs are the trend, Atwal said, adding, businesses essentially want to future proof their PCs with AI capabilities so [want to] have them include an NPU.Lenovos Butler said the configuration sweet spot has shifted; its now 32GB of memory and a minimum 512GB of storage. And screen sizes have edged up.Most business laptops are in the 14- to 16-in. range, said Roberts. Anything smaller is quite cramped. Anything larger can be cumbersome to lug around not to mention more expensive.Whither AI PCs, then?Reith and Roberts differ on the fate of the AI PC/Copilot+ PC.AI PCs are a solution looking for a problem, Roberts argued. Most end user computing managers wont be swayed by this branding and additional feature set. AI will continue to be delivered primarily via the cloud. I expect the CoPilot+ PC will go the way of the Ultrabook: branding attached to computers that are only marginally relevant to the people who buy and use them.Reith, however, believes its more an issue of timing. Theres a necessity to have on-device AI, he said. Its just getting pushed forward a little bit to when that inflection point really starts to kick in.Im trying to use my words cautiously, because we do not believe that this is dead in the water. It was a good chance that then passed. Its just that the timing was really bad, which no one could have predicted. But nobodys really backing off of the developments. Supply side is now just shifting some of their business plans around products.Whatever we thought was going to be the genAI PC volume in 2025, itll be slightly less than that, in our opinion, Reith said. But a lot of that will just get pushed forward to a ramp up thats maybe more towards the end of this year, and certainly into 2026.