Opera has announced that it will release one of the first agentic browsers. Called Neon, this browser will serve two purposes: use AI to automatically perform tasks for users, and serve as an AI playground for future development. Also: Opera's Android browser just got a major tab management upgrade The purpose of an agentic browser is to use AI agents to understand user intent, automate complex tasks, and act on behalf of the user. Agentic browsers move from being a passive tool to access information to an active digital assistant. This isn't the first time Opera has released a browser called Neon.

Artificial intelligence (AI) always delivers surprises. But as adoption matures, we may be in for the biggest surprise of all. More so than the latest-and-greatest technology, reliable data, and thorough training, philosophy may matter more than anything in developing AI systems, according to MIT researchers. "Software is eating the world, AI is eating software, and philosophy is eating AI," according to Michael Schrage, research fellow with MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy, and David Kiron, editorial director for MIT Sloan Management Review, who expounded on this ultimate differentiator in AI in a recent podcast and related article published in MIT Sloan Management Review. The two disciplines of AI and philosophy might seem like polar opposites, but Schrage and Kiron argued that one can't function without the other: "When implementing AI, most organizations obsess over the technology, but our research reveals a surprising truth. Philosophy is what truly determines AI success."

I just added an entirely new feature to my software, including UI and functionality, just by typing four paragraphs of instructions. I have screenshots, and I'll try to make sense of it in this article. I can't tell if we're living in the future or we've just descended to a new plane of hell (or both). Let's take a step back. Google's Jules is the latest in a flood of new coding agents released just this week. Last week, I wrote about OpenAI Codex and Microsoft's GitHub Copilot Coding Agent, and ZDNET's Webb Wright wrote about Google's Jules. All of these coding agents will perform coding operations on a GitHub repository.

Agentic AI is poised to take on a much more central role in the IT industry, according to a new report from Cisco. The report, titled "The Race to an Agentic Future: How Agentic AI Will Transform Customer Experience," surveyed close to 8,000 business leaders across 30 countries, all of whom routinely work closely with customer service professionals from B2B technology services. In broad strokes, it paints a picture of a business landscape eager to embrace the rising wave of AI agents, particularly when it comes to customer service. Also: Can you build a billion-dollar business with only AI agents (yet)? As soon as next year, according to the report, over half (68%) of all customer service and support interactions with tech vendors could become automated, thanks to agentic AI.

Google unveiled a slew of new AI tools and features at I/O, dropping the term Gemini 95 times and AI 92 times. However, the best announcement of the entire show wasn't an AI feature; rather, the title went to one of the two hardware products announced -- the Android XR glasses. CNET: I hated smart glasses until I tried Google's Android XR. For the first time, Google gave the public a look at its long-awaited smart glasses, which pack Gemini's assistance, in-lens displays, speakers, cameras, and mics into the form factor of traditional eyeglasses. I had the opportunity to wear them for five minutes, during which I ran through a demo of using them to get visual Gemini assistance, take photos, and get navigation directions.

There is little debate that AI will revolutionize working practices, but there is less agreement about the best way to exploit this transformation. While 90% of CIOs are piloting AI or investing in small or large-scale developments, over two-thirds (67%) haven't seen measurable ROI, according to the recently released Nash Squared/Harvey Nash Digital Leadership Report. "Leaders know the technology, but they're struggling with its application in the business to create value," Nash Squared CIO Ankur Anand told ZDNET during a conversation about the key points emerging from the leadership survey. So, how can business leaders overcome this struggle? Four business leaders provide their best-practice tips for using AI to solve big business problems.

Putting on Project Moohan, an upcoming XR headset developed by Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm, for the first time felt strangely familiar. From twisting the head-strap knob on the back to slipping the standalone battery pack into my pants pocket, my mind was transported back to February 2024, when I tried on the Apple Vision Pro on launch day. Also: I tried Google's XR glasses and they already beat my Meta Ray-Bans in 3 ways Only this time, the headset was powered by Android XR, Google's newest operating system built around Gemini, the same AI model that dominated the Google I/O headlines throughout this week. The difference in software was immediately noticeable -- from the home grid of Google apps like Photos, Maps, and YouTube (which VisionOS still lacks) to prompting for Gemini instead of Siri with a long press of the headset's multifunctional key. While my demo with Project Moohan lasted only about 10 minutes, it gave me a clear understanding of how it's challenging Apple's Vision Pro and how Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm plan to convince the masses that the future of spatial computing does, in fact, live in a bulkier space-helmet-like device.

Quantum computing pioneer D-Wave Quantum on Tuesday announced the general availability of its sixth-generation quantum computer, the Advantage2. The company said the Advantage2 offers orders-of-magnitude greater performance compared to its prior system, expanding the tasks the company can accomplish in optimization problems. The machine even achieves the long-sought goal of quantum "supremacy," says the company, despite that term's highly controversial past. "This is a really historic moment for both D-Wave and the quantum computing industry," said D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz in an interview via Zoom. "Fundamentally, our technology is doing something that can't be touched classically."

Like many people today, you may turn to AI to answer questions, generate content, and gather information. But as they say, there's always a price to pay. In the case of AI, that means user data. In a new report, VPN and security service Surfshark analyzed what types of data various AIs collect from you and which ones scoop up the greatest amount. For its report, Surfshark looked at 10 popular AI chatbots -- ChatGPT, Claude AI, DeepSeek, Google Gemini, Grok, Jasper, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Pi, and Poe.

The pandemic changed how people worked, shifting most professionals to remote or hybrid models. For the software company Atlassian, this flexible, distributed approach persists to this day. "We have 13,000 employees spread across the globe, and individuals can choose their working location every day," said Annie Dean, Head of Team Anywhere, Atlassian's distributed work policy. "It's about how we work, not where we work." The implementation of the flexible model has produced positive effects for employees and the company alike. Internal data reveals that even though only 34% of employees have opted to work from home, 92% of Atlassian employees reported that the ability to work from anywhere allows them to perform their best, and 91% said it's an important reason for staying at the company.