A senior White House official has urged Asia-Pacific economies to support an AI future built on US technology, warning against adopting Europe’s heavily regulated model. Michael Kratsios remarked during the APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting in Incheon.
Kratsios said countries now choose between embracing American-led innovation or falling behind under regulatory burdens. He framed the US approach as one driven by freedom and open-source innovation rather than centralised control.
The US is offering partnerships with South Korea to respect data concerns while enabling shared progress. Kratsios noted that open-weight models could soon shape industry standards worldwide.
He met South Korea’s science minister in bilateral talks to discuss AI cooperation. The US reaffirmed its commitment to supporting nations in building trustworthy AI systems based on mutual economic benefit.
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Microsoft is offering security researchers up to $5 million for uncovering critical vulnerabilities in its products, with a focus on cloud and AI systems. The Zero Day Quest contest will return in spring 2026, following a $1.6 million payout in its previous edition.
Researchers are invited to submit discoveries between 4 August and 4 October 2025, targeting Azure, Copilot, M365, and other significant services. High-severity flaws are eligible for a 50% bonus payout, increasing the incentive for impactful findings.
Top participants will receive exclusive invitations to a live hacking event at Microsoft’s Redmond campus. The event promises collaboration with product teams and the Microsoft Security Response Centre.
Training from Microsoft’s AI Red Team and other internal experts will also be available. The company encourages public disclosure of patched findings to support the broader cybersecurity community.
The competition aligns with Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative, which aims to strengthen cloud and AI security by default, design, and operation. Vulnerabilities will be disclosed transparently, even if no customer action is needed.
Full details and submission rules are available through the MSRC Researcher Portal. All reports will be subject to Microsoft’s bug bounty terms.
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Apple is developing its AI-powered answer engine to rival ChatGPT, marking a strategic turn in its company’s AI approach. The move comes as Apple aims to close the gap with competitors in the fast-moving AI race.
A newly formed internal team, Answers, Knowledge and Information, is working on a tool to browse the web and deliver direct responses to users.
Led by former Siri head Robby Walker, the project is expected to expand across key Apple services, including Siri, Safari and Spotlight.
Job postings suggest Apple is recruiting talent with search engine and algorithm expertise. CEO Tim Cook has signalled Apple’s willingness to acquire companies that could speed up its AI progress.
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According to EY Ireland, global investment in generative AI surged to $49.2bn in the first half of 2025, eclipsing the full-year total for 2024. Despite a drop in deals, total value doubled year-on-year, reflecting a pivot towards more mature and revenue-focused ventures.
Average late-stage deal size has more than tripled to $1.55bn, while early and seed-stage activity has stagnated or declined. Landmark rounds from OpenAI, xAI, Anthropic, and Databricks drove much of the volume, alongside a notable $3.3bn agentic AI acquisition by Capgemini.
Ireland remains a strong adopter of AI, with 63% of startups using the technology. Yet funding gaps persist, particularly between €1m and €10m, posing challenges for growth-stage firms despite a strong local talent base.
Sprout Social’s acquisition of Irish analytics firm NewsWhip, though not part of the H1 figures, points to growing international interest in Irish AI capabilities. Meanwhile, US firms still dominate global deal value, capturing 97%, with the Middle East rising fast and Europe trailing at just 2%.
EY forecasts that sector-specific GenAI platforms, especially in cybersecurity and compliance, will become the next magnet for venture capital through late 2025 and beyond.
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OpenAI has introduced a new ‘study mode’ to help students use AI for learning rather than cheating. The update arrives amid a spike in academic dishonesty linked to generative AI tools.
According to The Guardian, a UK survey found nearly 7,000 confirmed cases of AI misuse during the 2023–24 academic year. Universities are under pressure to adapt assessments in response.
Under the chatbot’s Tools menu, the new mode walks users through questions with step-by-step guidance, acting more like a tutor than a solution engine.
Jayna Devani, OpenAI’s international education lead, said the aim is to foster productive use of AI. ‘It’s guiding me towards an answer, rather than just giving it to me first-hand,’ she explained.
The tool can assist with homework and exam prep and even interpret uploaded images of past papers. OpenAI cautions it may still produce errors, underscoring the need for broader conversations around AI in education.
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A recent Fortune survey indicates that 61 percent of white‑collar professionals expect AI to make their roles, or even their entire teams, obsolete within 3–5 years, yet most continue to rely on AI tools daily without visible concern.
Seventy percent of respondents credit AI with boosting their creativity and productivity, and 40 percent say it has eased stress and improved work‑life balance. Despite these benefits, many admit to ‘feigning’ AI use in workplace settings, often driven by peer pressure or a lack of formal training.
Executive commentary underscores the tension: senior business leaders, including Jim Farley and Dario Amodei, predict rapid AI‑driven disruption of white‑collar roles. Some executives forecast up to 50 percent of certain job categories could be eliminated, though others argue AI may open new opportunities.
Academic studies suggest a more nuanced impact: AI is reshaping role definitions by automating routine tasks while increasing demand for complementary skills, such as ethics, teamwork, and digital fluency. Wage benefits are growing in jobs that effectively blend AI with human oversight.
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The UK’s designation of data centres as Critical National Infrastructure highlights their growing strategic importance, yet a pressing concern remains over vulnerabilities in their OT and IoT systems. While IT security often receives significant investment, the same cannot be said for other technologies.
Attackers increasingly target these overlooked systems, gaining access through insecure devices such as IP cameras and biometric scanners. Many of these operate on outdated firmware and lack even basic protections, making them ideal footholds for malicious actors.
There have already been known breaches, with OT systems used in botnet activity and crypto mining, often without detection. These attacks not only compromise security in the UK but can destabilise infrastructure by overloading resources or bypassing safeguards.
Addressing these threats requires full visibility across all connected systems, with real-time monitoring, wireless traffic analysis, and network segmentation. Experts urge data centre operators to act now, not in response to a breach, but to prevent one entirely.
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At Mindvalley’s AI Summit, former Google Chief Decision Scientist Cassie Kozyrkov described AI as not a substitute for human thought but a magnifier of what the human mind can produce. Rather than replacing us, AI lets us offload mundane tasks and focus on deeper cognitive and creative work.
Work structures are being transformed, not just in factories, but behind computer screens. AI now handles administrative ‘work about work,’ multitasking, scheduling, and research summarisation, lowering friction in knowledge work and enabling people to supervise agents rather than execute tasks manually.
Personal life is being reshaped, too. AI tools for finance or health, such as budgeting apps or personalised diagnostics, move decisions into data-augmented systems with faster insight and fewer human biases.
Meanwhile, creativity is co-authored via AI-generated design, music or writing, requiring humans to filter, refine and ideate beyond the algorithm.
Recognising cognitive change, AI thought leaders envision a new era where ‘blended work’ prevails: humans manage AI agents, call the shots, and wield ethical oversight, while the AI executes pipelines of repetitive or semi-intelligent tasks.
Google’s AI Mode has quietly launched in the UK, reshaping how users access news by summarising information directly in search results.
By paraphrasing content gathered across the internet, the tool offers instant answers while reducing the need to visit original news sites.
Critics argue that the technology monopolises UK information by filtering what users see, based on algorithms rather than editorial judgement. Concerns have grown over transparency, fairness and the future of independent journalism.
Publishers are not compensated for content used by AI Mode, and most users rarely click through to the sources. Newsrooms fear pressure to adapt their output to align with Google’s preferences or risk being buried online.
While AI may streamline convenience, it lacks accountability. Regulated journalism must operate under legal frameworks, whereas AI faces no such scrutiny even when errors have real consequences.
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Elon Musk has predicted a major shift in software development, claiming that AI is turning coding from a job into a recreational activity. The xAI CEO believes AI has removed much of the ‘drudgery’ from writing software.
Replying to OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Musk compared the future of coding to painting. He suggested that software creation will be more creative and expressive, no longer requiring professional expertise for functional outcomes.
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, left the organisation after a public dispute with the current CEO, Sam Altman. He later launched xAI, which now operates the Grok chatbot as a rival to ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
Generative AI firms are accelerating efforts in automated coding. OpenAI recently launched Codex to create a cloud-based software engineering agent, while Microsoft released GitHub Spark AI to generate apps from natural language.
xAI’s latest offering, Grok 4, supports over 20 programming languages and integrates with code editors. It enables developers to write, debug, and understand code using commands.
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