More and more employers are instituting a four-day workweek, after a new study found it helped businesses reduce staff turnover, improve recruitment, and increase productivity.

However, the benefits of new working models continue to fall on deaf ears. Companies across the board have been pushing for a five-day return-to-office policies, with the tech giants – notably Amazon and Dell — leading the pack.

Now the Trump administration has also issued its own RTO mandate for government executives, even in the face of the ever-growing body of statistics that suggest otherwise.

Proven Benefits of the 4-Day Workweek

The study — which was tracked by academics at the University of Cambridge, Boston College and the Autonomy Institute — saw a four-day week or nine-day fortnight trialed by 17 employers. It found categorically that productivity went up and staff turnover went down in this time; but also that the companies involved became a more attractive proposition for new recruits.

This November trial was the second run by a campaign group called the 4 Day Week Foundation. The first was carried out in in 2022 and 18 months after its completion, more than half of those involved were still working a four-day week.

The sectors most represented among the 200 companies were marketing, advertising and PR, but the charity, NGO and social care sectors came a close second. Of the total, twenty-four companies were in technology, IT and software.

The majority of the companies who have now committed to a shorter working week were based in London.

Time for a Change

Joe Ryle, the foundation’s campaign director, said that these latest results are evidence that a change is needed.

“The 9-5, five-day working week was invented 100 years ago and is no longer fit for purpose. We are long overdue an update.” – Joe Ryle, 4 Day Week Foundation campaign chair

Key to the trial has been that employees’ pay was not changed at all despite the shorter working week. However, there is rising evidence that flexibility and a better work-life balance are now among the top wants that employees have for their career. This is perhaps even over financial considerations with a survey 18 months ago revealing that 76% of employees would actively seek a new job if their current employer got rid of flexible work options.

Does the Evidence Matter?

However positive this news from the study, the RTO mandates keep coming. CEOs are pushing the line that it is important for company culture and sticking to it.

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, told employees in a memo that the incoming five-day a week RTO would mean that employees were “better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business.” The company has already faced walkouts over the hybrid working roll-backs; but pushed ahead nevertheless.

Jassy fervently denied accusations that the RTO mandate was a way of slimming down the workforce by pushing staff towards voluntary redundancies. But a survey in June revealed a quarter of CEOs were hoping for just this.

Some have been openly vocal in saying that if employees don’t want to come in five days a week, they can look elsewhere for a job. In a recent news conference, President Trump stated bluntly: “If people don’t come back to work… they’re going to be dismissed.”

With the President taking such a hard line on hybrid working, those companies who are honoring flexible practices are becoming the minority despite evidence of the benefits.

Cheap and efficient are two pretty compelling attributes and are drawing intrigued AI enthusiasts from around the world to try out open source generative AI model DeepSeek.

The Chinese-owned venture is enjoying a massive boom in customers, even, ironically, as the US Government warns about potential national security issues that could come with using a Chinese digital service.

But, AI LLMs need data to train on, so what customer data is DeepSeek collecting and sending to China? And what shouldn’t you share with the AI platform?

What Data Is DeepSeek Collecting?

DeepSeek does have an English guide online as to what data it collects. It’s quite a list. It includes your date of birth; email address, telephone number and the password you set up. This is pretty standard. Also, this is a great opportunity to remind you that your password should be different across every platform you use!

However, as it’s an AI model, you will also be handing over your “text or audio input, prompt, uploaded files, feedback, chat history, or other content that you provide to our model and Services”.

The terms also add that if you, as a customer, contact the Chinese-venture, they will ask for “proof of identity or age”, and this data they will keep.

More Data that DeepSeek Collects

Your IP address, unique device identifiers, and cookies will also automatically be shared when you use DeepSeek. The identifiers include “your device model, operating system, keystroke patterns or rhythms, IP address, and system language”. Crash reports and performance logs are also collected.

If you pay for any services from DeepSeek, your payment details will also be saved and this is for “customer services” and “after-sales support”. So far, again, pretty standard.

The last category is “information from other sources”. For example, if you log onto DeepSeek using an Apple or Google sign-in, the company will receive some information from them. And there is also a note about advertisers who share information with DeepSeek, including “the products or services you purchased, online or in person” outside of the service.

Wired has looked into this “underlying activity” and says that DeepSeek is sharing data with the “Chinese tech giant Baidu, potentially for web analytics purposes, as well as Volces, a Chinese internet infrastructure firm”.

Should You Be Concerned About DeepSeek?

The big difference between OpenAI and DeepSeek is not the data that the companies are collecting – in fact they are doing similar things – but where this data ends up. DeepSeek is sending the data it collects to China and is completely open about this. It states: “We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China.”

It adds the pretty standard legalize terminology that it will share data to “comply with [its] legal obligations” but in this case, it means that data can be shared at any time with Chinese government officials. This means DeepSeek’s data can be used in accordance with a 2017 law, stating that organizations must “cooperate with national intelligence efforts.”

The Chinese government has the right to access data collected from US DeepSeek users and can use it for allegedly nefarious purposes. These could include pushing Chinese propaganda, which is an accusation that has been levelled at TikTok. In fact, some DeepSeek users are already reporting that some answers the AI returns sound like propaganda and some questions relating to topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government – for example the Tiananmen Square massacre – are returning blanks.

What Not to Share on DeepSeek

The big question is whether you think the fact that all of this data going to China is a problem for you. You have probably heard it all before, but there are already some concerning warnings about how this date may be manipulated for the benefit of the Chinese regime. These include some dire predictions about cyber threats that directly target the West, utilize social engineering, and exploit vast quantities of sensitive data.

The fact that TikTok had around 170 million active monthly US users suggests that many people are not too concerned about these threats, despite repeated warnings from the government. This has absolutely been borne up by the explosion in use of another Chinese social media platform, RedNote, as the TikTok ban loomed.

If this isn’t a concern for you – and you are also aware of the data that AI models will be capturing as standard – then just take some sensible precautions.

• If you are a creator, as we warned with ChatGPT, if you share your original works, be prepared for them to be shared with another user
• Don’t input any sensitive or personal information into the AI assistant, such health or personal data
• Don’t use it to store your usernames/passwords
• Be aware that you can also delete your chat history in DeepSeek through the Settings option
• Don’t use the AI models if you are using a work network
• Don’t upload company sensitive documents or client information

It’s also worth noting that installing the app on your computer allows a greater level of privacy control, but if you’re unsure about it in the first place, having the app sit on your PC is unlikely to appeal.

Ultimately, if TikTok’s fate is anything to go by, the US government is quite likely to take action against US data flowing freely to China. TikTok’s data servers for US customers were not, after all, in China but it was still deemed enough of a threat to be banned.

While new AI offerings are fun – especially at low cost and with impressive capabilities – US users might soon be forced to return to “safer” options – even with their data grabbing tendencies. And this is not least because OpenAI and Anthropic have serious US money behind them and DeepSeek does not.

DeepSeek is the latest multimodal AI.

Technically, DeepSeek is the name of the Chinese company releasing the models. The current models themselves are called “R1” and “V1.” Both are massively shaking up the entire AI industry following R1’s January 20 release in the US.

Why? It comes with very low development costs, it’s open-source for commercial use, and it undercuts rivals like OpenAI — right at a time when the US government has bet more heavily than ever on its own home-grown AI advancements.

What Do I Need to Know About DeepSeek?

Deepseek offers a couple different models — R1 and V3 — in addition to an image generator. The key thing to know is that they’re cheaper, more efficient, and more freely available than the top competitors, which means that OpenAI’s ChatGPT may have lost its crown as the queen bee of AI models.

Here’s what to know about all of them.

DeepSeek R1

The DeepSeek model that everyone is using right now is R1.

It’s at the top of the App Store — beating out ChatGPT — and it’s the version that is currently available on the web and open-source, with a freely available API. Unlike some other China-based models aiming to compete with ChatGPT, AI experts are impressed with the capability that R1 offers.

As influential tech investor Marc Andreessen put it a few days back: “DeepSeek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen — and as open source, a profound gift to the world.”

It’s way cheaper to operate than ChatGPT, too: Possibly 20 to 50 times cheaper.

There’s some murkiness surrounding the type of chip used to train DeepSeek’s models, with some unsubstantiated claims stating that the company used A100 chips, which are currently banned from US export to China.

DeepSeek V3

However, the company’s other big model is what’s scaring Silicon Valley: DeepSeek V3.

The V3 model was cheap to train, way cheaper than many AI experts had thought possible: According to DeepSeek, training took just 2,788 thousand H800 GPU hours, which adds up to just $5.576 million, assuming a $2 per GPU per hour cost.

V3 is a more efficient model, since it operates on a 671B-parameter MoE architecture with 37B activated parameters per token — cutting down on the computational overhead required by ChatGPT and its 1.8T-parameter design.

Text-to-image generation: Janus Pro

Plus, there’s Janus Pro, the company’s text-to-image generator.

DeepSeek has reported that its Janus-Pro-7B AI model has outperformed OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion, according to a leaderboard ranking for image generation using text prompts.

According to the company, this model was trained on “72 million high-quality synthetic images.”

DeepSeek can run locally

One last thing to know: DeepSeek can be run locally, with no need for an internet connection. This is part and parcel with the model’s open-source release: Since the code is available on GitHub, it can be downloaded.

That marks another improvement over popular AI models like OpenAI, and — at least for those who chose to run the AI locally — it means that there’s no possibility of the China-based company accessing user data.

In Response, NVIDIA’s Stock Is Way, Way Down

Deepseek marks a big shakeup to the popular approach to AI tech in the US: The Chinese company’s AI models were built with a fraction of the resources, but delivered the goods and are open-source, to boot. The initial response was a big drop in stock prices for the biggest US-based AI companies.

AI chip company NVIDIA saw the biggest stock drop in its history, losing nearly $600 billion in stock-market value when stocks dropped 16.86% in response to the DeepSeek news.

How bad is that? Well, it’s more than twice as much as any other single US company has ever dropped in just one day. In other words, it’s not great.

The company’s response so far: It’s admitted that DeepSeek’s R1 model is “an excellent AI advancement.”

Other US shares are down, too

Shares dropped at other chipmakers as well, such as the Dutch company ASML, while the S&P 500 dropped more than 2% and Nasdaq fell 3.5%.

Plenty of experts are predicting that the stock market volatility will settle down soon. However, it might mark the end of an era for the constant steep upward trend for companies like NVIDIA, which had seen incredibly high growth since early 2023.

But this is good news for some tech giants

So, how does the AI landscape change if DeepSeek is America’s next top model?

Meta is likely a big winner here: The company needs cheap AI models in order to succeed, and now the next money-saving advancement is here.

Microsoft will also be saving money on data centers, while Amazon can take advantage of the newly available open source models.

Google, on the other hand, would have stood to make the most money from all those data centers. Something tells us that the massive tech giant will stay afloat, however. In the long run, cheap open-source AI is still good for tech companies in general, even if it might not be great for the US overall.

How Does the US’s $500-Billion Stargate Program Factor in?

The DeepSeek disruption comes just a few days after a big announcement from President Trump: The US government will be sinking $500 billion into “Stargate,” a joint AI venture with OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle that aims to solidify the US as the world leader in AI.

Among the initiative’s plans are the construction of 20 data centers across the US, as well as the creation of “hundreds of thousands” of jobs, although the latter claim seems dubious, based on the outcome of similar previous claims.

With that eye-watering investment, the US government certainly seems to be throwing its weight behind a strategy of excess: Pouring billions into solving its AI problems, under the assumption that paying more than any other country will deliver better AI than any other country.

Now, DeepSeek has emerged to poke a hole in that thesis. If DeepSeek can get the same results on less than a tenth of the development budget, all those billions don’t look like such a sure bet.

The stock market — for now, at least — seems to agree.

With 2025 building up a head of steam, there’s never been a better time to look around and take stock. You might be thinking it’s high-time for a career change – and you’ve got your sights set on a role that offers flexibility and freedom in equal measure.

Don’t let the headlines deter you – while companies are planning to crack down on remote work this year, rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated, with several big players still committed to remote work as January draws to a close.

One of them is Apple. For wantaway individuals seeking a fresh start, it’s one of the hottest tickets in town – and with good reason. Employees are well-compensated, can access flexible medical care, and get their hands on the latest tech at a fraction of the price.

There are dozens of remote-friendly roles listed on the Apple careers page – we’ve highlighted some of our favorites below.

Remote Jobs at Apple for January 2025

With Trump back in the White House for a second term, the tech sector looks poised for a dramatic and exciting year. Keen to ingratiate himself with the returning President, Apple boss Tim Cook donated $1 million to his inauguration earlier this month. In return, he will hope for a favorable regulatory environment and a reprieve from the antitrust investigations that plagued big tech players during the Biden Administration.

At the time of writing, Apple has 94 “Home Office” positions advertised on its careers page. You’ll find a list of our top picks below, as well as links to the job ads in question. Please note – I’ve also included the location of where these roles are based, some of which may require a degree of time spent in the office. For that reason, the below roles are based exclusively in the US, but Apple also has remote roles based around the world listed on its website.

• PC Board Designer (Austin, TX, remote)
• Enterprise Systems Engineer (New York City, NY, remote)
• ISE, System Experience – Software Engineer, macOS System Experience (Cupertino, CA, remote)
• People Business Partner Leader (Boston, MA, remote)
• US Channel Sales Manager (Chicago, IL, remote)
• Swift Standard Library Engineer (Boulder, CO, remote)
• AIML – Research Scientist/Engineer (Santa Clara, CA, remote)
• Industry Development Executive, Retail (San Francisco, CA, remote)
• Enterprise US Field Engineering Direct Leader – United States (Manor, TX, remote)

And that’s barely scratching the surface. Take a look at the Apple careers hub for a full list of remote roles.

What Is Working at Apple Like?

Some brands need no introduction and Apple is firmly in that category. Since the Apple I hit the market back in 1976, the company has been right at the cutting-edge of tech. 49 years and over 2 billion iPhones later, and it’s still one of the most sought-after destinations for prospective employees going.

This is borne out by the numbers. Right now, Apple has a very good 4.1/5 on Glassdoor based on more than 40,000 reviews. 80% of employees  would recommend the company to a friend, and a further 88% approve of CEO Tim Cook. The tech giant has featured in every Glassdoor “Best Places to Work” list since 2009 (apart from 2023). But why exactly is Apple so popular with its employees?

For a start, it offers great benefits. Workers get access to flexible medical plans that cover both and mental wellbeing, including access to medical professionals and free counselling at any time, from any place. If you do go into the office, you can make use of on-site well ness and fitness centers, with access to doctors, nurses, dieticians, acupuncturists, and more.

What’s more, your professional and personal development is high on the agenda. You’ll have the option to undertake Apple University classes and seminars, as well as get tools to upskill yourself at home, completely free. If you’re keen to pursue something a bit more formal, Apple offers course reimbursements of up to $5,250 per employee.

As mentioned, you’ll be handsomely rewarded for your troubles. Apple is a market leader when it comes to renumeration, with the average salary ranging from $44,000 for a Department Supervisor to $225,919 for a Director, as per figures available on Indeed. Honestly: it’s no surprise that Apple made our list of the best tech companies to work for in 2025.

Which Other Top Companies Are Hiring For Fully Remote Roles?

Not convinced? Luckily for you, some other big players are currently advertising remote roles on their websites. Among them, Microsoft, which has long been a champion of remote work and, as of January 2025, the company has a jaw-dropping 473 remote-eligible roles on its careers page. With plenty to recommend it, you could do a lot worse than applying for a job at Microsoft.

If your interests lie elsewhere, you might be tempted by the 56 remote roles that Google currently lists on its website. Another of the biggest players in the tech space, Google has a raft of excellent benefits, including free gym memberships, a generous vacation package, and great compensation.

The truth is that there are a lot of options out there. So if you’re looking for a way to combat the January blues, why not pour yourself a strong cup of coffee, put the heating on, and check out our guide to fully-remote jobs you can apply for this January.

Just days in, one of the first edicts from Donald Trump’s second term as US president is already out: Federal employees will be required to report to the office in person, and not remotely.

Specifically, a memo was sent out on Wednesday from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), urging federal agencies to establish protocols requiring a return to the office. The actual process is still being worked out, and so there’s no timeline for enforcement just yet.

Here’s why cutting back on all remote work for federal employees doesn’t make sense on multiple levels.

What’s the Reasoning Behind the Decision?

According to the new memo, agencies must “…take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”

There is one clause, however, as “the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”

The memo doesn’t explain the reasoning behind this decision. You might be forgiven for thinking that the Trump administration doesn’t believe remote workers are as effective as in-office workers. This seems to be the case.

However, an op-ed published in November by the Wall Street Journal offers an additional explanation. It’s written by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, two people who (at the time) had been tapped to lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, and they argued that “requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”

The same op-ed also states that “if federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” which appears to indicate a belief that working remotely is less favorable to the government than working in an office. But do the facts back up these views?

An RTO Mandate This Big Will Cost a Lot

One mark against saving money by getting people back into the office? It’ll cost a lot.

Right now, remote federal workers are located all across the country, and every one of them will soon need to report to an office, meaning they’ll have to move close to one, potentially incurring federal costs. The ROT mandate will impact nearly 3 million federal workers — that’s a lot of people to pay for.

Current federal guidelines also suggest that the government should be on the hook for temporary duty pay towards paying workers’ transportation, lodging and per diem expenses.

Plus, if workers are moving to be near an office that’s in a higher cost of living area, locality pay would need to be adjusted upwards. Real estate costs for the required office space is another expense.

Finally, there’s the potential for hiring costs, should any of the highly skilled and experienced workers who chose to quit need to be replaced. It all adds up to a big price tag, which is the exact reverse of what Trump’s administration is claiming to be attempting to accomplish here.

Remote Workers Are More Productive

One of the biggest reasons not to usher in sweeping RTO mandates, however, is that remote and hybrid positions are already very effective at getting the job done.

Studies going back as far as 2015 have found that 77% of remote employees increased productivity when compared to non-remote workers. Of those studied, 30% completed more work in less time, while 24% finished more work within the same period of time.

On the other hand, one 2024 study found that forcing employees back into the office does not boost productivity. Here are the specific findings:

“Researchers at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh combed through public RTO data from 137 S&P 500 firms and ultimately found that RTO mandates had no significant impact on either stock returns or profitability. The researchers instead theorized that managers can use RTO mandates (and those who don’t follow them) as narratives to justify poor stock performances.” –Tech.co coverage

If all that wasn’t enough, yet another study backs up these findings.

The Boston Consulting Group combing through the revenue growth of 554 public companies to find that the fully flexible ones grew revenue 16% higher than their fully in-office counterparts, while hybrid companies grew their revenues 13% more.

Remote Workers Are Happier

It’s no surprise that offering workplace flexibility makes employees happier on average. Any of them might have loved ones to care for that require them to work odd hours or take a longer lunch break. Whether you have a small child or an elderly parent, being able to fully skip the commute frees your time up to care for them properly.

Plus, any employees may have disabilities that would stop them from working a job that requires a constant in-office presence, but who can do the job perfectly when working from home.

Keeping employees happy helps the organization itself: Studies show happier employees will work harder.

As we’ve covered in the past, one 2022 study found employees who work from home are more optimistic (89%) than their on-premises coworkers (77%) and have more job satisfaction (90%) compared to those that commute to the office (82%).

Remote Workers Face a Tough Future

The federal government’s turn-around on remote work follows a trend set by big business in recent years.

Social platform X first broke the dam back when it was called Twitter when it rolled back remote work in late 2023 along with other perks like parental leave. Since then, plenty of other companies have rolled out a tougher stance against workplace flexibility, from Dell to Amazon, which won’t even allow hybrid workers in most cases.

Granted, some tech giants are taking the opportunity to position themselves as a refuge for remote workers, Microsoft and Spotify among them. In addition, small startups everywhere may be more likely to offer remote work, given that it gives them an edge over larger companies like Amazon.

However, it seems the genuine value of remote work is being increasingly overlooked by those who are more invested in offering employees a stick rather than a carrot. The world will be worse as a result.

OpenAI has announced a new feature to automate complex tasks, such as planning vacations, filling out forms, and making restaurant reservations. Known as “Operator,” the new feature was described as “an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you,” in an OpenAI blog post published on Thursday.

So-called “agents” are capable of independently carrying out tasks for human users. Right now, Operator is only available to ChatGPT Pro users in the US, but the company plans a wider rollout in the coming months. The news follows an announcement from Anthropic in October 2024, which introduced “Computer Use” to perform similarly complex tasks.

With Trump back in the White House, the AI race is reaching fever pitch. On Tuesday, the President overturned a Biden-issued executive order designed to mitigate the potential risks of AI. A day later, he unveiled “Project Stargate,” a new company comprised of OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle members that aims to “power the next generation of AI.”

OpenAI Launches Advanced “Operator” Feature

OpenAI has introduced a new feature, known as “Operator,” which can independently perform complex processes, including filling out forms, booking vacations, and making dinner reservations. It is currently only available to ChatGPT Pro users, but a wider release is expected in the near-future.

Operator is trained to interact with “the buttons, menus, and text fields that people use daily,” meaning that it can “go to the web to perform tasks for you,” says the company. Alongside this, it can ask follow-up questions to gain deeper insight into tasks, such as requesting login information. Users can take control of the screen at any time, to mitigate potential privacy concerns.

According to OpenAI, Operator uses a “Computer-Using Agent” model, which combines “ChatGPT-4o’s vision capabilities with advanced reasoning through reinforcement learning.” Presently, it struggles with some tasks, including managing calendars and creating presentations.

OpenAI Rises to Anthropic Challenge

In October 2024, Anthropic rolled out “Computer Use,” its own iteration of a complex task-solving agent. At the time, Jared Kaplan, chief science officer at Anthropic, told CNBC: “[It can] use computers in basically the same way that we do.” He added that it can complete tasks with “tens or even hundreds of steps.”

Computer Use, which is still in beta, can interpret the content of a webpage, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites, and ultimately complete tasks that traditionally require significant input from humans. Anthropic hopes that it will soon be used to automate lengthy processes for millions of users.

But with Operator, OpenAI is going head-to-head with the Amazon-backed AI startup, as competition in the burgeoning AI space intensifies.

Trump Return Heralds AI Frenzy

With his second term in the Oval Office beginning this week, President Trump has wasted no time in making his authority felt. He acted quickly to repeal a 2023 executive order signed by Joe Biden that introduced some guardrails to reduce the potential risks of AI. A day later, he announced federal funding to the tune of $500 billion for the newly-formed “Project Stargate” – with OpenAI among the companies spearheading the project.

The stage is set for a new epoch in the AI battle. As a matter of fact, shots have already been fired, with X CEO and DOGE chair Elon Musk clashing with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In response to the Stargate announcement, Musk took to X, formerly Twitter, to claim: “They don’t actually have the money. SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.” Altman clapped back: “Wrong, as you surely know…I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies.”

In a White House press briefing this week, President Donald Trump says he is aiming to levy a 10% tariff on China imports to the US by February 1st. It’s another confirmation that Trump plans to double down on his long-term interest in tariffs.

These plans are an addition to the 25% tariffs for imports from Canada and Mexico, which Trump has already said he plans to implement within the same time frame.

Trump also promised to include tariffs for goods from the European Union as well.

China Tariffs Coming Within Weeks

According to Trump’s claims during the Tuesday press briefing, the reasoning for the 10% tariffs is due to the importation of fentanyl into Mexico and Canada, from China.

“Probably Feb. 1 is the date we’re looking at,” Trump said.

It’s not quite the day-one change Trump had initially promised during his campaign for the presidency, but it’s a clear signal that Trump’s plans to radically change North American trade policy are still moving forward in the near future.

The changes will likely raise prices from American consumers to a significant extent.

American Consumers Will Shoulder the Burden, Economists Say

Economists aren’t convinced that Trump’s stated actions are in the best interests of the nation. The Economist, writing in an op-ed titled “Tariffs will harm America, not induce a manufacturing rebirth,” noted a few days ago that “the real cost of tariffs is borne, to a large extent, by American consumers through higher import prices.”

According to this analysis, the impact of tariffs during Trump’s first term resulted in both fewer exports bought by Americans and fewer American exports sold to the rest of the world.

“Even if import levels were to remain constant, a 10% universal tariff would fund little more than a twentieth of the federal budget. In reality, imports would not in fact remain constant but rather would decline as higher tariffs raised the price of imports. Even by Mr Trump’s flawed logic, tariffs cannot both create lots of jobs and also raise large amounts of income for the government. That is to count their effects twice over.” -The Economist

More Tariff News Is Set to Come

One thing’s for sure: We’ll be hearing much more about tariffs in the months and years to come.

Trump’s approach towards the conversation surrounding tariffs has been to focus on what other countries are paying, with discussions of creating an “External Revenue Service,” despite general consensus from economists that these costs will be passed largely to US consumers.

Speaking on Monday, Trump has already addressed the potential for universal tariffs, saying “We may, but we’re not ready for that just yet,” according to a CNN report.

He did mention his interest in additional taxes on the EU, later telling Reuters that “The European Union is very, very bad to us. So they’re going to be in for tariffs. It’s the only way … you’re going to get fairness.”

If you’re one of the estimated 22.5 million US workers currently working from home, you’re probably feeling pretty smug about saving money on office commutes, and city lunches.

However, from investing in ergonomic office chairs to covering the costs of business travel, working from home isn’t a free ride. Fortunately, certain workers can ease this financial load by claiming tax deductions on WFH-related expenses – from home office costs to software license fees.

If you’re interested in claiming back cash in this tax season, we’ve outlined some key remote working tax deductions that you should be aware of, before offering some practical advice to help you file your claim.

Which Remote Workers Can Apply For Tax Deductions?

In 2025, most self-employed workers, including freelancers, small business owners, and independent contractors will be able to claim tax deductions for work-related expenses.

However, most formally employed W-2 employees are not eligible for federal tax deductions, unless they are employed in the following states or cities: California, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, The District of Columbia, and Seattle.

There are some exceptions, however. Military reservists are able to claim tax back on travel expenses if they travel over 100 miles from home for service activities, even if they’re W-2 employees. The Fair Labor Standard Act also declares that all US employees are entitled to tax write-offs if costs associated with working from home cause their earnings to drop below the federal minimum wage.

Which Tax Deductions Are Remote Workers Entitled to?

If you’re planning to claim for tax deductions, you need to be aware of the stipulations first. Here are some common tax write-offs remote employees are eligible for:

1. Home office costs
2. Business equipment
3. Travel expenses
4. Vehicle mileage
5. Business meals
6. License fees
7. Health insurance premiums
8. Retirement contributions

1. Home office deductions

Do you work from a home office? If so, you may be able to deduct a portion of your home expenses on your tax return. This tax break is offered by the government to help remote workers offset the expenses of maintaining their home office.

The tax break is eligible for homeowners and renters (provided they meet the IRS’s requirements) and could help ease the costs of mortgage interests, homeowners insurance, rent, utilities, property taxes, and more.

To be entitled to the home office tax deduction, workers need to use their home office space exclusively and regularly for business purposes. This means that if you work in a room with multiple purposes – like a bedroom, dining room, or living room – you probably won’t be eligible.

Your home office will also need to be your primary working location. So, if you only work from home occasionally, you may not qualify.

2. Business equipment

Self-employed and eligible W-2 employees can also claim tax deductions for up to $1,050,000 for qualified business equipment.

Eligible items include hardware like computers, monitors, and prints, office furniture like desks, chairs, and laptop stands, and stationery products like paper, desk organizers, and printer ink.

However, according to the IRS, to be entitled to the tax break you must own all the property and be able to use it for over a year. The property must also be used to make money or contribute to your role, and you’ll need to explain how this is done as part of your application.

3. Travel expenses

If your remote job requires you to travel to different locations, and you don’t own a vehicle, you may also be able to claim tax deductions on travel expenses. Depending on your method of travel, deductible travel expenses could include transportation fees such as train, bus, or airplane tickets.

However, as with all tax deductions, certain stipulations apply. The travel you claim for must be “away from your tax home”, AKA where you carry out business affairs, and require an overnight stay. You’ll also need to keep detailed records of your travels, including information about your trip’s purpose, and the receipts from your travel tickets.

4. Vehicle mileage

If you travel using your own vehicle for business-related travel, you also may be able to claim back tax on your vehicle’s mileage. This perk applies whether you’re making a long trip across states, or covering short distances within your own city.

You’re able to claim by using the actual expense that occurred, or by using the IRS standard mileage rate. To claim during the latter, you’ll need to keep a log of miles driven and separate personal and business distances. As of 2025, the IRS’s standard rate is 70 cents per mile for eligible workers.

However, in addition to milage rates, you’ll also be able to claim tax back on other vehicle-related costs including insurance, vehicle registration, maintenance, parking costs, and toll fees.

5. Business meals

Does your job regularly require you to eat away from home? If so, remote workers are also entitled to claim tax deductions on business meals, under specific circumstances.

According to current IRS guidelines, 50% of the cost of the meal is deductible. But to qualify, the meal will have to either take place with customers, clients, or other business associates, be consumed during an overnight stay for business purposes, or be provided during business meetings or events that are directly related to work.

Meals for personal consumption or convenience aren’t covered with this tax deduction, however. This means that if you DoorDash a meal to your house during company time, you’ll, unfortunately, have to cover the full cost of this yourself.

6. License fees

If you’re paying for licenses that are directly related to your remote work, you may be able to claim tax deductions on these fees.

Deductible licenses include professional licenses required to work in professions like medicine, law, or accountancy, licenses businesses need in order to operate, and software subscriptions needed for daily work activities, like Microsoft Office 365 or Adobe Creative Cloud, for example.

In short, in order for the license to be tax deductible, it will need to be directly related to your remote work. This means that licenses and subscriptions for personal use, like lifestyle magazine subscriptions or social and recreational activities, will not be covered.

7. Health insurance premiums

Health insurance can be a huge expense for self-employed workers. So, you’ll probably be relieved to hear that you also may be able to claim tax discounts on health insurance premiums.

If you’re a self-employed worker and use health insurance that was purchased under you or your business name, you’ll be able to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums for yourself, your spouse, and your children aged under 27. However, you won’t be able to claim this deduction if you or your spouse is eligible for employer-subsidized health insurance, even if you choose not to enroll in your company’s plan.

In 2025, qualifying health insurance includes medical insurance, certain qualifying long-term care coverage, and all Medicare premiums (parts A, B, C, and D).

8. Retirement contributions

Planning for the future is necessary, but can be costly. Fortunately, certain workers can claim tax cuts on retirement contributions, to help ease the financial burden of filling the pension pot.

Several retirement plans are covered under these deductions, including the Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) IRA plan, the Solo 401(k) plan, and the SIMPLE IRA plan. The first two plans have contribution limits of up to $66,000, while SIMPLE IRA is substantially lower at $15,000, or $19,000 if you’re over 50 years old.

If you’re an employee who contributes to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, money put into these accounts is typically pre-taxed, which means they reduce taxable income automatically.

How Should Remote Workers Claim Tax Deductions?

If you think you’re eligible for some of these tax exemptions, but haven’t filed one before – rest assured. The process is relatively straightforward, and shouldn’t take too long provided you’ve kept detailed records of your expenses.

First, we recommend using dedicated tax software to help you keep track of important data and to ensure you claim all of your deductions. You can also hire an accountant to manage the process if you want to ensure all bases are covered.

Then, if you’re a self-employed worker, you’ll have to claim tax deductions on most business expenses with Schedule C tax forms (Profit or Loss from Business) and include self-employment taxes on the Schedule SE form.

The process will be slightly different for traditional W-2 employees. If you fall into this category, you’ll have to use a Schedule A (Itemized Deductions) form for any eligible deductions, in addition to filing state tax returns if your state permits additional deductions.

When Should Remote Workers Claim Tax Deductions?

You should aim to claim these tax deductions as you file your taxes. In the US, the tax season falls from January 1 to April 15. If you aren’t able to meet this April deadline, you can also request a filing extension using Form 4868. If your request is approved you will have until October 15 to file your tax deductions.

However, self-employed workers are required to pay taxes quarterly, with deadlines landing on April 15, June 15, September 15, and January 15, so it’s important to be aware of dates before you begin preparing your claim.

If you run your own business, don’t forget to check out our guide to grants for small businesses available this month.

Payments software company, Stripe, has made 300 people redundant but their emails came accompanied with a picture of a cartoon duck.

As the tech job lay-offs look set to continue into this year, this has got to be one of the strangest stories to date.

While staff at Intel had their coffee removed before the notice of redundancies hit desks, no other employees as far as we know have reported cartoons in their lay-off process.

Accidental Email from Stripe

Employees reported receiving the image of the duck alongside emails announcing that their jobs were being cut. The image was in an attached PDF and accompanies with the caption: “US-Non-California Duck.”

The impacted staff were also sent the wrong date of termination in this massive HR fail.

Business Insider broke the story having seen the leaked internal memo that addressed the mess-up.  In it, Stripe’s chief people officer, Rob McIntosh wrote, “I also want to note that some impacted Stripes received a notification error to their personal email accounts Monday evening PT I apologize for the error and any confusion it caused. Corrected and full notifications have since been sent to all impacted Stripes.”

No Reprieve on Jobs

However, the apology didn’t come, unsurprisingly, with a note saying that in light of the mess-up, people will keep their jobs. Instead, the Irish-American financial services company has confirmed that it is pushing ahead with the jobs cull. The cuts are mainly from the product, engineering, and operations teams.

McIntosh did add, though, that the company is planning on recruiting later in the year to boost its employees up to 10,000.

Job Losses Continue in 2025

While 2023 was horrific for job cuts, especially in the tech sector, they continued into 2024 and already Mark Zuckerberg is warning Meta’s employees that this year will also be “intense” and some jobs will go.

There is also rising concern that AI could see some job roles replaced. The World Economic Forum gave the dire prediction that 41% of companies will cut jobs due to AI in the next five years.

Duck or no duck, the signs are there that we might be in for another year of job cuts, whether straight redundancies or people feeling forced from their roles by strict RTO policies. However, Stripe has just given HR teams everywhere a lesson in how not to handle it.

Microsoft is changing how you sign into a Microsoft account. Starting next month, you will remain signed it automatically, so make sure to log out if you’re using a public computer.

At the moment, when you sign into a Microsoft account, a message pops up asking if you want to stay signed in. However, in February, this will be automatic.

There are enough scammers trying to access your personal information, and leaving your account open on a public machine would be easy pickings, which is why understanding this change could make a big difference for your online security.

What Do You Need To Do?

If you are using a public computer, the best option is to use private browsing and scribble yourself a reminder to sign out until it becomes your standard practice. This is something that Gmail users have gotten used to doing.

However, there is also a backstop. If you leave where you have been working but have forgotten to sign out, Microsoft and Outlook users have the option of forcing sign out everywhere from their accounts. Following the instructions on this link to do this.

Passkey Support

Microsoft has slowly added passkey support to its systems, in a bid to get customers to move away from passwords. It kicked off last May, when Microsoft announced passkey support for Xbox, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Copilot users.

In a blog post in December, the company said that the “password era is ending.” It added that “bad actors know it” and this has seen a spike in password-related attacks.

“At Microsoft, we block 7,000 attacks on passwords per second—almost double from a year ago. At the same time, we’ve seen adversary-in-the-middle phishing attacks increase by 146% year over year,” it writes.

The Advantages of Passkeys

Passkeys can be a fingerprint, face scan, or a PIN, and Microsoft argues that they are far more effective against hacking than passwords. Here is where you can create your passkeys.

There are notable advantages for passkeys, not least for those of us who regularly forget our passwords. Passkeys like fingerprints or faces can’t be lost, after all. They are also a better defense against phishing attacks.

However, there can be issues with passkeys because of cross platform compatibility, functionality with older devices, and their need for certain hardware security modules.

For the moment though, Microsoft users working on public machines just need to remind themselves to log out and perhaps think about setting up their passkeys once they have this figured out.

Instagram users searching for the terms “Democrat” or “Democrats” have been getting an error message.

In a story that has raised eyebrows in light of the newly sparked bromance between Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump, Meta is claiming that the “results hidden” message popping up is a technical problem.

Instagram, which will soon see sweeping changes to its moderation, claims that the problem is also affecting some Republican hashtags and promises there is no political maneuvering at play.

What Are Users Seeing?

BBC News reports that the error comes up when users directly search for “Democrats” or “Democrat.” These searches result in an error screen that says: “We’ve hidden these results. Results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content.”

However, there are also limited results being reported when users search for “Republicans” but not “Republican.” But a search using the hashtag “Republican” returns 3.3 million posts while, at one point, users were reporting that the hashtags “#Democrat” or “#Democrats” returned no results at all.

Issued Resolved but Questions Remain

Meta was quick to bat away accusations of partisanship and told the BBC in a statement:

“We’re aware of an error affecting hashtags across the political spectrum and we are working quickly to resolve it.” – Meta spokesperson

It could be an innocent technical error but comes at a time when Meta is fundamentally changing its approach to politicized speech across all of its platforms. This also includes changing its Community Guidelines, and the flagging of certain search terms.

Entrepreneurs and Government

This technical issue also comes at a time when Mark Zuckerberg has gone from banning Donald Trump from his platforms to visiting him at Mar-O-Lago, donating $1 million to his inauguration fund and being at the president’s inauguration ceremony.

He was there alongside Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Google boss Sundar Pichai.

There has been a fundamental shift in Zuckerberg’s attitude to the now president and this technical glitch has hit the headlines because of this.

The controversy around Elon Musk’s “salute” on Donald Trump’s inauguration day is reaching fever-pitch in the news and social media, but on Reddit, it has resulted in calls for the platform to cut ties with X.

Redditors are reportedly advocating a ban on X links appearing in Reddit posts after two arm gestures that Musk made at one of the inauguration events have been compared to a Nazi salute.

The spotlight is now very much on Musk (isn’t it always), who is a staunch and very vocal advocate of Donald Trump’s but has also been given a role in Government heading up a government efficiency commission, nicknamed DOGE.

Clashing Views

As reported by Newsweek, the movement to ban X links on Reddit is gathering pace and it’s pretty heated. Groups are even arguing that the collective stance on this issue reflects their wider views of far right politics.

In one group, for the Valorant eSports community, a Redditor commented: “Throwing a n*zi salute is NOT a valid expression of a political opinion. NO ONE should condone the fascist nzi ideology, regardless of their political affiliation. This is NOT just “politics“, we as a sports/e-sports community have to take our stance against fascism.”

The moderator in this group is suggesting screenshots instead of links for X content. But in other groups, this suggestion has been met with accusations of censorship and undermining free speech. In one group called “Change my view”, the discussion has got pretty heated.

A Redditor called Marco Tropoja wrote: “This is absolutely censorship, no matter how it’s framed. Reddit is supposed to be about discussions—whether you agree with the content or not. Banning links from x.com just because you don’t like Elon Musk or his politics undermines the platform’s purpose as a space for open dialogue.”

Musk Quick To Dismiss Claims

Musk himself has been quick to take to X to dismiss the allegations, writing: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”

But detractors and supporters have been quick to get involved. Rome-based Andrea Stroppa, who is one of Musk’s fervent supporters and advisors, posted the clip of Musk gesturing on X with the caption: “Roman Empire is back starting from Roman salute.” The Roman salute was widely used by Benito Mussolini and his fascist party in Italy during the Second World War. She has since deleted it.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University, wrote on X: “”Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too.” Others have said it was just Musk being excited; and hundreds of images of leaders from both parties holding similar arm positions have been published.

Others have been more circumspect. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said on X: “This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety. It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge. In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.”

However, Musk’s support of the German AfD party and the anti-immigration Reform party in the UK are undeniable and definitely giving credence to the view that this was a political statement; not the wild arm gestures of an excited man.

Wider Questions Over Social Media Moderation

However, whatever you feel about Musk, the debate feeds into a wider question on what moderation should look like; and whether there is a place for it at all. Like so many politicized issues, it is highly divisive.

Meta has caused consternation in some camps with its decision to get rid of third-party moderation in the US across its platforms. The move is already turning into a war of words with EU authorities; and Mark Zuckerberg has pre-emptively appealed to Donald Trump to protect his company from potential EU fines that could result from the moderation shake-up.

Musk was brutal in slicing all of his moderation staff right in the earliest days after his takeover of X. And Donald Trump is someone who has actually been banned (ironically by Zuckerberg and Musk’s predecessor) on several social media platforms.

The debate continues on Reddit and we can be sure that this isn’t the last time that Musk will do something controversial (this week perhaps?) but the question over how it should be handled is going to be debated for a long time.

President Donald Trump has announced private-sector investments of up to $500 billion into ‘Project Stargate’ – a new company that aims to be the “largest AI infrastructure project in history.”

The new company is being spearheaded by some biggest players in AI, including OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, and aims to construct 20 data centers across the US and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. As the AI race intensifies, the historical initiative will also see the US compete with global powers like China.

However, just a day before Stargate was unveiled, the President overturned a previous executive order designed to mitigate the risks of AI, leading some experts to question the ethical implications of Trump’s build-first, think-later approach to AI.

What Is Stargate? Trump’s New AI Infrastructure Project

Just a day into his administration, President Donald Trump has announced a new artificial intelligence project that aims to set the standard for AI infrastructure and see the US compete with global powers like China.

Project Stargate was unveiled by Trump at a White House event on Tuesday, alongside joint collaborators OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and SoftBank SEO Masayoshi Son. Alongside other equity backers, these companies have committed to investing $100 billion into kick-starting the project, with plans to funnel a further $500 billion into Stargate in years to come.

As part of Stargate’s mission to build the “physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of AI”, Trump revealed that 20 data centers would be constructed across the country, with each measuring at least half a million square feet. According to Ellison, a one-million-square-foot data center is already under construction in Texas.

Talking about the initiative, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explained Stargate aims to create “hundreds of thousands of jobs”, while also having the potential to “redefine healthcare” and offer unprecedented advancements in disease diagnosis and treatment. Oracle’s Ellison echoed this sentiment, adding that the project could make it easier to treat diseases like cancer with mRNA vaccines.

Stargate Aims to Position US at the Front of the Global AI Race

Stargate’s announcement comes a week after AI trailblazer OpenAI published a policy white paper calling the US government to invest more in the technology to continue the country’s global leadership in innovation while protecting national security.

The paper estimates that there’s $175 billion sitting in global funds awaiting to be invested in AI projects, and claims if the US doesn’t attract those funds, they could flow into the pockets of our biggest global competitor, China, “strengthening the Chinese Communist Party’s global influence” as a result.

“This project ensures that the United States will remain the global leader in AI and technology, rather than letting competitors like China gain the edge,” – President Donald Trump at the White House event

China has outpaced the US in machine learning patents every year since 2021, and the nation’s rapidly developing AI sector is intensifying concerns around surveillance and trading dominance. With Stargate aiming to set the global standard in AI, it appears OpenAI’s prayers have been answered.

Yet, as the US prioritizes unchecked innovation, it’s likely that Stargate could raise the stakes of the AI race and exacerbate global trading disputes even further. What’s more, with Trump reversing an executive order from former President Joe Biden which aimed to regulate AI risks on the first day of his administration, it’s unclear how the President’s hands-off AI strategy will play out in the long term.

Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Another contender has joined the starting line as the race starts to buy TikTok and save it from closure.

The latest person to take their mark is YouTube star and one of the world’s highest earning creators, MrBeast.

According to reports, MrBeast has teamed up with tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, who is the founder of the online HR company employer.com. They are taking on rival bids from a team including Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame and there are also rumors that Trump’s new best friend, Elon Musk, might throw his hat in too.

All-Cash Bid for TikTok

The Guardian is reporting that MrBeast – whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson – has made a formal bid for the Chinese-owned social media platform. He has partnered with Tinsley and they have offered an all-cash bid.

The confirmation came from US law firm, Paul Hastings, which says that alongside 26-year old Donaldson and Tinsley are a group of “institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals” although they are not named. The statement is short and sweet, and doesn’t detail how much the bid is nor any time frames.

Interestingly, adds the newspaper, the lead lawyer on the bid is Brad Bondi, who is the brother of Trump’s choice as US attorney general, Pam Bondi.

Donaldson had flagged his interest earlier this month, writing on X: “I’ll buy TikTok so it doesn’t get banned.” He later added on TikTok that he had started talks with a “bunch of billionaires”.

Clock Is Ticking for TikTok Ban

There is a pressing sense of urgency to the situation. TikTok went dark the day before Trump’s inauguration, only to be reinstated with a 75-day extension by the now president. But he hasn’t completely reversed the ban (which he was actually instrumental in) and so TikTok must find a buyer.

As to the price, Trump mentioned the figure of $1tn at a press conference with a 50% US ownership and a “permit” to operate in the country. He also nodded to Musk’s interest while adding that the multibillionaire founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, might also make a bid. Ellison, who was actually at the press conference, reportedly said that it sounded like “a good deal”.

While it is looking likely that a buyer will be found, who that will be and how the platform will then operate is a guess. After all, none of the concerns about national security have disappeared and the scrutiny will no doubt continue in the 75-day period.

Uncertainty Still Reigns for TikTok

In the meanwhile, some of TikTok’s 170 million US users have started looking at alternatives, including, ironically, another Chinese social media app called RedNote. Reuters is reporting that Apple and Google have not reinstated TikTok in their app stores as yet, so rivals definitely have an opportunity to jump in and they’re using it.

But is Trump’s suspension of the ban even legal? And is there steering going on behind closed doors as to who the new owner will be? Plenty of questions to be answered and not a huge amount of time for answers.

Poor TikTok has not only faced a nail-biting teeter at the edge of survival this week, but is also contending with a Chinese rival actively recruiting its influencers.

Now, another rival, Meta’s Instagram, is also reported to be trying to court TikTok influencers over to its platform, with thousands of dollars promised if they will post to Reels.

The alleged deal would see influencers pocket the cash from Meta if they post to Reels first but then are able to publish elsewhere. Meta, though, would get the exclusive.

Capitalizing on the Chaos

According to a report from The Information, Instagram is actively approaching creators and offering them “bonuses” valued at between $10,000 to $50,000 per month.

The Meta execs are obviously hoping this will give the platform a boost of exclusive content from some of TikTok’s biggest names, and attract TikTokers to follow them to Instagram.

TikTok users are actively looking for alternatives as the surge of interest in Shanghai-based social media app, RedNote, has shown and so it’s understandable that Instagram would want to capitalize on the chaos around TikTok’s future as well.

Waiting in the Wings

Instagram’s Reels, launched in 2020, was designed specifically to compete with TikTok. A recent (and not universally loved) decision to switch from square to rectangular profile grids is a measure of exactly how much emulation there is.

The two platforms have always fought a close battle, with Business Insider reporting last June that increased engagement with Reels was directly correlated with decreased usage of TikTok.

The report quotes a Morgan Stanley survey of 2,000 US consumers, which revealed that more than a third of Instagram users use Reels daily, and 78% engage with it monthly. But specifically, it revealed that 26% of reels users are not using TikTok at all, which is an increase on the previous year’s percentage.

The Meta team may be suggesting that TikTok’s popularity is waning but its incoming changes to moderation (and TikTok’s possible reprieve) might yet change the rankings.

Have Reels Bonuses Worked Before?

The Verge suggests that bonus-led schemes to get creators on board have had mixed results for Instagram in the past. The company launched a bonus program in 2021, but it was short-lived with creators complaining about decreasing payments. There is a bonus program on the Instagram site at the moment.

Meta also ran an invite-only bonus program for Threads last spring, but Engadget wrote that, despite the dollars coming in, many were totally baffled by the algorithm.

With the fight for TikTok refugees ongoing, despite the 75-day window, this is one bonus program that Meta needs to work and really catch the big-hitting influencers’ attention. However, it also needs to be good enough to keep them from returning to TikTok or looking elsewhere.

TikTok may now have a 75-day reprieve thanks to President Trump, but when its ban was looming, rival RedNote is reported to have recruited influencers to raise its profile with US users.

The Chinese social media platform enjoyed a boom in interest stateside as TikTokers prepared for their beloved app going dark.

But reports suggest that the company hasn’t just sat back and waited for people to find it. Instead, it actively recruited US-based influencers to bolster its profile by working with a New York-based marketing agency.

Paid Posts

Wired has published an article giving details of a campaign brief it has had eyes on. Created by marketing agency Solare Global, the brief was sent to select TikTok influencers and laid out how they could talk about “how fun and engaging the app [RedNote] is” and “emphasize its user-friendly design and international appeal.”

In the days leading up to the ban, there were reports of just this with influencers making videos about how to set up RedNote accounts and gushing about its “cuteness.”

There are no details on which influencers it was sent to and whether or not they were paid per post (and if so, how much).

Wired adds that it contacted both Xiaohongshu, which is the Chinese name for RedNote, and Solare Global for comment but neither have responded.

RedNote’s Rise

As the TikTok ban approached, users were furiously searching for alternatives and RedNote appealed because of its similarity to its rival; but also because it also shares features with Instagram and even Pinterest.

Just a week ago, the Shanghai-based app surged to the top spot in Apple’s app store listings for free apps in the US. Wired reports that the company has furiously recruited English-speaking moderators as Americans joined and started posting.

However, RedNote has to adhere to the content moderation (or censorship) policies set for it by the Chinese government so this will be problematic with a surge of content coming from outside of China. TikTok, in contrast, is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, but is not available in China.

TikTok’s Revival

However, in the next few weeks, we will see whether RedNote’s popularity continues to rise as TikTok comes back from the cusp. It has been given a 75-day lifeline, with Trump determined to find a resolution to ensure the social media platform’s survival. He hasn’t reversed the ban altogether, though.

Options on the table include the US operations being sold to a team of entrepreneurs, including Shark Tank host, Kevin O’Leary. There are even rumors that Elon Musk is eyeing up the platform.

What the ByteDance execs now have is a little time; but there is still uncertainty and RedNote has shown that it’s only too happy to capitalize on that.

Won’t anybody think of the HR managers!? While companies the world over continue to end or curtail remote working arrangements, human resource leaders are finding the management of return-to-office (RTO) mandates one of the biggest challenges to handle.

That’s according to a new survey that asked more than 1,000 HR leaders about the leave and accommodations landscape within their companies – 1 in 4 respondents said that managing RTO mandates has been one of their top challenges in the last 12 months.

Yet despite an increasing number of employees being forced back into the physical workplace, working remotely remains the most common job accommodation request made to businesses.

Recruitment and Retention

Management platform AbsenceSoft carried out the survey for its 2025 State of Leave and Accommodations paper, which included a cohort of 1,200 HR and People Ops leaders at companies with no less than 500 employees.

One of its key questions was to ask respondents what their top challenges were in 2024, with ‘recruiting the right talent’ coming out on top with 57%.

Other frequent responses were ’employee stress and burnout’ (54%), ‘retaining valuable employees’ (52%) and ’employee health and well being’ (41%).

Due to the changing nature of the working landscape, supporting remote employees has fallen from the second biggest challenge, with just over a third of those surveyed saying it was an issue they faced. 24% said managing RTO mandates.

“With the proliferation of return-to-office mandates, it’s no surprise that remote work is not reported as being as big a challenge in 2025. However, it’s clear that today’s workforce isn’t getting any less stressed, and retention is becoming an issue as employees leave roles for more accommodating work environments.” – AbsenceSoft

Jury Still Out on RTO

HR managers aren’t the only ones who are finding the ‘great return to the office’ problematic.

We reported in October on survey results revealing that RTO mandates are driving employees to look for other jobs, with 73% of respondents having moved on from jobs because they didn’t like their employer’s work policy.

That isn’t stopping companies from proceeding to force staff back to the workplace, though. JP Morgan is the latest big name to issue a five-day-a-week RTO mandate, following in the footsteps of tech giants like Amazon, Dell, and Ubisoft.

While others such as Microsoft and Spotify are resisting such heavy handed workplace strategies.

Requests for Leave Increasing

Other notable findings from the survey included 57% of respondents saying that requests for leaves of absence increased year-on-year in 2024, and the top three reasons for leave risks pertained to recovering from illness or injury (57%), managing mental health-related issues (47%) and caring for an aging relative (37%).

When it comes to job accommodations, 51% of those surveyed said that a desire to work from home or via teleworking was among the top three requests they receive.

“We often think of job accommodations as something physical an employee with a disability needs, such as a chair for back pain or wrist brace for carpal tunnel syndrome. Our survey found that it’s much more likely that an employee will request less costly accommodations related to when and where they work.” – AbsenceSoft

That was followed by intermittent leave or reduced schedules (46%), specialized equipment (35%) and additional breaks (34%).

A select group of US officials are going to get to “meet” the “Ph.D-level” agents from OpenAI behind closed doors.

The meeting, which will reportedly take place on January 30th, is being hosted by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

However, details of what the officials will get to see are scant. When they do hit the press, they are sure to be accompanied by concerns about the power tech companies are unleashing. This is not least because legislation is dramatically lagging behind and because the Trump administration (and its gang of supporting tech bros) are advocates of minimal intervention when it comes to innovating to make big bucks.

What Is a Super Agent?

This is an AI agent that is capable of doing complex human tasks. They have the advantage of being able to deep dive through thousands of pieces of data autonomously and make sense of it – and in a fraction of the time of a human. This is why they have been described as comparable in intelligence to a Ph.D level student. They can tackle a goal, as opposed to a single task, says Axios, which broke the story.

Altman has suggested that this year will be meteoric for his company, as it pushes to make ChatGPT even more appealing.

This is also the year in which the company is striving to create AI agents that could “join the workforce and materially change the output of companies,” he shared in a blog post.

What the officials will actually be getting to see could be something entirely different, aimed specifically at government services, as opposed to bookings.

AI Arms Race

Creating these super agents or Agentic AI is becoming the Holy Grail for those competing in the AI sphere. Meta has been furiously pushing its Llama-powered Meta AI on its social media platforms and messaging apps. It has also made the open source AI model available to the US government to “support the prosperity and security of the United States.”

Meanwhile, Amazon is facing accusations that it is falling behind as it admits that AI Alexa is nowhere near ready for public consumption. This is despite the billions the company has pumped into AI wunderkind Anthropic.

Microsoft is facing similar negativity but specifically from the CEO of Salesforce. Marc Benioff has called Microsoft’s AI assistant, Copilot, a “huge disaster” and “…the new Microsoft Clippy.”

Whatever OpenAI is going to show off has got to be something above and beyond what is available now or even what we can imagine to merit such covertness.

Concerns Abound

While we don’t know the details, the fact that the closed-door meeting is being held with government officials might get federal employees concerned.

They are already facing four years under a president who strongly believes that there is government wastage to attack – and has appointed his DOGE team to do so. Could AI play a role in cutting costs too?

The World Economic Forum warned earlier this month that 41% of companies will make job cuts in the next five years because of AI. With the most powerful men in tech now behind the Trump Administration, could the US Government and its many departments be one of the first places where agentic AI is given a place at the table?

While many experts consider AI to be the future of productivity gains at work, new research has warned that careless use of chatbots by workers may leave their employers exposed to costly data leaks.

It says that nearly one in 10 prompts entered into generative AI tools by workers include sensitive data, with a large number comprising customer data such as billing information.

With the majority of these prompts being inputted into the free versions of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots like Copilot, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, businesses are potentially more exposed than they would be with paid tiers.

Sensitive Customer Information

In a report produced by Harmonic – a cybersecurity startup specializing in artificial intelligence – the company says it analyzed tens of thousands of prompts made by businesses to the planet’s biggest AI chatbots during Q4 2024.

It found that, while the vast majority of usage is harmless (e.g. summarizing text, editing blogs, writing documentation for code), 8.5% of all prompts included sensitive information.

Of that sensitive data, more than 45% instances included information such as customer reports and profiles, payment transactions, billing information, and credit card details.

Harmonic gives an employee entering the particulars of an insurance claim, which will often contain private, detailed information, as an example of using AI to save time.

“While efficient, this practice risks exposing sensitive customer information like billing details, authentication credentials, and payment transactions.” – Harmonic spokesperson

Intellectual Property Concerns

The research revealed that around a quarter of the prompts investigated contained employee data (e.g. personally identifiable information, payroll, employment records), which could leave individuals exposed.

The remainder concerned legal and finance, security, and sensitive code. That will be an even greater concern for businesses, as the leaking of such information could give competitive advantage to other companies, bring about regulatory compliance issues, and “provide attackers with a blueprint for exploiting vulnerabilities.”

“When we think of data leakage, our minds often immediately go to PII, social security numbers, credit cards, and API keys,” says an accompanying blog from Harmonic. “However, for many businesses, the concerns are more often around IP – source code, intellectual property.”

Problem with Free Tiers

Harmonic says that the data it has discovered is even more concerning when considered alongside the fact that most of the prompts are entered using the free tiers of chatbots; more than 50% of all the ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude entries it looked at were on their respective free tiers.

That’s because, the company says, using a free product rather than a paid-for enterprise-level plan means that the business doesn’t get the benefit of extra security features. Plus, many free-tier tools explicitly state they train on customer data, meaning sensitive information entered could be used to improve models, further compounding risks.

It’s not the first time that businesses have been warned against the risks of their staff using AI tools. Consumer tech giant Samsung restricted their use after sensitive code was leaked in 2023, while a study last year revealed that 77% of businesses have faced AI security breaches.

It will surprise absolutely no one that President Trump’s first day in office included an return-to-office mandate.

Addressed to the “heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government,” the notice insists on a full-time return to office and says employees must make it so “as soon as practicable.”

Trump has been open in his feelings towards remote working. In a recent news conference, he stated bluntly: “If people don’t come back to work… they’re going to be dismissed.” While employees working for the likes of Dell and Amazon have pushed back against strict RTO mandates, the White House looks increasingly unlikely to negotiate.

No Explanation

The statement published by The White House is short and snappy. While CEOs of the big tech companies have tried to make their RTO mandates easier to swallow with assertions about team building and collaboration, there has been no such mercy from Trump’s team.

It states that employees must “…take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.” It does add that “the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”

The mandate will hit hard, because currently more than half of some departments work remotely. On top of that, the Department of Education and General Services Administration will be among those where the changes will be felt most.

More To Come?

It’s fair to suggest that more mandates will no doubt follow with Trump calling remote working policies “terrible” and “ridiculous.”

His two DOGE chiefs — Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — are also outspoken advocates of having everyone in the office full time. Musk has enforced strict policies at his own ventures and voiced his plan to do the same in Government.

In a Wall Street Journal op ed, the duo wrote: “If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home.”

Musk has also stated that the RTO mandate is a way of slimming down the federal workforce – with a wave of “voluntary terminations.” He said that workers who can’t make being in the office five days a week work for them should quit and move on.

He isn’t alone in taking such a brutal stance. It is a charge that was laid squarely at Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy – though he denied it.

Thorn in His Side

Around 42,000 workers may have a reprieve, as they fall under an agreement signed between President Biden and the Social Security Administration and the American Federation of Government Employees union in early December.

Under the terms of the deal, these employees will have to right to hybrid working until 2029. It sparked an immediate backlash from Republican senators, including Senator James Comer on X.

Trump has suggested that he will seek out a court order to reverse the impact of the deal, leaving thousands of employees facing uncertainty as they become pawns in a battle between the outgoing and incoming administrations and their opposing views on hybrid working.

Meta says that it is not going to shelve third-party fact-checking outside of the US, seeming to give weight to the rumors that the move in America was very much a political one.

Mark Zuckerberg himself laid out the sweeping changes to moderation, claiming that the Community Notes program that would be put in place instead would “empower the community”. He also pointed to X as an example of how this model works, which raised a few wry eyebrows.

However, the Meta chief followed the news just days later with a plea to the then soon-to-be president, Donald Trump – to protect US companies from EU fines, pre-empting a negative response to the moderation move outside of the US.

No Change for Meta Moderation Outside US…Yet

In an interview with Bloomberg, Meta’s head of global business Nicola Mendelsohn suggested that the company is going to keep the present status-quo but didn’t rule out changes in the future.

She said: “We’ll see how that goes as we move it out over the year. So nothing changing in the rest of the world at the moment, we are still working with those fact checkers around the world.”

In the US, Meta has called for users to sign up to its moderation program (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) and roll-out will start in the next couple of months.

What Will Users See in the US?

The changes that will kick off in the US were laid out by Meta’s newly-appointed chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan in a statement that was published alongside Zuckerberg’s video.

Kaplan said that Meta will “stop demoting fact-checked content.” He added too that a “much less obtrusive label indicating that there is additional information for those who want to see it” will replace “full screen interstitial warnings.”

Kaplan added that the company will be “getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender”.

Why Could There Be Issues for Meta in the EU?

The changes have already caused concern. Former Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is co-chair of Meta’s independent oversight board, told the BBC that she was worried that there could be a spike in hate speech, especially towards people in the LGBTQ+ communities. “We are seeing many instances where hate speech can lead to real-life harm, so we will be watching that space very carefully,” she said.

However, she will not be alone in scrutinizing the content. A pre-emptive war of words has already kicked off between Zuckerberg and EU authorities. In an interview with Joe Rogan, the Meta CEO rallied against the EU fines his company has had to pay in antitrust rulings. He said: “I think it’s a strategic advantage for the US that we have a lot of the strongest companies in the world, and I think it should be part of the US strategy going forward to defend that.”

As reported by Reuters, Zuckerberg went as far as the say that EU rules were choking innovation. “Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there,” he said. But the European Commission hit straight back and said: “We absolutely refute any claims of censorship.” It also said that it did not prescribe any specific form of moderation for social media platforms but “…whatever model a platform chooses needs to be effective.”

So while Zuckerberg might now have the favor of the US president and approval for his hands-off model, other countries have a very different view of what moderation should look like.