OpenAI, maker of the ChatGPT AI chatbot, has made moves in the employment market over the last few days, bringing two big names into its ranks.

Last week, Gabor Cselle – the co-founder of the now-defunct social media platform Pebble – confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that he had joined the company. That was followed a few days afterwards by an announcement on LinkedIn from Meta executive Caitlin Kalinowski that she too had joined the company.

It caps a turbulent 12 months of musical chairs at OpenAI, that began with Sam Altman’s shock firing last November and has culminated in greater restructuring plans in the fall.

Who Is Gabor Cselle?

Cselle told his 21,000 X followers on Friday that he had joined OpenAI, praising the talented colleagues he was now working with. He remained tight-lipped in the post about the capacity in which he had been hired, and his LinkedIn profile shows him simply as an “Employee.”

If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he has been involved with many Silicon Valley tech companies and startups and in the past.

Having spent time at Twitter, Google and Yahoo and being involved with the establishment of startups such as reMail and Namo media, Cselle co-founded Pebble (also known as T2) two years ago as an alternative to the Elon Musk-owned X.

Pebble confirmed that it was shutting down on 1st November last year.

Since then, Cselle has posted from his X profile about his involvement in AI projects such as Granola and Choosy Chat.

Excited to share that I’ve joined @OpenAI!

The talent density here is incredible. Learning a lot already. Will share more about what I’m working on in due time.

— Gabor Cselle (@gabor) November 1, 2024

Who Is Caitlin Kalinowski?

Kalinowski’s future at OpenAI is much more clear, with her LinkedIn announcement confirming her hire as a robotics and consumer hardware lead and an initial focus on “OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to help bring AI into the physical world and unlock its benefits for humanity.”

“OpenAI and ChatGPT have already changed the world, improving how people get and interact with information and delivering meaningful benefits around the globe. AI is the most exciting engineering frontier in tech right now, and I could not be more excited to be part of this team.” – Caitlin Kalinowski on LinkedIn

Having worked as a Product Design Engineer at Apple between 2008 and 2013, Kalinowski spent more than a decade working on VR and AR products – she was Head of VR Hardware during the release of several Oculus and Meta Quest products, before becoming Meta’s Head of AR Glasses Hardware to help develop Orion Holographic glasses.

She is also a prominent LGBTQ advocate in the tech world. Kalinowski is the strategic advisor to Lesbians Who Tech – the “largest LGBTQ professional network globally and the leading women’s tech conference.”

The Open Door at OpenAI

The pair of appointments is another feel good story for the executive leadership team at OpenAI, following its poaching of Sebastien Bubeck from Microsoft last month. He had held the post of VP AI and Distinguished Scientist at the tech giant and was seen as a big coup when OpenAI desperately needed one.

That’s because they had suffered the departure of Chief Technology Officer and former CEO Mira Muti just a few weeks earlier.

And three other key executives – Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, VP of Post Training Barret Zoph and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever – all left OpenAI’s ranks over the course of 2024.

But at least CEO and co-founder Sam Altman has remained in place after the remarkable few weeks at the end of last year when he was fired and then rehired by the company.

Scammers are using Microsoft teams messaging as a new tactic for getting to victims, a new report has revealed.

US cybersecurity firm, Reliaquest, has detailed this latest mode of attack and warns that it observed around 1,000 emails were sent within just 50 minutes to one single user before the scam moved over to Teams.

This latest report on ever-changing modes of attacks comes after Microsoft and OpenAI warned that hackers are also using AI to make their attacks sleeker and less easy to detect.

From Russia with Love

The Reliaquest report details that this new scam is a variation of a tried and tested tactic from the ransomware group ‘Black Basta’ and it is highly confident that this is the group behind the attacks.

The report identifies that most of these threat actors can be identified as originating from Russia, thanks to the time zone information logged by Teams displaying Moscow as the location.

The US Cyber Defense Agency said in May that the criminal outfit had impacted 500 companies globally.

How the Microsoft Teams Scam Works

Previously, the group bombarded targets with email spam to prompt them to create a legitimate help-desk ticket to resolve the issue. The victim then received what they thought was a help desk response but when they engaged, it morphed into an attack.

However now the attackers are using Microsoft Teams to reach out to the victim following the flood of emails.

Scammers are using the messaging service instead of email to pose as IT support. They then send links or malicious QR codes for the remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool, AnyDesk. It Pro explains that the “domains linked to the QR codes were often generic but the report noted some were tailored to match the targeted organization, such as ‘companyname.qr–s1[.]com’.”

When a victim responds, they are unknowingly giving access to their environment to the scammers to launch their ransomware attack.

The Reliaquest report also states that it is found adverts on the dark web from Black Basta listing its email spam services asking for fees between from $10 – $500.

How to Protect Yourself From Scammers on Microsoft Teams

Reliaquest says that it is already seeing the hackers adapting their tactics to use Microsoft’s QuickAssist instead of AnyDesk so vigilance is key.

It recommends looking out for the initial emails as they are “typically from automated systems or services that send confirmations or notifications (e.g., noreply@domain[.]com, subscription@domain[.]com, support@domain[.]com, help@domain[.]com, marketing@domain[.]com).”

Aggressive anti-spam policies within email security tools can stop these spam emails reaching your inbox, it says.

But if an email does get through, if organizations have disabled communication from external users within Teams, their employees will remain safe. Reliaquest adds that if communication with external users is necessary, “specific trusted domains can be allow listed”.

It also suggests enabling logging for Teams and searching for rogue accounts. It writes that accounts impersonating IT help desks typically have their names set to “Help Desk.” “This string is often surrounded by whitespace characters, likely to center the name within chats”, it explains. “When searching for these accounts, organizations should search for “contains,” rather than a direct match.”

As always, employee training and vigilance remain key as the attacks unlikely to stop and the tactics will constantly evolve.

Meta has announced that it is making its open source AI model, Llama, available to the US government and associated organizations in order to help make the country and world a safer place.

The company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp says that the wider use of its artificial intelligence technology will “support the prosperity and security of the United States”, as well as establishing the country as the standard bearer in the global race for AI leadership.

The announcement suggests that the social media giant is particularly anxious about China’s advancements in the world of AI, with the country’s utility of the technology reportedly growing exponentially.

Prosperity and Security

While Meta is already partnering with the US State Department on other initiatives, it is now specifically making Llama available to government agencies and contractors working on national security applications.

The offer was vocalized in a blog post from the company’s President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, titled ‘Open Source AI Can Help America Lead in AI and Strengthen Global Security’.

In it, he explains that the use of AI can help “streamline complicated logistics and planning, track terrorist financing or strengthen our cyber defenses”, and that open source systems have long been a crucial asset in US military advancements.

“Due to their ability to process vast amounts of data, reason, and generate usable insights, large language models can support many aspects of America’s safety and national security.” – Nick Clegg, Meta

According to Clegg, the “responsible and ethical” use of open source AI models like Llama are necessary to provide the country with prosperity and security.

It’s certainly not the first time a major tech company has given the government a helping hand in the interests of national security. Earlier this year, for instance, Microsoft released an internet-free AI model to give the CIA a secure way to analyze top secret information.

Private Sector Partnerships

In addition to making Llama’s components open to the government to use directly, the post also explains that Meta is already working with private sector partners such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Deloitte, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Oracle and Snowflake in their work on defense.

It uses computer technology company Oracle as a case study – it’s using Llama to help “synthesize aircraft maintenance documents”, which assists technicians in getting military aircraft back in service more quickly.

AWS and Microsoft, it says, are both using Llama “to support governments by hosting our models on their secure cloud solutions for sensitive data”. While aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin has incorporated it for code generation, data analysis and enhancing business processes.

China Crisis?

There is also a sense to Clegg’s post of an increasing anxiety in relation to China’s greater use of AI in the power’s own national interests – a study recently showed that China is outpacing the US in AI use in the workplace.

He cites Linux and Android as prime examples from recent history where the open source spirit of collaboration has helped to advance the technology, and that AI development will become embedded in technology and infrastructure around the world “whether the United States engages or not”.

“We believe it is in both America and the wider democratic world’s interest for American open source models to excel and succeed over models from China and elsewhere.” – Nick Clegg, Meta

It seems that China is already winning the race to develop quantum computers, and it was reported by the South China Morning Post (paywalled) in 2020 that the state was investing approximately $1.4 trillion in key technologies that include artificial intelligence.

Despite a wrangle over content harvesting, the CEO of AI search venture, Perplexity, has offered help with election coverage as the New York Times faces a walk-out.

Tech workers on the title are striking today after their demands for an annual 2.5% wage increase and a set two days a week in the office were not met.

Perplexity hit the headlines in May when it hit a $1 billion evaluation, then was collared by NYT for alleged content scraping but now its CEO has controversially offered up its AI tools to mitigate the impact of this strike.

AI Crossing the Picket Line

Aravind Srinivas, the company’s CEO, made the offer on X in a thread with Semafor media editor Max Tani and in response to NYT’s publisher, AG Sulzberger, criticism of the timing of the strike.

Srinivas wrote: “Hey AG Sulzberger @nytimes sorry to see this. Perplexity is on standby to help ensure your essential coverage is available to all through the election. DM me anytime here.”

‘Support’ not ‘Replace’ NYT Workers

Srinivas quickly realized his offer was causing a storm and back-peddled, responding to TechCrunch’s X post on the story with a clarification. He promised he wasn’t trying to replace human workers but just wanted to help make sure that the news would still be published as usual.

He wrote: “It would be bad for the country if NYT were down on Election Day. Everyone should pitch in to help. To be clear, the offer was *not* to “replace” journalists or engineers with AI but to provide technical infra support on a high-traffic day.”

Scraping Content Controversy

The post has perhaps picked up even more attention as it is media workers striking and AI news content is already rivalling human-produced work.

In May last year, The Guardian reported on findings from misinformation tracking organization, NewsGuard, that it had found 49 news websites that were only publishing entirely AI-generated content.

Perplexity’s offer has obviously hit a nerve because of this perceived job threat but also because it has accused by the NYT of scraping its articles for its AI models.

In October, Reuters reported that the NYT had sent the AI venture a cease and desist notice for “…all current and future unauthorized access and use of The Times’s content.” The Times told the news service that ”…the way Perplexity was using its content, including to create summaries and other types of output, violates copyright law”.

Perplexity denied this though, telling Reuters: “We are not scraping data for building foundation models, but rather indexing web pages and surfacing factual content as citations to inform responses when a user asks a question.”

The NYT is also going after OpenAI for using content without permission in what reflects a wider battle between AI companies wanting content to train their models with and media companies who want ownership (and revenue) for the content they produce.

Anthropic has announced that its new and improved Claude 3.5 Haiku AI model is going up in price – only two weeks after it was released into the world.

The most affordable option in Anthropic’s range of three models was originally expected to retain the same pricing of the previous 3 Haiku product. But that cost will now increase fourfold, at $1 per million input tokens and $5 per million output tokens.

Claude 3.5 Haiku offers iterative updates and improvements on its predecessor. This “increase in intelligence”, Anthropic says, is so significant as to justify the inflation in price.

Haiku Price Hiked

California-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced on 22nd October that Claude 3.5 Haiku would replace the previous version 3, along with news of upgrades to its Claude 3.5 Sonnet model and public beta release of its ‘computer use’ tool.

But the announcement was subsequently updated on 4th November to confirm that: “We have revised the pricing for Claude 3.5 Haiku. The model is now priced at $1 MTok input / $5 MTok output.”

The reason for the Haiku price hike was briefly explained further in a post from the company on X, formerly Twitter.

During final testing, Haiku surpassed Claude 3 Opus, our previous flagship model, on many benchmarks—at a fraction of the cost.

As a result, we’ve increased pricing for Claude 3.5 Haiku to reflect its increase in intelligence: https://t.co/UWTd1RDRVE.

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) November 4, 2024

 Anthropic calls Haiku its “fastest, most cost-effective model”, with its Sonnet and Opus models costing three and 15 times more expensive respectively.

Anthropic’s Pricing Explained

Instead of working on a flat subscription rate or charging by interaction, Anthropic uses a token basis for working out the users’ bill – this method is common to several high profile AI companies, including OpenAI’s pricing for ChatGPT.

While Claude 3 Haiku cost $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.25 per million output tokens, that has gone up to $1 per million and $5 per million respectively for its successor.

Words, images, lines of code, PDF files and other forms of input and output are all attributed a token value. The cost is then worked out by how many tokens are used for the user’s inputs (i.e. prompts, questions and commands) and outputs (the results).

One of the best AI productivity tools on the market, the pricing structure reflects the fact that Haiku is aimed more towards businesses and teams of collaborators than it is individual users.

What’s New for Haiku?

Anthropic’s announcement for the new and improved Haiku model was light on impressive sounding new features, but robust in its claims of increased power:

“For a similar speed to Claude 3 Haiku, Claude 3.5 Haiku improves across every skill set and surpasses even Claude 3 Opus, the largest model in our previous generation, on many intelligence benchmarks.” – Anthropic

The product launch announcement says that it is particularly strong for coding tasks, with benchmarking that sees it outperform Open AI’s GPT-4o.

“With low latency, improved instruction following, and more accurate tool use,” says the statement, “Claude 3.5 Haiku is well suited for user-facing products, specialized sub-agent tasks, and generating personalized experiences from huge volumes of data—like purchase history, pricing, or inventory records.”

The average salary increase was just 3.9% across 2024, according to a new survey from Salary.com.

That’s down from the 4.3% increase that constituted the average a year earlier, so it indicates a slight decline in salary growth.

The drop affects companies that offer both small and large salary increases, too, according to the new report. The trend is expected to continue into 2025, as well.

The New Normal… Same as the Old Normal?

The survey, which collected responses from over 1,000 HR professionals in the US and Canada, found that fewer companies were offering high raises.

The amount of companies offering high raises (specifically, those between 5% and 6.9%) fell from 25% in 2023 to just 14% this year.

Instead, companies are returning to typical salary increases of 3% to 3.9%, with a large 38% of respondents in 2024 staying within this range. That’s a notable uptick from just 25% of companies that offered the same in 2023.

The Biggest Increases Are in Education, Construction

Other interesting takeaways from the survey include some stats focused on the impact of geographic areas and different industries on the sizes of people’s raises.

• The Northeast U.S. had the lowest salary increases, averaging 3.6%, while the West Coast had the highest, with more expensive cites standing out, like San Francisco (4%) and Seattle (4.3%).
• New York City only had 3.7% increases, down from the national average of 3.9% — as if living in the Big Apple wasn’t expensive enough.
• Industry-wise, the Education, Government & Non-Profit sector saw the largest increases, with 4.3% raises on average. Construction (4.2%) wasn’t far behind them.
• The lowest raise averages for industries? Hospitality (3.4%) and Transportation (3.6%).

Take Note, Budget Planners

What’s behind the slumping raises? Lower inflation and more unemployment could be responsible, although the survey doesn’t have any hard answers.

“Last year, we noted that salary increases might be at a peak, even with 4 percent becoming the norm. While 4 percent remained the median in 2024, further analysis suggests a shift is happening,” said Andy Miller, Vice President, Compensation Consulting at Salary.com. “This is important for HR and compensation teams as they plan budgets for next year, considering factors like industry, location and work arrangements.”

A gloomy job market means employers are less worried about workers leaving for greener pastures.

Plus, executives are likely still invested in AI advances, which may be further lowering their interest in hiking the cost of their human workers. At least entry-level AI jobs are still an option for those hoping to enter the job market during this slowdown.

You may have heard that there’s a presidental election on November 5. This date still isn’t a federal holiday, for reasons beyond me. However,  there’s another way you might be able to fit a trip to a polling station into your schedule: Uber is offering a discount.

Specifically, Uber will offer those buying an Uber trip to a polling station 50% off, up to $10.

Rival rideshare platform Lyft is offering the same deal, too. If you’re voting in-person on election day, you can save ten bucks on the trip.

How to Get Your Uber Election Day Deal

The Uber ride deal should show up in a pop-up box once you open to the app.

It will read “Get a ride to vote.” Once clicked, it will display the closest polling station, with the 50% off discount automatically applied for your ride to that location.

Uber is also helping out any nervous eaters who might be glued to the TV on election night, with a food delivery discount: 25% off of orders for up to $15, with a $25 minimum for the total cost of the order itself.

How to Get Your Lyft Election Day Deal

Lyft has the same deal in place — 50% off, up to $10 — for anyone using the code VOTE24 on or before November 5.

Lyft’s code works for between 5 AM and 10 PM in every time zone, and applies to rideshare, bikeshare, and scooter rides alike.

Granted, you’ll just be saving ten bucks, but every little bit counts.

Low-Income Families Have a Lower Turnout

Voter turnout is strongly correlated with family income: The more money a family makes, the more likely they are to vote.

Rich people vote and so should you! It’s the only time you both have an equal say. More if you live in a swing state. pic.twitter.com/vxOFdWoxmz

— Deep Space Fine (@thisismewhatevs) November 4, 2024

It’s reasonable to assume that those with lower incomes are prioritizing a steady paycheck over voting, in cases when they can’t take a day off.

While a federal holiday would make the most sense, money-saving incentives like those offered by Uber and Lyft are a one small way to help make the process a little more equitable.

A radio station in Poland has ended its “experiment” with AI-powered presenters after receiving pushback from the general public.

The station, called OFF Radio Kraków, first made the news a week earlier, when it relaunched in the wake of firing the human journalists who had presented for it previously.

The replacement was AI-generated, and even the interviewee was AI-generated, as well: The station aired an entirely fictious interview with Polish author Wislawa Szymborska, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature — and who passed away in 2012. It’s another hiccup on the road towards greater AI adaptation.

Non-Existent Gen Z Presenters Weren’t a Hit

Lukasz Zaleski and Mateusz Demski, the just-terminated radio hosts and journalists, were among those replaced in late October with three AI-generated Gen Z presenters: Emilia, Jakub, and Alex, all in their early 20s.

According to station editor Marcin Pulit, the AI-generated approach was always an experiment and was initially designed to last for a three-month period. Now, it’s ending after just a week.

“After a week, we had collected so many observations, opinions, and conclusions that we decided that its continuation was pointless.” – Marcin Pulit, station editor for OFF Radio Kraków

Pulit added in the statement that the station was “surprised by the level of emotion that accompanied this experiment, attributing to us non-existent intentions and actions, harsh judgments formulated on the basis of false reports.”

Viewership for the state-funded radio station was incredibly low and rose significantly to reach an audience of 8,000 overnight after the AI controversy, according to the New York Times.

In contrast, more than 15,000 signed a petition against the use of AI within days of the station’s relaunch, Euronews found.

People Aren’t Embracing AI-Generated Interviews

Some fans of artificial intelligence have hyped up the potential for conversations with long-passed historical or pop cultural figures, generated by large language models trained on those figures’ writing or the historical record.

However, the format and presentation of a radio interview can turn AI voices into misinformation: Listeners who might tune in halfway through the interview would naturally assume they’re listening to a real interview.

Worse, the interview itself wasn’t accurate to the author herself, according to those in the know. Michal Rusinek, who heads a foundation to manage Wislawa Szymborska’s literary estate, said that the interview misrepresented her voice. According to Rusinek, the AI recreation “was horrible” and made Szymborska sound “bland,” “naïve,” and of “no interest whatsoever.”

AI Replacement Sets “Dangerous Precedent”

Perhaps Mateusz Demski summed up the controversy best with an open letter on the subject.

“It is a dangerous precedent that hits us all.” – Mateusz Demski

He also added that it could lead to “a world in which experienced employees associated with the media sector for years and people employed in creative industries will be replaced by machines.”

Executives across plenty of industries outside of radio stations are definitely interested in cutting costs by adapting AI tools.

The downsides include fewer positions open to creative professionals — and, apparently, the ripple effects of that sea-change may even leave viewers like you unsure if the radio interview you’re listening to on your way to work is with a human being.

There are many different things to consider when it comes to getting your business off the ground. Naturally, reaching out to new customers with advertising, marketing campaigns, and promotional events will drum up business, and should naturally be treated as a priority if you want to grow quickly.

However, once you’re up and running, retaining existing customers is arguably more key to the stability and longevity of your business. They spend more money than first-timers and are much more likely to tell their friends about your establishment. In other words, they’re your most valuable visitors, so building long-lasting relationships with them is incredibly important.

Establishing a network of regulars is easier said than done, though, which is why getting started with a tried-and-tested customer loyalty program can be a good jumping-off point. So, what’s the secret to a high-performing customer loyalty program? We reveal all.

Start with Strategy

We get it. You’re excited about the prospect of getting set up with a loyalty program to start raking in all that extra income from return customers. After all, some studies show that just a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to up to 75% increase in revenue, so your enthusiasm for your customer loyalty program is far from misplaced.

It’s important to remember, though, that having a comprehensive and informed strategy for your loyalty program is going to be a deciding factor in how successful it is.

For starters, there are some basic decisions you need to make before you can even get started, such as what kind of type of loyalty program you want to set up. Points and tiers are the most common, giving customers access to deals and perks based on how much they spend at your business. There’s also VIP programs that require an upfront fee to get access to those kinds of benefits, although that can be a bit less popular given the added cost.

You’ll also want to be sure you’ve clearly established your target customers for the loyalty program. Many programs allow for a lot of customizability, so if you have a clear, data-driven picture of your customers, you’ll be able to hone the experience to their needs more effectively.

Collect Data

Once your customer loyalty program is up and running, you’re going to be getting a lot of helpful data about your customers.

So, how do you get your hands on all that data? Depending on the system you get set up with, you’ll typically get access to reporting tools that can show you how often your customers make purchases, what kind of deals they take advantage of, and when they are most likely to buy.

You may also be able to obtain insights from customers by asking if they’d like to be on your mailing list for the latest offers and discounts.

The question is, what do you do with all this new data? Identifying a target audience for your customer loyalty program isn’t a one-and-done suggestion. We’d highly recommend using all that data to learn more about your customers and, more specifically, how they interact with your business. Then, you can tailor the experience to their needs, helping increase your revenue and their satisfaction in the process.

For example, if you’re a restaurant and your sales data shows you that two of your side dishes are way more popular than the rest, then selecting them as a reward in your customer loyalty program would be a shrewd decision. This is just one example of the kind of data-driven decision you can make with the reporting tools included in most major point-of-sale systems.

If you want to make your marketing effort as targeted as possible, check out our guide to customer segmentation.

Use the Right Technology

In the modern era, there’s always a piece of technology that can manage the more difficult aspects of running a business. From accounting software to CRM platforms, there are no shortage of digital resources that can help organize, streamline, and automate business operations. Rest assured, that’s no different for customer loyalty programs.

For online businesses, there are plenty of software options out there that can help you establish a good system for rewarding and attracting repeat customers. However, if you’re a brick-and-mortar restaurant or retail location, it’ll be a bit easier to use a POS system that has built in rewards and loyalty functionality, as your customers will be engaging with that more often than anything else.

If this kind of functionality is what you’re looking for, we’d recommend checking out the SumUp POS, an all-in-one tool that includes automated rewards and marketing program functionality built in, so you don’t need to find any third-party integrations to offer this perk to your potential return customers.

Perhaps more importantly, the rewards and loyalty functionality is an included feature in the SumUp POS device, which means that you won’t have to pay extra to attract repeat customers. Considering SumUp is already less expensive than competitors when it comes to the software, this can lead to some serious savings if you’re in need of a high performing customer loyalty program.

Halloween may be over, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still scared of your commute. After all, the cost of car ownership and the inconsistency of public transit are enough to give any employee a fright, which is why so many people are looking for remote jobs this month.

Luckily, we at Tech.co have our finger on the pulse when it comes to working from home, and we’ve developed comprehensive guides that follow the hiring practices of big tech firms like Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

In this guide, you’ll learn about some of the companies that are hiring for remote positions in November 2024 and glean some tips and tricks for landing the work-from-home job of your dreams.

Yahoo!

Yes, we are excited about the prospect of you getting a new remote, but that’s not what this section is about. Actually, Yahoo! — the web services company — offers a wide range of remote positions that can have you working from home in no time.

Even better, Yahoo compensation is quite competitive, with software engineers making more than $80,000 per year and senior software engineers making as much as $166,000 per year, according to data from Indeed.

• Sr. Principal Engineer – Yahoo Weather (USA)
• Ad Solutions Specialist – Yahoo Creative (Canada)
• Security Software Engineer (Ireland)
• Senior Product Manager — Core Ranking, Yahoo News (USA)
• Product Engineer (Taiwan)
• Sr. Product Designer – Yahoo Fantasy Sports (USA)
• Front Page Editor – Yahoo Finance (Australia)
• Account Lead – Global Sales (Japan)
• Senior Manager, Programmatic Yield Strategy & Analytics (USA)

To apply to these or any other jobs, be sure to check out the Yahoo! career page on the website.

Amazon

Two-day shipping isn’t the only thing you can get from Amazon, with the ecommerce giant offering a wide range of remote jobs. In fact, there are currently more than 200 work-from-home jobs available at Amazon, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t get applying today.

Just a heads up, though, the majority of Amazon’s remote positions are based in the US, so you’ll want to make sure you’re stateside before you apply, or at least be on board with a bit of a time zone difference on those video meetings.

• Quality Assurance Engineer II, Mechatronics and Sustainable Packaging (Westborough, MA)
• Sales Compensation Analyst, Amazon Web Services (Austin, TX)
• Manager, Retail Construction, Amazon Worldwide Grocery (Boston, MA)
• Sr Manager Functional Safety, MSP Design for Scale (Chicago, IL)
• Principal Risk Manager, Dangerous Goods, NA Dangerous Goods Operations (Bellevue, WA)
• Construction Manager, AMZL Pacific Northwest Region (Washington, USA)
• Senior Data Engineer – Community Discovery ML (California, USA)

If you’re interested in any of these positions or want to check out the others available, be sure to head on over to the Amazon career page.

Fleetio

Not all of the companies on this list are going to be big tech firms, but all of them offer fully, 100% remote positions, and Fleetio definitely meets the criteria. In fact, the fleet management software provider exclusively offers work-from-home positions at the business, with 13 current openings for potential applications.

Fleetio is definitely one of the smaller companies on this list, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take care of its people. You’ll still get perks and benefits, like parental leave and stock options, as well as competitive salary, with Glassoor data showing that Customer Success Managers can make between $70,000 and $108,000 per year.

• Senior Data Engineer (USA, CAN, MEX)
• Customer Support Engineer (USA)
• Director of Engineering, Marketplace & Partnerships (USA, CAN, MEX)
• Engineering Manager, Fleet Maintenance (USA, CAN, MEX)
• Account Executive, Mid-Market (USA)
• Outbound Sales Development Manager (USA)
• Senior Software Engineer, Marketplace (USA, CAN, MEX)

Check out the Fleetio career page to stay up to date on the remote positions available.

GoDaddy

If you’re launching a new website or watching old Super Bowl commercials, you may have heard of GoDaddy. The web services company is adept at helping users build and host websites quickly, even beginners, but it’s also big on providing its employees with flexible work accommodations through its remote work policy.

As of writing, GoDaddy has 71 open positions that qualify as a 100% remote option. As you’ll see below, we do list the locations along with the positions to show where they are based, so you can properly plan for what your future position might need in that case.

• Vice President Corporate Development (USA)
• Procurement Analyst – Contingement Work Management Office (Colombia)
• Principal Security Engineer (India)
• SEM Specialist (Romania)
• Senior Site Reliability Engineer (United Kingdom)
• Principal Software Engineer (Canada)
• Software Development Engineer (Australia)
• Partnership Product Manager (USA)

To learn more about these positions or apply to some of the other ones available, head to the GoDaddy career page.

Microsoft

There are companies that are committed to remote work, and then there’s Microsoft. As one of the biggest tech firms in the world, Microsoft consistently has hundreds of remote jobs on its career page, with more than 400 currently available as of writing this guide.

Microsoft is such a staple of the remote jobs discussion that we have a monthly roundup to update our readers, not only because they offer so many, but also because they’re so competitive, with benefits like parental leave and professional development for all employees.

• Principal Group Engineering Manager (Redmund, WA)
• Senior Software Engineer (Dublin, Ireland)
• Technical Support Engineering – Intune (Tokyo, Japan)
• Strategic Account Technology Director (Sacramento, CA)
• Software Engineer (Prague, Czech Republic)
• Head of Commercial Blog & Social (USA)
• Senior Supply Planner (Milan, Italy)
• Pursuit Management (United Kingdom)
• Cloud Solution Architect (Lison, Portugal)
• Developer Productivity Specialist Global Black Belt (France)

Head on over to the Microsoft career page to apply to some of the many remote jobs available.

Getting a Remote Job

Now that you know where to apply, it’s time to take the next step in your job search journey: Actually, getting the job.

Fortunately, not only is Tech.co committed to helping you find a remote job, but we also have a lot of resources to help you nail the interview and get the offer letter.

There are some classic dos and don’ts when it comes to job interviews, and we’ve collected some things to avoid at a job interview as well, so you don’t blow it right out of the gate.

All in all, if finding a remote job is important to you, keep at it and don’t give up until you’ve ditched that commute for good!

Looking for a new search engine?

Google has admittedly been the go-to option for decades, and with good reason. The results have been helpful, and the interface has been easy to navigate, so why would anyone stray for the status quo?

However, the substantial AI injection over the last few years has made the average user less than satisfied with the results, encouraging a competitor to make a splash. With online users searching for an alternative, OpenAI has happily obliged with a new search engine — ChatGPT Search — that is powered by the world’s most popular AI system.

What Is ChatGPT Search?

ChatGPT Search is the freshly launched search engine from OpenAI that is powered by the AI system of the same name. It takes a slightly different approach to search than Google and other traditional search engines, allowing users to have a more conversational experience when searching online.

On top of that, ChatGPT Search is more in-depth that other options, providing thorough answers to queries based on other third-party web sources. And to keep everything above board, ChatGPT provides links to sources, so you can still click on actual websites to find where this information is coming from.

ChatGPT Search was announced in May by OpenAI, and now it is live for ChatGPT users to take advantage. But who exactly can use the new search engine?

Who Can Use ChatGPT Search Right Now?

If you’re a casual ChatGPT user and you were hoping to get your hands on ChatGPT Search immediately, we have some bad news for you.

ChatGPT Search is currently only available for its Pro and Team plan users, which means you will have to be a paying member of ChatGPT to get access to the AI-powered search engine.

However, if you signed up for the waitlist, you’ll also have access to ChatGPT Search as well, but you had to sign up for that in May.

ChatGPT Search is available on the website, as well as the ChatGPT mobile and desktop apps.

Check out our ChatGPT pricing guide to learn more

How to Use ChatGPT Search

If you are a Team or Pro users, utilizing ChatGPT Search is quite easy, but we’ll help you navigate the process with a few simple steps.

First, you’ll naturally need to open ChatGPT. Then, once you’re there, all you have to do is click on the web search icon in the text box and you’ll have activated the ChatGPT Search functionality. Then just input your query, and you’ll get in-depth answers based on data from around the web. You can always follow-up with questions or refine your search, too, in hopes of getting the best response to your query.

The ChatGPT Search interface. Source: OpenAI

As we mentioned, ChatGPT will also provide you with clear citations, noting exactly where the information it is providing you with came from. You can then click Sources tab to see what sources are available, and click on them yourself to get it right from the source.

Is ChatGPT Better than Google?

Well, considering ChatGPT Search has only just launched this week and Google has been around for a quarter century, it’s fair to say that the jury is still out on whether or not ChatGPT is actually better than Google, especially considering the latter is free and the former isn’t.

Beyond that, though, ChatGPT is likely one of the first search engines with the potential to give Google a run for its money. Given the increasingly advertisement-focused nature of Google and the problems with its AI Overview system, there’s more room than ever for someone to unseat the king.

Even more notable, ChatGPT offers a clear and concise search experience that is unique and yet still intuitive, positioning itself to become a clear choice for many users in the long run. Will it be able to surpass the platform whose name has become synonymous with searching for information online? We’ll have to wait and see.

There are things that go bump in the night…

“Ghost jobs” are haunting jobseekers up and down the country – and no, we’re not talking about exorcising demons.

According to a recent survey, 40% of companies posted fake job listings in 2024, with a further 30% currently advertising roles that don’t exist. You could be wasting hours trying to create the perfect resume for a role that isn’t real. Which begs the obvious question – why are companies doing it?

In this article, I’ll be getting to grips with what ghost jobs are, why companies post them, and how to avoid wasting precious hours on applying to them. Read on, if you dare!

What Is a Ghost Job?

Like the name suggests, a “ghost job” is a job that a company advertises that doesn’t actually exist. Where once they might only have existed between the pages of a Stephen King novel, ghost jobs are on the rise, with a Resume Builder survey revealing that as many as 40% of companies have posted a ghost listing this year.

This is backed up by research from Resume Genius, which finds that 32% of surveyed respondents are “frustrated” with ghost jobs. Gen X, in particular, regard this trend as their top job search frustration. Says Geoffrey Scott, senior content manager at Resume Genius: “Ghost jobs are actually not scams. They’re from real companies, but they are openings that don’t actually exist.”

The tech industry, which has experienced its fair share of shocks and scares in recent years, is a full-on ghost town, with dozens of fake job listings plaguing the likes of Indeed and LinkedIn. To make matters worse, recruiters are in on the act too, with 81% of them confessing to posting positions for fake or filled roles this year.

Why Do Companies Post Ghost Jobs?

There are a few reasons why a company might decide to post a fake listing. First and foremost, hiring managers believe that an abundance of listings, fake or otherwise, reflects well on the company and public perception of its health. Simply put, hiring generally means company growth.

Businesses might also practice this witchcraft to “boost morale.” To the overworked staffer, the job listings page is like the oasis in the desert – salvation. Meanwhile, on the flipside of that particular coin, it also gives workers extra incentive to perform their job to a high level. After all, their position might be under threat.

Finally, businesses might choose to list ghost jobs in order to harvest as many resumes as possible. With this, they have the means to pull a – crucially, vetted – candidate off the pile at short notice, in case of an unexpected event.

How Do I Avoid Falling for a Ghost Job?

So, how do you separate fact from fiction? Time for a bit of amateur sleuthing.

When it comes to spotting ghost listings, there are a number of red flags to look out for. To begin with, look out for the listing date. If there isn’t one, or if it’s been online for months, that’s probably a bad sign – the company might be keeping it online to gather as many resumes as possible, rather than actually attempting to find the right candidate.

Next up, you should cross-examine the job listing with the “careers” page on the company in question’s website. Shock, horror – if it’s not on their actual website, that’s probably because it’s fake.

You should also be mindful of the sheer number of vacancies that a company is sharing. If there are several identical listings, with identical locations, that could be a sign that everything isn’t what it seems. Similarly, companies will sometimes recycle the same listings periodically to give the illusion of a new role opening up.

Another thing to keep an eye on is detail. A genuine job listing will outline roles and responsibilities, as well as qualifications and relevant experience that the company is looking for. A fake one will be a lot vaguer and might even prioritize highlighting the perks of the company at the expense of any actual information about the job. This extends to the salary. If a listing has a ridiculously wide salary range, it was probably created independently of a hiring manager and, thus, is not a real listing.

Heed My Warning

If you’ve got one eye on your next move, and your preference would be a remote-friendly role, we maintain up-to-date lists of the hottest remote jobs from across the tech sector, featuring the likes of Apple, Google, and more.

Just remember to keep an eye out for the warning signs – nobody wants a fright!

In a bold move to revive Tidal’s relevance in the music streaming industry, Jack Dorsey has initiated another round of major layoffs, urging the platform to “get back to basics” and operate more like a startup.

Despite aspirations to stand out in the crowded streaming market, Tidal has struggled to secure a foothold against dominant players, raising concerns about its future viability.

Will Tidal be able to get the momentum it needs to stay alive? If Dorsey’s plan works, it may have a shot. Here’s how.

Tidal Eliminating Certain Roles

News of more cuts is not a huge surprise, as the Dorsey warned staffers back in July that reorganization was coming, though specifics were not forthcoming at the time.

The decisive tech executive, who resigned from Twitter in 2021, outlined a vision that involved reducing non-core functions, particularly within product management and product marketing.

In the correspondence, Dorsey reportedly said that Tidal needed to act “like a startup again” with a smaller team in order to stay in the game.

“So we’re going to part ways with a number of folks on our team. We’re going to lead with engineering and design and remove the product management and product marketing functions entirely. We’re reducing the size of our design team and foundational roles supporting Tidal, and we will consider reducing engineering over the next few weeks as we have more clarity around leadership going forward.” – Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block

One Fourth of Employees Get the Ax

Though no firm numbers have been specified, estimates put the number of layoffs at around a hundred, roughly 25% of Tidal’s 400-person team. This comes on the heels of another workforce reduction in December 2023, where 10% of the staff was let go, and is leaving some worried for the future of the platform.

“We have made some internal changes to our Tidal team to focus on serving artists in the most meaningful way. This involved the elimination of some roles across our business and design teams. We are going to be smaller, focus on fewer things, and move with a relentless approach to product development.” – Tidal in a statement

Currently, Tidal has only about 0.5% of the US streaming market share and is dwarfed by Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon, which hold 32%, 30%, and 24%, respectively. Tidal’s modest 700,000 subscribers starkly contrast with the millions claimed by its larger competitors.

A Complicated History

Launched in 2014 by Norwegian-Swedish company Aspiro, Tidal sought to differentiate itself by offering artist ownership. In 2015, it was relaunched after acquisition by Jay-Z’s Project Panther Bidco, then gained Sprint Corporation as a 33% stakeholder in 2017. When Block, then known as Square, acquired majority ownership in 2021, Jay-Z joined Tidal’s board.

Tidal supporters cite its high-quality audio and artist-friendly royalty model, though others argue its premium price, lack of podcasts, and less refined playlists have hindered its growth. Consequently, Tidal has attracted dedicated audiophiles but struggles to appeal broadly to casual listeners.

This leaner approach may be Tidal’s best chance to stay relevant, and Dorsey’s restructuring could make or break the platform’s future in a fiercely competitive market.

Breaking into the tech sector is notoriously hard — especially if you’re a student or recent graduate. Yet, it’s still possible to get a foot in the door without any relevant experience, thanks to a growing number of tech internships aimed at attracting fresh talent to the industry.

While tech internships may not pay as handsomely as permanent positions, they provide candidates with valuable opportunities to gain hands-on experience, build industry connections, and secure stable employment – with 70% of companies offering interns full-time employment after the program draws to a close.

November is one of the best times of the year to weigh up your options too, as it’s when lots of tech companies start recruiting for their summer cohort. So, to help you set yourself up for the year ahead, we’ve rounded up some of the most exciting tech internships available, from reputable companies like Google and LinkedIn.

Tech Internships at Amazon

While Amazon has recently hit headlines for its unsympathetic return to office (TRO) policy, the company is also renowned for its generous pay packages, and excellent career progression opportunities. Most internships require you to relocate to where the program is based, so its worth baring this in mind before applying.

• Business Intelligence Engineer Summer Internship – 2025 (multiple locations across the US)
• Data Engineer Summer Internship – 2025 (multiple locations across the US)
• Software Dev Engineer Intern – 2025 (Compiler, CA, US)
• Software Development Engineer Internship – 2025 (multiple locations across the US)
• 2025 Software Dev Engineer Intern – Embedded, Runtime, Storage, System & Performance (Seattle, Washington & Cupertino California, US)
• Software Dev Engineer Intern – Machine Learning Chip Architect (multiple locations across the US)
• 2025 Data Science Internship – United States, PhD or Masters Student (Seattle, WA, US)
• 2025 Applied Science Internship – Computer Vision – PhD Student Science Recruiting (Seattle, WA, US)
• 2025 Quantum Research Science Internship – United States, PhD Student Science Recruiting (Seattle, US)

Can’t find an internship that excites you? Browse Amazon’s job portal to take a look at the companies full range of opportunities.

Best Tech Internships at Google

Search giant Google has some of the best name recognition in the tech industry. The company also is consistently rated high from current employees, likely because of its generous salary options and unique stock program, Google Stock Units (GSUs).

• User Experience Research Intern, PhD, Summer 2025 (various US locations)
• Security Architecture Intern, Google Public Sector, Summer 2025 (Reston, VA, US)
• Technical Program Manager Intern, Public Sector, Summer 2025 (Reston, VA, US)
• Hardware Engineering Intern, PhD, Summer 2025 (various US locations)
• Software Engineering Intern, PhD, Summer 2025 (various US locations)
• Data Scientist, Product Intern, MS, Summer 2025 (various US locations)
• Data Scientist, Research Intern, PhD, Summer 2025 (various US locations)
• Silicon Engineering Intern, BS/MS, Summer 2025 (various US locations)
• Software Engineering Intern, MS, Summer 2025 (various US locations)

Most interns are able to report to a wide rage of US locations, making its relocation policy a lot less proscriptive than companies like Amazon. Take a look at Google’s job portal for the companies full list of internships.

Tech Internships at Microsoft

Unlike lots of its tech rivals, Microsoft is still paving the way for workplace flexibility. As a result, the majority of the companies internships operate on a hybrid model where interns can work from home 50% of the time. If this interests you, take a look at Microsoft’s opportunities below:

• Research Intern – Algorithms Group: Reasoning Abilities of LLMs (Redmond, WA, USA)
• Research Intern – Imitation Learning and Language Model Alignment Spring 2025 (New York, US)
• Research Intern – Algorithms Group: Differentially Private Synthetic Data (Redmond, WA, US)
• Research Intern – Imitation Learning and Language Model Alignment Spring 2025 (New York, US)
• Research Intern – MSR Interactive Multimodal AI Systems Group (Cambridge, MA, US)
• Research Intern – Data Systems (Redmond, WA, US)
• Research Intern – Azure Research – Systems (Redmond, WA, US)

Browse Microsoft’s job portal for more hybrid internships.

Best Tech Internships at Salesforce

Cloud-based CRM platform Salesforce is known within the industry for its supportive company culture and career development opportunities. The company also routinely seeks graduates with high potential, to grow alongside the company.

• Summer 2025 Intern – Salesforce AI Research (Palo Alto, CA, US)
• Summer 2025 Intern – Database Engineer (Bellevue & Seattle, Washington, US)
• Summer 2025 Intern – DevOps Engineer (Burlington, MA, US)
• Summer 2025 – AI Software Engineer Intern (Palo Alto, California, US)
• Summer 2025 Intern – Tableau Research (Palo Alto, California & Seatle Washington, US)
• Summer 2025 Intern – Site Reliability Engineer (Burlington, MA, US)
• Summer 2025 – Slack PhD User Research Intern (San Francisco, CA, US)

Visit Salesforce’s jobs portal for more summer internship opportunities.

Best Tech Internships at LinkedIn

Boasting over 900 million users, LinkedIn is one of the best places for recent grads to get a leg up in the tech industry. However, while most of the company’s internships are hybrid, they require you to report to its new Mountain View headquarters a couple of days a week.

• PhD AI – Generative AI – Summer 2025 (Mountain View, CA, USA)
• Systems & Infrastructure Engineering Intern – Masters (Mountain View, CA, US)
• PhD – Video Processing Generative AI (Mountain View, CA, US)
• PhD AI – Optimization (CUDA) Sumer 2025 
• PhD AI/ML Engineering Intern – NLP, LLM (Mountain View, CA, US)

Find more opportunities through LinkedIn’s job portal.

How to Land Your Dream Tech Internship

Unfortunately, today’s job market is extremely competitive, and there’s no exception for aspiring interns. This means that in order to cut through the competition, your application needs to stand out. If you’re applying for an internship for the first time, or have found your confidence knocked from tons of rejections, here are some tips for nailing your application.

• Search in advance – Lots of companies start hiring for summer interns earlier than you may expect. So, to avoid missing deadlines, and not giving yourself enough time to perfect your application, we recommend beginning your search for an internship at least three to six months in advance.
• Develop your skills – If you think your experience isn’t competitive enough to help you secure the internship you want, you can take relevant courses to make your resume stand out. Platforms like LinkedIn offer free courses too, giving you a way to upskill on the cheap.
• Perfect your resume – Recruiters only have a couple of seconds to flick through each resume, so you need to make sure yours is capable of making a great first impression. When crafting your resume, we recommend keeping the content concise and tailoring it to each role as much as possible.
• Don’t rely too heavily on AI – While you may be applying for a tech internship, you can’t let technology do the talking for you. Make sure that your resume and cover letter retain human touches, and are written in a language you’d normally use.

While you don’t want your application to come across as robotic, AI can be a useful way to springboard your resume-building process. Here are some AI resume builders that take care of the tedious work for you.

Dropbox, the San Francisco-based file hosting service that allows customers to collaborate and share documents, files and folders, will be laying of 20% of its workforce in what CEO Drew Houston is calling a “transitional period” for the company.

This latest round of cuts, following 500 layoffs last year, reflects Dropbox’s shift toward AI technology investment, lower-than-expected growth, a data breach back in April and increasing market share loss.

Here’s what’s next for the company and its outlook for the future.

Dropbox CEO Takes “Full Responsibility” for Layoffs

The staff were informed of the changes in a letter from Houston, where he says, “I take full responsibility for this decision and the circumstances that led to it, and I’m truly sorry to those impacted by this change.”

The parting gifts for those laid off will be in the form of a severance package that includes 16 weeks of pay, bonus payments, job placement assistance, compensation for approved time off, six months of health insurance and retention of company devices, such as tablets, phones and laptops for personal use.

According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Dropbox projects $63 to $68 million in expenses for layoffs, primarily allocated to severance and benefits. This financial impact will largely be felt in Q4 2024, with remaining payments extending into H1 2025.

Dropbox Market Share Decline

Dropbox has seen its market share decline as competitors such as Google Drive and Box become increasingly popular. The company, which boasts 18 million users, is said to have only attracted 63,000 new customers in the latest fiscal quarter, and revenue growth was virtually non-existent, only in the low single digits.

“As we’ve shared over the last year, we’re in a transitional period as a company,” said the CEO. “However, navigating this transition while maintaining our current structure and investment levels is no longer sustainable.”

The reality of this becomes clear when looking at the numbers. Q2 of 2024, Dropbox experienced its slowest-ever growth period, with a year-on-year increase of just 1.9%, and just $634.5 million in revenue. By August, the company’s shares had lost 20% of their year-to-date value.

Dropbox is in Good Company

Dropbox isn’t the only tech giant using job cuts to create a more streamlined organizational structure. Amazon announced a similar plan earlier this year, eliminating 16,000 positions, while Microsoft let go of approximately 10,000 employees and Facebook parent company, Meta, also reduced jobs by 10,000.

Moving forward, the Dropbox is hedging its bets on new technology, such as its AI-powered smart organization and search tool, Dropbox Dash, which has been launched recently.

Said Houston, “The steps we’re taking today are necessary to both strengthen our core product and accelerate the growth of our new products. We’ll share more about our 2025 strategy in the days ahead.”

The company has stated more details on the changes will be forthcoming as the week progresses.

Over 500 Amazon employees have called for a reversal in its return to office (RTO) mandate – and rejected calls to tender their resignations over refusing to comply with the new policy.

On Wednesday, members of an Amazon Web Services (AWS) unit sent a letter to its CEO, Matt Garman, in which they urged him to reconsider the company’s RTO policy. The workers rejected his claim that the rule had “broad support.”

The ecommerce giant has faced criticism in recent weeks for calling its employees back to the office, with reasons including collaboration, learning, and culture touted as the driving force behind the strict mandate. Across the tech sector more widely, companies are clamping down on employee flexibility – in spite of rich evidence that hybrid and remote working is better for productivity and morale. Unsurprisingly, this is driving a wedge between many workers and their bosses.

Amazon Workers Push Back on RTO Mandate

A group of more than 500 Amazon employees has railed against the company’s recent shift to office-based working. The group voiced their anger in a letter addressed to Garman, the CEO of its AWS unit, seen by Reuters, asserting: “We were appalled to hear the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon imposing a five-day-in-office mandate.”

The news follows an October 17 all-hands meeting in which Garman said that nine out of 10 employees favored the policy – a claim that the group roundly rejects. They say that the comments are “inconsistent with the experiences of many employees,” and are “misrepresenting the realities of working at Amazon.”

Garman went on to issue a stern warning to rebelling workers: “If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay, there are other companies around.”

Amazon Lays Down the Law

Issued in September, Amazon’s full RTO mandate – due to take effect in early 2025 – has proved highly controversial among employees, with many criticizing the decision to burden workers with “needless” commuting time and expenses when remote working has largely been effective.

To date, the company has enforced the policy by requiring employees to attend regional offices, move to Seattle, where its headquarters are based, or “voluntarily resign.” It has also drawn attention to its commuter benefits, elder care, and subsidized parking rates, which it offers to employees in a bid to take the sting out of its mandate.

Garman has expressed his excitement at the imminent change, while maintaining that hybrid working is not conducive to collaboration. “When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in-person,” he claimed.

Tech Companies Ruling with “Iron Fist”

This year, several big players in the tech space have put an end to remote and hybrid working policies, with the likes of Dell, Ubisoft, and Bolt making headlines in recent weeks. According to a ResumeTemplates study, 52% of business leaders plan to be stricter about returning to the office in 2025.

These announcements are rarely greeted with open arms. ResumeTemplates chief career strategist, Julia Toothacre, has attributed compliance issues to “companies [that] decided to rule with an iron fist, which resulted in a loss of trust.” As a consequence, many workers feel misled or lied to by higher-ups – and less inclined to follow their instructions.

Increasingly, businesses leaders are scratching their heads over how to enforce the rules without risking their employees’ ire. It’s certainly not an easy task, but with this latest outcry, Amazon is staking a claim for posterchild of how not to drag your staff back to the office.

Samsung has announced it is prioritizing top-quality chip production and making strides on a new deal in a move it hopes will bolster sales and improve its investor outlook after its semi-conductor division reported a 40% drop in profit last quarter.

The news, reported by the company’s Executive Vice-President Jaejune Kim, raised Samsung’s stock by more than 3% overnight. It follows a patch of investor uncertainty due to AI chip delays and layoffs at the company.

Here’s how the struggling company plans to move forward.

Major Customer to Samsung’s Rescue

Samsung has spent much of the year trying to keep up with demand and may now finally be on the front foot. Although the identity of a potential new client hasn’t been officially confirmed, sources report that Samsung is testing its advanced HBM3E memory chips with Nvidia, a company that holds about four-fifths of the global AI chip market.

Samsung’s chips have reportedly passed Nvidia’s tests, raising speculation about a long-term partnership that could solidify Samsung’s position in the AI chip sector and potentially attract additional customers.

“While there was a delay in commercializing HBM3E sales as we had flagged earlier, we have made meaningful progress in the product’s qualification test process with a major customer,” Samsung Executive Vice-President Jaejune Kim told analysts. “As a result, we expect improved (HBM3E) sales in the fourth quarter and plan to expand sales to multiple customers.”

Cautious Outlook for Samsung

After Samsung’s announcements, shares in competitor SK Hynix fell by 4.6%, thought to be brought on by fears of possible HBM chip oversupply.
While the AI sector is thriving, the broader semiconductor market remains slow, with Samsung aiming to offset slowing demand for traditional chips with sales of AI-optimized, high-bandwidth memory products.

Though the company’s $6.6 billion operating profit slightly surpassed earlier estimates, it still missed market expectations. This led to recent apologies for its underwhelming earnings, attributing the slowdown to delays in advanced chip sales and increased competition from Chinese firms supplying traditional chips.

“It’s anticipated that it will take some time before the business performs as expected.” Baik Gil-hyun, analyst at Yuanta Securities.

More Challenges for Samsung

In addition to memory chips, Samsung’s foundry business, which designs and produces custom chips for clients, faced widening losses in the third quarter. Sources report that Samsung has delayed deliveries of high-end chipmaking equipment from ASML for its Texas factory, awaiting a major customer to move forward with the project.

Samsung’s mobile devices division also faced challenges, with a profit decline to $2 billion in the third quarter from $2.4 billion a year earlier.

Looking forward, the electronics behemoth anticipates growth in AI-related chip demand but expects limited earnings growth overall due to increasing competition in consumer electronics during the busy year-end season.

LinkedIn has just launched its very own AI agent, and it’s designed to streamline every aspect of the recruiting process – from devising professional job descriptions from informal notes to identifying and following up with potential candidates.

The platform’s swiss-army-knife AI tool acts in a similar way to ChatGPT, harnessing advanced capabilities like conversational memory to deliver more personalized and useful results. However, despite the potential it could bring to savvy recruiters, LinkedIn hasn’t always got it right when using AI in recruiting.

We explore everything you need to know about LinkedIn’s very first AI agent, unpacking its advanced features, and exploring its potential repercussions on the wider job market.

LinkedIn Hiring Assistant: A Recruiters New Right-Hand Man?

LinkedIn’s new AI Hiring Assistant is a highly integrated AI agent, designed to handle a wide variety of repetitive and mundane recruiting tasks.

From defining the role to conducting interviews, LinkedIn believes its first AI agent can automate 80% of the typical recruiting workflow, leaving recruiters to focus on parts of their job that are more strategic and deliver more value.

“It’s designed to take on a recruiter’s most repetitive task so they can spend more time on the most impactful part of their jobs,” – Hari Srinivasan, LinkedIn’s VP of product

Its release comes a year after LinkedIn launched ‘Recruiter 2024” – a suite of features that used generative AI to streamline the hiring process for talent leaders. While the new Hiring Assistant builds on these capabilities, the agent goes a step further, by automating a wider array of recruiting tasks and harnessing experiential memory – an advanced AI capability that allows the agent to remember previous interactions with the recruiter, allowing for more personalized, useful suggestions.

LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant also accepts a much wider variety of input. Recruiters are able to enter job descriptions, notes, or prompts into the platform to assist with different stages of the hiring process. Recruiters can also enter feedback to the agent, to ensure its output is aligned with their specific needs.

On top of its current AI toolkit, LinkedIn is planning to introduce new features to its Hiring Assistant soon, including messaging and scheduling support for Internews, and handling and follow-up capabilities when candidates have questions after interviews.

Using LinkedIn to seek opportunities? Learn how to use LinkedIn to find a job

LinkedIn’s Chequered History With AI

Much like other social media platforms, AI is proving to be a lucrative cash cow for LinkedIn. In 2023 alone, LinkedIn Premium subscriptions brought in $1.7 billion in revenue, after the platform decided to keep its best AI features – like AI writing assistants and personalized career advice – behind a paywall.

However, while LinkedIn currently appears to have its finger on the pulse of the technology, its history with AI hasn’t always been smooth sailing. In 2021, the company acknowledged that the recommendation algorithms it was using to match candidates with opportunities were producing biased results. Specifically, the AI-powered algorithms ended up referring more men for open roles than women, because male candidates were more aggressive at seeking out new opportunities.

The platform’s ‘Takeaway’ feature – which condenses LinkedIn posts into bullet point formats – also sparked a backlash among users for omitting key information, and prioritizing AI efficiency over original human-led content.

With other popular social media platforms adopting a similarly bullish approach to AI, mistakes like these are hardly uncommon. However, as LinkedIn continues to incorporate the emerging technology into more of its core processes, failing to do so with a cautious hand could risk X repercussions that spill out onto the wider recruiting landscape.

How Could LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant Change the Recruiting Landscape?

The dawn of LinkedIns first recruiting AI agent is likely to yield huge opportunities for the sector, especially at a time when recruiters are grappling with increasingly complex hiring processes, and fallouts from shifting employee mindsets.

Yet, while the AI toolkit will undoubtedly ease workloads for recruiters, there are concerns these AI time-saving features could adversely impact the job market as a whole if the human aspect of the role becomes secondary.

As LinkedIns 2021 blunder provided, relying too heavily on AI algorithms can inadvertently perpetuate cases of bias and discrimination against candidates. This has been evidenced time and time again, with Amazon’s AI hiring model encountering similar gender biases when trying to hire for technical roles.

Research also shows that candidates are less likely to respond to AI-generated messages in the first place, with bot-sounding messages from recruiters understandably receiving fewer responses than those with a human touch.

However, LinkedIn believes that a recruiter’s use of AI doesn’t need to be all-or-nothing. Recruiters using Hiring Assistant are able to opt out of using specific processes as they wish and choose to complete tasks manually instead. As a result, they can choose which recruiting tasks to automate, and which to pour more time and energy into, without removing the human element which is so crucial to the profession as a whole.

The world’s most popular CRM company Salesforce says that it is “redefining what’s possible in business and beyond,” after releasing its autonomous AI agent solution to the market.

Agentforce is already being used by companies such as The Adecco Group, OpenTable and Saks, and the tool is now on general availability.

The AI agents deployed by the service, Salesforce says, are easy to customize, with users able to tailor responses and tone to suit their business that will in turn “build deeper customer relationships and drive unprecedented growth and profitability.”

“Beyond Chatbots and Copilots”

Salesforce made a splash with Agentforce at the company’s Dreamforce 2024 convention and it has been used by selected companies in the interim. Today’s announcement marks its availability to the wider market.

The company describes the tool as a “proactive, autonomous application that provides specialized, always-on support to employees or customers.”

Specifically, it’s an ‘out-of-the-box’ solution that gives clients access to AI customer support agents that they can customize to suit their business without the need for complex coding or integration.

“Agentforce goes beyond chatbots and copilots, using advanced reasoning abilities to make decisions and take action, like resolving customer cases, qualifying sales leads, and optimizing marketing campaigns.” – Salesforce

The announcement gives examples of pre-built agents that are adapted for specialized use cases like retail with order management topics or financial services with billing and payment support topics.

Salesforce’s customers also get access to an Agent Builder function that enable the CRM giant’s admins and developers to use natural language to create instructions and guardrails for their agents. And it will also be built into native tools such as Data Cloud and Slack.

Augmenting, Not Replacing, Employees

The Adecco Group, BACA Systems, OpenTable, Saks and Wiley are all among the companies that are already using Agentforce.

Mike Hite, Saks’ Chief Technology Officer, lauded the tool’s help to “streamline routine tasks, such as order tracking, enabling our service teams to prioritize more meaningful customer interactions.”

While George Pokorny, OpenTable’s Senior VP of Global Customer Success, said that with Agentforce it “can meet growing global demand while maintaining the exceptional service our customers expect.”

Salesforce is at pains to assert that Agentforce isn’t a case of AI replacing human jobs. It says that the early adopting clients are using it “to augment their employees, expand their workforce, and improve customer experiences”.

“What AI Was Meant to Be”

Quoting its own research that suggests U.S. consumers spend up to nine hours interacting with customer service trying to resolve a single issue and that 67% of consumers are ultimately frustrated, Salesforce says its news service presents an opportunity for its clients to improve their customer experience.

A vocal critic of other AI developers such as Microsoft, who he says is doing a “tremendous disservice” to the industry, Salesforce Chair and CEO, Marc Benioff, says that Agentforce is “what AI was meant to be.”

“Agentforce is redefining what’s possible in business and beyond, ushering in a new era of AI abundance and limitless workforces that augment every employee, build deeper customer relationships and drive unprecedented growth and profitability” – Marc Benioff, Salesforce

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has begun filing lawsuits against perpetrators of a check fraud that was proliferated through videos on TikTok and other social media platforms.

Popularly known as the “Infinite Money Glitch,” the alleged fraudsters took advantage of an issue with JPMorgan’s ATM terminals that allowed them to draw down cash based on fake checks that would ultimately bounce.

The initial set of four lawsuits sees the bank suing for a sum totaling $661,000, with the largest individual claim at nearly $300,000.

Infinite Money Glitch Explained

Millions of users watched videos during the summer on TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, of people explaining or taking advantage of the so-called Infinite Money Glitch.

It was made possible by an anomaly in JPMorgan’s systems in August that allowed customers to deposit checks at their ATMs and then immediately withdraw the funds in cash.

This did not give a reasonable time for the checks to clear and, by the time that the fraudulent check eventually bounced, the cash had already been withdrawn.

‘Fraud is a Crime’

While some alleged perpetrators seemingly felt they were merely taking advantage of a glitch in the system, JPMorgan unsurprisingly sees things rather differently.

“Fraud is a crime that impacts everyone and undermines trust in the banking system.” – Drew Pusateri, JPMorgan Chase

The four lawsuits have been brought in federal courts in Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami, Reuters reports, with two individuals and two businesses named as the defendants.

A total of $661,000 in damages is being sought on the basis that the accused parties violated their deposit agreements and that the checks should be deemed forgeries or counterfeit.

The largest sum of money that JPMorgan says was illegally retained was in Houston, where the bank says the alleged fraudster owes $290,939.47. He withdrew the cash over two days after a masked person deposited a check for $335,000.

Social Media Scams and AI Fightback

TikTok and X’s indirect part in the misdemeanors – by providing a platform on which word of the Infinite Money Glitch vulnerability was spread – certainly isn’t the first time that social media has contributed to fraud. Although usually it’s their users who are the victims, not the perpetrators.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released figures last year putting a value of $2.7 billion that had been gathered by social media scammers since 2021. And Facebook scams have dogged the platform and its users more or less since its inception.

But technology and, more specifically, AI is being used to a greater and greater extent in the fight against fraud.

Earlier in the year, Mastercard outlined plans to use AI to curb credit card fraud by “scanning transaction data across billions of cards and millions of merchants at faster rates than previously imagined”.

And the US government recovered $4 billion worth of fraud with AI, using the technology to bolster its detection and prevention rates.

The storm in a coffee cup that has been brewing since the appointment of Starbucks’ new CEO in August has threatened to boil over again after staff were told that they could face termination if they fail to comply with the company’s return to office (RTO) policy.

The company caused a stir when it was revealed that incoming chief executive Brian Niccol would not be required to travel into its Seattle headquarters from his California home.

That runs in direct contradiction to Starbucks’ three-day-a-week RTO policy that was adopted at the start of last year; a policy that will now be enforced through a “standardized process” with the most severe of consequences facing staff who breach it.

Coffee To Go?

The coffee giant’s more heavy-handed approach to its RTO policy was reported by Bloomberg News (paywalled), which has seen a memo that was distributed to one of the company’s divisions.

The memo outlined a “standardized process” to working in the office three days per week that could result in “separation” for non-compliant staff.

It seems a strange turn of phrase, but the intention is clear – staff who don’t honor the RTO policy could be let go.

A statement from Starbucks in response to the leaked memo confirmed that it is “continuing to support our leaders as they hold their teams accountable to our existing hybrid work policy”.

Waking Up to Smell the Coffee

It’s been a something of a rocky road for the company to reach this point, having initially joined the long list of companies that have ended fully remote work in January 2023.

Then-CEO Howard Schultz spoke of the need to “rebuild” following the impact of the COVID pandemic as he announced the three-day-per-week RTO mandate.

But the company attracted criticism earlier in the year when incoming boss Brian Niccol negotiated a working arrangement whereby he would remain living in Newport Beach with no obligation to the Seattle HQ. And when he did, his contract said, he would be permitted to travel on the company aircraft.

Only last month Niccol sought to quell his workers’ unrest by intimating that he would take a relaxed approach to the RTO Policy. “You need to figure out where you need to be to get your job done, then do that,” he told an internal forum.

But that has been superseded by the emergence of this new memo, with more stringent enforcement set to commence in January.

In or Out?

Despite the pandemic officially being declared over by the World Health Organization almost 18 months ago, some of the planet’s biggest companies are still working out the best route to take to returning to work.

The likes of Amazon, Dell and Ubisoft have been infamously stark in their absolutist approach to RTO mandates. And Elon Musk has required his staff to return to the office as soon as he was legally able to.

Others, such as Microsoft, have opted not to enforce five-day RTO policies. But it is increasingly looking like an outlier and, as revealed by a recent KPMG survey,  around 80% of CEOs predict a full return to office in within the next three years.