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Meta reportedly abandoned an AI-focused restructuring plan that would have laid off thousands

Engadget

Sometimes, AI-driven restructuring goes about as well as an AI-assisted legal brief. Reuters reports that Meta spent much of this year testing a plan in which AI would take over many of the workforce's daily tasks. Dubbed Project OT, the plan appears to connect two stories from earlier this year: Meta's 10 percent workforce reduction and the company's program that tracked employees' mouse movements and keystrokes. Meta executives were reportedly influenced by startups, including some they observed in Asia, that had structured themselves around AI. At an annual leadership retreat in January at Mark Zuckerberg's Hawaii estate, executives laid out an "AI native" vision for the company.


Beyond China's humanoid robots, a quieter machine revolution is unfolding

BBC News

Beyond China's humanoid robots, a quieter machine revolution is unfolding To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. I take a nap and the world changes, says Chen Tianyu. The 28-year-old keeps up with the latest technology by spending his spare time in factories that are switching to automation. That way he knows what to prioritise when teaching his class about artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. In front of him, around 30 college students are studying code.


Want to strengthen America's economy? The key investment is hiding in plain sight

FOX News

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG .


Reeves to launch City 'skills compact' committing firms to retrain staff in AI

The Guardian

AI has prompted fears over job security for City workers, particularly staff that do back-office work. AI has prompted fears over job security for City workers, particularly staff that do back-office work. Reeves to launch City'skills compact' committing firms to retrain staff in AI Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to announce a new City "skills compact" that will commit firms such as Barclays and Lloyds to retraining thousands of financial sector workers for the AI revolution. The financial services skills compact will be launched on Tuesday, during what is likely to be Reeves's final Mansion House speech to City bosses before Andy Burnham's expected takeover of No 10. The government-backed initiative will commit employers to improving workers' skills and helping them "keep pace" with significant technological changes that have prompted fears of mass redundancies.


Tech giant Oracle cuts 21,000 jobs as it embraces AI

BBC News

Oracle shed about 21,000 roles globally in the last year as the US technology giant reshapes its business around artificial intelligence (AI), the firm's latest annual report shows. The software and cloud computing firm says it had around 141,000 full-time employees as of 31 May 2026, down from about 162,000 workers at the same time last year. The deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce, the report says. The cuts, which amount to about 13% of Oracle's workforce, are part of a wider trend among tech firms as they spend hundreds of billions of dollars on building AI infrastructure like data centres. Amazon and Facebook-owner Meta have cut thousands of job in recent months as they invest heavily in AI.


Gig workers are endlessly exploited. AI could make more of us share their fate

The Guardian

'There's no evidence that jobs go away, but there is a lot of evidence that as soon as you can dismantle full-time employment, companies will do that.' 'There's no evidence that jobs go away, but there is a lot of evidence that as soon as you can dismantle full-time employment, companies will do that.' Gig workers are endlessly exploited. As companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a'gig economy' will commence The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.


OWL: Optimized Workforce Learning General Multi-Agent Assistance for Real-World Task Automation

Neural Information Processing Systems

Large Language Model (LLM)-based multi-agent systems show promise for automating real-world tasks but struggle to transfer across domains due to their domain-specific nature. Current approaches face two critical shortcomings: they require complete architectural redesign and full retraining of all components when applied to new domains. We introduce WORKFORCE, a hierarchical multi-agent framework that decouples strategic planning from specialized execution through a modular architecture comprising: (i) a domain-agnostic Planner for task decomposition, (ii) a Coordinator for subtask management, and (iii) specialized Workers with domain-specific tool-calling capabilities.


Learning to lead in a hybrid human-AI enterprise

MIT Technology Review

To optimize AI's potential within a hybrid workforce, leaders need to adapt workplace strategies--re-evaluating roles, skills, and culture. As adoption of AI agents looks set to surge by as much as 300% in the next two years, leadership teams are carefully considering the implications of a hybrid human-AI workforce. Unlike existing enterprise-level automation that relies on manual input, AI agents are capable of autonomously coordinating complex tasks, interacting with multiple tools and environments across an organization. In early applications that center on customer service, HR, and sales, adoption of agentic AI has led to productivity gains of 30-50% . Their autonomy positions agents more as collaborators than tools, working side-by-side with human employees in blended teams that look poised to upend traditional workplace dynamics. More than three-quarters of HR leaders believe that the deployment of AI agents will transform existing workplace norms, driving a complete reappraisal of how roles and responsibilities are distributed, how skills are prioritized, and how workplace culture is shaped.


Executives Discuss How AI Is Transforming the Business Landscape

TIME - Tech

A panel of executives spoke at the TIME100 AI Leadership Forum on Wednesday night in New York City about the ways artificial intelligence is reshaping the business landscape, and how they're shepherding their companies into a technologically capricious future. Included on the panel at the TIME forum, which spotlighted AI-driven business leadership, were Nigel Vaz, the chief executive officer of Publicis Sapient, a tech-consulting firm that uses AI to help modernize business and a sponsor of Wednesday's event; Deepa Soni, the executive vice president and chief information officer of New York Life Insurance Company; and Ravi Radhakrishnan, the executive vice president and chief information officer of American Express. Vaz began the conversation discussing the "exponential" capability of AI to transform and enhance companies' abilities to problem solve and become more efficient. For his company, AI is a tool used to extract value and optimize performance for clients by reducing time and cost. Many of them, he notes, must bridge the gap between their relatively outdated technology and increasingly more useful AI tools--what he referred to as their "tech debt."


WiseTech begins redundancies – but omits 'AI' from emails to Chinese employees, workers say

The Guardian

Staff at WiseTech have been waiting months to be told if they are among the employees the company is to cut due to advances in AI. Staff at WiseTech have been waiting months to be told if they are among the employees the company is to cut due to advances in AI. WiseTech begins redundancies - but omits'AI' from emails to Chinese employees, workers say WiseTech has begun informing staff that they will lose their jobs as part of redundancies the company has said is due to artificial intelligence advancements - although an email to staff in China omitted the word "AI" after a court case against another company in the country. Staff at WiseTech have been waiting almost three months to be told if they are among the 2,000 people the logistics software company is to cut due to advances in AI. The Australian Stock Exchange-listed company announced in late February it would lay off almost 30% of its 7,000-strong workforce across 40 countries.