Generative AI (GenAI) browser assistants integrate powerful capabilities of GenAI in web browsers to provide rich experiences such as question answering, content summarization, and agentic navigation. These assistants, available today as browser extensions, can not only track detailed browsing activity such as search and click data, but can also autonomously perform tasks such as filling forms, raising significant privacy concerns. It is crucial to understand the design and operation of GenAI browser extensions, including how they collect, store, process, and share user data. To this end, we study their ability to profile users and personalize their responses based on explicit or inferred demographic attributes and interests of users. We perform network traffic analysis and use a novel prompting framework to audit tracking, profiling, and personalization by the ten most popular GenAI browser assistant extensions. We find that instead of relying on local in-browser models, these assistants largely depend on server-side APIs, which can be auto-invoked without explicit user interaction. When invoked, they collect and share webpage content, often the full HTML DOM and sometimes even the user's form inputs, with their first-party servers. Some assistants also share identifiers and user prompts with third-party trackers such as Google Analytics. The collection and sharing continues even if a webpage contains sensitive information such as health or personal information such as name or SSN entered in a web form. We find that several GenAI browser assistants infer demographic attributes such as age, gender, income, and interests and use this profile--which carries across browsing contexts--to personalize responses. In summary, our work shows that GenAI browser assistants can and do collect personal and sensitive information for profiling and personalization with little to no safeguards.

We present a tool that leverages generative AI to accelerate the migration of on-premises applications to the cloud. The Cloud Migration LLM accepts input from the user specifying the parameters of their migration, and outputs a migration strategy with an architecture diagram. A user study suggests that the migration LLM can assist inexperienced users in finding the right cloud migration profile, while avoiding complexities of a manual approach.

Despite plenty of misgivings, artificial intelligence--and in particular, generative AI that produces text and images from prompts--continues to be pushed into the hardware and software we use every day. Microsoft has been active in the space, adding AI chatbot capabilities to its Bing search engine earlier this year, and it's now previewing an early version of its new Copilot AI assistant in Windows 11. Copilot has been built to "enhance your creativity and productivity," Microsoft says, and it works in a similar way to Bing's chatbot--capable of coming up with everything from travel advice to an original poem. To get Copilot in Windows 11, make sure you're running the very latest version of the operating system: Head to Windows Update in Settings to check (you might need to turn on the Get the latest updates as soon as they're available toggle switch). By default, you should see a Copilot button on the taskbar, which you can click to launch it (head to Personalization then Taskbar in Settings if you want to change this).

During its largely AI-focused annual Surface event on Thursday, Microsoft announced that its generative AI assistant, Copliot, will also be available to help with shopping on Bing and Edge. Broadly speaking, the company plans to make Copilot a part of all its flagship products, including Windows, Edge and more. When it comes to shopping specifically, Copilot can help you decide on a style, locate a specific item and, of course, eventually buy it. But the new launch may be more about playing catch-up with its competitors than actually innovating. Google Lens, for example, lets you find products to buy by just snapping a picture of them.

The software development industry is amid another disruptive paradigm change - adopting the use of generative AI (GAI) assistants for programming. Whilst AI is already used in various areas of software engineering, GAI technologies, such as GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT, have ignited peoples' imaginations (and fears). It is unclear how the industry will adapt, but the move to integrate these technologies by large software companies, such as Microsoft (GitHub, Bing) and Google (Bard), is a clear indication of intent and direction. We performed exploratory interviews with industry professionals to understand current practice and challenges, which we incorporate into our vision of a future of software development education and make some pedagogical recommendations.

Earlier this month, when LinkedIn started seeding "AI-powered conversation starters" in people's news feeds to boost engagement on its platform, the move saw more than little engagement of its own, none of it too positive. But the truth of the matter with LinkedIn is that it's been using a lot of AI and other kinds of automation across different aspects of its platform for years, primarily behind the scenes with how it builds and operates its network. Now, with its owner Microsoft going all-in on OpenAI, it looks like it's becoming a more prominent part of the strategy for LinkedIn on the front end, too -- with the latest coming today in the areas of LinkedIn profiles, recruitment and LinkedIn Learning. The company is today introducing AI-powered writing suggestions, which will initially be offered to people to spruce up their LinkedIn profiles, and to recruiters writing job descriptions. Both are built on advanced GPT models, said Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's chief product officer.

Earlier this month, when LinkedIn started seeding "AI-powered conversation starters" in people's news feeds to boost engagement on its platform, the move saw more than little engagement of its own, none of it too positive. But the truth of the matter with LinkedIn is that it's been using a lot of AI and other kinds of automation across different aspects of its platform for years, primarily behind the scenes with how it builds and operates its network. Now, with its owner Microsoft going all-in on OpenAI, it looks like it's becoming a more prominent part of the strategy for LinkedIn on the front end, too -- with the latest coming today in the areas of LinkedIn profiles, recruitment and LinkedIn Learning. The company is today introducing AI-powered writing suggestions, which will initially be offered to people to spruce up their LinkedIn profiles, and to recruiters writing job descriptions. Both are built on advanced GPT models, said Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's chief product officer.