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Tech workers have been worried for years about the AI tidal wave coming for their jobs, but their bosses are starting to worry too. Stocks plunged this week as fears escalated that AI advancements will take a bite out of business for many software and services companies. The market losses are tied to updates to Anthropics AI-powered workplace productivity suite, Claude Cowork, which threatens to replace some software tools ubiquitous in the professional world. Companies with business in research and legal software like Thomson Reuters and LegalZoom dropped dramatically on the Anthropic news, with a wide swath of software stocks following suit. Intuit, PayPal, Equifax all dropped by over 10%, with enterprise software companies like Atlassian and Salesforce deepening their own losses, which started well before the latest AI news. The S&P North American software index also slid further this week, worsening a recent losing streak punctuated by a 15% decline in January the indexs worst month in nearly two decades. Unlike Claude Code, a coding tool designed for developers, Anthropic built Claude Cowork as a powerful, general purpose AI agent for non-coders. Available to Anthropics $100-per-month premium subscribers, Claude Cowork can knock out easier tasks like searching, collecting and organizing files, but its also capable of taking on much bigger challenges like making slide decks, producing reports and pulling and synthesizing information from other business software tools, like Zendesk and Microsoft Teams. Claudes ability to execute complex tasks with dedicated software sub-agents prompted plenty of nervous jokes about humans being replaced by C-suites full of AI. And that was before a new Anthropic update introduced powerful new plugins designed to automate tasks across domains like finance, legal, sales, data, marketing, and customer support. The market is still digesting those new agentic AI capabilities, which could pose an existential threat to the software-as-a-service companies that undergird big chunks of the economy. Fears of a zero sum software game grow Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei has made his own ominous predictions about AI displacing human workers. Last year, Amodei predicted that AI could vaporize half of entry-level white collar roles, sending unemployment as high as 20% within five years. He pointed to losses in industries like tech, law, consulting and finance, specifically. “We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming,” Amodei told Axios. “I don’t think this is on people’s radar.” Not everyone deeply invested in AI agrees. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang swatted away worries that AI would eat the traditional software industry after the stock bloodbath that began on Tuesday. “There’s this notion that the tool in the software industry is in decline, and will be replaced by AI, Huang said, emphasizing that relying on existing software tools makes more sense than reinventing the wheel. It is the most illogical thing in the world, and time will prove itself.
Category:
E-Commerce
The federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws in the workplace made an unexpected disclosure this week: Nike was under investigation for its approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion, due to claims that the company had discriminated against white employees and job applicants. The investigation suggests that Nikes diversity goals and other DEI initiatives led the company to hire non-white workers to meet quotas or award them with more opportunities for career advancement, thereby discriminating against white workers. It is notable as the first major legal undertaking by Andrea Lucas, who President Trump installed as the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last year. But it also indicates that Lucas is serious about targeting corporate employers over alleged discrimination against white workers, which she has clearly signaled is a priority for the agency under the Trump administration. It is designed to instill fear into the hearts of large companies, says Chai Feldblum, a former EEOC commissioner and a member of EEO Leaders, a group of former senior officials who worked at the EEOC and Department of Labor under multiple administrations. If they’re afraid, then small companies will be afraid. And the point is to chill any form of equity and diversity efforts, even legal ones. An unusual investigation The investigation into Nike is unusual for a few reasons: It is, of course, the first inquiry into what the agency has called DEI-related discrimination. But it is also rare that the EEOCs investigations into employers become public before they have concluded, since the process is supposed to be confidential. An EEOC investigation typically either ends in a dismissal or, if the agency finds reasonable cause and concludes there was discrimination, results in a conciliation process that allows an employer to resolve the issue in private, with both parties coming to an agreement. If conciliation fails, the agency would then decide whether or not to bring a lawsuit, which is considered a last resort and happens infrequently. The EEOC does often use subpoenas to force employers to comply with their requests for information. According to Feldblum, subpoenas can be a useful tool for the agency to extract information from a company that might be stonewalling or only offering partial responses to its inquiries. In the case of Nike, however, the EEOC went to court to enforce the subpoena, thrusting the investigation into the public record. What is unusual about this is the publicity, Feldblum says. Which is what chair Lucas wants. She’s doing that by suing on a subpoena. I think it’s a question whether EEOC is following its normal process for enforcing subpoenas. Nike seemed to suggest as much in a statement to Fast Company. This feels like a surprising and unusual escalation, a company spokesperson said. We have had extensive, good-faith participation in an EEOC inquiry into our personnel practices, programs, and decisions and have had ongoing efforts to provide information and engage constructively with the agency. We have shared thousands of pages of information and detailed written responses to the EEOCs inquiry and are in the process of providing additional information. The statement continued: We are committed to fair and lawful employment practices and follow all applicable laws, including those that prohibit discrimination . . . We will continue our attempt to cooperate with the EEOC and will respond to the petition. A possible new precedent Feldblum argues the EEOCs approach to this investigation could set a precedent of taking companies to court over what the agency perceives to be insufficient cooperation with its requests for information. The press release put out by the EEOC makes evident that the agency had requested extensive details about Nikes employment decisions, including its criteria for layoffs, the use of demographic data and how it was tied to executive compensation, and specifics about 16 programs that offered mentoring, leadership, or career development opportunities to underrepresented employees. Unlike many of the cases the EEOC investigates, this one was not initiated by a complaint from a worker alleging discrimination; Lucas herself brought the charge against Nike in 2024. But its not clear exactly what prompted the investigation. The EEOC claims to be looking into systemic allegations of DEI-related intentional race discrimination at Nike that have targeted white workers. By Lucass own admission, per a statement in the EEOC release, this investigation seems to have been prompted by Nikes public disclosures about its DEI programs. (When Lucas sent letters to 20 law firms last year requesting details on their DEI practicesa move that drew widespread criticismshe had relied on public statements.) You sign a commissioner charge under penalty of perjury, Feldblum says. You need to have at least some evidence of discrimination to sign that charge. Now if you believe that simply having a [diversity] goal is reasonable evidence of discrimination, then you’ll go ahead and sign that. The future of DEI Like many companies at the time, Nike set ambitious DEI goals after the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial reckoning across corporate America. (The company has also grappled with broader culture issues over the years, including allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination.) In 2021, Nike tied executive compensation to DEI commitments that were intended to increase the share of women in leadership and boost representation of racial and ethnic minorities to 35% across its workforce. In the time since, however, Nike has cycled through five chief diversity officers; the company also declined to put out a corporate sustainability report last year, which typically documents its progress on DEIthough Nike claimed it had not wavered from its diversity commitments. Depending on how the EEOC investigation unfolds, Nike could face significant repercussions. The court will likely uphold the subpoena, according to Feldblum, which means Nike will likely have to produce reams of additional information. If the EEOC decides to make an example of Nike, the investigation could ultimately result in a lawsuitwhich would have far-reaching consequences for other employers and potentially set a precedent for subsequent investigations. I think we allemployers, employees, the general publichave got to assume there will be a continued onslaught of attacks on DEI, Feldblum says, urging companies to review, not retreat” from their diversity programs and position on DEI. The EEOC is trying to stop employes from doing anything to increase diversity and equity, and they are stretching their own procedures, as well as the law . . . And that is a very sad day for an agency entrusted with enforcing employment civil rights laws.
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E-Commerce
Anthropic is out with a new model called Claude Opus 4.6, an upgrade to its top-of-the-line Opus 4.5 model that launched in November. The new release could add new capabilities to Anthropics Claude Code coding assistant, which is facing growing competitive pressure from OpenAIs Codex. Anthropic says Opus 4.6 improves on its predecessors coding skills, planning, and, perhaps most importantly, its ability to reason more clearly when handling large amounts of information. When Opus 4.6 powers Claude Code, the coding agent can comprehend larger codebases and make more thoughtful decisions about how and where to add new code, the company says. More long-term memory AI labs have been racing to build models with longer context windows, meaning the amount of information a model can consider for a given task. But models have often struggled to use that information effectively in their outputs, a limitation Anthropic acknowledges. Previously, we would see things like, maybe the model gets lost in the middle, or it might forget details, Opus product manager Dianne Penn tells Fast Company. I wouldnt say Opus 4.6 is perfecthumans or other past models arent perfectbut we think that the quality improvement is pretty significant. Opuss longer memory also allows it to work on complicated tasks for extended periods, enabling Claude Code users to assemble teams of agents that collaborate on tasks. Anthropic also says the tool offers improved code review and debugging capabilities, helping it catch its own mistakes. Opus 4.6 arrives as the use of AI coding tools continues to surge, and as competition between Anthropic and OpenAI for software developers intensifies. OpenAIs Codex coding tool recently launched as a standalone app, powered by the GPT-5.2 model, and has received largely enthusiastic reviews from developers. A model for everyday work tasks Beyond coding, the new Anthropic model is designed to improve performance on everyday work tasks such as running financial analyses, conducting research, and creating or using documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Opus 4.6 will also power Anthropics general-purpose work tool, CoWork, enabling it to multitask with minimal human supervision. Anthropic says Opus 4.6 achieved top scores across several industry benchmark tests, reaching the highest results so far on multiple evaluations. These include Humanitys Last Exam, a complex multidisciplinary reasoning test; Terminal-Bench 2.0, an agentic coding evaluation; and GDPval-AA, which measures performance on economically valuable knowledge-work tasks in finance, legal, and other domains. Anthropic also says Opus 4.6 outperforms all other models on OpenAI’s BrowseComp, which measures a models ability to locate difficult-to-find information online. Anthropic says the Opus 4.6 model is available to developers using Claude Code for the same price per million tokens as Opus 4.5. The new model is now the default for Claude Code Pro subscribers, and is available as an option for all other subscribers.
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E-Commerce
Visa announced a new platform designed to stimulate small businesses through a variety of tools and network opportunities on Thursday in advance of major sporting events this year. The program, Visa & Main, identifies and is built around helping address what Visa calls the most pressing challenges that entrepreneurs face: access to capital, reaching customers, and adopting modern business tools. That starts with a $100 million partnership with small business lender Lendistry, with Visa saying it would continue to provide additional grants and financial support programs as part of Visa & Main. Additionally, Visa & Main connects Visas small business members with its corporate sponsors, identifying opportunities through major events like Super Bowl LX and this summers FIFA World Cup. It launched the Square Stops Here hop-on, hop-off bus tour in San Francisco during Super Bowl week designed to support and spotlight local businesses. The company is using its platform to help direct potential customers to its small business members, also hosting workshops for entrepreneurs to help them convert a short-term gain into long-term sustainability. “Heartbeat of local communities” Visa & Main also intends to make it easier for small businesses to adopt AI in the workplace, noting that small businesses have adopted the new technology at a rate less than half that of bigger businesses. The program attempts to close that gap by making tools such as expense management and fraud protection easier to access. Small businesses are the heartbeat of local communities and represent nearly half of our countrys economic activity, Kim Lawrence, Visas North America regional president, said in a release. With Visa & Main, were connecting Visas products and in-house knowledge with the expertise of our clients and partners to provide small businesses with flexible financing opportunities and customer acquisition and technology support.” The move expands Visa’s investment into small businesses, an area where credit card companies have long competed for marketshare. For example, Small Business Saturdays was launched 15 years ago as a marketing push from American Express, and it has since become an annual Thanksgiving weekend event. Visa held a launch event in Atlanta on January 21 for Visa & Main, where members worked directly with the Visa team to get hands-on experience with the product.
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E-Commerce
With community opposition growing, data center backers are going on a full-scale public relations blitz. Around Christmas in Virginia, which boasts the highest concentration of data centers in the country, one advertisement seemed to air nonstop. Virginias data centers are investing billions in clean energy, a voiceover intoned over sweeping shots of shiny solar panels. Creating good-paying jobs cue men in yellow safety vests and hard hats and building a better energy future. The ad was sponsored by Virginia Connects, an industry-affiliated group that spent at least $700,000 on digital marketing in the state in fiscal year 2024. The spot emphasized that data centers are paying their own energy costs framing this as a buffer that might help lower residential bills and portrayed the facilities as engines of local job creation. The reality is murkier. Although industry groups claim that each new data center creates dozens to hundreds of high-wage, high-skill jobs, some researchers say data centers generate far fewer jobs than other industries, such as manufacturing and warehousing. Greg LeRoy, the founder of the research and advocacy group Good Jobs First, said that in his first major study of data center jobs nine years ago, he found that developers pocketed well over a million dollars in state subsidies for every permanent job they created. With the rise of hyperscalers, LeRoy said, that number is still very much in the ballpark. Other experts reflect that finding. A 2025 brief from University of Michigan researchers put it bluntly: Data centers do not bring high-paying tech jobs to local communities. A recent analysis from Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit tracking corporate overreach, found that in Virginia, the investment required to create a permanent data center job was nearly 100 times higher than what was required to create comparable jobs in other industries. Data centers are the extreme of hyper-capital intensity in manufacturing, LeRoy said. Once theyre built, the number of people monitoring them is really small. Contractors may be called in if something breaks, and equipment is replaced every few years. But thats not permanent labor, he said. Jon Hukill, a spokesperson for the Data Center Coalition, the industry lobbying group that established Virginia Connects in 2024, said that the industry is committed to paying its full cost of service for the energy it uses and is trying to meet this moment in a way that supports both data center development and an affordable, reliable electricity grid for all customers. Nationally, Hukill said, the industry supported 4.7 million jobs and contributed $162 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2023. Dozens of community groups across the country have mobilized against data center buildout, citing fears that the facilities will drain water supplies, overwhelm electric grids, and pollute the air around them. According to Data Center Watch, a project run by AI security company 10a Labs, nearly 200 community groups are currently active and blocked or delayed 20 data center projects representing $98 billion of potential investment between April and June 2025 alone. The backlash has exposed a growing image problem for the AI industry. Too often, were portrayed as energy-hungry, water-intensive, and environmentally damaging, data center marketer Steve Lim recently wrote. That narrative, he argued, misrepresents our role in society and potentially hinders our ability to grow. In response, the industry is stepping up its messaging. Some developers, like Starwood Digital Ventures in Delaware, are turning to Facebook ads to appeal to residents. Its ads make the case that data center development might help keep property taxes low, bring jobs to Delaware, and protect the integrity of nearby wetlands. According to reporting from Spotlight Delaware, the company has also boasted that it will create three times as many jobs as it initially told local officials. Nationally, Meta has spent months running TV spots showcasing data center work as a viable replacement for lost industrial and farming jobs. One advertisement spotlights the small city of Altoona, Iowa. I grew up in Altoona, and I wanted my kids to be able to do the same, a voice narrates over softly-lit scenes of small-town Americana: a Route 66 diner, a farm, and a water tower. So, when work started to slow down, we looked for new opportunities and we welcomed Meta, which opened a data center in our town. Now, were bringing jobs here for us, and for our next generation. The advertisement ends with a promise superimposed over images of a football game: Meta is investing $600 billion in American infrastructure and jobs. In reality, Altoonas data center is a hulking, windowless, warehouse complex that broke ground in 2013, long before the current data center boom. Altoona is not quite the beleaguered farm town Metas advertisements portray, but a suburb of 19,000, roughly 16 minutes from downtown Des Moines, the most populous city in Iowa. Meta says it has supported 400+ operational jobs in Altoona. In comparison, the local casino employs nearly 1,000 residents, according to the local economic development agency. Ultimately, those details may not matter much to the ads intended audience. As Politico reported, the advertisement may have been targeted at policymakers on the coasts more than the residents of towns like Altoona. Meta has spent at least $5 million airing the spot in places like Sacramento and Wahington, D.C. The community backlash has also made data centers a political flashpoint. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger won Novembers gubernatorial election in part on promises to regulate the industry and make developers pay their fair share of the electricity they use. State lawmakers also considered 30 bills attempting to regulate data centers. In response to concerns about rising electricity prices, Virginia regulators approved a new rate structure for AI data centers and other large electricity users. The changes, which will take effect in 2027, are designed to protect household customers from costs associated with data center expansion. These developments may only encourage companies to spend more on image-building. In Virginias Data Center Alley, the ads show no sign of stopping. Elena Schlossberg, an anti-data-center activist based in Prince William County, says her mailbox has been flooded with fliers from Virginia Connects for the past eight months. The promises of lower electric bills, good jobs, and climate responsibility, she said, remind her of cigarette ads she saw decades ago touting the health benefits of smoking. But Schlossberg isnt sure the marketing is going to work. One recent poll showed that 73 percent of Virginians blame data centers for their rising electricity costs. Theres no putting the toothpaste back in the tube, she said. People already know were still covering their costs. People know that. This article originally appeared in Grist. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org
Category:
E-Commerce
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