Yahoo Cuts 20% of Workforce in Latest Lay Offs Shock

As Yahoo's advertising unit continues to underperform, its CEO has decided to channel funds elsewhere.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Despite a profitable 2022, Yahoo has decided to lay off 1,600 of its staff members, equating to one-fifth of the company. Following similar announcements made by eBay and Zoom this week, these changes will impact the company’s ad tech employees, with the team shrinking by 50% as a result.

Employees were notified on Thursday that 1,000 of the company would be laid off before the end of the day, while a further 600 workers are due to be released in six months.

According to Jim Lanzone the CEO of the pioneering platform, this decision was made as part of a restructuring of Yahoo’s advertising unit, which is not currently proving to be lucrative, and will help them “go on offence” by investing in other areas of the company.

Yahoo Lays Off 1,600 Workers Amid Company Restructuring

After losing money from its SSO and native ad tech businesses, Yahoo has decided to join the ranks of other tech companies like eBay, Zoom, Google, and Meta by axing over 20% of its staff.

These cuts will predominantly be made to the company’s ad tech employees, with 1,000 workers already being shown the door on Thursday, and a further 600 employees facing the same fate in six months’ time.

“These decisions are never easy, but we believe these changes will simplify and strengthen our advertising business for the long run, while enabling Yahoo to deliver better value to our customers and partners”  – Yahoo Spokesperson

With the US web service provider generating a healthy $8 billion per annum in profits, Yahoo’s CEO, Jim Lazone, maintains that this decision was not borne out of financial hardships. He explains that instead, the layoffs are part of a strategic change that seeks to make other parts of the business more profitable.

Yahoo Drops the Curtain on a Number of Ad Platforms

Yahoo and AOL, another trailblazing US web portal, were acquired by the private equity firm Apollo in 2021 for $5 billion. At the time of purchase, Yahoo and AOL housed over 30 ad tech companies, with the acquisitions spanning over ten years.

Combined, this ‘unified stack’ of businesses had access to enormous data sets that were thought to give ad platforms like Google and Meta a run for their money. Unfortunately, these ad platforms never lived up to the company’s expectations, and instead of conquering the market, lead to depleted resources and diminished returns on investments.

“A lot of resources were going into that unified stack without a return. This was a longstanding issue with every variation of this company…that needed to be solved eventually.” – Jim Lanzone, Yahoo’s CEO

The failure of this ‘united stack’ has resulted in several native advertising platforms being shut down, including Gemini and its supply-side platform (SSP) which helped digital publishers monetize their content through ads.

Is Yahoo Out of the Ad Game Forever?

While Yahoo may be ditching its unified ad stack, the service provider isn’t vacating the advertising space altogether.

Earlier this year, the California-based company announced a partnership with advertising powerhouse Taboola. According to Lanzone, by letting Taboola sell native ads on its pages, this new alliance could increase the number of advertisers competing for Yahoo’s ad placement eightfold.

The company is also planning to strengthen its demand-side platform (DPS) which helps advertisers buy ads automatically across multiple publisher sites. This DPN resource will be renamed ‘Yahoo Advertising’ and will be focusing on selling ads to Fortune 500 businesses and premium accounts across the world.

Despite 20% of Yahoo’s workforce facing the chopping block, Lanzone has announced plans to hire more roles in this team, as part of his vision to “simplify and strengthen the good parts of the business, while sunsetting the rest”.

However, even with the company’s recent strategy shift, it’s unlikely that Yahoo will be able to compete with the big players any time soon. Yet, with Yahoo’s biggest competitors in the space, Google and Meta, being forced to make similar cuts recently to recover costs, its as good a time as any to take a stab at the advertising duopoly.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Meta Wants Some Managers to Stop Managing or Quit

"I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers, managing managers..."
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Mark Zuckerberg is pulling out all the stops to avoid even more tech layoffs this year, as Meta reportedly asked many of its managers to step away from their roles in favor of individual contributor. You know, that or quit the company.

The news comes at a tumultuous time in the tech industry, as virtually every firm in Silicon Valley and beyond have been cutting costs in the form of employee layoffs. Some CEOs are even taking pay cuts, a true sign that the recession is heavy on the minds of those in the industry.

That is certainly the case at Meta, given the admittedly creative solution to cutting costs that the social media giant is employing.

Meta to Managers: Stop Managing or Quit

According to a Bloomberg report, mid-level management employees at Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — are being asked to step down from their managerial responsibilities in favor of more individual contribution roles.

Like the rest of the tech industry, Meta is in cost cutting mode, having just laid off 11,000 employees in November. The social media company has been anything but shy about its plans to trim down its spending, with Zuckerberg calling 2023 “the year of efficiency” for Meta.

“We’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Nimble” is the key word in this most recent decision, as Meta hopes to eliminate these middle management roles in an effort to speed up the decision-making process.

Are More Meta Layoffs Coming?

There’s a pretty good chance that more Meta layoffs are coming, if only because the company has been so vocal about its plans to lay off more of its employees. Still, this initiative to move managers to other roles could soften the blow for some, particularly because the logic behind trimming these roles is relatively sound.

“I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work.” – Mark Zuckerberg

Amongst that word salad is a good point. Tech companies have gotten a bit bloated lately and efficiency is key during a recession.

However, had Zuckerberg and the rest of the tech industry not gone on a short-lived hiring frenzy during the economic boom following the release of the vaccine, these problems could’ve been avoided all together.


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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Happily Never After: Disney Cuts 7,000 Jobs

Even the media empire isn't immune to economic downturn, with CEO Bob Iger planning to make cuts to the tune of $5.5 billion.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Even Mickey Mouse isn’t immune to a recession, as Disney announced it would be joining the scores of tech companies in laying off employees as part of a massive corporate restructure.

It’s no secret that the global economy isn’t doing so great right now. News of tech layoffs has become part of everyday life at this point, with the likes of Microsoft, Google, and dozens of others cutting jobs and slashing budgets.

Unfortunately, movies that make more than a billion dollars at the box office aren’t enough to protect you from economic downturn, with Disney announcing some serious cuts across the board to its media empire.

Disney to Cut $5.5 Billion in Costs

Disney announced this week that it would be laying off 7,000 employees, or 3% of its total workforce, in service of some serious cuts the company is going through. CEO Bob Iger noted that Disney plans to slash at least $5.5 billion from the budget in a massive corporate restructure for the media conglomerate.

If you’re worried about this cutting into your Marvel or Star Wars fandom, have no fear. Iger noted in a statement that creative work is the lifeblood of Disney and that these cuts will help them more than anything.

“We believe the work we are doing to reshape our company around creativity, while reducing expenses, will lead to sustained growth and profitability for our streaming business, better position us to weather future disruption and global economic challenges, and deliver value for our shareholders.” – Bob Iger, CEO of Disney

As for the specifics of the corporate restructure, Disney will now be made up of only three divisions: entertainment, ESPN, and parks and experiences.

This massive corporate restructure comes on the heels of Iger’s return to the company, who left the company at the end of 2021 but has already reclaimed his status as CEO, and his undoing a lot of changes made by his replacement.

How to Prepare for a Recession

With Disney making cuts, it’s safe to assume that no one is protected from the effects of the upcoming recession. Whether you’re a small startup or an enterprise-level company, shoring up your costs and buckling down for hard times can be daunting, but there are a few things you can do to prepare.

We talked to a wide range of business owners at the end of last year to get some insight into what surviving a recession looks like, with tips like focus on your priorities and get creative. The general consensus was that, instead of halting spending entirely, your business should start spending smart, targeting high yield areas that can make you money until the tide comes back in.

For more information on how to weather the storm, take a look at our guide to recession-surviving tips and come back to Tech.co for all the insight you can handle.


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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Google Stock Plummets After AI Chatbot Demo Fail

Google continues to lag behind Microsoft, who acquired OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT tech that has turned heads.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

The AI race isn’t going too well for Google, with its parent company Alphabet taking a huge hit to share prices after its ChatGPT competitor Bard answered a question incorrectly in a promotional video.

AI-powered chatbots are all the rage right now, with virtually every big tech company making a push to establish the technology in a meaningful way. Clearly the market agrees that AI is important, with each move having a serious impact on stock prices.

Google discovered that this week, when a demonstration of its Bard technology fell flat along with its shares.

Google Down 9% After AI-Chat Bot Gets Answer Wrong

In a live-streamed presentation on Wednesday morning, Google demonstrated its AI-chatbot — dubbed Bard — and its ability to quickly answer questions with valuable and easily digestible information on the fly.

The demonstration sees a user asking Bard a simple question: “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?” Bard then spits back a few interesting facts with lightning speed, demonstrating just how close this AI-powered chatbot is to launch.

The only problem is that the information provided isn’t entirely correct. Bard states that the pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope are the first of a specific planet. However, as discovered by Reuters shortly after the presentation, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope actually took pictures of the same planet in 2004.

Google took the snafu in stride, reiterating that this kind of mishap is why testing is so important.

“This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester program. We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.” – a Google spokesperson

Unfortunately, the market was not nearly as forgiving, as Google’s parent company Alphabet had stock prices dropped 9% following the demonstration.

The Race for AI

After ChatGPT debuted with surprisingly stellar results, the race for AI supremacy heated up quick. With Microsoft’s swift acquisition of OpenAI — the company behind ChatGPT — the starting gun had officially gone off, spurring a mad dash for tech giants around the world.

Baidu is one of the companies vying for that AI tech, announcing that it is currently testing its own chatbot — dubbed ERNIE — that would bring the tech to China, where ChatGPT is not operational. Alibaba also just announced that it would join the fray, which means that AI is coming to China sooner rather than later.

If it seems like AI-powered chatbots are the new gold rush in tech, that’s because they absolutely are. And if Google can’t figure out a way to turn its search engine empire into a functioning chatbot soon, they’re going to be left in the dust.


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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

eBay Lays Off Hundreds of Employees in Latest Redundancies

The CEO says that the move will free up "additional space to invest and create new roles in high-potential areas."
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Online ecommerce platform eBay has confirmed in a filing to the Security and Exchange Commission that the company will be letting “approximately 500 employees go”.

The filing, made on February 7, says that the 500 unlucky staff members – who collectively represent 4% of eBay’s total workforce – will be notified at some point today that they’re surplus to requirements.

Citing the worsening macroeconomic situation, eBay’s CEO says the decision has been made to strengthen the company’s “ability to deliver better end-to-end experiences” for customers, and “support more innovation” across the company.

eBay Struggling in Bleak Economy

Like many companies forced into making layoffs, eBay’s decision to reduce its headcount by 500 signals that the company is struggling to cope with the current economic climate.

In the SEC filing, eBay chief executive Jamie Iannone says – in emphatically diplomatic fashion – that the company has had to take “a thoughtful look” at how best to run its operations in the current “macroeconomic situation”.

“To create long-term, sustainable growth for eBay,” he says the company needs “evolve” and focus on “driving growth, building a trusted marketplace, empowering enthusiasts, and seeding new technologies for the future.”

Laid-off Employees Promised Support

Also in the SEC filing, Iannone thanked the recently-axed employees for their “incredible talent, passion, and achievements”.

The eBay chief says that the company will support former employees as they “navigate the transition” to working elsewhere, and will provide “comprehensive transition packages with severance and employee incentive payments.”

Similar post-layoff help was announced by Zoom, which also hit the headlines today after laying off 1,300 employees itself.

More Layoffs Likely to Come

eBay and Zoom are the latest companies to join Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google in laying off significant proportions of their staff, but they’re not going to be the last.

Just this week, for instance, rumors that Meta might be about to make even more layoffs have begun to do the rounds. The company has already laid off thousands of workers in the past half-year.

With the global economy failing to fill big tech with optimism, it’s only a matter of time before another established company is forced to part ways with hundreds – if not thousands – of staff members.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Microsoft Launches ChatGPT Powered Bing Search Engine

The new AI features will help Bing better respond to the increasingly complex search queries users are posing.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Tech giant Microsoft has just launched a new and significantly improved version of its search engine Bing, which has ChatGPT’s underlying artificial intelligence capabilities built into it.

Microsoft says the AI-powered technology will help Bing deal better with “more complex” queries raised by users of the search engine, while related functionalities have been added to Microsoft Edge that will let netizens compose social media posts off the back of searches.

The new version of Bing is available now as a limited preview, but Microsoft plans to scale this to “millions” of users within the coming weeks.

Microsoft Launches Bing with ChatGPT

“Today, we’re launching an all-new, AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser” Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft Corporate Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, announced in a recent blog post.

The new version of Bing, he says, will deliver “a better search” as well as “more complete answers”. With this update, Bing should now be viewed as an “AI copilot” for browsing the internet.

According to Microsoft, around half of the 10 billion search queries made every day go unanswered. That, Mehdi says, “is because people are using search to do things it wasn’t originally supposed to do”.

This is where the AI technology that powers the now-world-famous ChatGPT comes in – and it might just change how we search for information on the web forever.

What the New AI-Powered Bing Can Do

Microsoft says that the new AI chat experience within their Bing search engine will be able to help users that want a “detailed trip itinerary” or are “researching what TV to buy”. Previously, search engines would have struggled with the multi-faceted nature of this query and this would make the results unhelpful.

Now, “the chat experience empowers you to refine your search until you get the complete answer you are looking for by asking for more details, clarity, and ideas,” Mehdi says in the blog post.

The technology will take “key learnings and advancements” from ChatGPT and GPT-3.5 to serve answers at a higher speed and with increased accuracy. However, initial reports regarding the efficacy of the Bing chatbot claim that it’s behaving a little more cautiously than ChatGPT at present.

Microsoft has also applied artificial intelligence to the standard search algorithm utilized by Bing, which the company says “has led to the largest jump in relevance in two decades.”

Microsoft Edge Receives AI Upgrade

Along with these changes to Bing, Microsoft has also incorporated AI technology into its browser, Microsoft Edge.

Two new functions, “chat” and “compose”, will be available in the Edge sidebar. To explain how both of these work, Microsoft uses the example of a user searching for a summary of a specific financial report.

Microsoft details how you could “use the chat function to ask for a comparison to a competing company’s financials and automatically put it in a table”, or ask it to compose content such as social media posts based on a few prompts related to the content you’re looking at.

Bing – which is now 13 years old – has always played second fiddle to Google, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon. However, these new AI capabilities certainly give the less popular search engine a unique selling point that Google can’t compete with, for the time being at least, although it’s sure to be pinning its hopes on its own Bard AI solution.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Microsoft Offers Businesses Custom ChatGPT Solutions

The news will be welcomed by the thousands of businesses already exploring how AI can help them in the workplace.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Microsoft has revealed it is going to help businesses build their own, customized versions of ChatGPT using the technology provided by OpenAI.

The news comes shortly after the company made Microsoft Teams Premium, which utilizes ChatGPT to take meeting notes during conference calls, generally available to businesses.

Microsoft hopes that corporations, as well as other organizations like government departments and schools, will soon have their chatbots specifically tailored towards their respective needs.

Custom ChatGPT for Businesses Incoming

According to CNBC, Microsoft is preparing to launch technology that will allow businesses and other organizations to build their own, custom versions of ChatGPT, using the technology developed by OpenAI as a base to build on.

Businesses will reportedly have the opportunity to remove both Microsoft and OpenAI company branding from their chatbot, as well as create customized messages that will appear before staff members initiate conversations.

At present, ChatGPT can’t formulate cogent answers relating to events that have happened since 2021, due to the information the bot has been trained on.

However, Microsoft plans for these custom chatbots for businesses to be able to process up-to-date information; companies will be able to refine the character of their chatbot by inputting data over time.

OpenAI Hits the Bigtime

Since it burst onto the scene just a couple of months ago, ChatGPT has already become a household name, reaching 100 million active users in the time since its release.

The site is regularly at capacity as both companies and individuals continue to experiment with the technology, which is currently available for free.

However, the average discussion with ChatGPT costs startup OpenAI a few cents, CEO Sam Altman revealed in December – so the company will have spent millions of dollars already providing the service to users.

While Microsoft understands the importance of keeping this kind of technology accessible to all, running the world’s most powerful AI chatbot isn’t exactly cheap – so unsurprising that the company is exploring ways to capitalize financially on the software’s business potential.

Google is Innovating, but Playing Catch Up

Microsoft isn’t the only big tech company with a stake in the AI game – Google, for instance, recently announced it is developing its very own rival to ChatGPT called Bard.

Bard is currently in private beta mode, but it’s thought that a public release is just weeks away. Whether Bard will be powerful enough to compete with ChatGPT, however, is unclear at present.

Microsoft does seem one step ahead of the game in this regard. The release of AI-generated notes for Microsoft Teams conference calls, and more recently Bing with ChatGPT built in, has put the company at the forefront of this new frontier of discovery.

Under pressure from the likes of Google, Microsoft will want to continue to lead the way as the business world continues to devote more and more of its attention to artificial intelligence.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Zoom Lays Off 1,300 Workers, Reducing Headcount by 15%

The company joins Microsoft, Google, and a slew of other tech companies that have also axed thousands of staff members.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Zoom has announced plans to lay off a significant portion of its workforce, with 1,300 staff members scheduled to be relieved of their duties.

The move means the video conferencing provider becomes the latest tech giant to make layoffs this year, joining Google and Microsoft in significantly reducing the sizes of their respective workforces.

Like many major tech companies, Zoom’s growth has stagnated since national lockdowns decreased in frequency across the globe and remote workers have been allowed to return to their offices.

Zoom Employees Depart

The 1,300 workers being laid off by Zoom, which is now worth $24 billion, amounts to roughly 15% of the company’s payroll.

The company is axing a much higher percentage of its overall workforce than other big tech companies have – Google  let around 6% of its staff go, while Microsoft made 5% of its employees redundant. It should be noted though that in both these cases, the number of employees affected was much larger than Zoom’s layoffs.

“We work tirelessly and made Zoom better for our customers and users. But we also made mistakes,” CEO Eric Yuan explained in a recent statement. “We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably.”

The statement also detailed that departing Zoom employees will receive up to 16 weeks’ salary and healthcare coverage, payment of earned FY23 performance-based bonuses, and outplacement services including 1:1 coaching, networking groups, and workshops.

Zoom Goes From Exponential Growth to Stagnation

Zoom’s user base grew exponentially during the pandemic, as did its staff team. Between July 2019 and October 2022, the number of employees on Zoom’s books grew by 275% to a total of 8,422 workers.

However, like the other tech companies that benefitted from the unique economic and social conditions created by lockdowns, such as Amazon, Zoom’s growth has slowed as the world has gotten itself back up to speed.

Zoom may be feeling the pinch more than other tech companies due to the nature of its flagship video conferencing product, however, which was a core essential during the era of fully remote work, but is now not quite as crucial to the overall function of thousands of businesses, many of which are also struggling.

The bleak economic state of play the company – as well as its customers – finds themselves in has forced Zoom to “take a hard – yet important – look inward to reset ourselves” CEO Eric S. Yuan admitted.

Zoom Not Alone in Layoffs

Although Zoom has laid off a particularly high percentage of staff, the video conferencing behemoth is not the only tech company to overreach during the pandemic and its immediate aftermath.

Companies across the board are having to downsize their operations and make strategic decisions about which projects to keep afloat and which ones they should let sink, and we’re seeing more businesses deploy initiatives like voluntary separation to try and avoid making redundancies.

With the global economic situation looking like it might get worse before it gets better, it will be no surprise if we see even more businesses hamstrung by their finances and forced to reduce their headcount as a result.

Written by:
Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Baidu Joins AI Race With New ChatGPT-Challenger

Hong-Kong-based ERNIE is the latest AI chatbot announced this week to rival Google's Bard and Microsoft-backed ChatGPT.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

The AI chatbot race is going global, as tech giant Baidu joins Google in announcing its own artificial intelligence chatbot to take on OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The new bot on the block — known in Chinese as Wenxin Yiyan, or ‘ERNIE ‘ (Enhanced Representation Through Knowledge Integration) in English — is currently in testing, but it can understand text-to-image generation, language generation, poetry, jokes, and write essays.

The news comes just a day after Google announced its own AI chatbot, Bard, which is expected to be released to the public in the “coming weeks.”

The Beijing-based company has been investing in AI technology for a while, but with ChatGPT currently unavailable in China, ERNIE already has an edge on the competition.

What Is ERNIE?

ERNIE is an AI chatbot currently in testing, designed by Beijing-based search giant, Baidu. The artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot service is reportedly very similar to ChatGPT, and can understand language and text-to-image generation.

While chatbot technology in China isn’t new, ChatGPT is said to be better at professional tasks, which is why ERNIE was designed to emulate the new technology. Chatbots in China currently focus on social interaction, whereas the new technology will be better equipped to support search, businesses, and professional services.

According to Reuters, the new bot from Baidu will be released as standalone service first, then integrated with the company’s search engine later this year, much like ChatGPT.

Big Tech Battling It Out in AI Takeover

Competition for AI-domination is fierce. With 90% of businesses hoping to invest in AI, and companies like Microsoft and Google, completely shifting their strategy, it’s clear that AI will play an important role in most businesses.

Google is ramping up its AI development with alternative search bars, AI-powered images, and video summarizing tools, and Microsoft has already invested billions of dollars in AI-technology. But their commitment to investing in AI doesn’t stop there.

Just today Microsoft announced a surprise event that we expect will reveal a ChatGPT-Bing collaboration. With Microsoft Teams Premium already using the same technology behind ChatGPT, we wouldn’t be surprised. Given Google’s response to the success of ChatGPT, we’re sure Pichai and his team will be soon to follow.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Elon Musk Backtracks on Twitter’s Free API Withdrawal

Despite Musk stating that Twitter would remove free access to its API, the decision has, mostly, been reversed.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Elon Musk has backtracked on his decision to cut free access to Twitter’s API, just days before the new rule was expected to come into play.

The decision, announced on Twitter, follows a week of extreme online backlash, following Elon Musk’s attempts to further monetize the social media platform.

Some expect that Musk will find other ways to add revenue to Twitter in the near future, with recent innovations, such as paid-for subscriptions, currently only being taken up by just 0.2% of its active community.

Twitter Free API to Stay, But Only for The ‘Good’ Bots

After shutting down third-party clients, like Tweetbot and Twitterrific , Musk announced that developers would have to pay a subscription fee of $100 per month to use Twitter’s API, starting on February 9th.

However, the controversial CEO has reversed his decision, citing that a ‘light, write-only’ API for ‘good’ bots will be allowed to provide ‘good content’ for free, following a huge surge in online backlash.

The decision comes just days before the new rule was expected to come into effect, and will come as a great relief to fans of bot accounts like BigTechAlert, and to many developers, who also highlighted that researchers, students and data scientists would be impacted by the decision too. This isn’t the first time, however, that Elon’s bot-woes have led to Twitter indecision.

Elon Musk vs The Bots

In August 2020, Twitter released a free V2 API tier, designed to help Twitter users learn, teach or ‘build something for fun.’ However, since his notorious takeover, Musk claimed that the API was ‘being abused’ by bot scammers and spammers, which led to his decision to ban free access to online developers – before backtracking this week with a proposed alternative.

In 2022, the Tesla Tycoon accused Twitter of misleading regulators during his purchase – suggesting that its failure to present the information and data regarding spam and bot accounts requested for the purchase voided their contractual obligations. And, since taking over, removing bots has remained a high priority for the new Twitter owner who publicly vowed to ‘defeat the spam bots or die trying.’

Still, not all bot accounts on Twitter are spam, and given the speed of his change of heart, it didn’t take a lot of convincing. As Twitter users pointed out, a lot of the accounts that do autonomously post through the Twitter API, are a large part of what people on the platform enjoy most.

Twitter’s Search for Revenue

Plans to monetize Twitter are never far from Elon Musk’s mind, and if the past few months are anything to go by, we can expect more costly subscriptions and adverts. Rumours that Blue Subscribers will be able to show adverts in replies to share revenue with creators have been circling, but as far as we’re aware, nothing has been set in stone.

On top of subscriber fees, the company is reportedly looking to generate $1,000 per month from brands who want to keep their gold badges, and with free API now accessible, we’ve no doubt Musk will find an alternative way to add to Twitter’s growing profits. As of today, Twitter is reportedly ‘trending to break even’ but with  just 180,000 U.S subscribers, it still has a long way to go.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Google Announces Bard AI Platform Coming to Public Very Soon

Google is initially releasing its AI chat tool Bard with a "lightweight model version" of its language model.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Google is opening its new AI chat service Bard up for beta testing today, with plans to make the conversational AI platform available to the general public in “the coming weeks.”

ChatGPT has been stealing headlines in recent months, and was just dubbed the fastest-growing consumer app ever. Soon it’ll have some serious compition from Bard, with other peers and competitors expected to emerge in the near future as well.

Bard is powered by Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications (or LaMDA). But in theory, the basic framework that the system operates with works similarly every other conversational AI: It draws on information from the internet, converting that data into original responses to questions or other input from users.

What Does Bard Do?

Bard is designed to help with general questions, sort of like how the core Google search engine already functions. Users might use the Bard service to compare two Oscar-winning movies or to plan a friend’s baby shower, according to the blog post announcement.

While the search engine might have answered questions like “how many keys does a piano have?,” the AI-powered advancement aims to answer more complex queries such as “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?”

There are plenty of challenges to overcome when creating an artificial intelligence that can actually give helpful responses across a massive range of research categories, of course. The number of programs that have even come close to cracking the issue is low.

As a result, Bard won’t emerge fully formed even when it is released to the public. Here’s how Sundar Pichai explains it in the blog post:

“We’re releasing it initially with our lightweight model version of LaMDA. This much smaller model requires significantly less computing power, enabling us to scale to more users, allowing for more feedback. We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”

Google Is All In On AI

Google and its parent company Alphabet are betting big on the future of AI. As Pichai says, the company has already “re-oriented” itself around AI six years ago, and today the “scale of the largest AI computations is doubling every six months.”

Bard isn’t the only AI platform in Google’s arsenal, either: As we covered last week, other services in the works include AI-powered image generation, a question-and-answer search function for desktop, and a video clip summarizing function.

If this bet pays off, we’ll see AI chatbots continue to appear to supplement or replace human customer service across every consumer industry.

It’ll be used to streamline business software as well. The current AI darling, ChatGPT, may be dovetailing with another search engine company, as Microsoft has today announced a surprise event that many expect will reveal a ChatGPT/Bing connection. If true, this makes sense, as Microsoft Teams Premium already uses the same technology behind ChatGPT.

Given the power Google has within the tech industry, it’s hard to imagine Bard not giving ChatGPT a run for its money when it releases in the near future.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

FMCSA Revokes Certification for Nationwide ELD

After April 4, any driver using Nationwide ELD will be in violation of the ELD mandate, and may be placed out of service.
Written by
Updated on February 10, 2023

Truck drivers across the US must stop using Nationwide Technologies’ Nationwide ELD device, as it has been removed from the FMCSA registry for lack of compliance with government regulation.

The FMCSA hasn’t (yet) explained where the Nationwide ELD failed to measure up, simply saying that the company behind it failed to “meet the minimum requirements” set out in the appendix that details how ELDs must work.

Fleet drivers and managers that are currently using Nationwide will have until April 4, 2023, to replace their ELD.

Nationwide ELD Is No Longer Legal to Use

FMCSA announced the update on their website. While the government agency didn’t offer many details about why they had made the decision, they were very clear on what Nationwide’s clients need to do about it.

Here is the specific make and model number that is affected:

  • Name: Nationwide ELD
  • Model number: NWTELDV1.1
  • Identifier: NWT001
  • Provider: Nationwide Technologies Inc

The revoked certification was announced on February 3, and since there’s a 60-day grace period before enforcement, drivers will have until April 4 before they’ll need to replace the ELD.

What Truckers Need to Know

After April 4, any driver using the Nationwide ELD will be in violation of the ELD mandate, since they won’t be able to provide a “record of duty status” when needed. If pulled over, they’ll be placed out of service.

We’ve rounded up the top ELD replacement devices in the past, and all of them have remained ELD-compliant.

If a driver can’t switch to a replacement ELD device soon enough to meet the deadline, however, there is another option, the FMSCA says. They can “revert to paper logs or logging software to record required hours of service data.”

What’s Next for Nationwide?

Needless to say, this isn’t great news for Nationwide. For better or for worse, every modern fleet tracking service that offers ELD recording needs to meet the federal regulations surrounding an ELD’s functional specifications.

By failing to do so, Nationwide has shifted from the list of registered ELDs to the list of revoked devices. Shifted back is a simple job on paper — the company just needs to ensure its device meets regulations once more, and it can be re-instated.

However, the damage will be done by then, as all of the company’s clients are currently scrambling to find a compliant ELD, and they won’t be likely to move back to Nationwide even if the regulatory mishap is fixed. If you’re among them, you can start reviewing the best fleet management systems and begin gathering personalized quotes today.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Dell Cuts Over 6,500 Jobs, Dropping 5% of Its Workforce

Dell reported a 6% year-over-year sales decline in late 2022, along with a lower-than-expected revenue forecast.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Dell will be shaving its global workforce by 5%, cutting roughly 6,650 positions in order to lower the total headcount at the PC tech company down to just 126,300 workers.

After this reduction, Dell will have the fewest employees it has ever had across the last six years. This sets it apart from the other huge tech companies that have shed workers in the past several months, since many of those businesses have remained larger than they were pre-pandemic.

Business has slowed for PCs across the last year, with Dell computers overrepresented in those declining sales. Experts aren’t expecting PC sales to pick up across the rest of 2023.

Dell’s Future Remains “Uncertain”

Dell Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke has announced in a memo that “market conditions continue to erode with an uncertain future” despite recent cost-cutting measures including a hiring freeze and travel limitations.

“We’ve navigated economic downturns before, and we’ve emerged stronger. We will be ready when the market rebounds.” – Jeff Clarke, Co-COO of Dell

Dell reported a 6% year-over-year sales decline in late 2022, along with a lower-than-expected revenue forecast.

The company will likely offer more information about what its 5% reduction will look like and what areas of the company it will impact when it reports its fourth-quarter results on March 2nd. But until then, details are murky.

Dell Revenue Was Over $100 Billion Last Year

Sales have dropped at Dell, even though the company’s revenue across 2022 totaled $101.197 billion.

In total, Dell’s headcount has dropped by about 39,000 since January 2020, even while many other tech companies saw their ranks swell in late 2020 and 2021.

This isn’t exactly a sign of a steady decline, however, as Dell spun off VMware Inc. in late 2021, and the company’s over 37,000 employees are represented in the number that left Dell. Only about a third of Dell’s employees are US-based, Bloomberg reports.

PC Layoffs Set to Continue

If you’ve followed tech news across the last half a year, you’re likely not surprised to hear about more layoffs. Tech giants from Google to Microsoft to Amazon have all shed tens of thousands of employees.

This long winter of tech has hit plenty of PC companies as well: HP Inc. announced a reduction of up to 6,000 workers this last November, while Cisco and IBM each announced reductions of up to 4,000 employees.

Dell may be facing the biggest reduction, but the entire PC industry is focused on reducing employees.

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Written by:
Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Zuckerberg Hints at More Meta Layoffs to Come

Meta announces plans to become a 'more nimble organization' as employees brace themselves for more potential layoffs.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Following a 23% surge in its fourth quarter earnings, what appears to be a win for Facebook’s parent company Meta, may in fact be a loss for its remaining employees, as Zuckerberg signals a new potential round of layoffs.

The announcement, shared in the social media giant’s ‘2022 fourth quarter and full year financial report’, saw Zuckerberg claim 2023 to be the ‘Year of Efficiency’ where the company will be focus on building a stronger and more ‘nimble’ organization, suggesting further consolidation efforts may be on the way.

Meta’s New ‘Year of Efficiency’

This week, according to CNBC, Meta recorded its best stock day in nearly a decade, with a reported 23% growth in shares, following a 52% year on year drop in income in 2022.

According to its fourth quarter and full year 2022 report, Meta took several measures to ‘pursue greater efficiency’ and realign their business and strategic priorities, with mass layoffs being a necessary in their efforts to restructure.

During the quarter ended December 31, 2022, we took several measures to pursue greater efficiency and to realign our business and strategic priorities. This includes a facilities consolidation strategy to sublease, early terminate, or abandon several office buildings under operating leases, a layoff of approximately 11,000 of our employees across the FoA and RL segments, and a pivot towards a next generation data center design, including cancellation of multiple data center projects.

The total costs saw the company spend over $3.7 billion in restructuring. But, according to Zuckerberg, those efforts were ‘not the end’ of their focus on efficiency, it was only the beginning.

This wouldn’t be the first time that a company has gone through as a ‘second phase of restructuring’ following a mass round of layoffs, but with more than 11,000 jobs cut in 2022, how many more heads can Meta afford to lose?

Layoffs the ‘Beginning’ of Efficiency, Not the End

Commenting on layoffs, Zuckerberg described the decision to cut 11,000 staff in 2022 as ‘difficult’, but went on to say the the company plans to take further steps in 2023 to improve company-wide efficiency, signalling middle management to be next on the chopping block.

Anticipated reports of Meta’s 2023 revenue and full-year expenses also indicate a potential second-phase restructuring in play. A 2% year-over-year growth is expected in the first quarter, with full-year expenses lowered from $94-100 billion to $89-95 billion, and expected capital expenditures lowered from $34-27 billion to $30-$33 billion.

The report also revealed that the company ‘may incur additional restructuring charges’ as it progresses further in its ‘efficiency efforts’.

Are Layoffs Necessary, Or Can They Be Avoided?

If the past year is anything to go by, reducing staff is the default to reducing a company’s overall spending. But with a growing demand for leaders to increase productivity, and companies struggling to retain their top talent, businesses may need to start considering alternative solutions.

Introducing remote work is a great way for businesses to reduce their overhead spend — with no need for office space, companies can claw back costs without losing their top talent. Investing in cross-training programs can also help your teams to upskill in other areas, and reducing hours could be a welcome alternative to employees in want of a better work-life-balance.

Project management and web conferencing tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams are great ways to help your team streamline their work and stay connected. Improving communication and workflow is a great way to improve productivity, and with enough support, will help you to keep an eye on, and retain your top talent.

Read more: How to effectively manage a remote team

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Written by:
Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Google to Challenge Microsoft-Backed ChatGPT with Its Own AI

The advanced 'new companion to search' is one of several AI-powered products Google is testing to transform its AI-toolkit.
Written by
Updated on February 10, 2023

Google is testing a new AI-powered chatbot, expected to rival the ‘fastest-growing consumer app in internet history’, ChatGPT.

‘Bard’, one of several AI-powered chat products in testing, uses Google’s conversation technology, LaMDA, to provide ‘humanlike’ answers to various questions.

Google is expected to rival ChatGPT in its ability to respond to more recent events, such as tech layoffs – an ability that ChatGPT doesn’t yet have, due to limitations. The news comes amidst rumors of ChatGPT being added to Bing search.

Google Challenges ChatGPT

CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed that Google is planning to compete with ChatGPT, with its own AI search engine features, as part of a ‘code red’ response plan to the tool’s success.

ChatGPT has soared to 100 million users in under three months, making it one of the fastest growing consumer apps in history. Its growth beats that of TikTok, Instagram and Spotify, and there’s talk of the app becoming a plausible alternative to Google Search.

‘Bard’ is Google’s primary answer to the newcomer, but there are also other products in testing, including AI-powered image generation tools, a question-and-answer search desktop design, and a TikTok-style green screen mode to generate summarizing video clips.

What Is Bard?

Bard is a chatbot, currently in testing, that uses Google’s conversation technology LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications). It will supposedly allow users to ‘communicate directly’ with its ‘most advanced language model’ as a ‘companion to search’.

According to CNBC, Google management have requested that the chatbot be prioritized over other projects, as rumours of Microsoft integrating ChatGPT into its search engine, Bing, as early as March, continue to swirl.

The new AI-powered chatbot is expected to rival OpenAPI’s ChatGPT in its ability to answer more timely questions – a feature that its rival, ChatGPT, doesn’t yet to have.

According to CNBC, Bard can give feedback on response, and looks similar to ChatGPT, in that ‘users can enter a question in a dialog box and get an answer.’ During testing, the chatbot responded to several questions at speed, including a question on whether there would be another round of Google Layoffs, following the company’s 6% cut in staff, to which the chatbot replied that it was unlikely.

“According to my database access, it is unlikely for Google to conduct another round of layoffs in 202…Layoffs are generally conducted to reduce costs and structure, but the company is doing well financially. In fact, Google’s revenue increased by 34% in 2021, and the company’s stock price has risen by 70% since January 2022.”

While the response is questionable, that chatbot does sound very promising, with employees reporting Bard to have become more and more advanced in recent weeks. Google, however, is still being cautious, given the high reputational risk, however its latest ‘code red’ efforts do demonstrate that it’s taking its AI competition very seriously.

Is the Future of Business AI?

According to Microsoft, 90% of businesses do want to use AI, with 9 out of 10 specifically looking for ways to help automate tasks, and boost productivity and efficiency.

Tools like customer relationship management software (CRM) and project management have been pivotal in helping businesses drive forward their success, but there may be more to investing in advanced technology.

Microsoft, for example, has invested billions of dollars into its partnership with OpenAI – the company responsible for ChatGPT, and have just released Microsoft Teams Premium with ChatGPT, allowing users to fully automate the process of taking notes, generating tasks and related actions, allowing them to work smarter.

Google is also ramping up its AI product development – with the potential introduction of Bard, and its alternative search bar, which could replace the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ generator with five different prompts. Which exact AI products and features will make the cut to be released, will be determined this year.

In a statement to CNBC, a Google spokesperson described AI as a tool that will ultimately ‘improve lives.’

“We believe that AI is foundational and transformative technology that is incredibly useful for individuals, businesses and communities, and as our AI Principles outline, we need to consider the broader societal impacts these innovations can have. We continue to test our AI technology internally to make sure it’s helpful and safe, and we look forward to sharing more experiences externally soon.” – Google spokesperson

While AI in business is still in its infancy, the competition to develop more tools suggests that it will certainly be a bigger player in our future.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

The Real Reason Elon Musk Locked His Own Twitter Account

Musk said he made his account private to run an engagement test — but was this really the reason he locked it?
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Yesterday, Elon Musk left his avid followers confused after changing his personal Twitter account settings to “Private.”

Musk — who’s well-known for courting controversy on social media — allegedly locked his Twitter account to troubleshoot an algorithm issue and run a related engagement test.

But in reality, this is the latest example of Musk’s commitment to surface-level showmanship on the social media site he now owns. Considering the platform’s political importance, this continues to be a real cause for concern.

Musk Locks Twitter Account to “Test” Algorithm Bug

Musk acquired Twitter back in October 2022, and he’s been quite hands-on when it comes to solving technical problems with the site. This week, a significant number of Twitter users publicly complained about the sheer volume of seemingly “random” tweets on their feeds.

When Musk was first notified of this problem, he confirmed it was an algorithm-related issue. Shortly following this, he said that the problem had been fixed.

However, some “famous” Twitter users — many of whom are prominent commentators from right-wing circles — continued to report that the problem was affecting engagement with their accounts. Users that should be seeing their content, they said, were continuing to see more arbitrary, irrelevant posts.

Yahoo News reports that one prominent right-wing commentator found that making his account private — which restricts who can see and interact with your Tweets and should, therefore, negatively impact engagement — actually improved engagement.

So, Musk made his own account private to see if he experienced a similar issue — or so he claims.

Why Musk Locking His Account Was Completely Unnecessary

Musk returned his account to its original, public settings today, tweeting that making his account private “helped identify some issues with the system” that “should be addressed this week.”

This is odd for a number of reasons. First up, it doesn’t take a statistician to know that using a singular account to try and determine the effects an algorithmic bug is having on a platform with hundreds of millions of users is far from useful.

What would really help you identify and resolve the issue would be access to the platform’s algorithm, development environment, and engineering team — which Elon Musk has, but was seemingly hesitant to use, at least in the first instance.

Why Musk’s Experiment Is Concerning

The first concerning thing about this series of events is why Musk’s first port of call following a site-wide tech issue appears to be himself and the front-end of his Twitter account, rather than his own engineering team.

His relationship with Twitter’s engineering team being so poor that he’d rather run a largely pointless experiment than get to the heart of the issue as quickly as possible does not bode well for the site’s staff or users.

On the other hand, if he didn’t consult the engineering team because he’s fired everyone who actually understands the algorithm, as one user jokingly speculated on Twitter, that is arguably more worrying, from a security perspective in particular.

If we concede that he could have consulted his tech team for the quickest, most accurate answer to the problem, then it begs the question as to precisely why he ran this ineffectual experiment. The answer, unfortunately, is the man’s constant need for attention and perpetual showmanship.

Media Optics and Musk’s Quest for Attention

First and foremost, Musk cares about the optics of stuff like this. “Investigating” this issue himself by making his account private looks good, especially in the eyes of the prominent right-wing commentators on Twitter. For this cohort of users, he wants to portray himself as the accessible, hands-on leader who’s always available to troubleshoot issues.

In fact, his regular plays for attention may explain why he chose to buy the platform in the first place. Despite being one of the richest men in the world for some time, both his general notoriety and the public’s perception of his global influence have trailed behind the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

While the average big tech boss seems to resent being thrust into the spotlight in the name of accountability, Musk seems to relish the prospect of being at the epicenter of controversy and conversation.

The problem with being an attention-craving, self-proclaimed edge lord is you’re always playing to what the crowd wants. Your primary goal is entertainment. You pursue shock and awe until you get your fix, however it may manifest. But, as any level-headed business leader will tell you, the right decisions often don’t align with what is popular or desired by the masses.

The problem isn’t necessarily being that kind of person — anyone with such tendencies would surely be destined for a glittering acting career, for instance.

Rather, it’s being that kind of person while at the helm of a platform that has the outsized political influence that Twitter has. Ideally, the occupier of such a role should be sensible, accountable, and concerned first and foremost with trust and safety.

A showman like Musk heading up Twitter is, to put it bluntly, rather dangerous.

Yet, with every week at Twitter seemingly presenting new opportunities for Musk to feed an ego that runs entirely on self-made melodrama, it’s unlikely we’ll see him quietly fade into the background any time soon.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Microsoft Teams Premium Launched With ChatGPT for Meetings

Microsoft Teams Premium is now available, and its clever use of AI might just change the way meetings are held forever.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Microsoft has officially made Microsoft Teams Premium generally available. Teams Premium uses the same technology behind the game-changing AI chatbot ChatGPT, enabling users to fully automate the process of taking meeting notes and generating related tasks and actions.

Microsoft first revealed it was working on a Premium version of Teams in October last year, while a preview of the new software has been available since December 16th. To mark the official release of the product, the company has made Teams Premium generally available at a discounted rate for the next five months.

The introduction of cutting-edge AI into workplace apps like Teams may appear daunting, but don’t worry — you’ll still be able to use Microsoft Teams Premium for web conferencing, file sharing, and communicating with colleagues in your organization.

Microsoft Launches AI-Powered Microsoft Teams Premium

“Now — more than ever — organizations need solutions to adapt to change, improve productivity, and reduce costs,” Microsoft’s Nick Herskowitz said in a statement announcing the general availability of Microsoft Teams Premium.

To achieve this, Microsoft has inserted the Large Language Models that power the OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT into Teams Premium with the primary goal of making every meeting more “intelligent, personalized and protected.”

The new tool will be called “intelligent recap,” and Microsoft is hoping it will transform the way teams hold meetings, webinars, and other online discussions.

Intelligent Recap Explained

The purpose of intelligent recap is to reduce the time employees spend sifting through their meeting minutes and trying to pull out action points, as shown in the image below.

AI From Microsoft

The new feature will record your meeting notes using GPT-3.5 and then automatically generate suggestions for tasks and actions that have come out of meetings.

As well as automating notetaking and task suggestions, “AI-generated chapters divide the meeting into sections so it’s easy to pick and choose the content most relevant to you,” according to Microsoft.

Personalized time markers will also become available and will identify when you joined and left the meeting, but also when your name was mentioned and when you were sharing your screen.

To top it all off, Teams Premium will let you translate 40 spoken languages in real-time, and best of all, only the meeting host is required to have Microsoft Teams Premium for this function to work.

What Else Is Included in Microsoft Teams Premium?

Although “intelligent recap” is grabbing all the headlines, there are plenty of other interesting features being added to Microsoft’s new platform.

Advanced meeting protection features — such as watermarking — have been added to deter Teams users from leaking confidential information. End-to-end encryption can now be enabled for your most sensitive meetings, and you’ll be able to restrict which meeting participants can record your discussions.

It doesn’t stop there, either. You’ll also be able to host webinars and invite guest presenters to find a seat in your virtual green room before they take to the stage.

What’s more, Microsoft’s Enterprise Content Deliver Network (eCDN) is now included in Teams Premium. With this, you’ll be able to “live stream global meetings, all-hands gatherings, and town halls, and distribute company-wide trainings using Teams Live Events.”

How Much Does Microsoft Teams Premium Cost?

The new AI-powered Microsoft Teams Premium package will cost $10 per user, per month. However, until June 30th, 2023, you’ll be able to purchase it for just $7 per user per month, Microsoft says.

By way of comparison, Microsoft Teams Essentials currently costs $4 per user, per month, which is the cheapest available version of Microsoft Teams. There’s also the Business Basic plan, which costs $6 per user, per month and the Teams Business Standard plan, which is available for $12.50 per user, per month.

Is Microsoft Teams Premium Worth it?

Intelligent recap certainly sounds like a feature that would seriously benefit a lot of businesses — especially those that are already using Microsoft Teams and have room in their budget to make the upgrade.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of AI-powered features like this is that they save humans time that can then be spent on tasks that can’t be completed using AI (for now, anyway).

AI technology being utilized for such a purpose is part of a wider trend of software companies focusing more closely than ever on how their software can help employees claw back precious minutes in their workday.

Tools allowing users to automate mundane aspects of employees’ workflows, for example, are already commonplace in most top project management software applications.

However, the rise of endlessly useful — and seemingly unstoppable — AI-powered software like ChatGPT has sent shockwaves through the tech industry. It’s time to adapt or die.

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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

HubSpot, Pinterest Add to Tech Layoff Chaos

The pair have become the latest high-profile tech companies to slash their headcounts in an effort to cut costs.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Business software provider HubSpot and visual discovery engine Pinterest have become the latest tech companies to make cuts to their payroll.

The tech sector endured a tumultuous 2022, during which 150,000 workers lost their jobs – and with the grim economic climate we’re experiencing showing little signs of improvement, it’s likely we’ll see companies deploy even more ruthless cost-cutting measures throughout 2023.

Since the turn of the year, it’s thought that around 82,000 tech workers have been sent packing by their now-former employers.

Pinterest Lays Off Staff

According to a report in Bloomberg, Pinterest Inc. is laying off 150 employees – which amounts to less than 5% of the company’s 4,000-strong workforce.

The cuts will affect various teams across the businesses, although it’s unlikely this will be evenly spread, reports say.

A statement from a company spokesperson said that “the employees who were impacted contributed to Pinterest and as they transition, we’re committed to supporting them with separation packages, benefits, and other services.”

HubSpot Joins the Cost-Cutting Crowd

HubSpot has also let go of a large number of employees, with reports claiming around 500 staff have been given their marching orders.

This figure amounts to around 7% of HubSpot’s total workforce.

Explaining the difficult decision, HubSpot Chief Executive Yamini Rangan said that the company “grew headcount faster than revenue” in 2022 and that “uncertainty in customer demand” suggests the worse might still be yet to come.

The Layoff Chaos Continues

HubSpot and Pinterest join tech giants including Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Google and Microsoft as the latest companies to implement layoffs en masse – although they’re extremely unlikely to be the last.

While this has been happening, tech companies large and small have been using a variety of tactics to avoid making more staff redundant – such as offering voluntary severance packages, rescinding job offer packages, and even enforcing wage cuts.

However, the dire state of the global economy means it’ll probably be a long while before the stream of mass layoffs subsides, irrespective of other cost-cutting measures being deployed.

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Written by:
Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Survey: Most Employees Are Planning to Move Jobs in 2023

A new survey found that compensation and work-life balance are making employees want to move jobs in 2023.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Seems like the Great Resignation might not be entirely finished, as a new survey found that 82% of employees are currently planning to move jobs within the next 12 months.

Over the last few years, employees in virtually every single industry were calling it quits, resigning in record numbers. However, with the recession looming and companies laying off employees like it’s going out of style, you’d think employees would be more prone to staying put.

That is clearly not the case, though, as a new survey of 750 professionals point to a troubling trend for companies that value employee retention.

82% of Employees Are Planning to Move Jobs in 12 Months

According to the survey from Leapsome — titled the State of People Enablement Report — 11% of respondents plan to move job in three months, 35% plan to do so within six months, and 35% plan to do so in one year, for a grand total of 82% of employees planning to move jobs in the next 12 months.

“Even with the challenging macroeconomic environment, employees are taking matters into their own hands.” – Jenny von Podewils & Kajetan von Armansperg, authors of the report

So, what is causing employees to plan for their future at another company? It’s not rocket science; employees cited compensation (76%) and work-life balance (74%) as the primary reasons they want to move on. This echos study after study that has shown paying your team more and giving them more flexible schedules improves retention and even productivity.

How to Retain Employees

It’s no secret that employee retention is a valuable metric for any business. New employees cost more while slowing productivity down, which means you want to keep your employees happy to keep your bottom-line looking good.

So how do you do it? Well, for starters, you could pay your employees more and you could provide them with better work-life balance through flexible schedules. You could even try out the 4-day work week, which has been a popular option for businesses, with studies showing that it works quite well at improving productivity and retaining employees.

The report from Leapsome also found that business technology can help, with HR representatives (84%) and employees (87%) agreeing that tools like project management software, CRMs, and other “people enablement” tools benefit the overall work experience. Unfortunately, that likely won’t be enough to keep top talent at your business.

“It’s clear that a digital solution is not a panacea — it needs to be underpinned by a strong culture and well-designed internal processes to unlock its full potential.”

Simply put, there is no easy fix when it comes to employee retention but increased pay and work-life balance are definitely the best place to start. Because all the perks in the world aren’t going to sway any employee to stay if they’re having trouble paying their bills or making appointments.


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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

Following Layoffs, Intel’s Next Target Is Employee Salaries

The cuts will be to executive and mid-level management positions, with hourly workers not being impacted at all.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Costing cutting efforts are in full force over at Intel, with the company aiming to lower employee salaries after laying off 500 employees last month.

The economic downturn is really starting to show its fangs, with scores of tech layoffs hitting headlines over the last few months. Intel has already joined the ranks of Google, Microsoft, PayPal, and others that are trying to mitigate the damage of the recession.

Now, Intel is taking it a step further by slashing employee salaries, including their CEO, who is taking a 25% pay cut following Intel’s poor fourth quarter numbers that were greatly impacted by the PC market fall.

Intel to Cut Executive and Mid-Level Salaries

Announced in a statement from the company, Intel plans to cut salaries for its executive and mid-level managers on a sliding scale. The CEO Pat Gelsinger will receive a 25% cut, with the rest of the executive team receiving a 15% cut and mid-level managers receiving a 5% cut.

“The changes are designed to impact our executive population more significantly and will help support the investments and overall workforce.” – Addy Burr, spokesperson for Intel

That’s right, Intel is not cutting the pay of any of its hourly employees, so at least they aren’t tone-deaf to the economic hardships of those in lower-level positions. Still, with 500 layoffs last month and lowered salaries, it seems like Intel is really struggling to keep up with the economic downturn.

Why Is Intel Making So Many Cuts?

The recession is hitting all businesses pretty hard, with the vast majority of the tech industry keeping costs low and laying off employees in droves. Subsequently, it’s safe to assume that Intel is doing its best to compete in these less-than-ideal economic times.

Still, Intel has plenty of problems beyond the economic downturn. The PC market isn’t doing so hot, which is hitting the chip maker in more ways than one. Shares are down more than 5% since last week, and cuts are having minimal impact so far.

“We stumbled, right, we lost share, we lost momentum. We think that stabilizes this year.” – Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel

We’ll be the first to say that CEO and upper management pay cuts are a step in the right direction and Intel’s layoffs were certainly minimal compared to the massive numbers we’re seeing from other tech giants like Microsoft and Google. Simply put, Intel is dealing with the recession in better ways than we’ve seen from other companies.


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Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.

PayPal Fires 2,000 Employees as Tech Layoffs Continue

PayPal joins the fray of tech layoffs, cutting 7% of its workforce with "more work to do," according to its CEO.
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Updated on February 10, 2023

Tech employees just can’t catch a break in 2023, as the layoffs continue with PayPal axing 2,000 employees in the face of “the challenging macro-economic environment.”

The news certainly isn’t surprising considering the tech industry has been on a tear lately, laying off tens of thousands of employees in some cases like Google and Microsoft. PayPal is just following suit and shoring up costs for the coming recession.

Still, PayPal cuts point to a large trend in the ecommerce industry that could have far-reaching ramifications for all businesses.

PayPal Cuts 7% of Workforce

In a statement by PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, the digital payment company announced that it would be cutting 7% of its workforce, which amounts to approximately 2,000 employees. The move comes with tech companies slashing budgets and laying off employees left and right, but luckily the CEOs are getting really good at making statements about them.

“Change can be difficult – particularly when it includes valued colleagues and friends departing. We will face this head-on together, drawing on the unparalleled scale of our global platform, the strategic investments we have made to strengthen our core capabilities, and the trust and loyalty of our customers.” – Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal

Schulman joins a long list of CEOs that have taken responsibility for over-hiring in the economic upswing that took place once vaccinations became available and the worst days of the pandemic had subsided. Still, tech employees likely don’t take much solace from these kind words, even if PayPal does “provide them with generous packages” as severance.

What Does This Mean for Ecommerce?

While the PayPal cuts may seem like just another drop in the bucket of tech layoffs over the last few months, it does point to some notable economic and more specifically ecommerce trends that could impact a wide range of businesses.

For one, economic experts note that PayPal isn’t out of the woods yet, given the company has struggled to compensate for the lack of ecommerce spending due to the economic downturn. Simply put, people aren’t spending money online, so they aren’t using PayPal nearly as much as they used to.

Considering Schulman specifically noted that PayPal has “more work to do” when it comes to “right-sizing [their] cost structure,” it’s safe to assume that ecommerce isn’t going to rebound anytime soon, so if you rely on that kind of income, your business should be prepared for it as much as possible.


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Written by:
Isobel O'Sullivan (BSc) is a senior writer at Tech.co with over four years of experience covering business and technology news. Since studying Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL), she’s been a regular contributor to Market Finance’s blog and has also worked as a freelance tech researcher. Isobel’s always up to date with the topics in employment and data security and has a specialist focus on POS and VoIP systems.
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