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The technology industry is in the midst of a skills shortageone that shows no signs of slowing. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that tech jobs will grow at twice the rate of Americas overall workforce, creating hiring shortfalls as organizations struggle to fill critical positions in IT, cybersecurity, and other vital areas. The emergence of AI has only exacerbated the issue, as organizations in nearly every industry are seeking employees who can help them better understand the technology and get the most out of their solutions. Even as AI becomes a part of everyday life, most organizations are still determining how best to utilize itand how to limit the risks it may pose. Interestingly, these challenges mirror another (relatively) recent innovation: the cloud. Before cloud computing became commonplace, businesses with any sort of digital footprint needed to buy rack space or manage their own on-premises servers. That was reasonable for businesses with a high degree of technical expertise, but building and maintaining a climate-controlled server room wasnt realistic for most companies. The advent of cloud computing democratized access to advanced computing capabilitiesand AI is already having a similar impact. As businesses wrestle with managing and securing their AI deployments, they can look to the cloud for lessons and guidance on how similar challenges were tackled in the recent past. The Evolution of Cloud Adoption and Security Consider the cost of on-premises computing. Server rooms are expensive, as are the servers themselves. They also require a substantial degree of technical expertise to maintain, and employees with experience in that area understandably command high compensation. The emergence of platforms like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud changed all that, lowering the barrier to entry for advanced computing capabilities: businesses could eliminate the high initial investment associated with purchasing servers and building server rooms in exchange for a modest (in most cases) operating expense. Perhaps most importantly, it allowed businesses to work with reliable partners to get the most out of their cloud services, rather than relying on difficult-to-come-by in-house expertise. That said, securing the cloud still presents its own challenges. During the early days of the cloud, businesses often made the mistake of assuming that providers would handle any cybersecurity needsa misconception that left them dangerously exposed. Today, the most common rule of thumb is that the provider is responsible for the security of the cloud itself, while the customer is responsible for the security of the data inside it. Essentially, the provider ensures attackers cannot exploit their systems to get to your data, but if poor password management, device security, or other data hygiene practices allow attackers to compromise your accountsthats on you. This delineation has helped businesses better understand where their potential risk factors lie when it comes to cloud security and mitigate them appropriately. Applying Lessons from the Cloud to AI Its not hard to see the parallels between the cloud and AI. Like the cloud, AI has democratized access to resources that were previously difficult to come by for many organizations. The widespread availability of generative AI models like ChatGPT means organizations no longer need to hire costly AI engineers to create, manage, and fine-tune their own models. Instead, they can put an application layer on top of an existing model and deliver a compelling service to their customers at a relatively low cost of ownership. While this still requires a level of technical expertise, the barrier to entry is much lowerand organizations can move forward faster with smaller, more flexible engineering teams. The risks posed by this model mirror those posed by the cloud. When you upload data to the cloud, it is no longer under your direct control. The same is true of third-party AI modelswhen customers (or employees) input data into an AI-powered application, its important to know where the data is going, how it is being stored and protected, and how it is being used. With AI still in its relative infancy, the answers to those questions arent always clearwhich means businesses providing AI functionality need strong AI governance practices in place to establish trust with their customers. For some businesses, that might mean offering customers the ability to opt out of AI features. For others, it might mean putting clear safeguards in place to prevent AI tools from accessing sensitive or confidential information. By demonstrating the ways in which they are limiting AI risk, businesses free their customers to evaluate the benefits of AI. Over time, most businesses migrated to the cloud because the efficiency gains substantially outweighed the perceived risksand a similar pattern is already emerging when it comes to AI. In fact, its happening even more quickly this time. Since AI has use cases across nearly every business unit, the potential ROI is much easier to illustrate. While its true that every customer will have a different risk appetite, the trend is clear: eventually, nearly every business will decide that the rewards significantly outweigh the risks. By establishing strong governance practices and lowering the amount of risk associated with AI, businesses can help their customers reach that point more quickly. Freeing Customers to Embrace AI with Confidence While businesses and their customers are understandably concerned about AI risk, the history of the cloud provides a helpful road map for navigating those risks successfully. The risks associated with AI are not dramatically different from those associated with other technologyand businesses can mitigate them in much the same way. By establishing strong governance practices and implementing clear transparent policies regarding AI and its use, businesses can enable their employees and customers to embrace the potential of AI with confidence.
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E-Commerce
With 100 days back in office, its fair to say that President Trump is leaving his mark. That hasnt necessarily been a positive thing for the media or journalism, however, as the Trump administrations second iteration has been even more hostile to the press than the first, and it has many experts alarmed. Examples are myriad, and include (but arent limited to): Trump banned Associated Press reporters from White House news conferences for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Lawsuits have been filed against ABC News and CBS, among others, with some having settled. Trumps Federal Communications Commission has threatened or initiated investigations into broadcasters. The administration reportedly wants to cut funding for NPR and PBS. The administration has tried to shut down Voice of America. And while presidential administrations often spar with members of the mediaRichard Nixon, perhaps most notably, was also hostile to the pressthe Trump administration is taking this hostility to whole new levels, media industry experts argue. What stands out to me is that this is a concerted, multipronged campaign against ethical journalists and the independent press, says Caroline Hendrie, executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists. Were looking at this as a strategy of a death by a thousand cutstake it all together, and were seeing an assault on transparency, accountability, and the publics right to know. The goal, Hendrie says, is fairly simple: Boost Trump’s agenda and slap down any voice that pushes back against it. They want to delegitimize anyone who contradicts his narrative or the narrative of the administration, she says. Using the levers of government to not only influence coverage but also punish news outlets raises “more than red flags,” Hendrie adds. “It’s raising very legitimate alarms that our First Amendment free press rights are in danger in this country.” Part of a broader attack on expertise Gabriel Kahn, professor of professional practice of journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Journalism, says attacks on the press coming from a sitting administration have “never been so blatant or severe, at least over the past 80 years.” However, Kahn says its important to think of the attack on the press as only one part of the issue. You need to see the attacks on journalism and science and higher education as a part of the same piece,” he says. “Its an attack on expertise, on independent thought.” He adds that many news organizations haven’t done themselves any favors in how they’ve responded to the administrations treatment. Specifically, he cites some newspapers reluctance (or refusal) to endorse a presidential candidate during the 2024 election, the reining in of opinion writers, and the censoring of news stories to curry favor with the Trump team. According to Kahn, obeying in advance and kowtowing to the administration, which is also happening at major universities and big law firms, risks doing more harm than good for media outlets. Major corporate journalism interests have chosen the illusion of some sort of short-term relief over the long-term damage theyre doing to their brands,” he says. If theres anything good thats come out of Trumps treatment of the press, Kahn says, it’s that it has highlighted how fragile the free press is. Weve taken so much for granted for so long. [The administration has] demonstrated to the American people how important it is to have a free, independent press.
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Its been just 100 days since Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term as president, but its already clear that the tenor of this term is much different than his firstand Trump has been carefully curating an image to match. Since taking office on January 20, Trump has taken an aggressive approach to the presidency. On just his first day in office, he signed a whopping 26 executive orders, including several to eliminate federal DEI efforts and one aimed at granting pardons for January 6 rioters. That initial 24 hours proved a harbinger of what was to come. In the following 100 days, Trumps administration has taken a flurry of extreme steps, including slashing 260,000 federal jobs through Elon Musks DOGE; ramping up deportations and the surveillance of immigrants; and unleashing a global trade war through a series of harsh tariffs. For many Americans, it’s been a confusing period of social and economic upheaval. It has been difficult to predict what the President might do next, and how hell respond to backlash. But within these first 100 days, there is one through line thats become clear: Trump is trying to give his public image an overhaul. The first 100 days of his presidency has seen Trump adopt a darker, sterner image that aligns with his no-holds-barred leadership strategy and appeals to his ultraconservative base. One need only look to four new portraits of the President to prove it. An official portrait inspired by a mug shot Portraiture of President Trump has proven to be a fairly transparent window into the way he is branding his second term. The first glimpse at his new strategy came before Trump even officially took office. Days before January 20, the world got a first glimpse at Trumps official inaugural portrait via his administrations chief photographer, Daniel Torok, who posted the image to his X account. In the photo, Trump stares down at the viewer with one eyebrow cocked in a stern, borderline angry expression. A bright artificial light illuminates the center of his face, leaving dark shadows on his profile. The framing comes almost uncomfortably close to his face, giving the unsettling impression that the viewer is standing just inches away. The headshot is a striking departure from past official presidential photos. These portraits, (viewable in the Library of Congresss digital archives) have a few near universal features dating as far back as Nixons presidency. Each past president is framed at a straight angle that cuts off at the mid-chest; the photos are lit with even, neutral lighting, and the subjects are smiling broadly. In an interview with Fast Company back in January, Rhea L. Combs, director of curatorial affairs at Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery, shared that subtle choices like these are generally used by presidents to lend them a friendly, down-to-earth appearance. It’s a precedent that traces all the way back to early depictions of George Washington. In 2017, Trump himself largely followed these conventions. The official portrait from his first term frames Trump at a more traditional, level angle, and hes shown smiling into the camera in an evenly lit room. Next to his 2025 portrait, the difference is like night and dayand the departure is no coincidence. [Image: Fulton County Sheriff’s Office] Through a series of comments on X, Torok confirmed that Trumps new portrait was inspired by the presidents mug shot, taken before Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts in a criminal hush money trial last May. Despite the guilty verdict, Trump went on to use his mug shot as a political tool on the 2024 election campaign trail, including turning it into rally posters, selling pieces of the suit worn in the photo, and even printing the image on a line of mugs and T-shirts. (Merch has long been a major lever of image control for the president.) Torok openly admitted to using the mug shot as inspriation for the official portrait. The portrait felt calculated both to serve as rage bait for Trumps detractors and to bolster his image in the eyes of his conservative following. During his campaign, Trump strongly aligned himself with members of the manosphere, an online community of male influencers like Andrew Tate, Adin Ross, and Logan Paul, who, to varying degrees, tend to glorify the concept of a certain brand of toxic masculinity (often alongside anti-woman rhetoric.) For Trump, the official portrait was the perfect stage to debut a new personal brand that puts this unrepentant machismo front and center. A callout six years too late About two months into his presidency, amidst a war in the Middle East and massive unrest as a result of his new tariffs, Trump took the time to double down on his new image by coming after a portrait that hung in the Colorado State Capitol. The President logged on to Truth Social on March 23 to demand that a portrait of him be removed. The Presidents timing seemed odd, considering that it had been six years since the painting was first displayed. [Photo: Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post/Getty Images] Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before, Trump wrote at the time. He went on to add that he was calling on Colorado Governor Jared Polis to take it down. The portrait, painted by artist Sarah Boardman, depicts a younger Trump in soft lighting, with a rounded jawline and wearing a neutral, almost contented expression. While Trump chalked up his disapproval to finding the portrait unflattering, its difficult to miss how the painting represents a vastly different Trump from the more intimidating version hes presenting with his new official portrait. His direct message to Polis showed that Trump is willing to go out of his way to control how the public views him, even in ways that might seem inconsequential. Walking around looking at images of yourself all day long The Trump administration took the Presidents updated image to another level in April, when it swapped a minimalist portrait of former president Barack Obama in the White Houses East Room for a pop-art painting of President Trump raising his fist after the assassination attempt last year on the campaign trail. Several historians told The New York Times that they were startled by the move, considering that its almost unheard of for a sitting president to place artwork of themselves in the White House (typically art of a former president is added after their term.) [Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images] It just seems tacky, Ted Widmer, a presidential historian at the City University of New York, told the publication. It feels different from our tradition of venerating the distinguished holders of the office from both partiesand going in a new direction of walking around looking at images of yourself all day long. Beyond the peculiar choice to add the portrait in the first place, its contents are also bizarre for a placement in the White House. The painting depicts Trump surrounded by Secret Service, pumping his fist in the air as rivulets of blood run down the side of his facea depiction of a moment which Trump and his campaign used for promotional material. Alongside his inaugural portrait, this choice of White House art was another carefully vetted opportunity for the Trump administration to project his revamped image of strength. Trump 2.0 catches on Its evident that the Trump administration has been carefully curating a darker, more aggressive public presentation of the President in both photos and artwork during these first 100 days of his presidency. One unexpected outcome of this Trump 2.0 rebrand, though, is that some publications seem to be following the administrations artistic lead. View this post on Instagram A post shared by TIME (@time) Last week, Time magazine sat down with the President to discuss the 100 day milestonea reprise of a similar article run by the publication back in 2017, during his first term. Time chose to represent both articles with a close-up headshot of the President, which it posted as a side-by-side carousel on Instagram. While the 2017 photo is relatively warm-toned and brightly lit, the 2025 version is distinctly cooler and darker. Like Trumps new inauguration portrait, Times updated headshot of the President includes deep, prominent shadows on the sides of his face, as well as an almost stormy background. Its an image that feels both foreboding and bleak. Trumps new image appears to be making its way into the public consciousness. And as his term continues, its likely that the Trump administration will continue to develop this sterner version of Trump through new imagery. In the meantime, these four portraits underscore an enduring theme for Trump. To the President, public image is a matter of winners and losers. In his interview with Time, Trump took reporter Eric Cortellessa to the East Wing to view the painting of him thats been installed there, which sits across from another portrait of Obama. 100 to 1, they prefer that, the President said of his portrait. Its incredible.
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