Amazon – Digitex Solutions https://www.digiteex.com Digitex Solutions Thu, 09 Oct 2025 18:45:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 224764844 Google is tightening its ‘Work from Anywhere’ policy: Now a single day will count as a full week https://www.digiteex.com/google-is-tightening-its-work-from-anywhere-policy-now-a-single-day-will-count-as-a-full-week/ https://www.digiteex.com/google-is-tightening-its-work-from-anywhere-policy-now-a-single-day-will-count-as-a-full-week/#respond Thu, 09 Oct 2025 18:45:25 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/google-is-tightening-its-work-from-anywhere-policy-now-a-single-day-will-count-as-a-full-week/ Google is continuing to restrict remote work as more American and tech companies push in-office mandates and less remote flexibility.

This time, the company is updating its Covid-era ‘Work from Anywhere’ policy, which allows employees to work remotely from any location away from their main office for up to four weeks per calendar year. Now Google will count even one WFA work day as a full week, according to an internal document obtained by CNBC on Wednesday.

“Whether you log 1 WFA day or 5 WFA days in a given standard work week, 1 WFA week will be deducted from your WFA weekly balance,” the document, which was circulated over the summer shortly before the update went into effect, said, according to CNBC.

The WFA policy is distinct from Google’s regular hybrid schedule, which grants employees permission to work from home two days per week. The hybrid schedule, which was also established during the pandemic, won’t be altered. WFA days give employees the flexibility to work remotely, but not “from home or nearby,” according to the leaked internal document.

The WFA policy update doesn’t apply to all Google staffers and may exclude those required to be in physical offices and data centers. Violations will result in disciplinary action or termination, according to CNBC.Google did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

In April, Google warned remote employees in certain divisions that their roles could be eliminated if they did not comply with hybrid schedules, specifically requiring attendance in the office three days a week. Some teams also offered voluntary buyouts to remote workers living within 50 miles of an office and unwilling to relocate to work in person. 

“As we’ve said before, in-person collaboration is an important part of how we innovate and solve complex problems,” a Google spokesperson told Fortune in April. 

According to the WFA policy update, workers aren’t allowed to work from a Google office in a separate state or country during their WFA time due to ““legal and financial implications of cross border work,” according to CNBC.

Tech remote work

JobLeads, a Germany-based job search platform, CTO Jan Hendrik von Ahlen told Fortune of the more than 12 million U.S.-based job postings in its database, just under 6% of positions are fully remote, under 7% are hybrid, and almost 88% are on-site. “That’s comparable to pre-pandemic numbers,” Hendrik von Ahlen said.

Across the sector, companies increasingly track attendance via badges and other tools and present RTO as necessary for culture and productivity, even as many maintain hybrid rather than fully remote models.

Apple moved to a three‑days‑in‑office hybrid and tied compliance to badge tracking and potential discipline, framing the shift around collaboration benefits despite employee pushback. Meta reinstated a three‑day requirement in September 2023 with enforcement up to performance hits or termination for noncompliance, citing internal data that in‑person work boosts engineering outcomes and keeping exceptions for originally remote hires. 

Amazon escalated from a three‑day mandate to tighter enforcement against “coffee badging,” explored minimum daily in‑office hours, and signaled or set moves toward five days in 2025, sparking internal dissent and phased implementation challenges. Microsoft has shifted toward a formal three‑day on‑site baseline for employees near offices, reflecting a broader trend of codifying hybrid expectations after looser post‑pandemic flexibility. 

The tightening of Google’s policy is in line with the larger trend among big employers that is seeing them slowly dial back pandemic-era flexibility, Kelsey Szamet, partner at Kingsley Szament Employment Lawyers, told Fortune.“Such a policy change can take a tangible toll on morale and retention,” Szamet said, adding that changing expectations of more flexible in-office work policies may frustrate employees that were hired under the assumption of semi-or-fully remote work.

“That can contribute to disengagement or increased turnover, particularly among high performers who recognize that they can obtain flexible options elsewhere,” Szamet said.
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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/google-is-tightening-its-work-from-anywhere-policy-now-a-single-day-will-count-as-a-full-week/feed/ 0 5291 Google adds limits to ‘Work from Anywhere’ policy that began in Covid https://www.digiteex.com/google-adds-limits-to-work-from-anywhere-policy-that-began-in-covid/ https://www.digiteex.com/google-adds-limits-to-work-from-anywhere-policy-that-began-in-covid/#respond Thu, 09 Oct 2025 09:36:00 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/google-adds-limits-to-work-from-anywhere-policy-that-began-in-covid/ Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesGoogle is continuing to put restrictions on remote work, this time with a popular policy called “Work from Anywhere” that was established during the Covid pandemic.The policy has allowed employees to work from a location outside of their main office for up to four weeks per calendar year. According to internal documents viewed by CNBC, working remotely for even a single day will now count for a full week.”Whether you log 1 WFA day or 5 WFA days in a given standard work week, 1 WFA week will be deducted from your WFA weekly balance,” according to a document that was circulated over the summer, shortly before the change went into effect. Google isn’t altering its current hybrid schedule, which was also put in place during the pandemic, allowing employees to work from home two days a week. WFA days are distinct from that policy, giving staffers the flexibility to work remotely, but not at home.”WFA weeks cannot be used to work from home or nearby,” the document says.Google didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.Tech companies are increasingly forcing employees to spend more time in the office, with the peak of Covid now about five years in the past. Microsoft said last month that employees will be expected to work in an office three days a week starting next year, switching from a policy that allowed most of them to work from home 50% of the time or more with manager approval. Amazon went further, instructing corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office.Google began offering some U.S. full-time employees voluntary buyouts at the beginning of 2025, and has notified remote workers from several units their jobs would be considered for layoffs if they didn’t return to offices to work a hybrid schedule.According to the latest changes, employees can’t work from a Google office in a separate state or country during their WFA time due to “legal and financial implications of cross border work.” If in a different location, employees may be required to work during the business hours that align with that time zone, the rules state.The WFA update doesn’t apply to all Google staffers and may exclude data center workers, and those who are required to be in physical offices. Violations of the policy will result in disciplinary action or termination, the document says.The issue came up at a recent all-hands meeting.A top-rated question that was submitted on Google’s internal system described the update as “confusing.””Why does even one day of WFA count as a whole week, and can we reconsider the restriction on using WFA weeks to work from home?” the question said.John Casey, Google’s vice president of performance and rewards, said at the meeting that WFA “was meant to meet Googlers where they were during the pandemic,” according to audio obtained by CNBC.”The policy was always intended to be taken in increments of a week and not be used as a substitute for working from home in a regular hybrid work week,” Casey said.WATCH: Google adds Gemini to Chrome for all users in push to bolster AI search


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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/google-adds-limits-to-work-from-anywhere-policy-that-began-in-covid/feed/ 0 5282 Why 2026 could be ‘the year of Google’: Options playbook https://www.digiteex.com/why-2026-could-be-the-year-of-google-options-playbook/ https://www.digiteex.com/why-2026-could-be-the-year-of-google-options-playbook/#respond Thu, 09 Oct 2025 09:35:45 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/why-2026-could-be-the-year-of-google-options-playbook/ 00:06 Josh Stocks have been seeing some gains so far in October with the major indices reaching record closes. However, our next guest outlines why there is reason to be cautious and what that means for traders. Bob Lang, explosive options technical analyst joining us here now with the Options Playbook sponsored by Tasty Trade. Bob, great to see you, especially on set, sir. Uh let’s start here. So the VIX perking up as it does tend to do this time of year, right? How do you play that, Bob? You know, are you concerned enough to buy protection on the general market? 00:36 Bob Lang Well, I look uh Josh, great to be with you. So I look at volatility in in terms of time frames, right? And when the market’s been up for 7, eight, nine months of the year, like it is this year, it tends to lead to bullish behavior to the end of the year. And when that happens, we usually see a suppression of volatility. Now, the VIX is hovering around 16 17%, which is a little bit lower than normal. The average uh VIX is about 19 20%. 01:05 Bob Lang But it’s a little bit lower than normal. It it’s really feeding into more money coming into the market. Lower volatility tends to make people a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more uh aggressive into the markets. Um I think that that can be a little bit worrisome, especially since we’re worried about um some uncertainties coming out here. and anything could hit out of left field, you know, whether it’s tariff related or whether it’s AI or whether it’s something else or some earnings uh shortfalls coming up the next few weeks. I think it’s really behooves most people to have some protection on and either buying volatility or else you’re buying um puts, put options are very cheap right now. um with the VIX been at 16 17%. So I think that that’s a that 01:52 Josh Your bottom line is some caution is warranted here. 01:53 Bob Lang Absolutely. 01:54 Josh Okay. I want to talk about AI as well. Lots of hot talk about an AI bubble from, you know, some very well respected investors saying, hey, they hear echoes of 1999. What’s your what’s your take on that? 02:06 Bob Lang Josh, you know there’s always a bubble going on. There’s always bubble somewhere. Um I I look, I go back to the the late 80s, right? There was a bubble in biotech. In the late 90s, there was a bubble in uh .com names in technology. 02:18 Josh Does a bubble have to burst for you to know there was a bubble? 02:20 Bob Lang No, in fact, actually, you know what? The people who identify bubbles are the ones who actually are not into it. I was in the bubble during the late 90s, during the .com and I was loving it. It was great, making lots of money. And I’m sure right now, if there’s a bubble going on in AI, there’s a lot of people making money. Are they complaining at all? Absolutely not. So, you know, it’s it’s only at the end of the of the ride that people are getting upset and and and disgusted about. 02:50 Bob Lang Look, I mean there was some um talk from uh Paul Tudor Jones the other day. talking about, Yeah, I think yesterday he said, you know, we’re in a bubble right now similar to that we’re late 99 2000. And he did reference the period between October of 1999 to March 2000 where the NASDAQ went up 80%. Well, I I remember that time and I remember that a lot of short sellers got blown out of the water then during that six- month period. 03:22 Bob Lang So, you know, I I think you just have to keep it in context and keep the reference point is there of course uh that when you know, the market blew up and the Nasdaq dropped 72% from the highs in March of 2000 to uh to 2001. So, you you do have that reference point there, but I I do think that we really don’t have to fear the fact that we’re in a bubble right now. It’s just make money as you can. 03:48 Josh Um, let’s get to some trades. Sticking with AI, talking about Google. 03:52 Bob Lang Google. So, um this has been a stock that’s been one of my favorites over the past few months. And it’s up something 70% since the lows in April. Um it’s kind of consolidating right now. I do like the I like like the chart here. Um if it gets above 250, 253, it’s got some room to to run. So I’m looking at maybe like a like a March call for uh for Google, maybe even even to January of a little bit shorter term. 04:22 Bob Lang But uh I’m looking at a call maybe paying about $17 in March. And if it gets past a certain level, about 253 to 255, this stock’s got some got some leg to uh to run. I think that in 2026, this is going to be the year of Alphabet or Google. I think with the with a positive business environment, you’ve got lower interest rates coming in over the next couple of months and into 2026. And then uh deregulatory environment and also, you know, we’ve seen uh Google come out and settle with uh with the with the English government. And they got lawsuits with Europe and I think even in the United States, they’re going to be settling these lawsuits and it’s going to be a tail one for the stock. 04:59 Josh And OpenAI, they’re not going to come in and and just take search, Google’s bread and butter. 05:04 Bob Lang I I think that Google’s got a a real good foothold in this and look, they’re number one in search. They they they continue to expand that footprint and search and there there really is no competition for them. And I I think going forward, um yeah, OpenAI is going to be some competition, but there’s also other competitors out there too. There’s Microsoft, there’s Amazon, there’s Apple too. 05:25 Josh Speaking of Microsoft, you got a trade there, too? 05:27 Bob Lang Like I really like Microsoft. It’s uh created a nice little bull shaped pattern here, Josh and it it ran up uh had an unbelievable run in the summertime, came back down, made a low here and it’s making the higher highs and higher low, which is our textbook definition of an uptrend. And I I do like um Microsoft going into earnings season. Um I think it’s going to make a run past uh 550 um and if it gets past that 550 marker, which is the old high back in early August, um I think it’s got to run to 600. 06:04 Josh Bob, always great to see you. Appreciate your time and those trades, sir. 06:07 Bob Lang Thanks, Josh.


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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/why-2026-could-be-the-year-of-google-options-playbook/feed/ 0 5279 Meta approves huge bonuses for execs after laying off 5% of workers https://www.digiteex.com/meta-approves-huge-bonuses-for-execs-after-laying-off-5-of-workers/ https://www.digiteex.com/meta-approves-huge-bonuses-for-execs-after-laying-off-5-of-workers/#respond Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:25:05 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/meta-approves-huge-bonuses-for-execs-after-laying-off-5-of-workers/

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta approved massive bonuses for executives — days after the tech giant laid off about 4,000 workers.

In a corporate filing on Thursday, Meta said it approved “an increase in the target bonus percentage” for its annual bonus plan. 

The company’s executives could now earn a bonus representing 200% of their base salary, up from 75%, according to the filing.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta approved larger bonuses for its executive staff days after the company laid off about 4,000 workers. AP

Zuckerberg — the world’s second richest person behind Elon Musk with a net worth of $245 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — is excluded from the updated bonus plan, the filing noted.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The changes were approved on Feb. 13 after a committee for Meta’s board of directors found that the total target compensation for executives “was at or below the 15th percentile” compared to figures at rival companies.

“Following this increase, the target total cash compensation for the named executive officers (other than the CEO) falls at approximately the 50th percentile of the Peer Group Target Cash Compensation,” the filing said.

Just days prior to the bonus change, Meta started laying off approximately 5% of its workforce, targeting low-performers. Zuckerberg earlier said he “decided to raise the bar on performance management.”

Meta also recently slashed its stock awards for staffers, according to the Financial Times. 

The tech giant reduced its annual distribution of stock options by about 10% for thousands of staffers, according to the report.

Meta also recently slashed its stock awards for staffers, according to a report. AFP via Getty Images

The changes could vary based on where workers live and their role at the company, the report said.

Meta shares have soared 48% over the past 12 months as the company has made big bets on artificial intelligence.

The company recently said it plans to spend $65 billion this year on AI and robot advancements.

In January, Meta said its fourth-quarter revenue jumped 21% from the year before to $48.39 billion.

Meta shares have soared 48% over the past 12 months as the company has made big bets on artificial intelligence. AFP via Getty Images

Investor sentiment around Meta, and its tech rivals, has improved as Zuckerberg and other billionaire executives have grown closer to President Trump. 

Zuckerberg last month attended the inauguration, alongside Tesla boss Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

Tech giants have been hoping for more relaxed regulatory oversight under the Trump administration. 


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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/meta-approves-huge-bonuses-for-execs-after-laying-off-5-of-workers/feed/ 0 4992 Meta Reduces Stock Options For Staff Despite Trading At Record Highs- FT -February 20, 2025 at 05:34 pm EST https://www.digiteex.com/meta-reduces-stock-options-for-staff-despite-trading-at-record-highs-ft-february-20-2025-at-0534-pm-est/ https://www.digiteex.com/meta-reduces-stock-options-for-staff-despite-trading-at-record-highs-ft-february-20-2025-at-0534-pm-est/#respond Fri, 21 Feb 2025 07:20:18 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/meta-reduces-stock-options-for-staff-despite-trading-at-record-highs-ft-february-20-2025-at-0534-pm-est/

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META: Dynamic Chart

Meta Platforms, Inc. specializes in online social networking services. Net sales break down by activity as follows:

– operation of social networking, messaging, photo and video sharing platforms (98.6%): operation of the Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and WhatsApp platforms (3.98 billion monthly active users in 2023) ;

– sale of virtual and augmented reality products, software and devices (1.4%): virtual reality headsets (Meta Quest), connected screens (Facebook Portal), wearable devices, etc.

Net sales break down by source of income into advertising spaces (97.5%) and other (2.2%).

Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: the United States and Canada (39.2%), Asia-Pacific (26.8%), Europe (23.1%) and other (10.9%).

More about the company
SellBuyLast Close Price 694.84USDAverage target price 762.74USDSpread / Average Target+9.77%Consensus OUR EXPERTS ARE HERE FOR YOUMonday – Friday 9am-12pm / 2pm-6pm GMT + 1


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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/meta-reduces-stock-options-for-staff-despite-trading-at-record-highs-ft-february-20-2025-at-0534-pm-est/feed/ 0 4974 A.I. Is Changing How Silicon Valley Builds Start-Ups https://www.digiteex.com/a-i-is-changing-how-silicon-valley-builds-start-ups/ https://www.digiteex.com/a-i-is-changing-how-silicon-valley-builds-start-ups/#respond Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:22:45 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/a-i-is-changing-how-silicon-valley-builds-start-ups/ Almost every day, Grant Lee, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, hears from investors who try to persuade him to take their money. Some have even sent him and his co-founders personalized gift baskets.Mr. Lee, 41, would normally be flattered. In the past, a fast-growing start-up like Gamma, the artificial intelligence start-up he helped establish in 2020, would have constantly looked out for more funding.But like many young start-ups in Silicon Valley today, Gamma is pursuing a different strategy. It is using artificial intelligence tools to increase its employees’ productivity in everything from customer service and marketing to coding and customer research.That means Gamma, which makes software that lets people create presentations and websites, has no need for more cash, Mr. Lee said. His company has hired only 28 people to get “tens of millions” in annual recurring revenue and nearly 50 million users. Gamma is also profitable.“If we were from the generation before, we would easily be at 200 employees,” Mr. Lee said. “We get a chance to rethink that, basically rewrite the playbook.”The old Silicon Valley model dictated that start-ups should raise a huge sum of money from venture capital investors and spend it hiring an army of employees to scale up fast. Profits would come much later. Until then, head count and fund-raising were badges of honor among founders, who philosophized that bigger was better.But Gamma is among a growing cohort of start-ups, most of them working on A.I. products, that are also using A.I. to maximize efficiency. They make money and are growing fast without the funding or employees they would have needed before. The biggest bragging rights for these start-ups are for making the most revenue with the fewest workers.Stories of “tiny team” success have now become a meme, with techies excitedly sharing lists that show how Anysphere, a start-up that makes the coding software Cursor, hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue in less than two years with just 20 employees, and how ElevenLabs, an A.I. voice start-up, did the same with around 50 workers.The potential for A.I. to let start-ups do more with less has led to wild speculation about the future. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, has predicted there could someday be a one-person company worth $1 billion. His company, which is building a cost-intensive form of A.I. called a foundational model, employs more than 4,000 people and has raised more than $20 billion in funding. It is also in talks to raise more money.With A.I. tools, some start-ups are now declaring that they will stop hiring at a certain size. Runway Financial, a finance software company, has said it plans to top out at 100 employees because each of its workers will do the work of 1.5 people. Agency, a start-up using A.I. for customer service, also plans to hire no more than 100 workers.“It’s about eliminating roles that are not necessary when you have smaller teams,” said Elias Torres, Agency’s founder.The idea of A.I.-driven efficiency was bolstered last month by DeepSeek, the Chinese A.I. start-up that showed it could build A.I. tools for a small fraction of the typical cost. Its breakthrough, built on open source tools that are freely available online, set off an explosion of companies building new products using DeepSeek’s inexpensive techniques.“DeepSeek was a watershed moment,” said Gaurav Jain, an investor at the venture firm Afore Capital, which has backed Gamma. “The cost of compute is going to go down very, very fast, very quickly.”Mr. Jain compared new A.I. start-ups to the wave of companies that arose in the late 2000s, after Amazon began offering cheap cloud computing services. That lowered the cost of starting a company, leading to a flurry of new start-ups that could be built more cheaply.Before this A.I. boom, start-ups generally burned $1 million to get to $1 million in revenue, Mr. Jain said. Now getting to $1 million in revenue costs one-fifth as much and could eventually drop to one-tenth, according to an analysis of 200 start-ups conducted by Afore.“This time we’re automating humans as opposed to just the data centers,” Mr. Jain said.But if start-ups can become profitable without spending much, that could become a problem for venture capital investors, who allocate tens of billions to invest in A.I. start-ups. Last year, A.I. companies raised $97 billion in funding, making up 46 percent of all venture investment in the United States, according to PitchBook, which tracks start-ups.“Venture capital only works if you get money into the winners,” said Terrence Rohan, an investor with Otherwise Fund, which focuses on very young start-ups. He added, “If the winner of the future needs a lot less money because they’ll have a lot less people, how does that change V.C.?”For now, investors continue to fight to get into the hottest companies, many of which have no need for more money. Scribe, an A.I. productivity start-up, grapple last year with far more interest from investors than the $25 million it wanted to raise.“It was a negotiation of what is the smallest amount we could possibly take on,” said Jennifer Smith, Scribe’s chief executive. She said investors were shocked at the size of her staff — 100 people — when compared with its three million users and fast growth.Some investors are optimistic that A.I.-driven efficiency will spur entrepreneurs to create more companies, leading to more opportunities to invest. They hope that once the start-ups reach a certain size, the firms will adopt the old model of big teams and big money.Some young companies, including Anysphere, the one behind Cursor, are already doing that. Anysphere has raised $175 million in funding, with plans to add staff and conduct research, according to the company’s president, Oskar Schulz.Other founders have seen the perils of the old start-up playbook, which kept companies on a fund-raising treadmill where hiring more people created more costs that went beyond just their salaries.Bigger teams needed managers, more robust human resources and back office support. Those teams then needed specialized software, along with a bigger office with all the perks. And so on, which led start-ups to burn through cash and forced founders to constantly raise more money. Many start-ups from the funding boom of 2021 eventually downsized, shut down or scrambled to sell themselves.Turning a profit early on can change that outcome. At Gamma, employees use about 10 A.I. tools to help them be more efficient, including Intercom’s customer service tool for handling problems, Midjourney’s image generator for marketing, Anthropic’s Claude chatbot for data analysis and Google’s NotebookLM for analyzing customer research. Engineers also use Anysphere’s Cursor to more efficiently write code.Gamma’s product, which is built on top of tools from OpenAI and others, is also not as expensive to make as other A.I. products. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s claims.)Other efficient start-ups are taking a similar strategy. Thoughtly, a 10-person provider of A.I. phone agents, turned a profit in 11 months, thanks to its use of A.I., its co-founder Torrey Leonard said.The payment processor Stripe created an A.I. tool that helps Mr. Leonard analyze Thoughtly’s sales, something he would have previously hired an analyst to do. Without that and A.I. tools from others to streamline its operations, Thoughtly would need at least 25 people and be far from profitable, he said.Thoughtly will eventually raise more money, Mr. Leonard said, but only when it is ready. Not worrying about running out of cash is “a huge relief,” he said.At Gamma, Mr. Lee said he planned to roughly double the work force this year to 60, hiring for design, engineering and sales. He plans to recruit a different type of worker from before, seeking out generalists who do a range of tasks rather than specialists who do only one thing, he said. He also wants “player-coaches” instead of managers — people who can mentor less experienced employees but can also pitch in on the day-to-day work.Mr. Lee said the A.I.-efficient model had freed up time he would have otherwise spent managing people and recruiting. Now he focuses on talking to customers and improving the product. In 2022, he created a Slack room for feedback from Gamma’s top users, who are often shocked to discover that the chief executive was responding to their comments.“That’s actually every founder’s dream,” Mr. Lee said.


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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/a-i-is-changing-how-silicon-valley-builds-start-ups/feed/ 0 4941 New York Times adopts generative AI tools for journalists https://www.digiteex.com/new-york-times-adopts-generative-ai-tools-for-journalists/ https://www.digiteex.com/new-york-times-adopts-generative-ai-tools-for-journalists/#respond Tue, 18 Feb 2025 11:18:04 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/new-york-times-adopts-generative-ai-tools-for-journalists/ According to messages to newsroom staff, the New York Times is allowing generative AI tools for its product and editorial staff.

News website Semafor reported that NYT will open AI training to the newsroom and debut an internal AI called Echo to staff. 

READ: NY Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over chatbot trainingArticle continues after this advertisement

The company said it will also approve the following generative AI for internal use: 

GitHub Copilot programming assistant for coding

Google’s Vertex AI for product development

OpenAI’s non-ChatGPT API via the New York Times business accounting, only with the approval of its legal department

NotebookLM

NYT’s ChatExplorer

Select Amazon AI products

Moreover, The Times shared documents and videos for editorial “do’s and don’ts” for using artificial intelligence. 

It encouraged editorial staff to use AI for the following purposes: Article continues after this advertisement

Generating SEO headlines

Drafting summaries

Producing audience promos

Suggesting edits

Brainstorming questions and ideas

Asking questions regarding reporters’ documents 

Engaging in research

Analyzing NYT’s documents and images

NYT listed possible use cases for journalists, such as:
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Can you revise this paragraph to make it tighter? 

Pretend you are posting this Times article on Facebook. How will you promote it? 

Summarize this Times article in a concise, conversational voice for a newsletter.

Can you propose this federal government report in layman’s terms?

Furthermore, Semafor reported that The Times can use AI to develop new quizzes, social copy, quote cards and FAQs.
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The New York Times declined to comment on these findings but noted to Semafor that it publicly posted its AI editorial guidelines.

Here’s a snippet from those AI guidelines: 
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“Generative AI can assist our journalists in uncovering the truth and helping more people understand the world.”

“Machine learning already helps us report stories we couldn’t otherwise, and generative AI has the potential to bolster our journalistic capabilities even more.”



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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/new-york-times-adopts-generative-ai-tools-for-journalists/feed/ 0 4798 DeepSeek gets Silicon Valley talking https://www.digiteex.com/deepseek-gets-silicon-valley-talking/ https://www.digiteex.com/deepseek-gets-silicon-valley-talking/#respond Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:11:25 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/deepseek-gets-silicon-valley-talking/ Welcome back to Week in Review. This week we’re looking at DeepSeek’s major boost in the U.S.; Elon Musk admitting he was wrong about FSD; teens losing trust in Big Tech; and more! Let’s do it.

DeepSeek went viral this week after its AI models led Wall Street analysts and technologists to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race — and whether the demand for AI chips will sustain. DeepSeek even claims that its R1 “reasoning” model performs as well as OpenAI’s o1 model on key benchmarks. There’s a lot of moving parts surrounding DeepSeek, so we’ve put together everything you need to know right here.

Perplexity has been sued in federal court for allegedly violating another company’s trademark. Attorneys representing a company called Perplexity Solved Solutions accuse Perplexity of infringing on its trademark rights by using the brand “Perplexity.” The Texas company alleges that AI startup Perplexity began infringing on its trademark “in or around” August 2022 to promote its AI-powered search engine. 

Google is issuing a “voluntary exit program” for Android, Chrome, and Pixel employees this week, according to an internal memo sent by Google SVP Rick Osterloh. The voluntary severance program arrives less than a year after Google merged the separate teams into a single “Platform and Devices” division, overseen by Osterloh. 

This is TechCrunch’s Week in Review, where we recap the week’s biggest news. Want this delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

News

Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec

Waymo goes Hollywood: Waymo’s driverless robotaxis are heading to the Los Angeles freeway system. The company will begin testing on Interstates 10, 110, 405, and 90 without a human safety operator behind the wheel. Read more

Facebook returns to the past: Mark Zuckerberg teased a “return to OG Facebook” as part of his key goals for 2025 in Meta’s Q4 earnings call. While the company didn’t say what changes were in store, it’s clear that Meta needs younger Facebook users in order to sustain itself for the next generation. Read more

A non-Amazon way to buy e-books: Bookshop.org now has its own e-book platform — making it easier for readers to avoid padding Jeff Bezos’ pockets. The new capabilities allow readers to buy e-books and support their favorite independent bookstore (shoutout to my new local bookstore, Restoried). Read more

Perplexity submits another bid for TikTok: Perplexity AI submitted a revised proposal to merge with TikTok in a deal that would give the U.S. government up to 50% ownership of the new entity. Perplexity previously proposed creating a new company by combining it with TikTok U.S. and equity investors. Read more

Elon Musk admits he was wrong: After years of promising that Tesla vehicles had the hardware needed to support a self-driving car, Elon Musk admitted that many do not. Musk revealed that some Tesla cars will need an upgrade before they can support the unsupervised self-driving software the automaker is still developing. Read more

Meta AI wants to get personal: Meta is rolling out improvements to Meta AI, its cross-platform chatbot. The bot can now use your Instagram and Facebook data to “remember” details from conversations — like if you love to travel or you’re vegan — to better tailor future responses to you. Read more

Axing Cruise could save GM $1 billion a year: General Motors expects to save up to $1 billion annually by ending its Cruise robotaxi development program, CEO and chair Mary Barra said during the company’s earnings call. The automaker said in December that it would no longer fund its self-driving subsidiary. Read more

Google Maps renames the Gulf of Mexico: Google will rename the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Denali mountain in Google Maps to comply with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that changed the names of several American landmarks. Read more

How to turn off Apple Intelligence: iOS 18.3 automatically opts users into Apple Intelligence, at least for newer devices. But not everyone wants generative AI features enabled by default on their devices, so here’s an easy way to switch it off. Read more

Analysis

Image Credits:Daniel de la Hoz (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Teens don’t trust Big Tech: American teens have lost their faith in Big Tech, according to a new report from Common Sense Media. The organization surveyed over 1,000 teens on whether companies like Google, Apple, Meta, TikTok, and Microsoft cared about their well-being and safety, made ethical decisions, protected their private data, and more. In all cases, a majority of teens reported low levels of trust in these tech companies — and nearly half of teens said they had little or no trust that the companies would make responsible decisions about how they use AI. Read more


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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/deepseek-gets-silicon-valley-talking/feed/ 0 4700 AI Overviews Data Shows Massive Changes In Search Results https://www.digiteex.com/ai-overviews-data-shows-massive-changes-in-search-results/ https://www.digiteex.com/ai-overviews-data-shows-massive-changes-in-search-results/#respond Sat, 01 Feb 2025 10:19:32 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/ai-overviews-data-shows-massive-changes-in-search-results/ Enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge published results on current AI Search trends, showing that Google AI Overviews (AIO) has expanded its presence by up to 100% in increasingly complex search queries. The changes suggest growing confidence in AI for search, with indications that Google is relying on authoritativeness and greater precision in context awareness for matching queries to answers, particularly in relation to content modality.
The data shows that AI Overviews (AIO) has evolved from showing featured snippet style answers to being capable of handling multi-turn, complex search queries. The takeaway is that Google is increasingly comfortable with AI’s ability to surface precise answers for longer queries and this is a trend that may continue to rise.
Google AIO Presence Is Growing
Google continues to show confidence in their AI Overviews (AIO) search feature as BrightEdge has discovered that more keyword phrases are triggering AI answers now than at any point since the feature was rolled out last year.
25% of search queries using 8 words or more are displaying AI Overviews (AIO), which is a clear upward trend indicating that Google continues to refine the accuracy of AIO and is better able to handle increasingly complex search queries.
A graph shows how the keywords with 8, 9, and 10 words continued to increasingly show AI Overviews
Graph Representation Of AI Overviews Growth

Keyword phrases with less than four words continue to show an increasing amount of AIO but the growth in longer more precise keywords is growing significantly faster.
Screenshot Showing Percentage Of Keywords With Google AI Overviews

Change In AIO Patterns: Gains For Authoritative Brands
BrightEdge provided additional data that looks at specific topic categories, showing how queries for some topics consolidating to answers from big brand sites.
For example, in the healthcare category where accuracy and trustworthiness are paramount Google is increasingly showing search results from just a handful of websites. Content from authoritative medical research centers account for 72% of AI Overview answers, which is an increase from 54% of all queries at the start of January.
15-22% of B2B technology search queries are derived from the top five technology companies such as Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft.
Qualities Of AIO Answers
BrightEdge data reveals that AIO answers follow certain patterns that reveal qualities that Google feels make content more relevant.

Excels at step by step and how to answers (structured hierarchical information)
Shows precise real-time relevance
Answers lean toward general guidance

Educational Search Queries
For educational queries AIO shows a preference toward concise answers with a clean visual presentation. In the below example Google is hiding content that has additional information that answers additional questions beyond the main query. This may relate to Google’s information gain patent which is about anticipating additional information that a user will be interested in after receiving the answer to their original search query.
AIO Showing Information Gain Ranked Content

Change In YouTube Citations
An interesting pattern picked up by BrightEdge is that YouTube technical tutorials have increased by 40% in AIO while health related queries that show YouTube videos are trending downward by 31%.
Of particular interest is that the high volume search queries (100k+ search volume) that trigger YouTube content have decreased by 18.7%. This may reflect a change in user needs and Google’s ability to identify that context and understand that it’s not served well by video content.
What all of this means is that it’s increasingly important to think about context awareness, the appropriateness of the content to the query. The question to ask is what kind of content best serves the context and to expand that answer across modalities like images, sound, video, and text, then within those formats think in terms of how-to, data dump, informative, etc.
BrightEdge observes:
“Most Interesting Pattern:AI Overviews are developing sophisticated, context-aware citation models. While YouTube citations are declining for health queries (e.g., “symptoms,” “diet”), they’re increasing for technical how-to content, jumping from 2.0% to 2.8% of citations in this category.
Pay Attention:
1. Context is King – Focus video content where it’s gaining traction (technical tutorials, DIY) and pivot to text for topics where traditional authority is preferred (health, finance)2. Match Your Industry’s Pattern – In sectors with distributed authority (like B2B tech at 15-22% per source), focus on direct citations; in consolidated spaces (like healthcare at 72% institutional),
partner with established authorities
3. Monitor Actively – With citation patterns shifting dramatically in just one month, weekly monitoring of your space is crucial to spot new opportunities before competitors”
Takeaway
A way to make sense of the data is that it Google AI Overviews appear to be increasingly relying on the authoritativeness of the content as the stakes go higher with more complex search queries.
Authoritativeness isn’t just about being a big brand but it may have to do with simply being meaningful to the Internet audience as a go-to source for a particular topic. Trustworthiness and other related factors are important and this has nothing to do with superficial SEO activities like author bios and so on.
Read the data:How AI Giants Are Carving Distinct Territory in the Search Landscape


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]]> https://www.digiteex.com/ai-overviews-data-shows-massive-changes-in-search-results/feed/ 0 4650 DeepSeek, next-generation AI agents may erode value of large models https://www.digiteex.com/deepseek-next-generation-ai-agents-may-erode-value-of-large-models/ https://www.digiteex.com/deepseek-next-generation-ai-agents-may-erode-value-of-large-models/#respond Fri, 31 Jan 2025 07:09:50 +0000 https://www.digiteex.com/deepseek-next-generation-ai-agents-may-erode-value-of-large-models/ Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto via Getty ImagesLarge language models like those developed by Microsoft-backed firm OpenAI are set to become commoditized this year amid rapid advances toward next-generation artificial intelligence agents and more nimble, open-source rivals, according to top tech executives.Last week, Chinese AI firm DeepSeek released R1, an open-source reasoning model that claims to rival OpenAI’s o1 model on both cost and performance. Open-source refers to software whose source code is made freely available on the open web for possible modification and redistribution.This week, growing awareness of DeepSeek’s new model led to a severe slump in shares of Nvidia and other tech giants, as investors feared a possible retrenchment in spending on the powerful graphics processing units required to train and run advanced AI workloads.Nvidia lost close to $600 billion in market capitalization on Monday — the biggest single-day drop for any company in U.S. history.Meanwhile, executives and scientists at leading AI labs are all talking up a shift from large language models to so-called “AI agents” that can carry out actions on your behalf.LLMs are the foundational technology behind today’s generative AI apps. However, experts believe a push toward agentic AI systems — which incorporate LLM technology — this year will erode the value of these models.Commoditization of LLMsLLMs are expected to become more of a commodity in the near future as the tech becomes increasingly advanced and the costs involved in training and running them continue to drop.Thomas Wolf, co-founder and chief science officer of Hugging Face, suggested LLMs will become more integrated into intelligent systems linked to the company’s own databases.”I think people are moving from this craziness around the model, understanding that, thanks to open-source … a lot of these models are going to be free and freely available,” Wolf told CNBC. Hugging Face is a popular code repository for open-source AI projects.”In the internet revolution, we’re moving from building websites as the main business to actually building internet-native companies — so, the Airbnb of AI, the Stripe of AI,” he added. “They are not about the model. They are about the system and how you make the model useful for tasks.”The arrival of DeepSeek’s R1 model last week is viewed by some tech CEOs as a further indicator LLMs are becoming increasingly commoditized.R1 incorporates some key aspects that differentiate it from other models on the market. For example, the model incorporates a “mixed precision” framework that uses a combination of full-precision 32-bit floating point (FP32) numbers and low-precision 8-bit floating point (FP8) numbers.The latter is faster to process but can be less accurate. However, rather than rely on one or the other, DeepSeek uses FP8 for most calculations and switches to FP32 for certain tasks where a higher degree of accuracy is required.”As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can’t get enough of,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote on social media platform X, in an apparent reference to DeepSeek.Meanwhile, Matt Calkins, CEO of U.S. software firm Appian, told CNBC that DeepSeek’s success simply shows that AI models are going to become more of a commodity in the future.”In my opinion, we’re going to see a commoditization of AI. Many companies will achieve competitive AI, and a lack of differentiation will be bad for high-spending first-movers,” Calkins said via email.What are AI agents?In the last two years, much of the focus has been on LLM-powered products, from generative AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to tools that can produce images and video content.LLM-based generative apps like ChatGPT rely on a certain amount of handholding from users to continuously prompt them for outputs, whereas in contrast, AI agents are designed to be more action-oriented.If you wanted to book a doctor’s appointment, for example, you could ask ChatGPT for information on your nearest GP practices — similar to how you’d query the web using Google’s search engine.In future, tech execs predict the next generation AI will involve agents that can find out where your nearest GP is, provide available times for your doctor, and book you an appointment — all directly within a single platform. This is expected to transform the way that we interact with the web.”Over the decades since the web was invented, the standard interface of webpages and menus hasn’t really changed very much,” Bobby Blumofe, chief technology officer of Akamai, told CNBC previously.”We’re sort of living in this tyranny of being tethered to a screen and being tethered to web pages and menus you have to remember how to navigate.”The shift from models to agentsLast week, Arthur Mensch, the CEO of Mistral said that he thinks the “focus should shift to systems” that integrate both language models and contextual business data.”That’s that’s where this is shifting,” Mensch told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.”It also means that the industry that is adopting it, is going to distill its expertise into those systems — and that’s where that’s going to be necessary to actually drive the value of AI into those industries.”Mistral, which is backed by Microsoft, has swiftly become one of Europe’s buzziest AI firms. Founded only two years ago, it was last valued by investors at around $6 billion in June 2024.The trend of agents has already gained considerable traction. Last week, OpenAI launched its own agent, called Operator. OpenAI describes it as “an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you,” adding it’s trained to interact with “the buttons, menus, and text fields that people use daily” on the web.Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, rolled out AI agents itself in November.Anthropic, an Amazon-backed AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI research executives, last year introduced “computer use,” which is a capability that allows its AI agents to use computers like humans to complete complex tasks.Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in Davos last week that Computer Use should be thought of as a precursor to a “broader vision” that integrates these agents with commonly used applications.”We are planning this year in 2025 to build something that we call the ‘virtual collaborator,'” Amodei said, describing it as “an agent that operates on your computer.””You can give it tasks. You can say, write this feature for this app, and it’ll write some code, it’ll compile the code, it’ll check the code, it’ll talk to its coworkers on Slack, or on Google Docs, or on some other platform,” Anthropic’s chief explained.Anthropic plans to gradually build out pieces of this vision over the next year — while still ensuring it’s “safe and controllable,” Amodei added.Paul O’Sullivan, Salesforce’s chief technology officer for U.K. and Ireland, predicts verbal communication will become more important in the new world of AI agents. Salesforce was arguably early to the agentic AI game, having launched its own Agentforce system in September before Microsoft, OpenAI or Anthropic.”We will converse more,” he told CNBC in a recent interview. “The screens will get smaller, our eyes will get worse. But they’ll probably be replaced with mobile devices that are more powerful than laptops anyway.”


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