ParalegalBlizzard EntertainmentIrvine California 92618 United States of America1 hour agoApplyTeam Name:LegalJob Title:ParalegalRequisition ID:R025341Job Description:Job Title: ParalegalLocation: IrvineAt Blizzard Entertainment, we are dedicated to creating the most epic entertainment experiences…ever, driven by our core values and passion, Blizzard creates worlds with the focus to entertain the universe!We are looking for an experienced, motivated, and highly organized legal professional to join our in-house legal team as a Paralegal. You’ll partner with a close-knit team and staff across the business to draft contracts and other documents, review and clear marketing and promotional materials, and establish clear and responsive communication with internal and external clients.What You’ll DoDraft various types of contracts, including ‘Work for Hire’ agreements, services agreements, advertising insertion orders, voice-actor and talent agreements, music agreements, marketing agreements, promotional agreements, license agreements, and non-disclosure agreementsReview and clear marketing and promotional materials relating to Blizzard’s games and distribution platform, including advertising assets, email marketing messages, videos, and website and mobile application assetsAssist with the preparation of contest rules, affidavits of eligibility,y and releasesPrepare written communications to internal and external contactsPartner closely with the US legal team and business; liaise as needed with international colleaguesEnsure compliance and adherence to proper protocols in all matters related to contract drafting, validation, and record keepingTake on special projects and other duties as requestedRequirementsA Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experienceA paralegal certificate from an ABA-accredited program5+ years of experience in a professional legal role, preferably in a contract management or paralegal roleExtensive experience drafting a variety of agreements with an emphasis on entertainment and intellectual property contracts and licensesSignificant experience reviewing and clearing marketing and promotional materialsExceptional legal research and analytical skillsThe ability to independently handle multiple projects simultaneously and under a deadlineExcellent written and oral communication skillsStrong critical-thinking skillsImpeccable organizational skills, time-management abilities, and attention to detailThe ability to act with discretion when handling confidential mattersCommon sense, good judgment, and a desire to work hard in a fast-paced environmentExperience and proficiency in the use of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OutlookAdvantagesExperience as a legal professional in a video game, entertainment, or media companyInternational experienceA passion for video gamesYour PlatformBest known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.Our WorldActivision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!Our ability to build immersive and innovative worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment. We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest. <We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.RewardsWe provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/ .In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $26.83 - $49.63 Hourly. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable. Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings. Apply

As Brian Chesky tells it, the reinvention of Airbnb started with the coup at OpenAI. On November 17, 2023, the board of OpenAI fired company CEO Sam Altman. His friend Chesky leapt into action—publicly defending his pal on X, getting on the phone with Microsoft’s CEO, and throwing himself into the thick of Altman’s battle to retake OpenAI. Five days later Altman prevailed, and Chesky—“I was so jacked up,” he says—turned his buzzing mind to his own company, Airbnb.Thanksgiving weekend was beginning. The Chesky extended family had already held their turkey get-together a week earlier, and the Airbnb CEO had no holiday plan. He was completely alone in his sprawling San Francisco apartment except for Sophie, his golden retriever.Still wired out of his mind from the cathartic corporate rescue, Chesky began to write. He wanted to bust the company he’d cofounded out of its pigeonhole of short-term home rentals. Amazon, he was fond of pointing out, was first an online bookstore before it became the everything store. Chesky had long believed that Airbnb should expand in a similar way. But things kept getting in the way—dealing with safety issues, fighting regulation, coping with the existential crisis of a global pandemic. The company was in danger of being tagged with the word that ambitious entrepreneurs dread like the plague: mature.Now Chesky was emboldened to lay out his vision. Home rentals are simply a service, so why stop there? Airbnb could be the platform for booking all sorts of services. While other apps cover specific sectors—food delivery, home maintenance, car rides—Chesky figured that Airbnb’s experience in attractively displaying homes, vetting hosts, and responding to crises could make it more trustworthy than competitors and therefore the go-to option for virtually anything.In a frantic typing spree at the dining room table, on the couch, the bed, and at times in his office, Chesky specced out how he would redesign the Airbnb app. Its users—now at 2 billion—would open up the app not only at vacation time but whenever they needed to find a portrait photographer, a personal trainer, or someone to cook their meals. Chesky reasoned that Airbnb would need to significantly strengthen its identity verification. He even thought he could get people to use the app as a credential, something as respected as a government-issued ID. If he could transform Airbnb into a storefront for real-world services, Chesky thought, he’d catapult his company from a nearly $10-billion-a-year business into one that boasted membership in tech’s pantheon.Over the next few days, Chesky spilled these thoughts into an Evernote document. “I was basically going from room to room just pouring out this stream-of-consciousness manifesto, like Jack Kerouac writing On the Road,” he says, referring to the frenetically produced single roll of teletype paper that catalyzed the beat movement. “I dusted off all my ideas from 2012 to 2016,” Chesky tells me. “I basically said, ‘We’re not just a vacation app—we’re going to be a platform, a community.’” By Friday he had around 10,000 words, “incomprehensible to anyone but me.” He began to refine it, and by the time the weekend was over, Chesky had distilled his document down to 1,500 words.PHOTOGRAPH: GABRIELA HASBUNAfter the holiday, Chesky gathered his leadership team into a conference room. He handed the team copies of his memo à la Jeff Bezos and waited as his direct reports took it in. “Usually when I share ideas, people aren’t bought in,” he says. “But this time, there wasn’t a lot of feedback. People were really excited. And two years later, that document will now be executed with an exacting detail to what I wrote.”This month, Airbnb will launch the first stage of its more than $200 million reinvention: a panoply of more than 10,000 vendors peddling a swath of services in 260 cities in 30 countries. It is also revitalizing an unsuccessful experiment the company began in 2016: offering bespoke local activities, or what it calls “experiences.” The next stage, launch date unspecified, involves making your profile on Airbnb so robust that it’s “almost like a passport,” as Chesky puts it. After that comes a deep immersion into AI: Inspired by his relationship with Altman, Chesky hopes to build the ultimate agent, a super-concierge who starts off handling customer service and eventually knows you well enough to plan your travel and maybe the rest of your life.“Brian’s been badly underrated as a tech CEO,” Altman says of his friend. “He's not usually mentioned in the same breath as Larry Page or Bill Gates, but I think he is on a path to build as big of a company.”That’s a stretch—Airbnb is nowhere near the size of those oligarchic powers. But Chesky was feeling the need for big changes; While impressive, Airbnb’s growth rate doesn’t suggest that the company will soon reach the trillion-dollar heights of Google and Microsoft. “I’m 43 and at a crossroads, where I can either be almost done or just getting started,” he tells me. “There's a scenario where I'm basically done. Airbnb is very profitable. We've kind of, mostly, nailed vacation rentals. But we can do more.”In early April, I visited Chesky at the company’s lavish San Francisco headquarters. The relaunch was five weeks away. The second floor—where signs warn employees not to bring visitors—had become a sprawling eyes-only command center. The walls were covered with dozens of large poster boards, each one featuring a city, that read as if a group of McKinsey consultants had tackled a fourth-grade geography assignment. Austin, Texas, was written up as “a funky come-as-you-are kind of place” with a handful of “first principles,” one of which was “Outlaw of Texas,” with pointers to food trucks and vintage markets. Another so-called principle was “Live and Alive,” referring to music venues and bat watching; a third was “Dam Lakes,” referring to various water sports. Other blindingly obvious notations included barbeque, tacos, and the two-step. The Paris poster painted a “revolutionary” city marked by slow living and enduring culture.Chesky strode up and greeted me enthusiastically. Dressed in a slim T-shirt that exposed his swole physique, he bounced on his heels with a jittery energy that reminded me of the first time I met him, in January 2009. He had just joined Y Combinator’s famous program for startups, and he and his classmates were at a party at the home of YC cofounder Paul Graham. (Graham told me then that he thought Airbnb’s business plan was crazy but was impressed by their determination.) I mentioned to Chesky that I was headed to Washington, DC, for Barack Obama’s inauguration, and he and his cofounders immediately tried to convince me to use their service to sleep on someone’s couch. I declined, but somehow over the next 15 years they managed to sell the idea to 2 billion people, including me, and now the company has a market cap worth more than Marriott.Chesky ushers me into a conference room to get a preview of the new Airbnb app. His engineers and designers have rebuilt the app from scratch, and he waves around a stick of lip balm as a talisman as he talks me through the redesign. Also in the room is his product marketing head, Jud Coplan, while his vice president of design, Teo Connor, Zooms in from London. While customers likely think of Airbnb as a travel company, its leaders view the operation as an achievement in design. Which makes sense; both Chesky and his cofounder Joe Gebbia were students at the Rhode Island School of Design.Airbnb's new user interface featuring experiences and services.COURTESY OF AIRBNBChesky explains that historically, people used Airbnb only once or twice a year, so its design had to be exceptionally simple. Now the company is retooling for more frequent access. Open the app, and you see a trio of icons that act as gateways to the expanded functions. Within minutes Chesky and his lieutenants are applauding the cheery, retro style of the icons—a house for traditional rentals, a hotel bell for services, and a Jules Verne-ish hot-air balloon representing activities. “We really thought deeply about the metaphor—what was the right visual to express an experience?” says Connor. Once they decided on the balloon, they drilled into how much fire should belch from the basket. The icons were drawn by a former Apple designer whose name Chesky would not divulge. “He’s a bit of a secret weapon,” he says.A less-secret weapon is Chesky’s collaboration with the iconic, also ex-Apple, industrial designer Jony Ive. Chesky’s north star, it should be said, is Apple. “Steve Jobs, to me, is like Michelangelo or da Vinci,” he says. Despite never meeting Jobs, “I feel like I know him deeply, professionally, in a way that few people ever did, in a way that you only possibly could by starting a tech company as a creative person and going on a rocket ship,” Chesky says. By hiring Ive’s LoveFrom company and working with Jobs’ key collaborator, Chesky gets a taste of the famous Jobs/Ive dynamic. Ive himself doesn’t make that comparison, but he does praise Chesky’s design chops. “There are certain tactical things where I hope that sometimes I'm of use to Brian, just as as a fellow designer,” Ive says. “But the majority of our work has been around ideas and the way we frame problems and understand opportunities.”Another key part of the app is the profile page. “You need trust,” Chesky says—meaning a verifiable identity. Airbnb has been vetting the new vendors, which it calls “service hosts.” For months, Chesky says, an army of background researchers has been scrutinizing the résumés, licenses, and recommendations of chefs, photographers, manicurists, masseuses, hair stylists, makeup artists, personal trainers, and aestheticians who provide spa treatments such as facials and microdermabrasions. They’re all being professionally photographed.Airbnb's new guest profile interface.COURTESY OF AIRBNBFor the next phase—turning Airbnb’s user profiles into a primary internet ID—Connor and her team have engaged in some far-out experimentation. She rattles off a list of technologies they’ve been exploring, including biometrics, holograms, and the reactive inks used to deter counterfeiting on official ID cards. But it’s far from easy to become a private identity utility (hello, Facebook), and even Chesky notes that getting governments to accept an Airbnb credential to verify identity is “a stretch goal.”Now that a whole slew of people will have new reasons to chat with each other and coordinate plans, Airbnb has also enhanced its messaging functions. Fellow travelers who share experiences can form communities, stay in touch, even share videos and photos. “I don’t know if I want to call it a social network, because of the stigma associated with it,” says Ari Balogh, Airbnb’s CTO. So they employ a fuzzier term. “We think of it as a connection platform,” he says. “You’re going to see us build a lot more stuff on top of it, although we’re not an advertising system, thank goodness.” (My own observation is that any for-profit company that can host advertising will, but whatever.)This brings us to the services—the heart and soul of this reinvention. Those now on offer seem designed to augment an Airbnb stay with all the stuff that drives up your bill at a luxury resort, like a DIY White Lotus. It will be interesting to see how the company handles the inevitable cases of food poisoning or bad haircuts (and skeezy customers), but Airbnb can draw on its 17 years of experience with dirty sheets, all-night discos on the ground floor, or a host who is literally terrorizing you. Eventually, Chesky says, Airbnb will offer “hundreds” of services, perhaps as far-ranging as plumbing, cleaning, car repair, guitar lessons, and tutoring, and then take its 15 percent fee.Crafted cuts by Bryan, Chicago, IllinoisCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; LYNDON FRENCHTrain with Steve Jordan, Trainer to the Stars, Los Angeles, CaliforniaCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; JACKIE BEALEThe other key feature of the company’s reinvention, of course, is Experiences. If the idea sounds familiar, that’s because Airbnb launched a service by that name almost a decade ago, with pretty much the same pitch: special activities for travelers, like architects leading tours of buildings or chefs showing people how to fold dumplings.It flopped, although Airbnb never formally pulled the plug. Chesky’s excuses include tactical errors: After a big initial splash, the company didn’t follow up with more marketing, and it didn’t establish a strong flow of new experiences. But the big reason, he says, was that it was too early. Now the company has five times as many customers and an ecosystem to support the effort. “It was like our Newton,” says Chesky, referring to Apple’s handheld device that predated the iPhone. (Another Apple reference, for those keeping score.)Chesky’s crew has arranged for more than 22,000 experiences in 650 cities, including a smattering of so-called “originals,” with people at the top of their field—star athletes, Michelin chefs, famous celebrities. In the pipeline is Conan O’Brien selling a perch behind a mic in his podcast studio. (Don’t expect it to air.) Taking a lesson from his earlier flop, Chesky has planned a steady cadence of these short-term promotional stunts, which, of course, is what the Conan experience ultimately is. “We’re going to have thousands of originals and maybe one day hundreds of thousands—a regular drumbeat of some of the biggest iconic celebrities,” Chesky says.He shows me how someone could take a trip to, say, Mexico City and book experiences instantly. “Fun fact—I’ve always dreamed of being a professional wrestler in Mexico. I want to be a luchador!” he tells me, then immediately regrets it. Regardless: In an Airbnb experience, he says, you can meet a real luchador, get in the ring with him, and learn some moves. Can you keep the mask?“Probably,” says Chesky. In any case, you’d share the photos with others in your group. (But don’t call it a social network.)Megan Thee Stallion in Los Angeles, CaliforniaCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; ADRIENNE RAQUELHorseback riding through four hidden temples of the Inkas, Cusco, PeruCOURTESY OF AIRBNB; PAZ OLIVARES-DROGUETTAirbnb’s planned transformation tracks with another reinvention: that of its leader.Chesky had originally taken the title of CEO over his two pretty-much equal cofounders because his personality was more forward facing—it wasn’t even formalized until 2010. But then, in 2011, the company had its first real crisis when a host publicly shared a horror story about how an Airbnb guest from deep, deep hell pillaged and trashed her home. What wasn’t stolen—the customer broke into a locked closet to grab a passport, cash, and heirloom jewelry—was ravaged and burned in the fireplace. “The death-like smell from the bathroom was frightening,” wrote the host. The story threatened to destroy the cheerful person-to-person vibe the company had cultivated. It didn’t help that Airbnb’s initial response was clueless and weak.Chesky stepped up to become the face of the company and instituted overdue safety protocols. Over the next few years, Chesky cemented his alpha status. In 2018 his cofounder Joe Gebbia stepped down from daily duties, though he still sits on the board. (Recently Gebbia has been in the news for his very public participation in DOGE’s remaking of the US government. When asked about it at a Q and A session with employees, Chesky said that Gebbia was free to have his own opinions, but they are not the company’s. Chesky did not attend Trump’s inauguration.) The third cofounder, Nathan Blecharczyk, is still with the company, though it’s notable that as I sat in meetings with over a dozen executives, the only time his name came up was when I mentioned it.Chesky was totally in charge during the pandemic, when Airbnb lost 80 percent of its business in eight weeks. He laid off a quarter of the staff. Now that bookings surpass pre-2020 levels, he thinks the company is stronger. And he learned a big lesson: “The pandemic was the turning point of the company,” he says. “My first principle became ‘Don’t apologize for how you want to run your company.’ Most of all you should not apologize for being in the details. The number one thing people want to do is keep you out of the details.”When Chesky shared some of these views at a Y Combinator event in 2024, Paul Graham was inspired to write an essay called “Founder Mode.” Graham used Chesky’s story to argue that only the person who created a company knows what is best, and the worst mistake is to listen to management types who haven’t built their own. The essay struck a nerve; people were stopping Chesky on the street and yelling “Founder mode!” Someone dropped off a baseball hat for him with those words; it now sits on a shelf in his conference room.Chesky, meanwhile, has been deep in the details, especially on this reinvention, itself kind of a classic founder move. “I did review work before the pandemic, but people kind of hated it. There were negative associations to a CEO reviewing everything; it’s considered micromanaging.” Also, his idol Steve Jobs was famous—infamous?—for his unsparing criticism. Chesky contends that once he went all-in on dishing out criticism, with no sheepishness, people seemed happier. But even if they weren’t, he’d do it anyway. Curious to see how this worked, I arranged to attend a Chesky review.Gathered in a conference room, the design and engineering teams presented near-final app tweaks affecting how hosts set up their services. Chesky seemed fairly pleased with what he was seeing—so much so that he apologized to me afterward that I didn’t get to see him go animal with his underlings. Nonetheless, even during this lovefest of a product review, Chesky babbled a constant stream of minor corrections. The cursor is oddly centered … Those visual cues are a little confusing … We need a subtle drop shadow here … The next line doesn’t seem centered vertically … That address input is pretty awkward … That button looks oddly short, is it supposed to be that short? … That shimmer, do we think we need it? Get rid of it … That top module doesn’t make sense … We need to rewrite all the copy on this page … I think we need a better empty state … That title’s not clear …The group shuffles out satisfied and a bit stunned that they got away so easy. But when I meet Chesky a day later to sum things up, he tells me that I’d just missed a spicier product review. Then he gets serious, explaining what the reinvention means to him. “I felt a little bit like the vacation rental guy,” he says. “Like we as a company are a little underestimated.” He brings up Apple again, saying that both companies embody the idea that a business relationship can generate emotion. “My ambition is kind of like the ambition of an artist and designer,” he says.At that point Chesky gets a little woo. “Magic, in hindsight, is not technology,” he says as he reflects on Apple’s wizardry. What he’s realized is that magic lies in forging connections with those who offer you a bed, a microdermabrasion, a sparring match in a lucha libre ring. “The magic that is timeless is, like, the stuff you remember at the end of your life.”He lets that sit for a minute. Then he puts a cap on that insight, sounding less like a CEO than a life coach. “I’ve never had a dream with a device in it,” he says. Leave it to the subconscious to highlight what matters. That said, his day dreams certainly involve a new kind of device. In his off hours he’s helping with a secret project headed by his friends Altman and Ive to create a device that Altman says is the next step beyond computers. (“This is not theoretical memo-swapping,” Altman tells me. “We’re hard at work on it, prototyping.”)But that’s somewhere off in the future. In the realm of products that actually exist in the world, Chesky will have to face competition from dozens of domain leaders including Yelp, Instacart, DoorDash, Ticketmaster, Hotels.com, Tinder, OpenTable, and Craigslist, to name but a few. You can probably add Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, since Chesky wants Airbnb to be a universal credential and what certainly looks like a social network. Even Steve Jobs might have blinked at taking on that crowd all at once.Images styled by Jillian Knox.Featuring: Liv Skinner, Liv Well and Francesca Lopez, Zinnia Wildflower BakehouseLet us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com or comment below.

Online Programmer (Python and C++)GameloftSofia Sofia City Province bg2 hours agoApplyJob DescriptionGameloft Sofia studio is looking for an Online Programmer with Python and C++ to join the team.Responsibilities:Contribute to our games’ technology stack, particularly on libraries, frameworks and solutions for C++ games, tools and servers.Coordinate with other tech teams, both in the Studio and outside, to contribute to transversal, cross-game solutions.Program in the relevant languages (C++, Python, Golang);Develop, monitor, evaluate and debug solutions as needed.QualificationsYou have:Strong Software Engineering Skills.Experience in Python Programming and Software EngineeringExperience in C++ Programming and Software EngineeringExperience in Multithreaded and Distributed SystemsWorking experience in both Unix and Windows systems.Able and willing to work and learn new technologies as the need arises.Ability to work in a team.Good communication skills in English.Nice to have:Experience working with network protocols such as TCP, UDPExperience with Backend Technologies (Cloud, K8S)Experience with REST APIsExperience with DjangoExperience with DockerExperience or Interest in Game DevelopmentExperience with GolangExperience with Cross Platform Development (Mac, Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo)Additional InformationWhy Join Gameloft?You want to work in exceptional industry and create games downloaded more than 1 billion times per year.You want to be part of a talented and supportive team of pioneers who have a passion for creating video games.You want to contribute to a vibrant and dynamic atmosphere.You want to join a global company and meet great people around the world.You will work on a permanent contract with competitive remuneration.You are looking for a fun place to work in the heart of the city.Health insurance coverage, Meal vouchersGame rooms, relaxation zone, office massage, bike standStudio location at the heart of the city with easy access to mass transportation.Company DescriptionLeader in the development and publishing of multiplatform games, Gameloft® has established itself as a pioneer in the industry, creating innovative gaming experiences for 25 years. Gameloft creates games for all digital platforms, from mobile to cross-platform titles for PC and consoles. Gameloft operates its own established franchises such as Asphalt®, Dragon Mania Legends, March of Empires, and Dungeon Hunter, and also partners with major rights holders including LEGO®, Universal, Illumination, Hasbro®, Fox Digital Entertainment, Lamborghini®, and Ferrari®. Gameloft distributes its games in over 100 countries and employs 3,000 people worldwide. Every month, 1 billion unique users can be reached by advertisers in Gameloft games with Gameloft for brands, a leading B2B offering dedicated to brands and agencies. Gameloft is a Vivendi company. Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings. Apply

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, as noted by watchdog group The Midas Project. xAI isn’t exactly known for its strong commitments to AI safety as it’s commonly understood. A recent report found that the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, would undress photos of women when asked. Grok can also be considerably more crass than chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT, cursing without much restraint to speak of. Nonetheless, in February at the AI Seoul Summit, a global gathering of AI leaders and stakeholders, xAI published a draft framework outlining the company’s approach to AI safety. The eight-page document laid out xAI’s safety priorities and philosophy, including the company’s benchmarking protocols and AI model deployment considerations. As The Midas Project noted in the blog post on Tuesday, however, the draft only applied to unspecified future AI models “not currently in development.” Moreover, it failed to articulate how xAI would identify and implement risk mitigations, a core component of a document the company signed at the AI Seoul Summit. In the draft, xAI said that it planned to release a revised version of its safety policy “within three months” — by May 10. The deadline came and went without acknowledgement on xAI’s official channels. Despite Musk’s frequent warnings of the dangers of AI gone unchecked, xAI has a poor AI safety track record. A recent study by SaferAI, a nonprofit aiming to improve the accountability of AI labs, found that xAI ranks poorly among its peers, owing to its “very weak” risk management practices. That’s not to suggest other AI labs are faring dramatically better. In recent months, xAI rivals including Google and OpenAI have rushed safety testing and have been slow to publish model safety reports (or skipped publishing reports altogether). Some experts have expressed concern that the seeming deprioritization of safety efforts is coming at a time when AI is more capable — and thus potentially dangerous — than ever. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

This article contains spoilers for Andor season 2 episodes 10-12 and Rogue One. The final three episodes of Andor may not pack quite the same emotional punch as the Ghorman arc, but they definitely bring this story together in an impactful way. It was revealed fairly early on that this season was going to lead up to the events of Rogue One, but how it did so was still very much a surprise. From the reveal of Krennic’s secret weapon program, to Bail’s arrival on Yavin 4, and so much more – the last three episodes have lined things up perfectly and added new context to the events of Rogue One in the process. Here’s everything you need to know about the Andor finale and how it connects to Rogue One. Luthen and Lonni’s Sacrifice This arc begins a year after the last, as all the others have, in 1 BBY. Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) and Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) receive an urgent message from Lonni (Robert Emms) asking to meet. For the first time, Luthen and Lonni meet in public rather than in their secret elevator hideout in the depths of Coruscant.  Lonni begs for safe passage for him and his family in exchange for the information he has, claiming that he’s been burned and that the Empire will likely be after him soon. Luthen agrees to take them to Yavin, giving Lonni just enough hope to spill what he knows. Lonni starts by warning Luthen that Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) knows he’s Axis and is trying to covertly assemble a team to apprehend him.  Then Lonni reveals what really has him shaken up – the truth about the Emperor’s Energy program. After holding on to Dedra’s code cert for a year, he finally dug through her files and found out about Krennic’s (Ben Mendelsohn) secret weapon program a.k.a. the Death Star. He says that the massacre on Ghorman, and the Imperial occupation of Jedha and Scarif are all connected. He tells Luthen all about the Kyber crystals on Jedha, Galen Erso’s involvement, everything that the Rebel Alliance needs to start looking into this. Luthen kills Lonni after he shares this information, presumably paranoid about the Empire finding out what he now knows. He relays all of this to Kleya and urges her to flee and get this information to the others as quickly as possible. He stays behind and starts destroying their comms relay when Dedra appears. She comes alone, cocky and confident that she has him on the ropes, but Luthen isn’t going to go out so easily. While Dedra is waxing poetic about how she finally has him, Luthen stabs himself with a nearby relic. Dedra attempts to keep him alive by transporting him to a hospital, but Kleya is able to sneak in and take him off life support, as she knows he would want. Dedra’s Folly Even though Dedra is finally successful at capturing Luthen, we find out that her “victory” came at a cost. As soon as she gets Luthen to the hospital, she’s arrested by the ISB and Krennic is brought in to interrogate her. He asks who she told about the secret project and how she heard about Galen Erso’s involvement. He also assumes that she gave Lonni her code cert. She denies this, but also admits that there were intel bundles that were forwarded to her office by mistake. Instead of reporting them, she sifted through them for information that could lead her to Axis. But that also left the information readily available for Lonni to steal. In the final moments of episode 12, we see Dedra is now a prisoner in an Imperial prison like Cassian once was. We don’t know for sure that this is Narkina 5, the Empire is a fan of uniformity after all, but it’s pretty safe to assume that it’s at least a similar work camp environment. The Empire turned on her as soon as she outlived her usefulness and because her desire to capture Axis put the Death Star plans at risk. Rescuing Kleya and Knowledge of the Death Star Meanwhile, Cassian (Diego Luna), Melshi (Duncan Pow), and K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) are bonding on Yavin when Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier) hears a mysterious transmission that Cassian recognizes from his time with Luthen. Cassian, Melshi, and K-2SO immediately set off for Coruscant despite the protocols on Yavin forbidding them from doing so. Wilmon tells Draven (Alistair Petrie) why Cassian left, and he isn’t too thrilled about it. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! On Coruscant, Supervisor Heert (Jacob James Beswick) is put in charge of finding and capturing Kleya. He seeks advice from Dedra, which she begrudgingly gives from behind bars. The ISB is able to get Kleya’s comm table functioning enough to track her distress signal, arriving at the Coruscant safe house right after Cassian and Melshi do. At first it seems like the ISB might have them cornered, but K-2SO puts his brute force to work taking out the Imperial agents and helping them get Kleya out of Coruscant. A Meeting On Kafrene When Cassian returns to Yavin, he relays the information about Krennic’s program and the Death Star that Kleya and Luthen got from Lonni to Rebel leadership. Kleya was injured in the ISB attack and is still recovering, and Cassian knows that they need to act on this information as soon as possible. Luthen died for it, after all. The Rebel council isn’t sure if they can trust this information, but Mon wants to believe Cassian. One of Saw’s men, Tivik, has put out word that he has information, but will only speak to Cassian about it if he comes to Kafrene. Mon and Draven try to convince Bail to let Cassian follow this lead even though he’s currently being reprimanded for sneaking off Yavin to go rescue Kleya. He relents, sending Cassian and K-2SO off to Kafrene, which is where we first meet them in Rogue One. What Happened to Bix? In the final moments of the finale, we return to Mina-Rau, the planet that Bix, Brasso, and Wilmon sought refuge on after Ferrix. B2-EMO is still there, playing with the children. Finally we see Bix, standing in a field holding a child that we can probably assume is Cassian’s, and part of the reason she left a year ago. She knew that he would leave the rebellion for both of them, and she didn’t want him to do that. But now she and their child look out into the distance, at a sunrise that Cassian is currently fighting for, but will never see for himself. Both full seasons of Andor are available to stream on Disney+ now.

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Generative AI is creating a digital diaspora of techniques, technologies and tradecraft that everyone, from rogue attackers to nation-state cyber armies trained in the art of cyberwar, is adopting. Insider threats are growing, too, accelerated by job insecurity and growing inflation. All these challenges and more fall on the shoulders of the CISO, and it’s no wonder more are dealing with burnout. In Part 1: We explored how gen AI is reshaping the threat landscape, accelerating insider threats and putting unprecedented pressure on cybersecurity teams. Insider-driven risks, shadow AI usage and outdated detection models are forcing CISOs to rethink their defenses.Now, in Part 2, we turn to the solutions — how gen AI can help combat burnout across security operations centers (SOCs), enable smarter automation and guide CISOs through a 90-day roadmap to secure their enterprises against evolving threats. Battling burnout with gen AI deserves to be a 2025 CISO priority Nearly one in four CISOs consider quitting, with 93% citing extreme stress, further proving that burnout is creating increasingly severe operational and human risks. Gartner’s most recent research links burnout to decreased team efficiency and overlooked security tasks that often become vulnerabilities. Unsurprisingly, 90% of CISOs identify burnout as one of the main barriers that stand in the way of their teams getting more accomplished and using the full extent of their skills. How bad is burnout across cybersecurity and SOC teams? The majority of CISOs, 65%, say that burnout is a severe impediment to maintaining effective security operations. Forrester adds that 36% of the cybersecurity workforce are categorized as “Tired Rockstars,” or individuals who remain highly engaged but are on the brink of burnout. This emphasizes the critical need to address mental health and workload management proactively.​ SOC analysts endure heavy workloads that often turn severe when they have to monitor, analyze and aggregate insights from an average of over 10,000+ alerts a day. Chronic stress and not having enough control over their jobs lead to high turnover, with 65% considering leaving their careers. Ivanti’s 2024 Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Report underscores a vital cybersecurity link, noting that 93% of professionals agree improved DEX strengthens security, yet just 13% prioritize it. Ivanti SVP Daren Goeson told VentureBeat in a recent interview that “organizations often lack effective tools to measure digital employee experience, significantly slowing security and productivity initiatives.” SOC teams are particularly hard hit by burnout. While AI can’t solve the entire challenge, it can help automate SOC workflows and accelerate triage. Forrester is urging CISOs to think beyond automating existing processes and move forward with rationalizing security controls, deploying gen AI within existing platforms. Jeff Pollard, VP at Forrester, writes: “The only way to deal with the volatility your organization encounters is to simplify your control stack while identifying unnecessary duplicate spend and gen AI can boost productivity, but negotiating its pricing strategically will help you achieve more with less.” There are over 16 vendors of new-gen AI-based apps aimed at helping SOC teams that are in a race against time every day, especially when it comes to containing breakout times. CrowdStrike’s recent global threat report emphasizes why SOCs need to always have their A-game, as adversaries now break out within 2 minutes and 7 seconds after gaining initial access. Their recent introduction of Charlotte AI Detection Triage has proven capable of automating alert assessment with over 98% accuracy. It cuts manual triage by more than 40 hours per week, all without losing control or precision. SOCs increasingly lean on AI copilots to fight signal overload and staffing shortfalls. VentureBeat’s Security Copilot Guide (Google Sheet) provides a complete matrix with 16 vendors’ AI security copilots. What needs to be on every CISO’s roadmap in 2025 Cybersecurity leaders and their teams have significant influence on how, when and what gen AI applications and platforms their enterprises invest in. Gartner’s Phillip Shattan writes that “when it comes to generation AI-related decisions, SRM leaders wield significant influence, with over 70% reporting that cybersecurity has some influence over the decisions they make.” With so much influence on the future of gen AI investment in their organizations, CISOs need to have a solid framework or roadmap against which to plan. VentureBeat is seeing more roadmaps comparable to the one structured below for ensuring the integration of gen AI, cybersecurity and risk management initiatives. The following is a guideline that needs to be tailored to the unique needs of a business: Days 0–30: Establish core cybersecurity foundations 1. Set the goal of defining the structure and role of an AI governance framework Define formal AI policies outlining responsible data use, model training protocols, privacy controls and ethical standards. Vendors to consider: IBM AI Governance, Microsoft Purview, ServiceNow AI Governance, AWS AI Service Cards If not already in place, deploy real-time AI monitoring tools to detect unauthorized usage, anomalous behaviors and data leakage from models. Recommended platforms: Robust Intelligence, CalypsoAI, HiddenLayer, Arize AI, Credo AI, Arthur AI Train SOC, security and risk management teams on the AI-specific risks to alleviate any conflicts over how AI governance frameworks are designed to work. 2. If not already in place, get a solid Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform in place Keep building a business case for zero trust by illustrating how improving identity protection helps protect and grow revenue. Deploy a robust IAM solution to reinforce identity protection and revenue security. Top IAM platforms: If not already done, immediately conduct comprehensive audits of all user identities, focusing particularly on privileged access accounts. Enable real-time monitoring for all privileged access accounts and delete unused accounts for contractors. Implement strict least-privilege access policies, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and continuous adaptive authentication based on contextual risk assessments to strengthen your zero-trust framework. Leading Zero-Trust solutions include CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Cisco Duo Security and Cloudflare Zero Trust. Establish real-time monitoring and behavioral analytics to identify and reduce insider threats rapidly. Insider threat detection leaders: Proofpoint Insider Threat Management, Varonis DatAdvantage, Forcepoint Insider Threat, DTEX Systems, Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management. Days 31–60: Accelerate Proactive Security Operations 1. Replace manual patch workflows with an automated patch management systems Your organization needs to move beyond fire drills and severity-based patch cycles to a continuous, real-time vulnerability monitoring and patch deployment strategy. AI is helping cut the risks of breaches with patch management. Six in ten breaches are linked to unpatched vulnerabilities. The majority of IT leaders responding to a Ponemon Institute survey, 60%, say that one or more of the breaches potentially occurred because a patch was available for a known vulnerability but not applied in time. Leading automated patch management vendors: Ivanti Neurons for Patch Management, Qualys Patch Management, Tanium Patch Management, CrowdStrike Falcon Spotlight, Rapid7 InsightVM. Implement automated tools prioritizing patches based on active exploitation, threat intelligence insights and business-critical asset prioritization. Establish transparent processes for immediate response to emerging threats, drastically reducing exposure windows. 2. Initiate comprehensive Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) If not already in progress in your organization, start evaluating the value of CRQ frameworks in improving how cybersecurity risks are measured and communicated in financial and business impact terms. Trusted CRQ solutions: BitSight, SecurityScorecard, Axio360, RiskLens, MetricStream, Safe Security, IBM Security Risk Quantification Services. Test out a CRQ by creating a detailed risk dashboard for executives and stakeholders, linking cybersecurity investments directly to strategic business outcomes. Conduct regular CRQ assessments to inform proactive security spending and resource allocation decisions clearly and strategically. Days 61–90: Keep optimizing security efficiency to fuel greater team resilience 1. Consolidate and Integrate Security Tools Audit existing cybersecurity tools, eliminating redundancies and streamlining capabilities into fewer, fully integrated platforms. Comprehensive integrated platforms: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Microsoft Sentinel, CrowdStrike Falcon Platform, Splunk Security Cloud, Cisco SecureX, Trellix XDR, Arctic Wolf Security Operations Cloud. Check for strong interoperability and reliable integration among cybersecurity tools to improve threat detection, response times and overall operational efficiency. Regularly review and adjust consolidated toolsets based on evolving threat landscapes and organizational security needs. 2. Implement structured burnout mitigation and automation Starting in the SOC, leverage AI-driven automation to offload repetitive cybersecurity tasks, including triage, log analysis, vulnerability scanning and initial threat triage, significantly reducing manual workloads. Recommended SOC automation tools: CrowdStrike Falcon Fusion, SentinelOne Singularity XDR, Microsoft Defender & Copilot, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR, Ivanti Neurons for Security Operations Establish structured recovery protocols, mandating cooldown periods and rotation schedules after major cybersecurity incidents to reduce analyst fatigue. Define a balanced, regular cadence of ongoing cybersecurity training, mental well-being initiatives, and institutionalized burnout mitigation practices to sustain long-term team resilience and efficiency. Automation and burnout mitigation vendors: Tines, Torq.io, Swimlane, Chronicle Security Operations Suite (Google Cloud), LogicHub SOAR+, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR Conclusion With modest budget and headcount increases, CISOs and their teams are being called to defend more threat vectors than ever. Many tell VentureBeat it’s a continual balancing act that demands more time, training, and trade-offs on which legacy apps stay and which go, all defining how their future tech stack will look. CISOs who see gen AI as a strategic technology that can help unify and close gaps in security infrastructure are thorough in their vetting of new apps and tools before they go into production. While gen AI continues to fuel new adversarial AI techniques and tradecraft, cybersecurity vendors respond by accelerating the development of next-generation products. Paradoxically, the more advanced threatcraft becomes with adversarial AI, the more critical it becomes for defenders adopting AI to pursue and perfect human-in-the-middle designs that can flex and adapt to changing threats. Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Generative AI is creating a digital diaspora of techniques, technologies and tradecraft that everyone, from rogue attackers to nation-state cyber armies trained in the art of cyberwar, is adopting. Insider threats are growing, too, accelerated by job insecurity and growing inflation. All these challenges and more fall on the shoulders of the CISO, and it’s no wonder more are dealing with burnout. In Part 1: We explored how gen AI is reshaping the threat landscape, accelerating insider threats and putting unprecedented pressure on cybersecurity teams. Insider-driven risks, shadow AI usage and outdated detection models are forcing CISOs to rethink their defenses.Now, in Part 2, we turn to the solutions — how gen AI can help combat burnout across security operations centers (SOCs), enable smarter automation and guide CISOs through a 90-day roadmap to secure their enterprises against evolving threats. Battling burnout with gen AI deserves to be a 2025 CISO priority Nearly one in four CISOs consider quitting, with 93% citing extreme stress, further proving that burnout is creating increasingly severe operational and human risks. Gartner’s most recent research links burnout to decreased team efficiency and overlooked security tasks that often become vulnerabilities. Unsurprisingly, 90% of CISOs identify burnout as one of the main barriers that stand in the way of their teams getting more accomplished and using the full extent of their skills. How bad is burnout across cybersecurity and SOC teams? The majority of CISOs, 65%, say that burnout is a severe impediment to maintaining effective security operations. Forrester adds that 36% of the cybersecurity workforce are categorized as “Tired Rockstars,” or individuals who remain highly engaged but are on the brink of burnout. This emphasizes the critical need to address mental health and workload management proactively.​ SOC analysts endure heavy workloads that often turn severe when they have to monitor, analyze and aggregate insights from an average of over 10,000+ alerts a day. Chronic stress and not having enough control over their jobs lead to high turnover, with 65% considering leaving their careers. Ivanti’s 2024 Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Report underscores a vital cybersecurity link, noting that 93% of professionals agree improved DEX strengthens security, yet just 13% prioritize it. Ivanti SVP Daren Goeson told VentureBeat in a recent interview that “organizations often lack effective tools to measure digital employee experience, significantly slowing security and productivity initiatives.” SOC teams are particularly hard hit by burnout. While AI can’t solve the entire challenge, it can help automate SOC workflows and accelerate triage. Forrester is urging CISOs to think beyond automating existing processes and move forward with rationalizing security controls, deploying gen AI within existing platforms. Jeff Pollard, VP at Forrester, writes: “The only way to deal with the volatility your organization encounters is to simplify your control stack while identifying unnecessary duplicate spend and gen AI can boost productivity, but negotiating its pricing strategically will help you achieve more with less.” There are over 16 vendors of new-gen AI-based apps aimed at helping SOC teams that are in a race against time every day, especially when it comes to containing breakout times. CrowdStrike’s recent global threat report emphasizes why SOCs need to always have their A-game, as adversaries now break out within 2 minutes and 7 seconds after gaining initial access. Their recent introduction of Charlotte AI Detection Triage has proven capable of automating alert assessment with over 98% accuracy. It cuts manual triage by more than 40 hours per week, all without losing control or precision. SOCs increasingly lean on AI copilots to fight signal overload and staffing shortfalls. VentureBeat’s Security Copilot Guide (Google Sheet) provides a complete matrix with 16 vendors’ AI security copilots. What needs to be on every CISO’s roadmap in 2025 Cybersecurity leaders and their teams have significant influence on how, when and what gen AI applications and platforms their enterprises invest in. Gartner’s Phillip Shattan writes that “when it comes to generation AI-related decisions, SRM leaders wield significant influence, with over 70% reporting that cybersecurity has some influence over the decisions they make.” With so much influence on the future of gen AI investment in their organizations, CISOs need to have a solid framework or roadmap against which to plan. VentureBeat is seeing more roadmaps comparable to the one structured below for ensuring the integration of gen AI, cybersecurity and risk management initiatives. The following is a guideline that needs to be tailored to the unique needs of a business: Days 0–30: Establish core cybersecurity foundations 1. Set the goal of defining the structure and role of an AI governance framework Define formal AI policies outlining responsible data use, model training protocols, privacy controls and ethical standards. Vendors to consider: IBM AI Governance, Microsoft Purview, ServiceNow AI Governance, AWS AI Service Cards If not already in place, deploy real-time AI monitoring tools to detect unauthorized usage, anomalous behaviors and data leakage from models. Recommended platforms: Robust Intelligence, CalypsoAI, HiddenLayer, Arize AI, Credo AI, Arthur AI Train SOC, security and risk management teams on the AI-specific risks to alleviate any conflicts over how AI governance frameworks are designed to work. 2. If not already in place, get a solid Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform in place Keep building a business case for zero trust by illustrating how improving identity protection helps protect and grow revenue. Deploy a robust IAM solution to reinforce identity protection and revenue security. Top IAM platforms: If not already done, immediately conduct comprehensive audits of all user identities, focusing particularly on privileged access accounts. Enable real-time monitoring for all privileged access accounts and delete unused accounts for contractors. Implement strict least-privilege access policies, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and continuous adaptive authentication based on contextual risk assessments to strengthen your zero-trust framework. Leading Zero-Trust solutions include CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Cisco Duo Security and Cloudflare Zero Trust. Establish real-time monitoring and behavioral analytics to identify and reduce insider threats rapidly. Insider threat detection leaders: Proofpoint Insider Threat Management, Varonis DatAdvantage, Forcepoint Insider Threat, DTEX Systems, Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management. Days 31–60: Accelerate Proactive Security Operations 1. Replace manual patch workflows with an automated patch management systems Your organization needs to move beyond fire drills and severity-based patch cycles to a continuous, real-time vulnerability monitoring and patch deployment strategy. AI is helping cut the risks of breaches with patch management. Six in ten breaches are linked to unpatched vulnerabilities. The majority of IT leaders responding to a Ponemon Institute survey, 60%, say that one or more of the breaches potentially occurred because a patch was available for a known vulnerability but not applied in time. Leading automated patch management vendors: Ivanti Neurons for Patch Management, Qualys Patch Management, Tanium Patch Management, CrowdStrike Falcon Spotlight, Rapid7 InsightVM. Implement automated tools prioritizing patches based on active exploitation, threat intelligence insights and business-critical asset prioritization. Establish transparent processes for immediate response to emerging threats, drastically reducing exposure windows. 2. Initiate comprehensive Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) If not already in progress in your organization, start evaluating the value of CRQ frameworks in improving how cybersecurity risks are measured and communicated in financial and business impact terms. Trusted CRQ solutions: BitSight, SecurityScorecard, Axio360, RiskLens, MetricStream, Safe Security, IBM Security Risk Quantification Services. Test out a CRQ by creating a detailed risk dashboard for executives and stakeholders, linking cybersecurity investments directly to strategic business outcomes. Conduct regular CRQ assessments to inform proactive security spending and resource allocation decisions clearly and strategically. Days 61–90: Keep optimizing security efficiency to fuel greater team resilience 1. Consolidate and Integrate Security Tools Audit existing cybersecurity tools, eliminating redundancies and streamlining capabilities into fewer, fully integrated platforms. Comprehensive integrated platforms: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, Microsoft Sentinel, CrowdStrike Falcon Platform, Splunk Security Cloud, Cisco SecureX, Trellix XDR, Arctic Wolf Security Operations Cloud. Check for strong interoperability and reliable integration among cybersecurity tools to improve threat detection, response times and overall operational efficiency. Regularly review and adjust consolidated toolsets based on evolving threat landscapes and organizational security needs. 2. Implement structured burnout mitigation and automation Starting in the SOC, leverage AI-driven automation to offload repetitive cybersecurity tasks, including triage, log analysis, vulnerability scanning and initial threat triage, significantly reducing manual workloads. Recommended SOC automation tools: CrowdStrike Falcon Fusion, SentinelOne Singularity XDR, Microsoft Defender & Copilot, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR, Ivanti Neurons for Security Operations Establish structured recovery protocols, mandating cooldown periods and rotation schedules after major cybersecurity incidents to reduce analyst fatigue. Define a balanced, regular cadence of ongoing cybersecurity training, mental well-being initiatives, and institutionalized burnout mitigation practices to sustain long-term team resilience and efficiency. Automation and burnout mitigation vendors: Tines, Torq.io, Swimlane, Chronicle Security Operations Suite (Google Cloud), LogicHub SOAR+, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR Conclusion With modest budget and headcount increases, CISOs and their teams are being called to defend more threat vectors than ever. Many tell VentureBeat it’s a continual balancing act that demands more time, training, and trade-offs on which legacy apps stay and which go, all defining how their future tech stack will look. CISOs who see gen AI as a strategic technology that can help unify and close gaps in security infrastructure are thorough in their vetting of new apps and tools before they go into production. While gen AI continues to fuel new adversarial AI techniques and tradecraft, cybersecurity vendors respond by accelerating the development of next-generation products. Paradoxically, the more advanced threatcraft becomes with adversarial AI, the more critical it becomes for defenders adopting AI to pursue and perfect human-in-the-middle designs that can flex and adapt to changing threats. Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, as noted by watchdog group The Midas Project. xAI isn’t exactly known for its strong commitments to AI safety as it’s commonly understood. A recent report found that the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, would undress photos of women when asked. Grok can also be considerably more crass than chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT, cursing without much restraint to speak of. Nonetheless, in February at the AI Seoul Summit, a global gathering of AI leaders and stakeholders, xAI published a draft framework outlining the company’s approach to AI safety. The eight-page document laid out xAI’s safety priorities and philosophy, including the company’s benchmarking protocols and AI model deployment considerations. As The Midas Project noted in the blog post on Tuesday, however, the draft only applied to unspecified future AI models “not currently in development.” Moreover, it failed to articulate how xAI would identify and implement risk mitigations, a core component of a document the company signed at the AI Seoul Summit. In the draft, xAI said that it planned to release a revised version of its safety policy “within three months” — by May 10. The deadline came and went without acknowledgement on xAI’s official channels. Despite Musk’s frequent warnings of the dangers of AI gone unchecked, xAI has a poor AI safety track record. A recent study by SaferAI, a nonprofit aiming to improve the accountability of AI labs, found that xAI ranks poorly among its peers, owing to its “very weak” risk management practices. That’s not to suggest other AI labs are faring dramatically better. In recent months, xAI rivals including Google and OpenAI have rushed safety testing and have been slow to publish model safety reports (or skipped publishing reports altogether). Some experts have expressed concern that the seeming deprioritization of safety efforts is coming at a time when AI is more capable — and thus potentially dangerous — than ever. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Apple was reluctant to upgrade its messaging protocols to the new RCS standard initially, and ever since it gave in, Google claims that almost 1 billion messages are sent daily in the United States. The number is enormous, and the iPhone's adoption has a significant role to play in this regard. Google mocked Apple, called it by name, and was hell-bent on getting the company to adopt the new standard, and there was a reason for it. Despite RCS growth, SMS/MMS still leads in message volume, highlighting gaps in carrier support and adoption In the U.S., the iPhone is quite popular, and with it, Apple's iMessage platform. Google wanted to create an alternative messaging service to iMessage, and the closer it could get to it was by making Apple accept RCS as the new protocol for the Messages app. This allowed non-iPhone smartphones to send and receive not just texts but media, voice notes, reactions, and a lot more. While Apple has a lot to do with the boosted adoption rate, the new RCS standard gained a massive user base back in 2023, as the service gathered over a billion monthly users. Fast forward to 2025, and RCS is being used at a whole new level, beating any previous record. Google has come out and stated that users in the United States send more than "a billion" RCS messages daily. Over the last few years, we’ve been focused on improving how people connect, no matter what phone they have. That’s why we helped make RCS the messaging standard for Android and iOS. Now, in the U.S. alone, there are more than a billion RCS messages sent every day (based on an average of the last 28 days). This means more people have been able to send high-quality photos and videos, and add someone to the group chat without it breaking. While the number is bigger than before, SMS and MMS messages still take the lead in the United States, with over 6 billion messages sent on a daily basis. This is because there are still carriers in the United States that do not support the new RCS standard on the iPhone yet, which is causing the number to be a lot lower than it should be. Once the carriers update their systems with the new standards, it is certain that the adoption will skyrocket. Do you use RCS on your Android device on a daily basis? Let us know your thoughts in the comments if it feels like an upgrade over traditional SMS/MMS messages. Deal of the Day

The Trump administration's plan to accept a luxury jet donated by the Qatari government to use as Air Force One raises significant security concerns, intelligence experts and government officials say, as President Donald Trump said it would be "stupid" not to accept a free plane.Trump on Monday defended the administration's plans to receive a luxury jet donated by the Qatari government during remarks at the White House, calling the donation a "very nice gesture.""I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, 'No, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.' But it was, I thought it was a great gesture," he said.MORE: Trump admin live updatesRhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed the move, arguing that using the plane as Air Force One would "pose immense counterintelligence risks by granting a foreign nation potential access to sensitive systems and communications.""This reckless disregard for national security and diplomatic propriety signals a dangerous willingness to barter American interests for personal gain," Reed said in a statement Monday. "It is an affront to the office of the presidency and a betrayal of the trust placed in any U.S. leader to safeguard the nation's sovereignty."Air Force One a 'high-value target'Air Force One sits on the tarmac, May 12, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThe primary aircraft used in the current Air Force One fleet includes two aging Boeing 747-200 jumbo jets that have been operational since 1990. Despite flying for more than 35 years, the current pair of Air Force One jets are considered some of the safest and secure aircraft in the world.Many of the security features on the plane remain classified. It has anti-missile defenses or countermeasure systems to protect against surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, and the communication devices can also withstand the pulse of a nuclear blast. It is also outfitted with sophisticated communications capability to allow the president to securely run the country from the plane and protect him from cyberattacks."It's designed to transport the president in a safe way and be able to withstand physical attacks, but to also ensure that the president maintains communication with military, his cabinet, other government leaders in a safe and secure manner," said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former acting Homeland Security official. "Any building or vehicle or airplane that the president is located is a high-value target for foreign intelligence services who want to gather as much information about the president."Air Force One can also remain in the air for several days due to its ability to refuel in midair. The plane also houses a small medical facility where doctors could perform surgery if needed.All of these systems would likely need to be installed on the Boeing 747-8 that Trump would receive as a gift from Qatar.MORE: Trump defends Qatar jumbo jet offer, says it would be 'stupid' to turn away free planeA jet donated by Qatar would also be a "counterintelligence nightmare," ABC News contributor Darrell Blocker, a former CIA field operative, said."If you go back to almost anything that is given by a foreign government, there are regulations and restrictions and guidelines for ensuring that they're not being bugged, and a plane would be an absolute nightmare to be able to confirm that it's not," Blocker told ABC News Live on Monday. "From an intelligence perspective, it's not the brightest move."Blocker cited that when the U.S. embassy was being built in Moscow in the 1980s, the U.S. had to "take it down to its bare bones" because the Russians "put bugs through every room, every facility.""I think the people of Troy, when they accepted that horse, regretted it after the fact also," he said.The complexity and time needed to retrofit and inspect the plane raise questions on cost and a timeline."Even under the best of circumstances, it's going to take a significant effort for the military to be satisfied that the aircraft is constructed safely, that it's not compromised from the standpoint of intelligence collection capabilities being planted on it, and that it is built in a way that it will be able to assimilate the sensitive communications and countermeasure capabilities that are that are present on any plane that's Air Force One," Cohen said. "To be done right, it's not going to happen quickly.""In order to adequately ensure that this airplane -- which was operated by a foreign government that happens to have a relationship with Iran and China and Russia -- in order to ensure that that plane has not had collection capabilities introduced into it when it was constructed, they're gonna have to basically tear it down to the airframe," he added.White House working on 'legal details'Both the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense referred questions to the White House when asked about the possible transfer of the Qatari-owned Boeing 747 to the Department of Defense."The plane will be donated to the Department of Defense, and as with any foreign gift given to the United States Government, all proper safety and security protocols will be followed," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News.House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he would not comment on Trump preparing to receive the jet from Qatar because he hasn't seen the "details."The White House is working on the "legal details" of the Qatari government's donation to the Defense Department, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday in an appearance on Fox News."But, of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law. And we commit ourselves to the utmost transparency and we will continue to do that," Leavitt added.President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on his way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 12, 2025.Manuel Balce Ceneta/APTrump said during remarks at the White House on Monday that he doesn't plan to use the plane after he leaves office. Pressed by ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott on what he would say to people who view the luxury plane as a personal gift to him, Trump said it was not a gift to him but "a gift to the Department of Defense."Sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News that the plane would be a gift that is to be available for use by Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation.If a private contractor were able to complete the modifications needed to the donated plane before the end of Trump's presidency, many of the systems installed would then need to be removed should the Trump presidential library foundation take possession of the plane upon Trump leaving office due to the sensitive nature of the technology.Ultimately, Cohen said he suspects that members of the intelligence community and the military will assess the risk to national security and "the level of effort to minimize the risk to national security.""If they're doing their job, the president's national security team will explain to him the level of risk that exists if a foreign intelligence service were able to introduce collection capabilities that could intercept face-to-face communications on the plane, electronic communications coming from the plane," Cohen said. "They should also be explaining to him the level of effort that it will involve in order for that risk to be mitigated. And with that information, he can then make an informed decision on whether and under what conditions to accept the airplane."