Pasting in the whole chat history cost 20 to 31 times more than looking up notes, and it did no better on the tasks. The post I Tested Four Ways to Give an AI Assistant a Memory. The Obvious One Was the Worst Value. appeared first on Towards Data Science.

I am excited to see Delta's next-generation business-class fly in early 2027. Taylor Rains/Business Insider Delta Air Lines unveiled a new business-class seat designed for its Airbus A350-1000s. The seats have privacy doors, longer beds, and plentiful storage. The inflight menu has also been overhauled in partnership with a Michelin-starred chef. Business class is booming as travelers increasingly splurge on premium travel — and Delta Air Lines just unveiled its fanciest seat yet. At a New York City event on Tuesday, the airline showed off its next-generation Delta One suite planned for its future Airbus A350-1000s. It will be Delta's biggest plane flying — stretching longer and wider than its current Airbus A330s and future Boeing 787s — so the team had a lot of cabin real estate to work with. Ekrem Dimbiloglu, Delta's managing director of fleet and uniform experience, told media during the tour that customers care most about sleep and privacy, so Delta stretched the bed to 6 feet 9 inches long, which he said is enough to fit "99.999% of Americans." The seats also angle toward the window rather than being forward-facing, adding more privacy, and feature new and improved perks like a dedicated laptop holder and an overhauled food and drink menu. Here's a closer look at some of the best upgrades coming to the bougie new Delta One suite. The new suite will debut on A350-1000s in early 2027. A handful of airlines have ordered the A350-1000, the larger sister of the A350-900 that Delta already flies. Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images The new seat, which took two years to design and is part of Delta's larger $1 billion fleet investment, will first fly transoceanic routes from Los Angeles in early 2027. Delta has 20 firm orders for the A350-1000. Delta is also adding upgraded door-equipped Delta One suites to A330 planes. Among the biggest upgrades are privacy and the bed. The linens and amenity kits are custom-made by the Italian company Missoni. Taylor Rains/Business Insider Dimbiloglu said the 81-inch bed is three inches longer than before, and that about one in 44,000 men are taller than that — meaning virtually all Delta One flyers can fit. It also angles in toward the window as a reverse herringbone design, providing additional privacy beyond the sliding door. The beds come with linens and amenity kits made by the Italian company Missoni. The new Delta One still boasts fan-favorite doors. The suite was on display on the 72nd floor of Summit Vanderbilt in NYC. Taylor Rains/Business Insider Speaking of doors, Delta kept the staple. That's a no-brainer, considering Delta was among the first US carriers to introduce doors in business class back in 2017, and the perk has become table stakes for travel these days. And Dimbiloglu said the doors would be "certified from day one." That contrasts with carriers like American, which have introduced new cabins before their seats were fully certified by the Federal Aviation Administration for flight. That has forced airlines to fly with suite doors locked open or fly with business-class seats empty while certification is completed. The suite has a giant 24-inch seatback screen with Bluetooth. The new Delta inflight entertainment system can hold 50x more content. Taylor Rains/Business Insider Dimbiloglu said it's the largest screen across any US airline's standard business class. The ones on United and American's standard business seats are 19 and 17 inches, respectively. United also has extra-large Studio Suites with 27-inch screens. There's also plenty of charging ports, headphones, and a remote. There are several thoughtful new storage nooks. The shoe nook was below the seat. Taylor Rains/Business Insider I've flown business class a dozen times and find that storage is hit-or-miss. Between my laptop, shoes, and chargers, it's sometimes hard to keep everything organized, depending on the carrier. The new Delta One has several purposefully designed nooks: one for a laptop, one for shoes, a hook for glasses, and a slot to string a charging cable so it's out of the way. There's also a larger cubby and tabletop space. The Delta logo is everywhere. My sunglasses are hanging on the glasses hook on the left. Taylor Rains/Business Insider Dimbiloglu said the Delta widget — the red triangle branding you see on its planes and uniforms — is on the lamp and one of the cubby backdrops. "We're tying in our people and what we wear in our uniforms into the Delta One experience," he said. Delta has overhauled its business-class menu with new meals and wine. The food samples media tried are smaller versions of the full dishes that will be served in Delta One. Taylor Rains/Business Insider Members of the media who attended the event tried a number of new Delta meals and drinks coming to business class, developed by Delta's culinary team in partnership with Michelin-starred British chef Simon Hulstone and Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson. Options include a wagyu burger, tomato soup, short rib, sea bass, and braised lamb. There are vegetarian options, too, along with a number of white and red wines, Champagne, and strawberry sorbet. Everything was delicious, and I liked the plating and tableware. Taste can change at altitude, so it's yet to be seen whether the flavors do; though, in my experience, Delta catering has been among the best in the US. The experience will first be available on transoceanic flights departing Los Angeles this fall before expanding across Delta's global network in early 2027. The new Delta One does not have an ottoman seat option. United hosted an event in Los Angeles where the media could tour the aircraft. Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images Several airlines offer oversize business-class suites, such as United's Studio Suite, with an ottoman seat so two people can eat, meet, or socialize during the flight. The upgrade often costs extra. Delta did not unveil an ottoman suite in its new Delta One — something I was disappointed not to see — but Dimbiloglu said to stay tuned. "We're working through that, and I know our competitors are moving in there," he said. "We're not announcing it today, but you can rest assured we're watching that, and know how important it is for customers," he said Tuesday. The new suite is impressive, and it's clear Delta knows how to cater to its highest-paying customers. The suite comes with everything I'd expect in a modern business-class suite, though we're still waiting on word about a potential ottoman seat. Taylor Rains/Business Insider Delta bills itself as the US's most premium airline, though that's up for debate depending on who you ask. I've flown in Delta's current business class a number of times, including in versions with and without doors. I love the latest version with doors and good storage, but the forward-facing layout paired with no doors on its 767s — which fly a big chunk of international long-haul — is not ideal. So I'm glad Delta's future A350s and its A330s will offer more privacy, especially as doors have become an industry-wide expectation rather than an exclusive perk. And I personally like the oversize ottoman design popping up across airlines — and I wonder if Delta will ultimately decide it's worth the investment. Read the original article on Business Insider

SpaceX "will make you whole" if your AI agent makes unauthorized purchases, Musk said on X. Win McNamee/Getty Images Elon Musk says SpaceX "will make you whole" if your Grok AI agent makes unauthorized purchases. Musk's comment, though light on detail, is a departure from the standard approach to agent mistakes. Grok, Meta, and OpenAI's terms of service generally place responsibility for agent actions on users. Elon Musk said that SpaceX will pay users back if Grok’s AI agent makes a mistake while completing a purchase or leaks their card information. In a Thursday X post, Musk said the company "will make you whole" if Grok makes a financial mistake. He made the comment in response to an X user praising Grok for booking them a flight after being sent a photograph of their credit card. The user described the airline’s website as confusing and said Grok completed the transaction and delivered a booking confirmation. This works well. If Grok @Bot makes a mistake with a purchase or leaks your card (never happened yet), SpaceX will make you whole. https://t.co/JZDQm3a95r — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026 "This works well," Musk wrote. "If Grok Bot makes a mistake with a purchase or leaks your card (never happened yet), SpaceX will make you whole." Grok, Meta, and OpenAI all take a broadly similar approach in their published terms for agents: users are responsible for the actions and transactions their AI agents carry out on their behalf. Meta says Muse requires approval before purchases, while Grok’s terms include interactions with financial institutions, but none offers the kind of explicit reimbursement pledge Musk described. Musk did not set out the scope of the apparent guarantee, including whether it would cover unauthorized purchases, incorrect bookings, fraud by third-party merchants, or consequential losses such as missed travel. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk's assertion. The risks are already emerging as agents gain access to payment methods and online accounts. In a recent example involving Grok, Shane Mac, the CEO of software company XMTP Labs, told Business Insider's Aditi Bharade that a personal-finance agent he created posted his bank balances and spending details in his company’s executive Slack channel after confusing two similarly named chats. Grok’s team later changed its permission controls, according to Mac. Similarly, one user of the AI agent Instinct said it ordered 20 pounds of chicken wings during an agent-assisted grocery shop, while a Muse user said the agent accepted a low offer for a keyboard on Facebook Marketplace and shared his home address with the buyer. He later said he had selected an "Allow Always" setting, though he had believed the agent would still seek approval before accepting offers. While Musk’s promise is short on detail, it raises a broader question for the companies building agents that can spend money and access sensitive data: Will users continue to be expected to bear the risk, or will the companies behind the tools begin to share it? Read the original article on Business Insider

Facebook is rolling out AI controls for Feed and Reels. Learn how ‘Your Algorithm’ lets you shape recommendations and what users should expect from the tools. The post Facebook Adds AI Controls to Customize Feed and Reels appeared first on TechRepublic.

The author said she enjoyed planning solo travel, but adding kids to the equation made that more complicated. Now, she uses group tours to help her plan amazing family trips. Courtesy of Jamie Davis Smith. I travel more than most and love planning trips. Having kids changed that process for me. Much to my surprise, group tours are now one of my favorite ways to travel with my children. Tours offer stress-free itineraries and local insights that we would have likely missed otherwise. I started traveling around the world on my own in my early 20s. There was nothing I enjoyed more than hopping on a plane with nothing but my Lonely Planet guidebook and the vaguest outline of a plan. Once I had kids, I realized I needed to plan much more. I still took a DIY approach, because it didn't occur to me to travel any other way. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. And if something went wrong, I had to figure out a Plan B on my own. As life got busier and I had less time, arranging travel started to seem like a chore. I didn't want to stop showing my kids the world, but I needed an assist. A few times, I consulted with a travel agent. Although agents were helpful, explaining what I wanted and going back and forth was nearly as much work as planning the trip myself. A family tour simplified travel Then, a few years ago, I decided to try a different approach and booked a small-group family tour to Morocco. I wondered whether I would miss the spontaneity of traveling by myself and whether I would get along with the strangers on the trip. The author (right) said that her family has enjoyed connecting with others while on group tours. Courtesy of Jamie Davis Smith. However, I appreciated the simplicity of a set itinerary that still included plenty of free time. Even if the tour wasn't exactly what I would have chosen, it was a relief to have a set plan and a local guide to handle all the logistics. Plus, I liked that my kids would have other kids to play with during the trip. I fell in love with group family tours Almost as soon as the tour started, my worries eased. That first tour with Intrepid Travel several years ago was so easy and so much fun that I have since taken four more. After Morocco, my family went on tours to India, Japan, Jordan, and most recently, Peru. Our trip to Peru was everything I hoped for. I had a stress-free way to shepherd my kids to Machu Picchu and got plenty of insider tips. We also participated in activities I likely would not have found on my own, such as learning to make and play our own traditional pan flutes. The other families on the trip always make it better Although I worried about traveling with others, I appreciate that the tours I've taken have all had fewer than 20 people. Because we all booked the same tour, we were surrounded by like-minded families. Additionally, we had a guide who helped us get to know one another. The author (left) said that her kids usually enjoy hanging out with other kids while on the group tours. Courtesy of Jamie Davis Smith. Moreover, the other families were always willing to pitch in and help each other. When I was very tired one night, other parents stepped in to supervise my kids through dinner and play a few rounds of UNO. I have also volunteered to take other kids along on side quests, such as to India's Rat Temple, when their parents wanted to stay behind. My children have always become fast friends with other kids in the groups we're traveling with. Similarly, I still stay in touch with some of the parents I've met on my trips. I love that, thanks to these trips, we have friends around the world. A local guide helps me travel stress-free and have a more meaningful experience Some benefits of group trips surprised me. I knew not having to research hotels and train schedules would save time. Nevertheless, I was surprised by how much stress disappeared once I no longer had to check into hotels, choose restaurants several times a day, and do the math to figure out how long it would take to get from place to place. As a result, I was able to enjoy myself, my children, and, overall, my trips much more. Additionally, before I started traveling with a local guide, I didn't fully appreciate how much I was missing regarding customs and culture. On guided trips, instead of zoning out on my phone on bus rides or in the hotel after dinner, I talk to my local guide about everything from food customs to marriage rituals. My kids always ask what it is like to go to school and which games children like to play. It is also helpful to have someone nearby who can translate when we need to use the bathroom or have a question about an attraction. Even on a group trip, I find ways to customize the experience Despite the ease of sticking to the tour's itinerary, I appreciate the flexibility of the group tours we've been on. In Jordan, my kids wanted to skip an afternoon outing to spend more time at the beach and pool. It was the reset they needed to enjoy the trip, and no one minded my family peeling away for a few hours. The author said she always finds a way to personalize these group tours, like when her family sneaks away to try a different restaurant or explore other attractions on their own. Courtesy of Jamie Davis Smith. Other times, we've decided to grab meals on our own or use the built-in free time to explore, such as visiting additional ruins not originally included in our tour of Jordan. Things aren't always perfect, but the good outweighs the bad Group family trips aren't always perfect, I've been dragged to restaurants I knew my children would hate because the rest of the group wanted to go. I've had more early-morning wake-ups than I would like and have sometimes endured long bus rides I might have skipped on my own. However, I try to keep the perspective that things aren't perfect when I plan on my own either. The benefits of family group trips have greatly outweighed the downsides, and I am already looking forward to my next one. Read the original article on Business Insider

Tyler Le/BI One Friday evening this summer, a private chef prepared a three-course meal — burrata salad, baked salmon, and tiramisu — for two friends and me. The dinner was free, but there was a catch. A camera mounted on Chef Aliser Demir's baseball cap was recording everything. Demir came to my apartment through Shift, the data-collection arm of the German startup Microagi. The startup offers free private chefs in San Francisco in exchange for first-person footage of their work. Shift offered to pay Demir, who runs a private chef business, his usual rate of $100 to $150 per person. "I've been feeding people since I started this job," Demir said. "Now I am also feeding AI." This story is part of a series called The AI Data Grab, an inside look at how tech giants are increasingly turning to workers, users, and the physical world to get data to train AI. Read more stories in this series here. Demir is part of a global effort to collect data on how humans interact with the physical world, with the goal of building machines that can staff factories, clean homes, and even fight wars. Elon Musk, who is betting Tesla's future on the humanoid robot Optimus, has promoted a utopian future of "sustainable abundance," in which AI and robots make human labor largely optional. Shift pays more than 35,000 people to record physical tasks, from cooking meals to repairing engines. Courtesy of Shift For now, those ambitions face a problem: a massive shortage of training data. "It is widely agreed in the robotics world that data is the key bottleneck," said Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies technology and industrial policy. This is the third installment of the AI Data Grab, Business Insider's series on how human work is becoming raw material for AI — and the companies that are cashing in. So far, we've reported on how AI labs are buying up employees' emails and Slack messages, and how law firms are turning decades of human expertise into AI systems. Now, the scramble is moving into the physical world, where companies are paying people to record skills robots have yet to learn. Shift collects data in more than 15 countries to capture a broad range of tasks and environments. Courtesy of Shift Contract workers in Mexico and the Philippines remotely control robots in American warehouses as they pack beauty products, recording movements so the machines can eventually do the work on their own. Other workers across the world strap cameras to their foreheads to capture first-person footage of themselves folding laundry and making hotel beds. "This is how the great knowledge transfer happens from humans to robots," said Josh Gruenstein, CEO of Tutor Intelligence. His company operates a Massachusetts "data factory" where workers remotely control robots to generate training data. A booming data market A teleoperator at Encord’s Bay Area facility guides a robot through arranging flowers in a vase. Rya Jetha/ BI Demand for robot training data is roughly 10 times higher than a year ago, Vineeth Velmurugan, who leads robot learning at the AI data startup Encord, said. Encord's customers, including Dyna Robotics and Agility Robotics, once requested 1,000 hours of annotated data. Now they want 10,000 or even 100,000, he said. That red-hot demand for real-world data comes as robotics has become one of Silicon Valley's hottest bets. Humanoid robot makers Figure AI and Agility Robotics have fetched multibillion-dollar valuations, as have the companies developing robot "brains" such as Skild AI and Physical Intelligence. Robotics companies raised $33.4 billion globally in the first half of this year, according to PitchBook data, surpassing the $28.7 billion raised in all of 2025. Cheaper hardware and computing, better AI models, labor shortages, and competition with China are all fueling investor interest. But a gulf remains between robots that perform impressive demos and machines reliable enough to work an eight-hour factory shift. Robotics companies hope more training data will help, and suppliers across the world, from scrappy startups to established companies like Scale AI, Instawork, and Uber, are rushing to sell it to them. Custom hardware is key to recording the physical world. Mecka AI, which has raised more than $120 million from investors including Sequoia and Nvidia, started with an app that paid people to record everyday activities two years ago. But the company soon ran into the limits of ordinary video. Mecka now designs headgear and sensor-equipped gloves to "sensorize humans," CEO Josh Gao said. The equipment records movements and force, such as the pressure needed to grip a glass or crack an egg. Contractors label workplace footage before Mecka sells it to AI labs and robotics companies. A teleoperator at Encord’s Bay Area facility controls a robot as it pours motor oil into a container. Rya Jetha/ BI Microagi, the parent company of Shift, is expanding its collection efforts into homes and workplaces across more than 15 countries. It pays more than 35,000 people to record themselves performing physical tasks, CEO Bercan Kilic said. Shift said participants can earn up to $30 an hour and that it has paid out around $10 million in 2026. Household chores are the most common, but unusual tasks help expose models to unfamiliar situations. One contributor in Turkey records himself repairing old jet engines in his garage, Kilic said. Kilic's goal is to gather enough data to build robots that can work in factories and address labor shortages in Europe and the US. "If you run factories, the math is already on your desk," Kilic previously told Business Insider. "Your most experienced people retire this decade, and their replacements were never born. Reshoring only works if the robots do." Income today, automation tomorrow For the workers supplying that data, though, the trade-off is income today in exchange for helping build machines that could eventually automate their work. Demir, the private chef, said he believes his work is safe. "Machines can just watch, listen, and follow instructions," he said. "They cannot feel or smell." The economics are different in countries where labor is cheaper. Human Archive, a data collection company based in San Francisco, began building operations in India last year through partnerships with gig platforms, hotels, and plumbing and electrical businesses. It started with an app that let people record audio and first-person video. The startup now also makes custom hardware in China, including camera-equipped headsets and wrist trackers that capture movement. Today, it operates in more than 30 countries and pays workers between $1 to $10 and "even much more," per hour, depending on how disruptive the equipment is, CEO Raj Patel said. These workers, Patel said, could earn "almost as much, or more [than their regular jobs], to just wear these devices." Mecka and Human Archive did not say how they ensure workers' consent when collecting data through partner businesses or local contractors. Shift said participation is voluntary, and some employees at partner businesses choose not to participate. The company said it obtains explicit consent, explaining what data is collected and how it is used, including that it may be licensed to other labs for AI and robotics training. The global competition for data work can come with a downside. It drives down wages and leaves workers with little bargaining power, said Mark Graham, a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute and author of Feeding the Machine, a book about the labor behind AI. "Often the workers don't even know what they're doing," he said. "They're a very disposable appendage of a much bigger machine." The work can also be physically taxing. One operator who remotely controls robots in US warehouses from a Texas facility previously told Business Insider that eight-hour shifts cause arm and shoulder cramps. "We even have a massage gun in the office," they said. Will the data boom last? The companies collecting all this data are betting that the quest to train intelligent robots will fuel demand for years to come. Research firm Mordor Intelligence projects that the broader AI training dataset market will grow from $11.9 billion this year to nearly $49.8 billion by 2031. For robotics data suppliers, the bull case is that startups will spend a significant share of their funding on training material, said Siddharth Ramakrishnan, a partner at Scale Venture Partners. "If scaling laws continue to work, the pie will just keep growing," he said. But nobody knows how much data robots will need to work reliably, he added. If they need less than expected, data suppliers could lose business. If they need much more, investors could tire of paying before the robots become commercially viable. Some are betting that demand for robot training data is nowhere near its peak. Encord's Velmurugan likens today's robot brain to that of a two-year-old, and estimates that training a robot to work in homes — one of the hardest environments because it is so unstructured — could require a dataset five times the size of YouTube. At the end of 2025, YouTube held an estimated 29 billion videos, the equivalent of 280,000 years of footage, according to research firm Omdia. UC Berkeley roboticist Ken Goldberg. Florian Gaertner/Getty Images "It's hard to say how this will play out," Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley robotics professor and cofounder of warehouse robotics startup Ambi Robotics, said. "It might take five years or 50 years. And even if we had unlimited data now, I don't know if this approach will work," he said. Training robots in virtual environments, known as simulation, could also change the equation. World Labs, a startup slated for an $8.2 billion acquisition by AMD, says it can turn a small set of recordings into simulated environments and modify them to generate more training data for robots. If the technology delivers, robotics companies could need far less data from the physical world. But even sustained demand doesn't guarantee a profitable business. Earlier this year, Sam Padilla shut down his robotics data startup, Eidon AI, after struggling with logistics, upfront costs, and thin margins. He compared the business to dropshipping, where retailers sell goods shipped directly by suppliers and pocket the markup — until competitors offering the same products for less squeeze their margins. "There is a clear arbitrage opportunity to make money if you're willing to race and race to the bottom," he said. "But a technical bottleneck does not necessarily imply a good business." Have a tip? Contact Rya Jetha via email at rjetha@businessinsider.com or Signal at rjetha.07. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely. Read the original article on Business Insider

Two Israeli companies manipulated online advertisements to install surveillance software on dozens of computers at the Qatari news organization Al Jazeera, researchers have found.

The digital rights unit found evidence that dozens of devices at media organization Al Jazeera were hacked after being shown malicious online ads.

In this age of rising electricity demand, people are trying to squeeze every last bit of power out of every power plant possible. Over the past few weeks, there’s been big news about nuclear power plants trying to do just that. Constellation, the largest nuclear operator in the US, announced plans to add nearly a…

Google and Singapore have developed an AI scam detector that analyzes private chats on smartphones, with public availability still unconfirmed. The post Google and Singapore Develop AI Scam Detector That Works Entirely on Your Phone appeared first on TechRepublic.

Major bank executives are concerned about the risks posed by rogue AI agents to their systems. Chris Hondros/Getty Images Major banks reported earnings this week, and executives spotlighted one big concern. They're hardening their systems against rogue AI agents that might attempt to hack them. As frontier models get increasingly capable, AI cybersecurity is front of mind for businesses. 'Twas the week of big bank earnings, and Wall Street had a new threat on its mind: rogue AI. Executives at the country's largest financial institutions used their earnings calls to assure investors that they are doing everything in their power to fend off attacks from powerful, rogue AI models. Some were specific about the measures they were taking, like Bank of America's CEO, Brian Moynihan. Moynihan said during a Wednesday earnings call and an interview with CNBC that the bank had rushed to shore up vulnerabilities in its codebases after the release of powerful AI models such as Anthropic's Mythos. The firm hired 1,000 external consultants to patch these issues over the last quarter, and their work is still continuing. Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser shared similar sentiments on AI safety during the company's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. "We don't wait for risks to happen," she said, adding, "We've been hardening our systems and running challenging and disruptive scenarios to stress test our defenses and our responses." Later in the call, she said that Citigroup was continuing to "invest in leading-edge capabilities" to strengthen its cyber defenses. Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick said in a Wednesday call that the firm is investing "whatever it takes" to protect its clients' assets, because "you can't engage head-to-head with AI out of your garage." Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said the bank sees concerns about the "unchecked advancement of frontier models" and that AI presents significant risks alongside opportunities. "We must enable innovation and also demand responsibility," Solomon added in the Tuesday call. And finally, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in a Tuesday call that he wouldn't allow "just any outside agent to come inside the company, because that's just too risky for clients and for JPMorgan." Rogue AI agents are top of mind The comments from the finance executives come as rogue AI agents by labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta, capable of exploiting software vulnerabilities, have hacked into the software and website of several organizations in recent months. One of the first instances of this occurred in July, when an OpenAI agent hacked into the internal systems of AI firm Hugging Face during a cybersecurity test. More recently, its agents hacked into Australia's government website, leading Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to express Australia's "extreme concern" about the incident to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. AI staffers themselves have become increasingly concerned about the pace of AI development and the risks it poses. In September, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly resigned, saying that Anthropic and OpenAI were "gambling with lives," prompting many other employees at frontier labs to chime in with similar concerns. Shortly after, chiefs of AI companies, such as Altman, Dario Amodei, and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, all agreed on "pacing the frontier," referring to slowing AI development and adding safety checks and balances. Read the original article on Business Insider

Tim Walsh, CEO and chair of KPMG US, said companies often need to rethink how they operate to get the most from AI. Braedon Fox/PGA of America via Getty Images AI agents are delivering gains, though only 9% of CEOs called them "transformational" in a new KPMG US survey. Using AI effectively is "not plug and play," Tim Walsh, the firm's US CEO, told Business Insider. Most leaders surveyed said they expect to increase hiring as AI changes the skills they need. Leaders of big US companies say AI agents are starting to produce gains, yet few report that the technology is fundamentally reshaping their businesses. KPMG US released a survey on Thursday of 400 CEOs of major US-based companies. About four in 10 said AI agents had delivered significant improvements in efficiency or growth, while a similar share reported moderate effects in targeted uses. Yet only 9% described agents, which are designed to carry out tasks, as "transformational" for their organizations today. Tim Walsh, CEO and chair of KPMG US, told Business Insider that there's a gap between using AI and the tricky work of overhauling how a company operates. "It's not plug and play," he said. He said he expected the share of leaders reporting that agents are transforming their businesses to rise over the next six to 12 months. Most expect to increase head count Incorporating AI is also reshaping what companies need from workers. The survey signaled that CEOs don't see the technology simply as a tool for trimming payrolls. About nine out of 10 chiefs said they expected to increase head count over the next three years. That's a more upbeat hiring outlook than some leaders have offered in recent months. Various CEOs have said AI will allow them to get by with fewer workers, while others have said the technology will mean they'll need more people in areas like software engineering. The survey results highlighted the workforce challenges companies expect as they adopt AI. Leaders identified worker skills gaps, training employees to use AI tools, and attracting and retaining talent as some of their biggest workforce challenges. About eight in 10 CEOs said AI had prompted their organizations to reconsider how they develop employees. Three-quarters said that the integration of AI systems had made them reassess the skills required for entry-level roles. KPMG has been reworking its own expectations for early-career workers. Earlier this year, the firm piloted a program for audit interns focused on "human-centric" skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and team leadership. Focusing on 'high-potential' employees In the latest survey, 86% of CEOs said that in the next two to five years, they expected to make adjustments to jobs, career paths, and team structures to account for "human-AI collaboration." More than eight in 10 said they are looking to keep and retrain "high-potential" workers, while a similar share said they are hiring people with AI and technology skills. Walsh said KPMG US needs to hire more engineers and data scientists. And while AI can take on some work people once did, he said, there are limits. "I need the humans to review this stuff," he said. "We can't just rely on these agents. They're not always right." CEOs are spending to avoid falling behind Some seven in 10 leaders said the biggest risk of business disruption over the next three years stemmed from "a lack of reliable AI access and advancement." That could range from AI model outages disrupting companies that have woven the tools into their operations to constraints on computing power and other infrastructure. That's perhaps one reason many bosses still plan to spend big on the technology. More than eight in 10 CEOs said AI is a top investment priority for the next three years, while about two-thirds said they would allocate at least 10% of their capital budgets to AI in the coming year. To successfully rework how they operate around AI, Walsh said, companies often must update their business processes, ensure their data is in usable form, and bring in engineers to automate workflows. "Most businesses have been around for decades, and many processes haven't been updated for decades," Walsh said. Read the original article on Business Insider

Two students use Smart Board technology on December 10, 2010. John Carl D'Annibale /Albany Times Union via Getty Images US classrooms have changed dramatically since the early 2000s. They've changed through technology, mainly from computers and tablets to social media and AI. Photos show how Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha all grew up in vastly different classrooms. Much like the rest of the world, US classrooms have changed quite a bit since the beginning of the 21st century. The onslaught of technological advancement, from the internet and computers to AI, has brought the biggest changes to US education, but societal changes have, too. The rise of social media in the early 2010s changed how students interact with each other, and an uptick in school shootings in the mid-to-late 2010s called for heightened security systems across various school districts. Add in a pandemic at the beginning of the 2020s, and classrooms were nearly unrecognizable from what they looked like in the early 2000s. Three different generations — millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha — have been at the forefront of these changes. Those born between 1981 and 1996 are defined as millennials, according to research from the University of Southern California, while people born between 1997 and 2012 are considered Gen Z, and those born between 2013 and 2025 are defined as Gen Alpha. Here's how US classrooms have evolved alongside each of those generations. Chalkboards were still used in classrooms in 2000, but they all largely disappeared by 2010. Connie David, who is blind, teaches third grade at Wenonah Elementary School in Minneapolis. -- Minneapolis, Mn., Mon., May 22, 2000--(Left to right) Raphael Kelly (far left) and Kevin Rambacchus watch and listen as Sandy Pierce writes on the blackboard and Connie David discusses the differences between cities, towns and rural areas with the class. Pierce and David team teach the class.(Photo By JOEY MCLEISTER/Star Tribune via Getty Images) JOEY MCLEISTER/Star Tribune via Getty Images Chalkboards, invented in 1801 by Scottish geography teacher James Pillans, had been a classroom staple since the early 20th century. The boards themselves went green in the 1960s to help reduce the glare from classroom lights bouncing off black surfaces and into students' eyes. Whiteboards began replacing chalkboards in classrooms in the 1980s, in part because chalk dust can irritate the lungs of students and teachers with asthma. By 2010, chalkboards had become less common, though many classrooms still used them. In the early 2000s, completing classwork by hand was still the norm. CHICAGO - AUGUST 29: Teacher Claudia Torres, of the Josefa Ortiz De Dominguez Elementary School, takes notes as she and other teachers headed back to school for the Chicago Public Schools' "Reading Initiative" staff development program August 29, 2002 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images) Tim Boyle/Getty Images Technology had not yet become central to day-to-day instruction in the US, and, for the most part, classrooms looked much as they had decades earlier. Research might have happened in a computer lab — in fall 2002, 99% of public schools had internet access — but most essays, worksheets, and class notes were completed the old-fashioned way: by hand. By 2006, 63% of US teenagers owned a cell phone. Staff Photo by Gordon Chibroski, Thursday, February 2, 2006: Jon Mayorquin, Tressa Brooks and Tim Galvez enjoy their phones and music using high tech devices during a lunch break in the halls of Deering High School. Brooks is checking out the photos she took with her cell phone. (Photo by Gordon Chibroski/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images) Gordon Chibroski/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images Teenagers' adoption of personal cell devices — cellphones —fundamentally changed how students interacted with each other. Communication became instant: students could call friends and send text messages, but it was still a long shot from the capabilities of a smartphone. Social media and around-the-clock internet access had not yet taken over the school day. In the late 2000s, overhead projectors hadn't yet been replaced by digital ones. Sabrina Zaldana (right) [n in Zaldana should have a ~ over it] works an algebra problem on an overhead projector in Leslie Roemer's (left) 8th grade algebra class at KIPP Academy. KIPP Academy has summer sessions, shortening the long summer break that most students get. Leslie Roemer's 8th grade algebra class is an example of the classes that are in session at KIPP Academy at 10711 Kipp Way. (Tuesday, June 17, 2008, in Waller. ( Steve Campbell / Chronicle) (Photo by Steve Campbell/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images) Steve Campbell/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images For many teachers, the overhead projector was still a classroom essential. Transparencies could be written on, marked up, and projected onto a wall or screen, creating a familiar bridge between a chalkboard lesson and the more digital classroom just around the corner. Compared to today's learning tools, the overhead projector wasn't as personalized as an AI tool or digital learning program might be. Instead, the whole class interacted with the lessons together. By 2009, 93% of all US public schools had computers with internet access. Rasam Aminzadeh, 15 (second from right), of San Francisco works on a computer during a San Francisco bureau of Youth Radio blogging class,a social media networking class , while Saba Javakhishvili, 17 (left) and Ankhbayer Begzsuren, 17 (second from left) watch his progress at the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday August 3, 2010. The Booker T. Washington Community Service Center is about to rebuild its community center. (Photo By Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images As the 2000s came to a close, so did the dependency on pen and paper in US education. Schools adopted computers in classrooms rather than in computer labs, but the number of computers each school had varied across districts. In 2009, 97% of public school teachers had at least one computer in their classroom daily, and internet access was available on 93% of those computers. While some schools still had large desktop computers, others had tablets or laptops — just one year after Apple's iPad launch in 2010, over 600 school districts across the US had implemented programs in which at least one classroom provided iPads to each student. Google's Chromebook, a lightweight laptop running Chrome OS, was introduced in 2011 and accounted for 58% of mobile computing devices shipped to K-12 schools in 2016, according to EBSCO, a research database provider. Teachers adopted SMART Boards in their classrooms by the early 2010s, enabling more interactive lessons. GERMANTOWN MD SEPTEMBER 13: Second grade teacher Kim Vigliotta instructs her class at an electronic whiteboard at Great Seneca Creek Elementary School in Germantown MD September 13, 2012 (Photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images) John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images SMART Boards became widely adopted alongside digital projectors in the mid-2010s, bringing a more hands-on element to the front of the classroom. With them, teachers could pull up websites, videos, and digital worksheets, while students could come up to the board to move images, solve problems, or write answers directly on the screen. The Common Core State Standards pushed for computer-based testing in the 2010s. FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA - SEPTEMBER 09: A kindergarten student works on the Jiji math program in the computer lab at Courreges Elementary School in Fountain Valley, CA on September 9, 2013. The computer program is a supplement to learning math from a teacher in the classroom. The school will be getting computers throughout the school to help teach students the Common Core requirements. (Photo by Paul Bersebach/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images) Paul Bersebach/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images The Common Core State Standards, launched in 2009 by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, outlined learning expectations for schools across the US. By 2011, most states had adopted the standards. Only four states — Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia — never adopted them. Students were expected to meet specific reading and math standards that were heavily focused on complex problems and critical thinking skills. The learning program quickly faced backlash, however, due to concerns that it wasn't personalized but rather a generalized curriculum. Still, by 2015, 44 states had adopted the Common Core State Standards for math and English-language arts. By 2015, 71% of US teens used more than one social network platform. LITTLETON, CO - AUGUST 27: A group of Littleton High School girls take a selfie before the football game against Golden High School for zero week at Littleton Public Schools Stadium August 27, 2015. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images) Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images Smartphones had replaced cellphones by the mid-2010s, and with the launch of social media sites like X (formerly Twitter) in 2006 and Instagram in 2010, teenagers' social media usage rose quickly. That meant another change in how students interacted with each other. With social media, however, it also meant they could upload photos and videos of each other and communicate with a mass audience of students, which brought concerns over online bullying to the forefront. COVID-19 disrupted how students and teachers interacted in classrooms in the early 2020s. Students wearing protective masks work at their desks in a seventh grade classroom at Logan Jr. High School in Princeton, Illinois, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. The Illinois State Board of Education has "strongly encouraged" a return to full, in-person instruction in the fall, as long as the regions are in Phase 4 of reopening. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg/Getty Images When schools closed in 2020, classes suddenly moved onto laptops and video calls. Teachers had to find new ways to teach lessons and keep students engaged remotely, while students navigated a school experience marked by muted microphones, virtual assignments, and far less face-to-face time. Mask requirements made it difficult for students and teachers to listen to each other and understand social cues. Physical-distancing rules, which often called for students to stay 6 feet apart early in the pandemic, also made socializing harder. The change in learning led to a mass loss of attention in students, socialization issues, and a chronic absenteeism rate that spiked following the pandemic. School entrances saw heightened security measures as safety became a greater concern. PEMBROKE PINES, FLORIDA - JUNE 24: Tara Joseph, campus security manager, watches as summer school students walk through a newly installed CEIA OpenGate weapons detection system at Charles W. Flanagan High School on June 24, 2024 in Pembroke Pines, Florida. As part of the Broward County Public School's ongoing effort to enhance safety and security measures in schools, the Broward County School Board approved using walk-through metal detectors on high school campuses. Following the initiative's launch at two high school summer sites, the rollout of walk-through metal detectors at District high schools will continue at the start of the 2024/25 school year. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Joe Raedle/Getty Images The mid-2010s saw a dramatic rise in school shootings — 522 victims were killed in school shootings between 2015 and 2025, compared to 195 victims between 2005 and 2015. In 2024, then-President Joe Biden said more than 400 school shootings had occurred since Columbine, exposing more than 370,000 students to gun violence. As such, schools across the US responded with locked entrances, visitor check-ins, cameras, and metal detectors. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, 61% of US public schools used security cameras to monitor schools in the 2009-2010 school year. That percentage rose to 92.6% in the 2021-2022 school year. In 2026, classrooms have adopted AI tools to personalize learning lessons for each student. PALO ALTO, CA - MARCH 31: Student Yuva R. works on a classroom exercise using Khanmigo, an AI-powered guide developed by Khan Academy, during a math and sciences class at Khan Lab School on Friday, March 31, 2023, in Palo Alto, Calif. (Photo by Constanza Hevia H. for The Washington Post via Getty Images) Constanza Hevia H. for The Washington Post via Getty Images AI is beginning to reshape the classroom much like computers and the internet did in earlier decades. According to an October 2025 College Board report, 69% of high school students reported using ChatGPT to help with schoolwork in May 2025. Teachers can use AI-powered tools to create practice materials, provide quicker feedback, and tailor lessons to students' different needs — while schools continue to figure out where and if AI fits best in the classroom. Read the original article on Business Insider

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI Ashley Wallace returned to her job after six months of maternity leave and met a new coworker: Claude. Before her leave, Wallace used ChatGPT to answer questions and some basic automations for notetaking or recruiting in her role as head of talent at the AI language-learning app Praktika. "I came back thinking, oh, I'll ease myself in," she says. "It definitely isn't the case in the landscape that I came back to." During her absence, the company had ushered in Claude Cowork — and Wallace didn't even know where to find the new system everyone was talking about on her computer. Add to her new reality that AI has rocked the job hunt process. Instead of the typical few hundred people applying for open roles at the startup, Wallace returned to find more than 1,000 vying for some jobs. Candidates sometimes come to interviews unable to answer a single question after she suspects they padded their applications with AI, forcing Wallace to come up with new ways to weed out unqualified applicants earlier. In the few months that she had been away with her baby, AI had made the job she knew foreign to her. "Ever seen someone give someone a mobile phone that's never had a mobile phone before?" Wallace says. "That's like how I felt when I came back." A leave of absence from work often results in a frenzied email inbox and missed office gossip, but, as companies unleash AI into every corner of their business, some people now return to a job they don't recognize. There are new enterprise systems, workflows, and AI sprint experiments that rise and fall — all under the shadow of the threat that AI will end up taking your job anyway. In a world of constant AI updates, going out of the office, even for a few weeks, can feel like moving toward obsolescence. Nearly half of workers say their companies have adopted AI, up from 38% last fall, according to a Gallup poll published in July. Forty percent of workers at large companies said in a McKinsey survey this spring that their firms are scaling their use of agents, up from 27% last year. PwC found a massive spike in workers saying they have used AI: 64% this year, growing 10% year-over-year. At the same time, America's workforce has the widest access to paid leave it's ever known, thanks to a spike in state-mandated family leave over the last two decades and changes to company policies to extend family leave or add paid sabbaticals. As the pace of change in white-collar work accelerates at world-historic rates, leaves are lengthening — leaving many of those who return from them acclimating to drastically reshaped roles. Max Cherry left his job in public relations three years ago to travel. He met his wife and then went on the road with her to support her professional tennis career. When he took a new public relations gig this summer, he found that AI had become part of the daily workflow, rather than something workers used sporadically three years ago — and often in secret. Research and media lists that used to take hours to compile could come together quickly, and the speed of brainstorming ideas had accelerated alongside AI. Catching up required him to shake old habits. "I have to train myself like, 'hey, it's OK to put this into the AI agent,'" Cherry says, noting he now uses AI to sort through dense text and numbers, while spending energy on the parts of the job that remain deeply human, like relationship-building and judgement. Employment gaps, which are more likely to appear on women's résumés as they care for children or family, have long sparked existential worries. They can hobble one's chances of getting interviews, landing a well-paid job, and maintaining their seniority. AI has warped roles so quickly and drastically that even early adopters can feel left behind, and might scramble to get back to their desks. Jess Clark pivoted her business, which centered on courses about making courses, to teaching women how to use ChatGPT in early 2023. When she had her third baby last year, Clark signed off for about three weeks. During a precious nap window, she opened her phone and saw creators and news outlets declaring a new era: ChatGPT out, Claude in. "I was in a full spiral for about a week," Clark says, feeling like she had missed the chance to future-proof her business in just those three weeks away. She immediately started sprinting to keep pace, she tells me, and taught herself how to code with Claude, and reoriented her courses to focus on Claude as well. Clark says she still feels like she's trying to catch up to every AI rollout. AI updates may outpace her, but she can focus on finding the next issue that emerges. "I can't foresee what's going to happen in the future," Clark says. But with each new AI update, "you just jump on, and you give it a go, and you learn." The changes may also swallow the parts of work that people love. Tina, whose last name has been omitted to protect her job, returned from maternity leave this spring and immediately noticed that the design work her colleagues churned out looked "overly glossy" and contained odd patterns. It was the telltale sign of AI-generated illustrations, something the company had not relied on previously. Now, Tina says bosses have changed policies to encourage or require AI use to accelerate the design process. They take feedback from ChatGPT on past designs, and then either prompt AI or run their sketches through an AI design tool to arrive at a rendering. She estimates it takes as long or longer than when she ideated and illustrated on her own, because the AI output often needs extensive tweaking. The new mandates also make Tina anxious that the company could decide to replace designers, even if the results are lower quality. "You spend your whole life and career learning this skill," she says. "Just in a couple of months, a couple of weeks, that skill is rendered essentially not useful anymore." There also come times when workers feel they need to step off the ever-turning AI treadmill. Chenda Ngak, head of communications at Tumblr and WordPress.com's parent company Automattic, took a paid, three-month sabbatical this summer to travel through Southeast Asia. Ngak says the rapid pace of AI development has given tech workers whiplash. "Every day there's something new, and so we've been operating in this pace for several years now, and I was just like, 'wow, I think I may be approaching a burnout,'" she says. She deleted the Slack and email apps from her phone and left her computer behind. She didn't touch AI for three months, and gave up her phone entirely for six days to attend a digital detox at a Cambodian yoga retreat. Instead of GCal dictating her days, the sound of a gong ruled her activities: sunrise yoga, breathwork, and device-free communing with strangers. The six unmoored days felt long, Ngak tells me, but the digital detox worked like a reset button. Speaking to me on just her second day back at her desk, she plans to maintain habits from her leave, such as a 15-minute daily yoga practice and greater patience in her conversations. Ngak says she's already encountering updates to the company's tools, including new AI integrations. But after intentionally moving away from constant connection and AI for those three months, Ngak feels more prepared to keep pace with an evolving workplace. As AI continues to evolve, workers have an increasingly hard time keeping up with every update. The future of work-life balance will mean letting go when you need to — and returning from leave ready for a crash course in AI's newest era. Read the original article on Business Insider

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