Welcome to Ai decoded, Fast company‘S weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of ai. You can sign Up to receive this newsletter always week via email here,
Ai is starting to reshape the workforce
If you want a glimpse of how ai could rested corporate staffing, look to salesforce.
CEO Marc Benioff Said during a Labor Day Podcast that The Company has Alredy Cut 4,000 Customer Support Roles after Deploying Its Own Ai AGENTS. “I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I Need Less Heads,” Benioff Said, Calling The Past Eight Months “The Most Exciting” of his career. :
Still, salesforce may be an outlier. Benioff was likely promoting his own agentforce platform. Gartner predicted back in March that half of all organizations will abandon plans to shrink their customer service staff trust of ai. In a poll of 163 customer service leaders, 95% said they intend to keep human agents and use ai more strategically.
Customer service is a particular sensitive area for automation, Since it involves direct contact with customers. Many companies may prefer a human touch. Other roles behind the Scenes – Like Software Engineering – May Prove Easier to Replace. Junior developers, for example, are Increasingly as coding agents such as cursor and claude code take on much of the basic work. A Recent Study Study Found That Employment for 22- To 25-Ald Software Engineers Fell Nearly 20% Between Late 2022 and July 2025, even as hiring for older engineres Grew.
Other Research Points to Broader Disruption. A new study from the gerald huff fund for humanity establishs Assistants-Offten the Rungs Youner Workers Climb Toward Stable, Middle-Income Careers. The fund warns that this “hollowing out” of entry-level jobs “Threatens long-term mobileity for an entreire generation.” It Advocates for a Universal Basic Income (Ubi) as a Cushion for Displaced Workers.
Reskilling Remains Another Challenge. Research from LinkedIn Found that many professionals feel overwhelmed by the pressure to learn new ai tools, describing it as “Another job” added to their workload. Nearly half said they are available ai to its full potential, and 30% admitted Meanwhile, more than a third of executives say they plan to hire and evaluate Employees based on AI Expertise.
For many works, there’s no simple path through this AI-Powered Transition. While it’s human nature to ignore major disrupties, experts say there are real advantages to embrac ai and exploring the possibilities. The best strategy may be to expand their use of ai beyond general chatbots like Chatgpt, and Find Specialized Tools-Perhaps Including New Ai AGENTS-to Can Handle Mundane, Low-Skill Tasks. Doing so frees up time for higher-order, uniquely human work, time of which requires creativity and Empathy.
What the Google Antitrust Decision means for Ai Search Companies
A Federal Court in Washington, DC, Decided that Google will not have to sel off its chrome browseer after being found guillty of monopolistic practices in internet search and advertising last year. The Remedies Cho Judge Amita Mehta Are More Surgical: Google will no longer be able to ink exclusive deals that Establish its search service as the default on other platforms.
That change directly impacts one of google’s most lucrative arranges: its Mulatibillion-Doller Payments to Apple to Keep Google Search as the iPhone’s default. Google will likely go on paying apple to put Google search on the popular devices, but it will no longer be able be able to pay apple to be the only Search service on the devices. This opens the door for other search provides – involuding new ai search upstarts – to pay for a presence on apple devices too.
Mehta’s decision also compels google to periodically share Google Built Its Whole Company Around Its Search Index, A Vast and Ever-Chhanging Database of all the sites and content on the internet (or at least everything the same Now google will have to share that crewn jewel, including data about the quality and popularity of indexed web content, with a new wave of ai search provides like Openai and Perplexity. These new players – WHICH DELIVER FULLY FLESHED ANSWERS to Users, Not just a list of links –Can use the index data to improve the quality and account of their own search results.
Activists are using ai to unmask ice agents
The federal government has long failed to pass any meaningful legislation to protect people’s privacy from surveillance technologies. Now, in a strange twist, the government has become a Victim of its own inaction. As immigration and customs enforcement (ice) raids spread and become more bold, activities are attempting to use ai to unmask, then publicly identify, ice agents.
Politico Reports that a Netherlands-Based Immigration Activist Dominick Skinner and A Group of Volunteers have developed an ai model that analyzes the faces of ice agents with agents with agents of ice raid and anrrest video. If at least 30% of the agent’s face is visible, the AI can Generate a Reasonable Facsimile of the Agent’s Whole Face. Using the AI-Generated Image, Activists can use image search tools to find agent on social media or elsewhere, Politico Reports. Skinner Says His Group has publicly identified at least 20 ice officials Recorded Wearing Masks during Arrests. The AI Unmasking Project is Part of a larger effort called the ice list, an activist web archive that has published the identities of more than 100 ice employees and agents.
The department of homeland Security Insists that the ice agents wear the masks to avoid being done doxxed and harassed. But critics say the sight of masked agents Authoritarianism and Unaccountable Government Force.
More Ai Coverage from Fast company:
Want Exclusive Reporting and Trend Analysis on Technology, Business Innovation, Future of Work, And Design? Sign up for Fast company Premium.
The Early-Rate Deadline for Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, September 5, at 11:59 PM Pt. Apply today.