It’s hard to picture a more nightmarish vision of our AI future than this July 30, 2026 The optimistic case for AI is clear: incredible scientific breakthroughs, life-enhancing productivity gains and universal access to knowledge. What’s not to like? But items on the other side of the ledger weigh a little heavier: the erosion of jobs, the flattening of knowledge, unstoppable cyber attacks and social rupture. Elon Musk still thinks there’s a [...]
AI firms targeting London’s rare book shops in ‘dystopian’ hunt for training data July 29, 2026 London’s rare book shops appear to have been targeted by AI companies searching for books to train their models, after court documents revealed Anthropic bought, scanned and destroyed millions of physical books as part of a controversial project to feed an insatiable demand for training data. One London-based seller of rare books told City AM [...]
Sage accelerates AI expansion as revenue grows July 29, 2026 Sage said it is accelerating the roll-out of AI across its product lines on Wednesday as it reported another quarter of double-digit revenue growth, fuelled by a boost in demand for its cloud accounting software. The FTSE 100 software company said revenue rose 11 per cent to £2.06bn in the nine months to 30 June, [...]
AI spending overshadows Alphabet and Tesla earnings July 23, 2026 Wall Street’s biggest tech companies delivered another round of strong earnings on Wednesday, but the primary focus for investors is the growing cost of the artificial intelligence race. Alphabet and Tesla beat revenue expectations, yet their shares fell in after-hours trading after both companies signalled another year of heavy spending on AI infrastructure. Google-owner Alphabet [...]
‘Ugly moment’ for software stocks as IBM suffers biggest one-day slump in decades July 14, 2026 IBM shares are poised to suffer one of their worst-ever trading days after the tech giant warned customers were diverting spending away from software and into AI infrastructure. The warning wiped more than $50bn (£37bn) from IBM’s market value, sending the stock down more than 20 per cent and putting it on course for its [...]
Monzo founder joins Anthropic as AI talent race heats up July 13, 2026 Monzo co-founder Tom Blomfield has joined Anthropic, as the US AI giant steps up its recruitment drive for senior tech leaders. Blomfield announced on Monday that he is taking a leave of absence from Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator to join Anthropic’s compute team, where he will work alongside co-founder Tom Brown on the [...]
Darktrace says Anthropic was right to pause Mythos on ‘security and safety’ grounds July 7, 2026 Darktrace has backed Anthropic’s temporary restrictions on its most advanced AI models, arguing the move was about safety rather than shutting Britain out of its frontier model. Nicole Carignan, Darktrace’s SVP of AI and security strategy, told City AM the short-lived curb on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models should not be read as a straightforward [...]
Pigment boss: ‘We’re replacing legacy players at the speed of light’ June 24, 2026 Eléonore Crespo, co-founder and chief executive of Pigment, said the company is replacing legacy enterprise software providers “at the speed of light”, as demand for AI-native business planning accelerates across the private sector. The Paris-headquartered platform, which helps companies including Unilever, Siemens, Anthropic and Coca-Cola run financial planning and performance management, is approaching $100m (£75m) [...]
‘Act now’: AI models capable of attacks on governments months away, Five Eyes warn June 23, 2026 Powerful AI models capable of devastating cyber attacks on both governments and businesses are just months away, intelligence agencies for the coveted Five Eyes has warned in a rare joint statement. The cyber security agencies from Australia, the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada, urged leaders to “act now” in a rare public intervention after [...]
Book review: The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow June 17, 2026 No subject has made me go more hot and cold than AI. Some days, I open Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT, set tough tasks and am dumbstruck by the speed and accuracy of the results. Wow, this is the future, I think to myself. On other days, I ask something simple and they get it all [...]