ai

UNESCO surveys women on AI fairness and safety

UNESCO’s Office for the Caribbean has launched a regional survey examining gender and AI, titled Perception of AI Fairness and Online Safety among Women and Girls in the Caribbean. The initiative addresses the lack of data on how women and girls experience technology, AI, and online violence in the region.

Results will guide policy recommendations to promote human rights and safer digital environments.

The 2025 survey is part of a broader UNESCO effort to understand AI’s impact on gender equality. It covers gender-based online violence, generative AI’s implications for privacy, and potential biases in large AI models.

The findings will be used to develop a regional policy brief compared with global data.

UNESCO encourages participation from women and girls across the Caribbean, highlighting that community input is vital for shaping effective AI policies. A one-day workshop on 10 December 2025 will equip young women with skills to navigate AI safely.

The initiative aims to position the Caribbean as a leader in ensuring AI respects dignity, equality, and human rights.

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Adobe launches AI Assistant to simplify creative design

Adobe has launched a new AI Assistant in Express, enabling users to create and edit content from concept to completion in minutes. The tool understands design context and lets users create on-brand visuals by describing their ideas.

Users can seamlessly adjust fonts, images, backgrounds, and other elements while keeping the rest of the design intact.

The AI Assistant integrates generative AI models with Adobe’s professional tools, turning templates into conversational canvases. Users can make targeted edits, replace objects, or transform designs without starting over.

The assistant also interprets subjective requests, suggesting creative options and offering contextual prompts to refine results efficiently, enhancing both speed and quality of content creation.

Adobe Express will extend the AI Assistant with enterprise-grade features, including template locking, batch creation, and brand consistency tools. Early adopters report that non-designers can now produce professional visuals quickly, while experienced designers save time on routine tasks.

Organisations can expect improved collaboration, efficiency, and consistency across content supply chains.

The AI Assistant beta is currently available to Adobe Express Premium customers on desktop, with full availability planned for all users via the Firefly generative credit system. Adobe stresses that AI enhances creativity, respects creators’ rights, and supports responsible generative AI use.

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AI-driven diabetes prevention matches human-led programs in clinical trial

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health report that an AI-driven diabetes prevention program achieved outcomes comparable to traditional, human-led coaching. The results come from a phase III randomised controlled trial, the first of its kind.

The trial enrolled participants with prediabetes and randomly assigned them to one of four remote human-led programs or an AI app that delivered personalised push notifications guiding diet, exercise and weight management. Over 12 months, both groups were evaluated against CDC benchmarks for risk reduction (e.g. achieving 5 % weight loss, meeting activity goals, or reducing A1C).

After one year, 31.7 % of AI-app users and 31.9 % of human-led participants met the composite benchmark. Interestingly, the AI arm saw higher initiation rates (93.4 % vs 82.7 %) and completion (63.9 % vs 50.3 %) than human programs.

The researchers note that scheduling, staffing, and access barriers can limit traditional lifestyle programs. The AI approach, which runs asynchronously and is always available, may help expand reach, especially for underserved populations or when human resources are constrained.

Future work will assess how these findings scale in broader, real-world patient groups and explore cost effectiveness, user preferences and the balance between AI and human support.

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OpenAI and Microsoft sign new $135 billion agreement to deepen AI partnership

Microsoft and OpenAI have signed a new agreement that marks the next phase of their long-standing partnership, deepening ties first formed in 2019.

The updated deal builds on years of collaboration in advancing responsible AI, positioning both organisations for long-term success while introducing new structural and operational changes.

Under the new arrangement, Microsoft supports OpenAI’s transition into a public benefit corporation (PBC) and recapitalisation. The technology giant now holds an investment valued at around $135 billion, representing about 27 percent of OpenAI Group PBC on an as-converted diluted basis.

Despite OpenAI’s recent funding rounds, Microsoft previously held a 32.5 percent stake in the for-profit entity.

The partnership maintains Microsoft’s exclusive rights to OpenAI’s frontier models and Azure API until artificial general intelligence (AGI) is achieved, but also introduces several new terms. Once AGI is declared, an independent panel will verify it.

Microsoft’s intellectual property rights are extended through 2032, including models developed after AGI with safety conditions. OpenAI may now co-develop certain products with third parties, while retaining the option to serve non-API products on any cloud provider.

OpenAI will purchase an additional $250 billion worth of Azure services, although Microsoft will no longer hold first-refusal rights for compute supply. The new framework allows both organisations to innovate independently, with Microsoft permitted to pursue AGI independently or with other partners.

The updated agreement reflects a more flexible collaboration that balances independence, growth, and shared innovation.

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Yuan says AI ‘digital twins’ could trim meetings and the workweek

AI could shorten the workweek, says Zoom’s Eric Yuan. At TechCrunch Disrupt, he pitched AI ‘digital twins’ that attend meetings, negotiate drafts, and triage email, arguing assistants will shoulder routine tasks so humans focus on judgement.

Yuan has already used an AI avatar on an investor call to show how a stand-in can speak on your behalf. He said Zoom will keep investing heavily in assistants that understand context, prioritise messages, and draft responses.

Use cases extend beyond meetings. Yuan described counterparts sending their digital twins to hash out deal terms before principals join to resolve open issues, saving hours of live negotiation and accelerating consensus across teams and time zones.

Zoom plans to infuse AI across its suite, including whiteboards and collaborative docs, so work moves even when people are offline. Yuan said assistants will surface what matters, propose actions, and help execute routine workflows securely.

If adoption scales, Yuan sees schedules changing. He floated a five-year goal where many knowledge workers shift to three or four days a week, with AI increasing throughput, reducing meeting load, and improving focus time across organisations.

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Amazon plans up to 30,000 corporate job cuts as AI automation expands

Beginning Tuesday, Amazon plans to cut up to 30,000 corporate roles, nearly 10% of its white-collar workforce, to reduce costs after pandemic over-hiring.

Cuts may hit human resources, operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services. According to people familiar with the policy, the company has also tightened office-attendance rules; employees who are not swiping in daily have been told they are considered to have resigned without severance.

Analysts say AI-driven productivity gains and the need to fund long-term AI infrastructure are key factors behind the reductions in staff. Executives have indicated that greater use of automation and AI to handle routine tasks will drive further reductions.

Internal planning papers reported in US media suggest the company could avoid hiring more than 500,000 US workers by 2033, yielding around $12.6 billion in savings between 2025 and 2027.

The scale and timing of the layoffs could change as financial priorities evolve. Separately, Amazon still expects a busy holiday period and plans to hire 250,000 seasonal workers for warehouses and fulfilment roles unrelated to the corporate cuts.

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Deepfake videos raises environmental worries

Deepfake videos powered by AI are spreading across social media at an unprecedented pace, but their popularity carries a hidden environmental cost.

Creating realistic AI videos depends on vast data centres that consume enormous amounts of electricity and use fresh water to cool powerful servers. Each clip quietly produced adds to the rising energy demand and increasing pressure on local water supplies.

Apps such as Sora have made generating these videos almost effortless, resulting in millions of downloads and a constant stream of new content. Users are being urged to consider how frequently they produce and share such media, given the heavy energy and water footprint behind every video.

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Elon Musk launches AI-powered Grokipedia to rival Wikipedia

Elon Musk has launched Grokipedia, an AI-driven online encyclopedia developed by his company xAI. The platform, described as an alternative to Wikipedia, debuted on Monday with over 885,000 articles written and verified by AI.

Musk claimed the early version already surpasses Wikipedia in quality and transparency, promising significant improvements with the release of version 1.0.

Unlike Wikipedia’s crowdsourced model, Grokipedia does not allow users to edit content directly. Instead, users can request modifications through xAI’s chatbot Grok, which decides whether to implement changes and explains its reasoning.

Musk said the project’s guiding principle is ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ acknowledging the platform’s imperfections while pledging continuous refinement.

However, Grokipedia’s launch has raised questions about originality. Several entries contain disclaimers crediting Wikipedia under a Creative Commons licence, with some articles appearing nearly identical.

Musk confirmed awareness of the issue and stated that improvements are expected before the end of the year. The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, responded calmly, noting that human-created knowledge remains at the heart of its mission.

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FDA and patent law create dual hurdles for AI-enabled medical technologies

AI reshapes healthcare by powering more precise and adaptive medical devices and diagnostic systems.

Yet, innovators face two significant challenges: navigating the US Food and Drug Administration’s evolving regulatory framework and overcoming legal uncertainty under US patent law.

These two systems, although interconnected, serve different goals. The FDA protects patients, while patent law rewards invention.

The FDA’s latest guidance seeks to adapt oversight for AI-enabled medical technologies that change over time. Its framework for predetermined change control plans allows developers to update AI models without resubmitting complete applications, provided updates stay within approved limits.

An approach that promotes innovation while maintaining transparency, bias control and post-market safety. By clarifying how adaptive AI devices can evolve safely, the FDA aims to balance accountability with progress.

Patent protection remains more complex. US courts continue to exclude non-human inventors, creating tension when AI contributes to discoveries.

Legal precedents such as Thaler vs Vidal and Alice Corp. vs CLS Bank limit patent eligibility for algorithms or diagnostic methods that resemble abstract ideas or natural laws. Companies must show human-led innovation and technical improvement beyond routine computation to secure patents.

Aligning regulatory and intellectual property strategies is now essential. Developers who engage regulators early, design flexible change control plans and coordinate patent claims with development timelines can reduce risk and accelerate market entry.

Integrating these processes helps ensure AI technologies in healthcare advance safely while preserving inventors’ rights and innovation incentives.

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Google Research applies AI across cancer, quantum computing and Earth science

Google Research has outlined how it tackles three major domains where foundational AI and science research are applied for tangible global effect, under a framework the team calls the ‘magic cycle’.

The three focus areas highlighted are fighting cancer with AI, quantum computing for medicines and materials, and understanding Earth at scale with Earth AI.

One of the flagship tools is DeepSomatic, an AI system developed to detect genetic variants in cancer cells that previous techniques missed. The tool partnered with a children’s hospital to identify ten new variants in childhood leukaemia samples. Significantly, DeepSomatic was applied to a brain cancer type it had never encountered before and still flagged likely causal variants.

Google Research is exploring the frontiers with its service chip (Willow) and algorithms like Quantum Echoes to simulate molecular behaviours with precision that classical computers struggle to reach. These efforts target improved medicines, better batteries and advanced materials by capturing quantum-scale phenomena.

Aiming to model complex interconnected systems, from weather and infrastructure to population vulnerability, the Earth AI initiative seeks to bring disparate geospatial data into unified systems. For example, predicting which communities are most at risk in a storm requires combining meteorological, infrastructure and socioeconomic data.

Google Research states that across these domains, research and applied work feed each other: foundational research leads to tools, which, when deployed, reveal new challenges that drive fresh research, the ‘magic cycle’.

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