Meta Is in Crisis, Google Search's Makeover, and AI Gets Booed by Graduates This week on, the team discusses Meta's recent layoffs and what they've been hearing from employees about the increasingly grim vibes at the company. They also talk about Elon Musk losing his lawsuit against OpenAI and share highlights from Google's annual conference--including an ambitious AI vision to change how people search the web. Finally, what do recent college graduates and women whose spouses work in AI have in common? Google Search Goes Agentic--and Doesn't Need You Anymore Write to us at [email protected] . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . We spoke to more than a dozen employees and it turns out the job cuts are far from the only reason why Meta employees are really going through it. He lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI in really as full a way as you can, as dramatically as possible. I know, Zoë, you're looking forward to talking about that. We're going to get into why young adults might be using AI, but they have very complicated feelings about it. And later in the show, we're going to hear about why women married to AI bros have had enough . This week, the company is letting go of roughly 10 percent of its workforce, which is about 8,000 employees total. It's the latest round of job cuts, adding to the roughly 25,000 jobs that have been cut in the past few years as part of Mark Zuckerberg's Year of Efficiency that started in 2023 and now the latest AI-forward workplace, which he is trying to develop and impose. And while these latest cuts are not as big as some of the rounds of layoffs that have already happened, they're getting a ton of attention because Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, has said that the reason they're happening, in part at least, in large part, is because the company is spending so much money on AI and data centers.

After the Trump administration turned away from electrification, two of the nation's biggest governments will advocate for more electric vans, police cars, and eventually, snowplows. New York City is not a car town. But pay attention as you walk, bike, or, sure, drive around the country's most populous city, and you might notice a car trend: an increasing number of its vehicles are electric . The city government operates some 5,800 EVs, plus 4,700 hybrid vehicles--Parks Department pickups, Police Department crossover SUVs, school buses, paramedic response vehicles, even some hulking garbage trucks. A local law requires the city to transition its entire light-and medium-duty fleet to batteries by 2035 and its trucks by 2038.

France is already moving on from Zoom and Microsoft Teams in favor of homegrown alternatives. Other countries are quickly following suit. As tensions between President Donald Trump and Europe continue to simmer, the continent is accelerating its moves to reduce its addiction to US technology . Cities and governments are ditching Microsoft Office for open-source alternatives, shifting to European cloud hosting for local AI, and moving defense data to systems without American involvement . Nowhere has this been more clear than in France.

One line tucked into a federal highway bill would strip funds from cities and states unless they kill their automated plate tracking programs--effectively banning the tech for all but toll collection. US lawmakers plan to introduce an amendment Thursday at a House committee markup hearing that would prohibit any recipient of federal highway funding from using automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling--a sweeping restriction that, if adopted, would bring an immediate end to state and local ALPR programs across the United States. The amendment, obtained first by WIRED, is sponsored by Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and Freedom Caucus member, and Representative Jesús "Chuy" García, an Illinois progressive whose state has become a flash point in the national fight over ALPR misuse. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will mark up the underlying bill--a $580 billion, five-year reauthorization of federal surface transportation programs--at 10 am ET on Thursday. Neither Perry nor García's offices immediately responded to WIRED's request for comment. The amendment runs a single sentence: "A recipient of assistance under Title 23, United States Code, may not use automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling."

'Perfect Storm': How Trump's Aid Cuts Are Fueling the Ebola Outbreak One health provider who works on the ground says that basic medical equipment like masks and hand sanitizers are in short supply due to funding cuts. As an Ebola outbreak rages in central and East Africa, public health workers say that the response has been stymied by the Trump administration's cuts to foreign aid and global health organizations. "We are no longer able to get some supplies," Amadou Bocoum, Democratic Republic of Congo country director for the anti-poverty nonprofit CARE, tells WIRED. "Because of that, we are not able to react immediately." Bocoum says that basic medical equipment like masks and hand sanitizers, as well as components necessary for testing, are in short supply due to funding cuts.

The Trump administration keeps threatening to send federal agents to oversee elections. State and local officials are preparing, and even gaming out what happens if they're arrested. Last week, as President Donald Trump prepared to leave the White House on his way to China for a state visit, he was asked if he would be willing to deploy troops from the National Guard or agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to polling locations during November's midterms. "I would do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections," Trump responded . Trump's comments are the latest in a litany of confusing and sometimes contradictory statements from his administration about the possibility of deploying federal agents to oversee the elections.

Google is sprucing up its Gemini models, revamping search, and enabling AI agents in everything. There are also some spiffy new smart glasses coming this fall. Google just wrapped its keynote address at its annual I/O developer event . The company showed off a swath of new agentic AI features and some demos of its upcoming Android-powered smart glasses. As it has in the past few years, the spectacle largely revolved around Google's perpetual stream of AI efforts.

On the eve of about 8,000 jobs being cut, employees are cashing in on headphone stipends and other perks while they still can. Ahead of Meta's latest round of mass layoffs tomorrow, some employees are deserting offices, abandoning their work, and loading up on perks they might soon lose, several people at the company tell WIRED. Two employees describe a widespread rush to use up an annual $2,000 flexible benefit, which can cover a variety of expenses including health and wellness activities. A separate triennial credit of $200 toward the purchase of audio gear has led to a scramble to purchase Apple AirPods and other headphones. Another source says Meta offices have been largely empty this week, as people prioritize polishing their résumés and gather offsite to commiserate with friends for what may be their final time as colleagues.

Google's always-running, data-hungry AI agent is designed to spend your money and send your emails. Gemini Spark is Google's take on a steroided-out assistant agent that knows everything about you, announced as part of the company's updates to its Gemini chatbot app at this year's I/O developer conference . Software companies have been talking up AI agents for some time now, but I wasn't impressed until I tried Anthropic's Claude Cowork in January. I sat back as the bot organized the scattered screenshots littering my desktop into labeled folders without a single click, and felt convinced that this might be a turning point for how people interact with their computers. Many other early adopters in San Francisco experienced similar moments when they set up the mega-viral OpenClaw bot earlier this year, not just to help complete a few tasks but to run their whole online lives.

Instead of clicking on a bunch of random website links, I was reading an AI summary positioned at the top of my search results and sometimes clicking through to double-check the accuracy of the output. The next evolution of Search that Google is building asks for even less active participation from users. You're really the most involved at the start of the journey, and that's it. You tell the agents what you want to know, and they do the clicking and even calling on your behalf. Rather than you going off on some online adventure, it's the agent that's hoovering up anything it can find and bouncing between different sites.