This year, we've seen a real-time experiment playing out across the technology industry, one in which AI's software engineering capabilities have been put to the test against human technologists. And although 2025 may have started with AI looking strong, the transition from vibe coding to what's being termed context engineering shows that while the work of human developers is evolving, they nevertheless remain absolutely critical. This is captured in the latest volume of the " Thoughtworks Technology Radar," a report on the technologies used by our teams on projects with clients. In it, we see the emergence of techniques and tooling designed to help teams better tackle the problem of managing context when working with LLMs and AI agents. Taken together, there's a clear signal of the direction of travel in software engineering and even AI more broadly. After years of the industry assuming progress in AI is all about scale and speed, we're starting to see that what matters is the ability to handle context effectively.

For much of the past decade, Elon Musk has regularly voiced concerns about artificial intelligence, worrying that the technology could advance so rapidly that it creates existential risks for humanity. Though seemingly unrelated to his job making electric vehicles and rockets, Musk's A.I. Cassandra act has helped cultivate his image as a Silicon Valley seer, tapping into the science-fiction fantasies that lurk beneath so much of startup culture. Now, with A.I. taking center stage in the Valley's endless carnival of hype, Musk has signed on to a letter urging a moratorium on advanced A.I. development until "we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," seemingly cementing his image as a force for responsibility amid high technology run amok. Existential risks are central to Elon Musk's personal branding, with various Crichtonian scenarios underpinning his pitches for Tesla, SpaceX, and his computer-brain-interface company Neuralink. But not only are these companies' humanitarian "missions" empty marketing narratives with no real bearing on how they are run, Tesla has created the most immediate--and lethal--"A.I. risk" facing humanity right now, in the form of its driving automation.

Outgoing senior Pentagon official Preston Dunlap explains why he left the Pentagon over fears of U.S. losing its technological edge A top Pentagon official is stepping down, warning Tuesday the United States is falling behind and could lose its technological edge to adversaries like China. Preston Dunlap, the chief architect for the Space Force, argued the military used to excel in areas like artificial intelligence on "Fox & Friends First," but the commercial sector is now surpassing the defense community. He said this is ultimately providing an opportunity to U.S. adversaries. "These are accessible to anyone with resources and academics and capabilities, and so our adversaries or potential adversaries are able to have access to that technology, not only inside their own economies, but because of the benefit of our free and open society, which is a great thing," Dunlap told co-host Todd Piro. "They also have access to a lot of our capabilities as well from our companies, and so what I want us to be able to do is to make sure that we don't just compete globally on that technological scale, but we can actually adapt and adopt the technologies of our own companies and commercial ecosystem, which we have the opportunity to do right here at home," he continued.

Autonomous vehicle design involves an almost incomprehensible combination of engineering tasks including sensor fusion, path planning, and predictive modeling of human behavior. But despite the best efforts to consider all possible real world outcomes, things can go awry. More than two and a half years ago, in Tempe, Arizona, an Uber "self-driving" car crashed into pedestrian Elaine Herzberg, killing her. In mid-September, the safety driver behind the wheel of that car, Rafaela Vasquez, was charged with negligent homicide. Uber's test vehicle was driving 39 mph when it struck Herzberg. Uber's sensors detected her six seconds before impact but determined that the object sensed was a false positive.

The Covid-19 outbreak is a health crisis that is having a growing impact on the global economy. The pandemic has caused a recession, record levels of unemployment and unprecedented debt levels globally. According to United Nations data in 2020 and 2021 alone, developing countries' repayments on their public external debt alone will soar to between $2.6 trillion and $3.4 trillion. The World Bank has predicted the coronavirus is pushing 40 to 60 million people into extreme poverty. Calls for international solidarity have so far delivered little tangible support and the risk of country debt defaults and corporate bankruptcies and the human costs associated with it is rising.

It's safe to say that no industry will be left untouched by digital disruption. This article is part of an MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. Legacy companies are falling like dominoes to disruptors. Together, emerging technology and new business models have created new ways of serving customers. The same way Airbnb, Uber, and LinkedIn fundamentally changed the lodging, taxi, and recruiting industries, titans such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook are now poised to disrupt every industry as wide-ranging as health insurers to grocers.

Every industry is being impacted by modern technology, the application of data and insights, and new channels of distribution. The dozens of major companies that have disappeared by not keeping pace with innovation attest to this. Among them: Blockbuster, Kodak, Borders, Xerox, Nokia and Toys "R" Us -- not to mention countless smaller firms that don't make the headlines. Yet there remains a complacency among many financial institutions about the seismic changes swirling around them and about the urgent need to meet the challenge. Often this complacency is caused by historical success.

Digital disruption, fintech infiltration, big tech competition, or even new technologies such as artificial intelligence seem daunting. Yet the most serious threat to banks and credit unions lies closer to home but remains more difficult to address -- because it is ingrained in almost every traditional financial institution. Subscribe to The Financial Brand via email for FREE!Financial institutions are being disrupted on almost every front due to digital technologies, new competition, redefined business models and increasing consumer expectations. Increasingly they need to innovate, become more agile, utilize data and advanced analytics to support cost reduction and revenue improvement, and build partnerships with organizations who may also be competitors. So, which of these massive changes pose the greatest risk to the future of banking?

Donald Trump wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit the US this autumn. The two men met at the beginning of this week in Finland, and despite some significant fall-out, planning is under way for a second get-together. Moscow hasn't reacted publicly yet to the invitation. "OK... that's going to be special," laughed US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats when told about it. Well, the US intelligence services were at the centre of the aforementioned fall-out, after the president seemed to reject their view on Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and side with Moscow instead.

The British Royal Air Force had a problem. It was 1943, and the Brits were using radar equipment to spot German submarines sneaking around off the western coast of France. The young men sitting in planes circling over the Bay of Biscay had more than enough motivation to keep a watchful eye for the telltale blips on the screens in front of them. Yet they had a worrying tendency to miss the signals they'd been trained to spot. The longer they spent looking at the screen, the less reliable they became.