News

EU rules stifle AI innovation, claims Meta letter

The letter signed by 49 companies and researchers argues that EU rules are damaging AI development — but is this really all about Meta’s battle to promote its Llama large language model?

Deepfakes break through as business threat

Deepfakes targeting financial data are no longer hypothetical, with many executives saying their companies have been targeted with deepfake scams in the past year.

Alation and Salesforce partner on data governance for Data Cloud

The integration will help customers develop and manage trusted data assets and feed their AI agents, says Alation.

AI could be taken over by a few multinationals, warns UN

The United Nations’ new advisory body has issued seven recommendations for the governance of AI technology.

Oracle CloudWorld 2024: 10 key takeaways from the big annual event

The cloud services provider’s announcements this year focused on providing developers and enterprises with new ways to take advantage of generative AI in their operations.

Will Workday’s new AI agents set it apart from competitors?

At its flagship event this week, the company rolled out its next-gen platform, Illuminate, as well as four new AI agents and a Workday Assistant, as part of a 'robust three year AI roadmap.'

It’s time for CIOs to think about post-quantum cryptography

Quantum is key among six critical trends that Info-Tech’s new Tech Trends report predicts will shape the future of IT in 2025.

Amazon to cut down on managers to strengthen culture

‘To further strengthen our culture and teams,’ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced new organizational measures in a letter, including a shift away from manager-heavy bureaucracy.

Certinia showcases Customer Success Cloud at Dreamforce

Certinia is also building an autonomous agent for customer success on Salesforce’s new AgentForce platform.

New Data Cloud features to boost Salesforce’s AI agents

The key updates include support for unstructured data in audio and video format, 50 new connectors, and a low latency pipeline to help AI agents respond faster.

Digital portfolio spells trouble for new European Commission

European Commissioner Thierry Breton, architect of the EU’s digital policy, is throwing in the towel and accusing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of questionable governance.

Salesforce unveils Agentforce to help create autonomous AI bots

The CRM giant’s new low-code suite enables enterprises to build AI agents that can reason for themselves when completing sales, service, marketing, and commerce tasks.

Zoho adds AI and ML capabilities in Zoho Analytics 6.0

The new version offers a custom ML model-building studio, OpenAI integration, and more data connectors.

Uber embraces the cloud with customized CPUs

The ridesharing and delivery giant has turned to Oracle and Ampere Computing to meet its specialized cloud needs at 15 million predictions per second.

Oracle updates Fusion Cloud CX with CDP, B2B buying features

Some of the new CDP features include an account profile explorer, buying group and opportunity scoring, industry onboarding accelerators, and native Oracle Analytics cloud integration.

Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM gets AI-powered Dynamic Skills feature

The Dynamics Skills feature in Cloud HCM is designed to help enterprises keep a tab on their current and future skills requirement.

Oracle updates Fusion Cloud SCM with AI-based features

The SCM suite has also been updated with an RFID-powered inventory management application to aid healthcare firms.

Oracle launches a new sustainability app for Fusion Cloud EPM

Oracle Fusion Cloud Sustainability would integrate data from Fusion Cloud ERP and Oracle SCM to enable analysis and reporting within Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM and Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence.

Oracle NetSuite weaves new AI capabilities across its product line

The company continues to infuse AI into its ERP suite, while adding other updated capabilities and resources and a new procurement solution.

ServiceNow ‘Xanadu’ brings AI agents to Now Platform

The latest release of ServiceNow’s flagship offering features ServiceNow AI Agents for customer service management and ITSM in a bid to inject intelligence into enterprise workflows.

Microsoft makes quantum breakthrough, plans commercial offering

Microsoft and Atom Computing aim to capitalize on a qubit-virtualization system that Microsoft and Quantinuum say has broken a logical-qubit creation record.

Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence gets Gen AI-powered developer assistant

Other features include new intelligent applications baked into Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM and Fusion Cloud HCM.

US targets advanced AI and cloud firms with new reporting proposal

This, along with other AI regulations, sparks worries for enterprises about escalating compliance costs and curbing innovation.

Oracle inks deal with AWS to offer database services

The partnership follows similar deals with Microsoft and Google over the past 12 months.

New quantum computing controls seek to advance efforts by the US and its allies and slow adversaries’ production

The DOC has released an interim final rule that will license export controls for a 38-plus member coalition of ‘like minded countries,’ seemingly attempting to thwart advances by China, Russia and others.

Salesforce to acquire data protection specialist Own Company for $1.9 billion

The CRM company said Own’s data protection and data management solutions will help it enhance availability, security, and compliance of customer data across its platform.

CSO Conference & Awards: A Golden Opportunity

Australia pushes for AI rules, focusing on oversight and accountability

The government has launched a month-long consultation to assess if the proposed measures should become mandatory in high-risk areas.

Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence Inc. lands $1B investment

OpenAI co-founder’s new company plans to use the funding to acquire computing power and to hire top talent.

SAP CTO to step down after ‘inappropriate behavior’

Juergen Mueller is leaving SAP’s executive board, saying his behavior at a company event was incompatible with company values.

Salesforce mulls consumption pricing for AI agents

Investors expect AI agent productivity gains to reduce demand for Salesforce license seats. CEO Marc Benioff says a per-conversation pricing model is a likely solution.

Mastercard takes on UPI with new biometric payment passkey in India

The new service will debut in a pilot test with some of India’s largest payment processors.

Google’s Gemini gets new Gems assistants, Imagen 3

Gems, previewed at Google I/O this year, is currently available for Gemini Advanced, Business, and Enterprise users.

At Klarna, AI is helping reduce payroll in a big way

Analyst pans the move, saying, “there is a lot of backlash against companies making cuts like this.”

IBM Z mainframes get AI boost with new Telum II processor, Spyre accelerator

At the Hot Chips 2024 conference, IBM announced its Telum II processor and previewed its Spyre accelerator for AI and other high-performance Big Iron workloads.

Cognizant sues Infosys for misusing shared information

Lawsuit highlights the dicey nature of sharing sensitive information with competitors. Infosys is accused of using protected information to create a competitive product.

NVIDIA launches ‘easy button’ for creating gen AI workflows

NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints provides enterprises pretrained, customizable AI workflows for common use cases, which the company intends to expand monthly.

Chinese firms bypass US export restrictions on AI chips using AWS cloud

Chinese firms are using a loophole in the US restrictions to access the banned AI chips and AI models through cloud services as this does not violate US regulations.

Salesforce unveils autonomous agents for sales teams

Two new AI agents, Einstein Sales Development Rep (SDR) Agent and Einstein Sales Coach Agent, push beyond the copilot to augment sales operations, autonomously executing key tasks.

Federal judge strikes down FTC’s ban on non-compete agreements

The judge ruled that the FTC lacked the authority to make such a ban. That authority must come from Congress, she ruled.

GM software layoffs could signal a shift in digital transformation strategy

What might seem a pullback more likely just signals investment focused on outsourcing as opposed to payrolled workers.

UK proposes giving digital workers the ‘right to switch off’

Organizations increasingly watch employees to monitor productivity. New rules in the UK could turn that idea on its head.

AMD buys server maker ZT Systems as AI battle intensifies

This could enhance AMD’s ability to develop high-performance systems, bolstering its competitiveness against Nvidia.

74% of IT pros see AI making their skills obsolete

The IT industry is headed toward a sea change on skillsets as AI adoption becomes more commonplace, according to a Pluralsight survey of executives and IT workers.

Thousands of NetSuite stores leak sensitive data due to access control misconfiguration

Customers of Oracle subsidiary NetSuite’s ERP offering may be unaware that their custom record types grant unauthenticated access to sensitive data readily consumable via NetSuite’s APIs.

SAP partners up to make AI more practical

Many companies find it difficult to incorporate AI into their business processes. To change this, SAP wants to work more closely with the appliedAI initiative.

Hyperscalers place big bets on AI as cloud spending rolls on

Global spending on cloud infrastructure grew 19% YoY to $78.2 billion in 2Q24, according to Canalys, with AWS, Microsoft, and Google seeking greater market share through AI.

SAP patches critical bugs allowing full system compromise

Both the vulnerabilities score above 9 on CVSS and can allow access to sensitive data if not patched immediately.

UK antitrust regulator puts Synopsys’ $35B acquisition of Ansys under the microscope

The deal could lead to one company dominating the entire chip design industry, making it harder for competitors without similar capabilities to compete.

92% of IT jobs will be transformed by AI

The biggest change will be experienced by mid- and low-level positions, as manual tasks become less relevant or easily replaceable by this technology.