MSE Chat GPT is a recently launched experimental AI chatbot that can answer money questions using MoneySavingExpert guides as its primary source.
MSE ChatGPT – Get Fast Answers To Money Questions
Recently launched by TV’s consumer financial champion and founder of MoneySavingExpert (MSE), Martin Lewis CBE, MSE Chat GPT is a variant of OpenAI’s Chat GPT and can act as a fast and easy way for the public to get answer to money-related questions.
The Next Generation Of Bespoke Help
Martin Lewis CBE, founder of MoneySavingExpert, said about the new chatbot: “This is the latest step in MSE’s pioneering history of helping consumers cut their bills and fight for financial justice. When I launched MSE in 2003, people told me 'nobody wants a money website with a face on it’. I disagreed, I thought people wanted the personal touch, so they know where the info is coming from. And I hope this new tool is the start of the next generation of bespoke help.”
Built To Solve Two Problems
Mr Lewis, who founded the consumer financial help website MoneySavingExpert.com, said that the new chatbot was built to solve what some see as two problems with looking for specific financial information using normal ChatGPT.
Firstly, Mr Lewis said that although ChatGPT “answers beautifully and is great for writing a best man’s speech” it is “unsourced and can get things wrong”. This could make its answers untrustworthy, which is particularly worrying where answers relate to the finances of individuals. Also, getting answers that are outdated because they come from an “internet sweep from 2021” could be risky.
Secondly, Mr Lewis wanted to solve the problem of people being faced with “too much information”, thereby struggling to find what they want.
It is hoped, therefore, that the fact that MSE Chat GPT’s primary information source MSE itself (i.e. its many guides, blogs and information updated on a weekly basis) means that users of MSE Chat GPT can get a concise and speedy answer they can trust.
Availability
MSE ChatGPT can be used in the free MSE App and is available on both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store for Android.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Many people now use ChatGPT at work and at home (it was the fastest growing app of all time when introduced) and are aware of how easy it is to use and how it can save time and effort by giving fast answers in conversational language on any number of subjects. That said, and with most individuals using the free version, as Martin Lewis CBE points out, it’s only trained up to 2021 so some answers may be outdated, it’s unsourced (it just uses a general Internet sweep) and can get things wrong – none of which are desirable when looking for accurate, trustworthy answers about personal finances (a high-risk subject).
Having a tailor-made version, therefore, that draws upon the regularly updated resources of MSE that have been built-up over years and which have been used and scrutinised by millions of people gives it extra relevance and value and this, coupled with the brand itself ensures it will be trusted and used. No doubt it’s a time-saver, particularly when searching for specific financial details which can often be hidden in small print or which may be confusing.
The convenience and speed offered by the chatbot is also a fast way of improving the usability of the website and perhaps extending the reach and the use of MSE via the app. Although customer service chatbots are already part of many websites, tailor-made more powerful chatbots are likely to spring up on many more websites and platforms where they can enable customers to extract information quickly. The speed and convenience of AI chatbots are valued by customers and help brands by giving customers better experiences when interacting with them thereby adding value and aiding retention.
It’s been reported that Glassdoor (the website that allows current employees to anonymously review their employer) posted users’ real names to their profiles without their consent.
What Is Glassdoor?
By allowing users to register anonymously, Glassdoor is a website that allows current and former employees to anonymously review their companies and management. Founded in 2007 in Mill Valley, California, the platform is used for obtaining insights into company cultures, salaries, and interview processes. Its aim is to foster workplace transparency, enabling job seekers to make better-informed decisions about their careers by learning from the experiences of others.
Reported
Unfortunately for Glassdoor, a user’s account (taken from her personal blog) of her recent negative experience with Glassdoor (following her contacting Glassdoor’s customer support ) has been widely reported in the press.
Added Name To Profile
Following the lady (reportedly named Monica) sending an email to Glassdoor’s customer support that showed her full name in the 'From’ line, Monica alleges that she then discovered that Glassdoor had updated her profile by adding her real name and location (the name pulled from the email), without her consent.
Users Leaving Glassdoor
It’s been reported that the experience of Monica, identified as a Midwest-based software professional who joined Glassdoor 10 years ago, has now led to other members leaving the platform over fears they could also be 'outed’. Not only could this be regarded as a breach of trust of the anonymity and privacy that users signed up with but could also have adverse employment consequences from employer retaliation.
Following reports of Monica’s experience in the media, it’s been reported that another user, identified as Josh Simmons, has also said Glassdoor added information about him to his personal profile, again without his consent.
Had To Delete Account
It’s been reported that although Glassdoor’s privacy policy states “If we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time,” Monica claims that she was not given this option, that Glassdoor stored her name, and that her only recommended option to remove her details was to delete her account altogether. Deleting also meant deleting her reviews.
Shared With Fishbowl
One of the complications of the case appears to be the fact that Glassdoor was integrated with Fishbowl (an app for work-related discussions), three years ago. This led to:
– Glassdoor now saying that it “may update your Profile with information we obtain from third parties. We may also use personal data you provide to us via your resume(s) or our other services.”
– Glassdoor staff reportedly consult publicly-available sources of information to verify information that is then used to update users’ Glassdoor accounts, in order to improve the accuracy of information for Fishbowl users.
– Glassdoor updating users’ profiles without notifying the user, e.g. if inaccuracies are found, because of its commitment to keeping Fishbowl’s information accurate.
What Does Glassdoor Say?
Glassdoor has issued a statement saying: “Glassdoor is committed to providing a platform for people to share their opinions and experiences about their jobs and companies, anonymously – without fear of intimidation or retaliation. User reviews on Glassdoor have always and will always be anonymous.”
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
A large part of the value of Glassdoor is the fact that users are willing to share their 'honest’ views about their employers and managers. One of the key reasons they feel able to do so is the anonymity that they had during registration and the assumption that this would remain and that their privacy would be protected. However, if reports are to be believed, integration with and cross-pollination between Fishbowl and Glassdoor has led to policy changes and a new approach whereby a user’s details can be updated, allegedly without consent, and obtained from other sources thereby potentially meaning that users could be unmasked to employers.
The widely publicised stories of this allegedly happening appear likely to have damaged a key source of Glassdoor’s value – the trust that users have that their anonymity will be protected. This may explain why users are reportedly leaving the platform. This story illustrates how important matters of data protection are to businesses and individuals, particularly around privacy and consent, plus how risks can increase for users if aspects of data protection are damaged and changed.
The consequences of putting users in what could be described as a difficult and risky position could potentially be severe and/or long-lasting damage for Glassdoor’s business and reputation.
Researchers have unveiled a new jailbreaking technique, 'Deceptive Delight,' which successfully manipulates AI models to produce unsafe responses in only three interactions.
Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 researchers developed the method by embedding restricted topics within benign prompts, effectively bypassing safety filters. By carefully layering requests, researchers managed to coerce AI models into generating unsafe outputs e.g., harmful instructions, such as guidance on creating dangerous items (e.g., Molotov cocktails).
Unit 42 reported that in tests across 8,000 scenarios and eight AI models, Deceptive Delight achieved a 65 per cent success rate in producing harmful content within three interactions, with some models reaching attack success rates (ASR) above 80 per cent. By contrast, sending unsafe prompts directly without jailbreaking yielded only a 5.8 per cent ASR.
This technique is part of a rising trend in AI manipulation. Previous methods include Brown University’s language translation bypass, which achieved nearly a 50 per cent success rate, and Microsoft’s 'Skeleton Key’ technique, which prompts models to alter safe behaviour guidelines. Each approach reveals ways attackers exploit model vulnerabilities, underscoring AI’s ongoing security risks.
Businesses can mitigate these risks through updated model filtering tools, prompt analysis, and swift adoption of AI security patches. Enhanced oversight can prevent manipulation tactics like Deceptive Delight, reducing the chance of harmful content generation.
In this Tech Insight, we look at how UK businesses can identify, block, and protect themselves against the growing nuisance (and threat) of spam calls, and why doing so is now essential for productivity, security, and reputation.
More Than a Nuisance
If you’ve noticed more spam calls slipping through lately, you’re not imagining things. Nuisance calls, i.e. from robotic sales pitches to full-blown scam attempts, have become a major source of disruption (and risk) for UK businesses.
In fact, research from Ofcom estimates that UK consumers and businesses receive over 4.4 billion nuisance calls and texts per year, with a significant proportion targeting workplaces. From lost productivity and operational distraction to fraud and reputational damage, spam calls are creating headaches across sectors. For some, they’re also creating serious financial losses.
What Counts As a Spam Call?
Broadly speaking, spam calls refer to any unsolicited or unwanted phone call, particularly those made in bulk. They may originate from real people or bots, domestic numbers or international spoofed lines, and their intentions can range from sales to scams. Common categories include:
– Telemarketing calls. These are usually from legitimate businesses, yet are often annoying and unwanted.
– Robocalls. This type of call uses pre-recorded messages, often tied to fake tech support, medical cover or financial offers.
– Scam calls. These calls are designed to try and trick the recipient into handing over personal or financial information.
– Silent or abandoned calls. These are often used to verify if a number is “live” for future targeting.
Although some spam calls are relatively harmless, many are sophisticated fraud attempts. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) notes an increasing link between spam calls and cybercrime, including phishing, identity theft, and voice cloning scams.
A Growing Threat to Businesses
Spam calls are no longer just a nuisance to receptionists or front-line teams. For UK companies of all sizes, they can lead to missed leads, disrupted workflows, and even data breaches.
For example, a recent study by Truecaller found that globally, businesses lose an average of $14 billion a year to phone scams. While exact UK figures are harder to isolate, UK Finance reported over £1.2 billion in fraud losses in 2023, with social engineering scams, often initiated via phone, accounting for a large slice.
For example:
– A logistics company in Manchester reported receiving over 20 spoofed calls a day, some impersonating HMRC or customs officers.
– A legal firm in Surrey was conned out of £28,000 after a senior partner unknowingly responded to a voice-phishing scam, believing it was a client confirming bank details.
– An SME in the retail sector said they had to dedicate an admin staff member solely to filtering phone calls, costing them hours of productivity weekly.
As fraud tactics become more advanced, including the use of AI-generated voices and deepfake impersonation, spam calls are quickly evolving from an irritation into a significant security risk.
How Are They Getting Your Number?
One of the most frustrating aspects of spam calls is how widespread and persistent they are, even for numbers that were never shared publicly.
Here’s how they’re likely getting in:
– Data breaches. Your number may have been compromised in a company breach or exposed via a third-party contact.
– Web scraping. Spammers use bots to harvest numbers from websites, contact pages, and social media profiles.
– Number generators. Robocallers simply dial every possible variation of UK numbers using auto-dialling software.
– Data brokers. Some marketing companies sell on contact lists without appropriate consent.
Even legitimate-seeming calls may not be what they appear. Number spoofing allows fraudsters to display fake caller IDs, often mimicking well-known institutions or even internal office numbers.
Why Businesses Need a Serious Defence Strategy
The problem is no longer solvable simply with caller ID alone and, for UK businesses, relying on staff to manually screen calls is unsustainable. Not only does it eat into valuable time, but it also increases the risk of missing genuine client calls.
Instead, a layered and proactive approach is needed. Ideally, this type of approach should include:
– Network-level blocking. All major UK mobile networks (including EE, O2, Vodafone and Three) now offer spam filtering and scam call protection. Some, like O2’s Call Defence, automatically warn users about suspicious numbers. EE flags suspected scam calls in real time.
– Smartphone features. Both Android and iPhone users can activate built-in call blocking and spam detection tools. On Android, turning on 'Caller ID & spam’ and filtering spam calls will silence known nuisance numbers. On iPhone, enabling 'Silence Unknown Callers’ sends calls from unknown numbers straight to voicemail – though with the risk of missing new contacts.
– Call screening software. Businesses can deploy dedicated VoIP services or call management apps like Hiya, Truecaller for Business, or BT’s Call Protect to detect, divert and report malicious calls. These platforms often use real-time databases of spam numbers and AI-based filtering to block unwanted calls before they reach a human.
– Staff awareness and call protocols. Employee training is essential. Staff should be reminded never to give sensitive information over the phone unless they can verify the caller. Set up internal rules, such as always calling back a client on a verified number instead of trusting inbound requests.
– Registration with TPS (Telephone Preference Service). UK businesses can also register with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) to legally opt out of receiving marketing calls. While this doesn’t block international spam, it offers some protection from UK-based telemarketers, and gives businesses legal grounds to complain if calls persist.
Common Spam Call Tactics in 2025
Spam calls have evolved. It’s no longer just robotic PPI chasers. Today’s fraudsters are deploying more advanced (and sinister) tricks. For example, watch out for:
– Impersonation scams. Callers claiming to be from HMRC, the bank, Microsoft, or your own IT provider.
– “Can you hear me?” traps. Designed to get a voice recording of you saying “yes”, which can be used to authorise charges or access.
– Fake client inquiries. Scammers pretending to be new customers, asking for personal or operational details.
– Missed call scams. You receive a one-ring call from an international number and calling back triggers premium charges.
There are also increasing reports of AI voice synthesis being used to impersonate real people, including senior managers. These so-called “deep voice” scams are alarmingly convincing and often target finance or HR departments.
Tools and Tech to Help Businesses Fight Back
Fortunately, there are real, actionable tools businesses can use to block, track, and report spam calls. Just some examples of such tools include:
– PhoneSystem (BT, 3CX, RingCentral, etc.). Business-grade phone systems often include spam detection, call screening, and custom call-routing features.
– Spam call reporting portals. Use the ICO’s nuisance call reporting tool and Action Fraud to report malicious activity. This helps build national data for enforcement.
– AI-based call blockers. Tools like Nomorobo, RoboKiller, and Truecaller Premium now cater to UK businesses and use dynamic databases to identify threats in real time.
It’s also worth keeping an eye on Ofcom’s anti-scam call initiatives, including new proposals to limit international number spoofing and force providers to apply stricter blocking at the network level. Telecoms companies must also now verify caller ID information, with penalties for failure to comply.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
While individuals have long had the option to silence unknown numbers or install spam blockers, the stakes for businesses are far higher. For example, one missed call might be a scam, whereas another could be a potential client. That’s the balancing act UK firms are now having to perform daily, all while trying to protect staff, safeguard data, and maintain trust with customers. Also, today’s spam calls are often weaponised to breach security systems, manipulate staff, or undermine day-to-day operations.
However, many small and medium-sized enterprises still treat spam call management as a back-office issue. But the evidence suggests it deserves boardroom-level attention. Whether it’s the £1.2 billion in fraud losses reported last year, or the growing number of AI-enabled voice scams, the message is that this is a frontline threat. If left unmanaged, it risks eroding not just productivity, but confidence, both internally and externally.
At the same time, thankfully, telecom providers and regulators like Ofcom are starting to take more decisive steps, from enforcing stricter ID verification rules to proposing new crackdowns on number spoofing. These efforts, while welcome, still rely heavily on businesses taking initiative, by adopting smarter tools, reviewing internal call-handling protocols, and registering with services like the CTPS.
What this all means for UK businesses is a shift in mindset where phone security can no longer really be treated separately from cybersecurity. Stakeholders across departments, from IT and operations to HR and finance, should now collaborate to manage the risks, spot the red flags, and ensure no call gets through that shouldn’t. It’s not just about stopping nuisance calls. It’s about protecting reputation, maintaining customer confidence, and staying one step ahead.
If you would like to save time by configuring Outlook to only send you alerts when important emails arrive, here’s how:
This involves setting up custom alert rules for specific people whose emails are particularly important to you e.g., the boss and other colleagues. To set up a custom alerting rule for a specific person:
- Open Outlook, find an email from someone for whom you want an alert.
- Right-click the email (or go to the Home tab of the ribbon at the top).
- Select Rules > Create Rule.
- Switch on the checkbox by the sender’s name.
- Choose “Display In The New Item Alert Window” and/or “Play A Selected Sound”.
- Choose the sound file to play for the alert. You can use the play button in the “Create Rule” window to hear the sound before making your choice.
- Click 'OK’ to set the rule.
- Repeat the process for the other contacts you would like to receive alerts for.
To set up a custom rule for a whole domain:
- In the Home tab, click on Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts.
- Click “New Rule.”
- Select “Apply Rule On Messages I Receive” and click the “Next” button.
- Scroll down and select “With Specific Words In The Sender’s Address”.
- Click the underlined “Specific Words” (bottom panel).
- Add the domain you need to receive alerts for (@therequireddomain.co.uk) and click OK. The domain will replace “Specific Words”. Then click “Next”.
- Choose whether you require a sound played, an alert displayed, or both, and then click “Finish.”
- In “Rules and Alerts”, click “Apply” to turn on the rule.
Freeing-up space and getting rid of junk files can help a PC perform faster and better. Here’s how to use the built-in Window 'Disk Cleanup’ tool to find and delete those old junk files:
- In the Start menu, search for Disk Cleanup, and select Disk Cleanup.
- Wait for Disk Cleanup to analyse the selected drive.
- In the Disk Cleanup window, choose the files you’d like to remove from your computer, and select OK at the bottom.
- Select Delete Files in the prompt that appears.
- You may not want to delete ESD files because although it will free-up lots of space, these files are important for resetting a PC to factory settings.
A Helsinki startup has developed a 'Medicine-as-a-Service’ system where drugs can be 3D printed to exactly match the needs of the patient in terms of their size, physiology, species, plus any allergies.
CurifyLabs
According to CurifyLabs, the startup that has created the system, there is one big drawback to the existing methods of administering medication. CurifyLabs says that the pharma industry’s capital-intensive processes to produce large volumes of tablets that are identical in dose, shape and size mean that these tablets may be unsuitable for treating patient populations who need more individualised treatments.
For example, these include:
– Pets, the variety of which varies widely and each species may need different size/shape tablets for different conditions.
– Children, because they have specific needs due their small body weight.
– The elderly, who often have trouble swallowing.
– Any patient group who currently have a very limited amount of suitable treatment options and benefit from tailored dosage forms and/or must have allergen-free treatments.
These issues mean that many current drug treatments are suboptimal for these groups, resulting in undesirable side effects and poor treatment efficacy.
The Solution? Curify MiniLab
According to Curify, the answer is to develop a small-scale manufacturing system which can be used effectively in a busy pharmacy and that can produce personalised medicines of any size, shape, or flavour to exactly meet the needs of niche patient groups.
The Curify MiniLab, which looks a bit like a small, stainless steel-finished fridge/microwave size cabinet with lab technology and tools inside enables on-site, sustainable, on-demand manufacture of medicines, customised to provide effective treatment for all patients. It can be used, for example, in pharmacies (it’s targeted primarily at pharmacists), clinics, veterinary practices, and other locations where tablets need to be dispensed.
Technology
Some of the key tech elements of MiniLab are:
– A user-friendly platform which the company says, “turns pharmacy compounding into a digital experience”.
– 3D printing technology, giving control over the composition of tablets.
– A built-in quality control system and technology that allows printing directly into blister packs.
Benefits
Some of the key benefits of using the MiniLab are, for example:
– It could provide more effective treatments with fewer side effect risks for niche patient groups.
– It’s automated and seamless so requires less attention/time from human workers and eliminates the human error risk (in the manufacturing process).
– The precise, small batch production of pills mean less wastage.
– Being a self-contained, digitised unit with built-in quality control, it makes it easier and quicker to make high quality, targeted medicines, as and when required.
– It’s adaptable with a lot of scope, i.e. it can be used for many different niche patient groups, human or animal.
– Printing pills straight into blister packs makes it safer, i.e. no risks from human handling.
– With the system being digital, this removes the need for manual paperwork (saving time and wastage) and enhance efficiency.
What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?
Although the MiniLab is essentially targeted at pharmacies, giving them a fast, less labour-intensive way to more closely meet the needs of niche patient groups, it could be used in many other medical/clinical settings. This product is an example of how leveraging a combination of technologies can have the potential to solve not just long-standing treatment problems but could have significant human benefits too.
It is also another example of how, as in so many industries now, 3D printers are being used innovative ways to simplify manufacturing challenges. If this product (and others like it) proves to be successful, it may even change how we treat illness and lead to medicines that treat you as an individual by tailoring drugs to precisely to your body. In doing so, as highlighted by Curify, it may “remodel the world of health”.
Following warnings about threats posed by the rapid growth of AI, the US White House has reported that seven leading AI companies have committed to developing safeguards.
Voluntary Commitments Made
A recent White House fact sheet has highlighted how, in a bid to manage the risks posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and to protect Americans’ rights and safety, President Biden met with and secured voluntary commitments from seven leading AI companies “to help move toward safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technology”.
The companies who have made the voluntary commitments are Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
What Commitments?
In order to improve safety, security, and trust, and to help develop responsible AI, the voluntary commitments from the companies are:
Ensuring Products are Safe Before Introducing Them to the Public
– Internal and external security testing of their AI systems before their release, carried out in part by independent experts, to guard against AI risks like biosecurity and cybersecurity.
– Sharing information across the industry and with governments, civil society, and academia on managing AI risks, e.g. best practices for safety, information on attempts to circumvent safeguards, and technical collaboration.
Building Systems that Put Security First
– Investing in cybersecurity and insider threat safeguards to protect proprietary and unreleased model weights (regarded as the most essential part of an AI system). The model weights will be released only when intended and when security risks are considered.
– Facilitating third-party discovery and reporting of vulnerabilities in their AI systems, e.g. putting a robust reporting mechanism in place to enable vulnerabilities to be found and fixed quickly.
Earning the Public’s Trust
– Developing robust technical mechanisms to ensure that users know when content is AI generated, such as a watermarking system, thereby enabling creativity AI while reducing the dangers of fraud and deception.
– Publicly reporting their AI systems’ capabilities, limitations, and areas of appropriate and inappropriate use, covering both security risks and societal risks (e.g. the effects on fairness and bias).
– Prioritising research on the societal risks that AI systems can pose, including those on avoiding harmful bias and discrimination, and protecting privacy.
– Developing and deploying advanced AI systems to help address society’s greatest challenges, e.g. cancer prevention, mitigating climate change, thereby (hopefully) contributing to the prosperity, equality, and security of all.
To Be Able To Spot AI-Generated Content Easily
One of the key aspects of more obvious issues of risk associated with AI is the fact that people need to be able to definitively tell the difference between real content and AI generated content. This could help mitigate the risk of people falling victim to fraud and scams involving deepfakes or believing misinformation and disinformation spread using AI deepfakes which could have wider political and societal consequences.
One example of how this may be achieved, with the help of the AI companies, is the use of watermarks. This refers to embedding a digital marking in images and videos which is not visible to the human eye but can be read by certain software and algorithms and give information about whether it’s been produced by AI. Watermarks could help in tackling all kinds of issues including passing-off, plagiarism, stopping the spread of false information, tackling cybercrime (scams and fraud), and more.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Although AI is a useful business tool, the rapid growth-rate of AI has outstripped the pace of regulation. This has led to fears about the risks of AI when used to deceive, spread falsehoods, and commit crime (scams and fraud) as well as the bigger threats such as political manipulation, societal destabilisation, and even the existential threat to humanity. This, in-turn, has led to the first stage action. Governments, particularly, need to feel that they can get the lid partially back on the “genie’s bottle” so that they can at least ensure safeguards are built-in early-on to mitigate risks and threats.
The Biden administration getting at least some wide-ranging voluntary commitments from the Big AI companies is, therefore, a start. Given that many of signatories to the open letter calling for 6-month moratorium on systems more powerful that GPT-4 were engineers from those big tech companies, it’s also a sign that more action may not be too far behind. Ideas like watermarking look a likely option and no doubt there’ll be more ideas.
AI is transforming businesses in a positive way although many also fear how the automation it offers could result in big job losses, thereby affecting economies. This early stage is, therefore, the best time to make a real start in building in the right controls and regulations that allow the best aspects of AI to flourish and keep the negative aspects in check, but this complex subject clearly has a long way to run.
In this tech insight, we look at what customer journey mapping is, its benefits, the challenges of using it, and also we look at some of the popular customer journey mapping software solutions available.
What Is Customer Journey Mapping?
Customer journey mapping refers to a strategic process (that’s used by marketers) to visualise and understand the complete experience of a customer interacting with a product, service, or brand from the customer’s perspective. It’s a visual representation of the different interactions customers have with your brand, product, or service until they decide to purchase it from your business (and what happens beyond).
Identifying Key Interactions
The customer journey mapping process involves identifying key interactions that the customer has with the organisation, understanding the customer’s feelings, motivations, and questions at each step, and recognising opportunities for improvement.
The map typically starts from the initial awareness or need recognition stage, through various touchpoints such as research, purchase, and post-purchase experiences, ending with loyalty or advocacy.
Who Does It?
Broadly speaking, it’s used by marketing teams because they are directly involved in understanding and communicating with the target audience. Also, customer journey mapping can give marketers the kind of deeper understanding of customers’ experiences that enables them to improve how they target and serve prospects, which can ultimately deliver increased sales and loyalty.
More specifically, customer journey mapping is also carried out by:
– Product managers and development teams who use it to ensure that the product or service meets the customers’ needs and expectations at every point.
– Customer experience (CX) professionals, i.e. those specialising in understanding and improving the interaction between an organisation and its customers, and who want to identify gaps in the customer experience.
– User experience (UX) designers. These focus on the usability and overall experience of digital interfaces and tend to use journey maps to visualise how users interact with a website or app and identify areas for improvement.
– Service designers / those involved in designing and improving entire service processes, who use customer journey mapping to ensure that every touchpoint is optimised for the best customer experience.
– Senior managers who may also be involved in producing and reviewing the customer journey maps to make strategic decisions that align with customer needs and organisational goals.
Why Use It?
Some of the key reasons for conducting customer journey mapping include:
– Enhancing customer understanding, i.e. helping organisations to see things from a customer’s viewpoint, leading to deeper insights into their needs and preferences.
– Identifying 'pain points’ and bottlenecks – where customers face difficulties or get stuck, thereby allowing for prioritisation of improvements.
– Improving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy by addressing issues and optimising the journey.
– Aligning teams around the customer experience by providing a shared understanding across departments.
– Driving and informing strategic business strategies and decisions, such as for product development, and service improvements that align with delivering customer value.
– Optimising 'touchpoints’ and channels – helping understand and optimise interactions and leveraging high-performing channels for a cohesive experience.
– Identifying gaps in the marketing strategy, e.g. by revealing channels and touchpoints that aren’t being used effectively, thus offering opportunities for optimisation.
Common Challenges
Although customer journey mapping can be very useful and deliver some important insights, it’s not without its challenges. For example, some popular challenges faced by marketers trying to use this type of mapping effectively include:
– Distinguishing fact from assumption. It’s crucial to rely on data to ensure the journey map accurately reflects actual customer behaviours rather than assumptions about how customers might interact with the company.
– Ensuring map accuracy. Inaccurate mapping can lead to misguided strategic decisions, potentially wasting resources and missing key opportunities to enhance the customer experience.
– Incorporating all touchpoints. For example, customers may interact with a brand through quite a variety of channels and actions, making it challenging to capture and understand every possible step in their journey.
– Dealing with the complexity of such a map. Comprehensive journey maps can become very detailed and complex, making them difficult to create, understand, and use effectively.
– Keeping maps updated. This is because customer behaviours and preferences evolve over time, necessitating regular updates to the journey maps to keep them relevant and useful.
– Tracking improvements. Once changes are made based on journey map insights, it’s important to measure their impact to ensure they’re driving the desired outcomes.
– Resource intensiveness. The process of creating, maintaining, and updating customer journey maps can be time-consuming and require significant effort from various team members, straining marketing resources.
– Adapting to digital tools. While traditional paper-based mapping can be cumbersome, transitioning to digital tools for journey mapping (i.e. customer journey mapping software), may involve a learning-curve and require additional resources.
Tackling The Challenges By Using Customer Journey Mapping Software
As mentioned above, customer journey mapping software offers several key benefits to tackle the challenges of journey mapping efficiently, such as:
– Real-time data Integration, i.e. it enables accurate, live reflections of customers’ behaviour, facilitating quick strategic adjustments.
– Dynamic viewing and filtering. It simplifies the updating process, allows for easy navigation of insights, and supports decision-making with filterable maps.
– It helps deliver personalised experiences / tailored customer journeys by segment, improving conversion and satisfaction rates through continuous optimisation.
– Efficiency and simplicity, thereby transforming previously time-consuming tasks into quick and straightforward processes, eliminating the need for physical mapping materials.
– Enhanced collaboration by facilitating sharing across the organisation, allowing teams to focus on relevant touchpoints and insights, promoting a customer-centric culture.
Popular Customer Journey Mapping Software
Here are some examples of popular customer journey mapping software options for businesses and organisations of different sizes, some of whose names you may already be familiar with (particularly Microsoft):
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
This provides an AI-driven customer data platform that combines customer journey mapping with actionable insights, predictive analytics, and personalisation options. Since it’s from Microsoft, a significant advantage is that it integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products that a businesses probably already uses. It’s perhaps most suitable for medium to large enterprises looking for a comprehensive solution that not only maps customer journeys but also leverages AI to drive decision-making and personalised customer engagements.
HubSpot
Features/benefits include integrating customer journey mapping with CRM, marketing, sales, and service hubs, offering a comprehensive view of the customer journey. Features include email marketing, lead management, analytics, and automation tools.
This platform is suitable for businesses of all sizes due to its scalable platform, while HubSpot is particularly beneficial for those looking to integrate their customer journey mapping with a broader inbound marketing and sales strategy.
Salesforce Journey Builder
Part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, this tool allows for the creation of personalised customer journeys across various channels and devices. It offers powerful segmentation capabilities, real-time interaction management, and analytics.
Salesforce Journey Builder may be ideal for medium to large businesses already invested in the Salesforce ecosystem, seeking to leverage advanced customer journey mapping with extensive customisation and integration options.
Miro
This is a collaborative online whiteboard platform that’s quite versatile, enabling the visual mapping of customer journeys, brainstorming sessions, and project planning. It supports real-time collaboration, making it easy to work with teams remotely. Miro is well-suited for businesses of all sizes, especially those that value collaboration and flexibility in their planning and customer experience design processes.
Smaply
This software offers detailed journey maps, persona creation, and stakeholder maps. It’s designed to provide a clear visualisation of customer experiences, including pain points and emotions, with exportable and shareable maps. Smaply may be best suited to SMEs or teams within larger organisations focused on service design and customer experience improvement projects.
Adobe Experience Platform
This is a robust platform capable of delivering personalised customer experiences at scale, with real-time customer profiles, predictive analytics, and cross-channel journey orchestration. It’s probably ideal for large enterprises that require a powerful platform to manage complex customer journeys and deliver personalised experiences across various touchpoints.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
For UK businesses, the use of customer journey mapping (and popular customer journey mapping software) is helping to meet the need for a more nuanced understanding of the customer experience. By being able to clearly visualise the entire journey from initial awareness through to loyalty and advocacy, businesses can gain invaluable insights into customer interactions, pain points, and so-called 'moments of delight.’ This strategic process not only helps businesses gain a deeper comprehension of customer needs and preferences but also highlights areas for improvement. In this way, it can help drive strategic decisions that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty which, of course, can be of huge benefit to businesses.
Customer journey mapping software offers a way to address the common challenges associated with traditional mapping methods, i.e. it gives real-time data integration, dynamic viewing, and filtering capabilities, plus the ability to deliver personalised experiences. These software tools streamline the mapping process, making it faster, more accurate, and less resource-intensive, and facilitate collaboration across departments, ensuring a unified approach to improving the customer experience.
Businesses not currently leveraging customer journey mapping (software) therefore stand to gain a competitive edge by adopting it. The insights derived from journey maps can guide more effective marketing strategies, product development, and customer service improvements. Also, the use of customer journey mapping software can significantly reduce the time and effort required to create and maintain accurate maps, thereby saving costs, reducing risk, and allowing businesses to quickly adapt to changes in customer behaviour and market conditions.
In summary then, customer journey-mapping and the adoption of specialised software to facilitate this process offer businesses the opportunity to transform their understanding of the customer experience which can translate into greater business success. In a landscape where customer expectations are ever-evolving, the ability to swiftly and effectively respond to these changes is not just advantageous but essential.
Former US President Donald Trump has claimed that Apple CEO Tim Cook recently called him to voice frustrations over financial penalties imposed by the European Union (EU) on the tech giant. According to Mr Trump, Cook is alarmed by the EU’s regulatory approach, including a significant tax penalty and other fines affecting Apple’s operations within the bloc.
The claim, made during Mr Trump’s appearance on the PBD Podcast, follows a contentious period for Apple and other tech companies under the EU’s stringent competition and digital service rules. For example, in September, Apple lost a significant legal battle over €13bn (£11bn) in unpaid taxes, with the EU’s highest court upholding the European Commission’s accusation of unlawful tax benefits provided by Ireland. Cook, as Mr Trump conveyed, criticised these findings as politically motivated.
Mr Trump recounted that Cook specifically highlighted a recent $15bn fine, with additional charges reportedly raising the total to around $17-18bn. This includes a €1.8bn fine issued earlier this year over alleged breaches in music streaming competition, favouring rival services like Spotify. Cook reportedly expressed frustration over the EU using these fines as revenue, accusing the bloc of building an “enterprise” out of antitrust penalties.
The European Commission, however, has defended its approach, stating that fines for competition breaches are not only punitive but also serve as a deterrent. A Commission spokesperson highlighted that the fines contribute to the EU’s general budget, indirectly reducing the tax burden on citizens. This response reflects the EU’s firm stance that companies operating in Europe must respect its laws and competition standards.
Mr Trump also mentioned ongoing conversations with other tech leaders, including Google’s Sundar Pichai and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, as part of his campaign outreach to prominent figures in the tech sector. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and owner of X (formerly Twitter) has also shown support for Mr Trump, who has been vocal in his criticism of the EU’s stringent digital regulations, promising changes should he return to the White House.
As Mr Trump continues to engage with tech executives, regulatory pressures on tech companies in the EU are likely to remain a significant point of contention. With new regulations such as the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, the EU is signalling a continued commitment to reining in large tech platforms, which could lead to further scrutiny and financial repercussions for major firms operating within its borders.
Here we take a look at a dozen of the biggest announcements from Google I/O 2025, where AI took centre stage across everything from search and app design to video creation, smart wearables and healthcare tools.
What Is Google I/O 2025?
Every May, Google brings developers, media, and industry insiders together at its annual I/O conference (short for “Input/Output” and “Innovation in the Open”). The 2025 edition took place on 14 May at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, next door to Google HQ.
As expected, the event was streamed globally, but this year’s show took a decisive turn. It wasn’t just a developer preview, but was a bold, all-in statement from Google that AI now underpins everything from search and productivity tools to healthcare and hardware.
This Year’s Big Themes? All Roads Lead to Gemini
If there was one consistent message at Google I/O 2025, it was that Gemini AI is no longer an add-on – it’s the engine behind Google’s future.
Whether it’s Gmail, Search, Chrome, Android or even smart glasses, it seems that Google now really wants every user interaction to be shaped, streamlined and supercharged by Gemini. That ambition was reflected in a dozen headline announcements at this year’s event, each revealing a different facet of that broader AI-first strategy.
1. Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini Flash (Two New AI Models)
Top of the bill were Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash. The Pro version boasts advanced reasoning, a new “Deep Think” mode for complex tasks, and even native audio output for conversational use. Meanwhile, Flash is designed for real-time responsiveness, which should make it ideal for fast interactions in mobile apps and dynamic websites.
Both models are already being rolled out across Google services and APIs, with Gemini 2.5 Pro now powering Google Workspace features and Gemini Flash helping developers create faster, leaner applications.
2. AI Mode Comes to Google Search (But With Ads)
Possibly the most controversial change is the arrival of AI Mode in Search. Users can now engage in dynamic conversations rather than typing one-off queries, with Gemini summarising results and suggesting follow-ups. However, it seems that the twist is that Google is inserting ads into these AI-powered replies.
That decision has (understandably) caused a few eyebrows to be raised, particularly among publishers and advertisers. That said, it could reshape how billions interact with the web, and how businesses compete for visibility.
3. Imagen 4 (An AI Image Generation Model)
Google also lifted the lid on Imagen 4, its latest text-to-image model. This version produces higher-resolution, more photo-realistic results with better handling of textures, shadows, and complex details like glass and water.
Imagen 4 is now available via the Gemini app and Google Workspace, making it easier to insert AI-generated visuals directly into Docs, Slides, or marketing content.
4. 'Flow’ AI Powered Video Creation
Following OpenAI’s moves in generative video, Google unveiled 'Flow’, a new AI-powered video editing and generation tool. It combines elements from Google’s existing Imagen, Veo, and Gemini models to help users design scenes, animate characters, and apply edits, all just by using natural language.
Although aimed at creators and marketing teams, Google says Flow could also appeal to educators and internal communications professionals. A limited beta will roll out later in 2025.
5. 'Beam’ – The New Name for Project Starline
It seems that what began as an R&D curiosity in 2021 is finally nearing market release. 'Beam’ is Google’s rebranded 3D teleconferencing platform, designed to offer life-size, high-fidelity video calls using advanced AI rendering and custom hardware.
Expected to launch in late 2025, Beam will first be trialled with enterprise customers via Google Meet integrations. It’s pitched as a serious upgrade to remote working, though pricing and hardware requirements remain unclear.
6. Stitch – Designing Apps With AI
'Stitch’ is a new AI assistant that helps developers and designers rapidly mock up app interfaces. It uses Gemini to recommend UI layouts, generate components, and even fill in dummy content. This could prove especially useful for prototyping, hackathons, or client pitches.
Stitch is now available in preview via Firebase Studio, with integration into Android Studio expected soon.
7. SynthID Detector For Spotting AI-Generated Content
To address growing concerns about AI-generated misinformation, Google introduced SynthID Detector. It’s a verification tool that checks whether images, audio, video (or even text) carry watermarks embedded by Google’s AI models.
This builds on Google DeepMind’s original SynthID system and reflects broader industry moves towards watermarking and provenance standards. The tool will be freely available to researchers and select enterprise partners later this year.
8. Google’s Multimodal AI Assistant 'Project Astra’
Another show-stealer was Project Astra, a real-time AI assistant that combines video, voice, and text to interpret what you’re doing and respond accordingly.
It may be best to think of it as Gemini’s next evolution, capable of recognising a user’s environment through their phone’s camera, answering questions about what it sees, and even predicting the user’s next action. Still experimental, but expected to underpin future Android features and wearables.
9. MedGemma and AMIE (AI in Healthcare)
Google’s AI push now extends firmly into healthcare. With this in mind, it unveiled two tools:
– MedGemma, a model trained on both medical images and text, capable of assisting in diagnosis and triage.
– AMIE (AI Medical Interview Engine), which can conduct diagnostic conversations and interpret patient visuals.
While not ready for deployment just yet, both are being trialled with healthcare providers and researchers.
10. Gemini in Chrome For Context-Aware Web Assistance
Gemini is also coming to Google Chrome, where it can provide context-aware summaries, explanations and suggestions as the user browses. This turns the browser into an interactive assistant that understands what a user’s doing in real time (similar to Microsoft’s Copilot in Edge).
A developer preview is rolling out now, with broader availability expected by late summer.
11. Android XR and Smart Glasses
In partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm, Google announced Android XR, a new platform for extended reality experiences. As part of this push, the company confirmed it is developing new AI-powered smart glasses, with real-time translation and contextual information overlays.
This marks Google’s first serious return to the wearables / smart glasses market since the early Google Glass days, and could be pivotal as Apple, Meta, and others ramp up their own wearable platforms.
12. Android Auto Gets Smarter
Rounding off this list are several updates to Android Auto, including:
– Spotify Jam integration.
– Support for video apps and web browsers (while parked).
– A new Light Mode interface for better visibility.
This reinforces Google’s push into connected vehicles, an increasingly strategic domain as competition with Apple and Amazon heats up.
What Does This Say About Google in 2025?
This year’s I/O wasn’t just a showcase of new toys, but appeared to be a full declaration of intent. Google seems to be betting that AI will redefine every user interaction, and it’s restructuring its entire product ecosystem around Gemini to make that happen.
From an enterprise perspective, the implications are huge. For example, tools like Flow, Stitch, and Imagen 4 offer businesses faster ways to produce content, design interfaces, and automate creative work. Also, Beam and AI Mode signal new frontiers for remote working and customer engagement.
However, some questions remain. For example, the insertion of ads into AI-powered search has already sparked criticism from publishers who fear revenue losses. Privacy advocates are also watching closely, especially with the expansion of camera-based assistants like Astra and wearable tech.
That said, for most users (especially businesses) the message from Google appears to be 'prepare for a more AI-shaped Google’. Also, if you’re not already using Gemini in some form, the chances are you soon will be.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Taken together, these dozen announcements from Google I/O 2025 seem to show Google repositioning itself as an AI-first company in both name and nature. If so, this isn’t just a cosmetic rebrand or a handful of feature upgrades. It’s a fundamental reimagining of the company’s product line, embedding AI deeply into every experience, every device, and every service it touches.
For UK businesses, tools like Imagen 4, Stitch, Flow, and Gemini for Chrome could help streamline marketing, design and customer engagement tasks, hopefully offering significant productivity gains for companies of all sizes. Early adopters may well find they can reduce content creation time, speed up product development, and respond more intelligently to customer needs. However, the introduction of ads into AI-powered search results could force marketers to rethink their SEO strategies and advertising budgets, particularly as Google’s search experience becomes more curated and conversational.
More broadly, the announcements reflect Google’s intent to compete hard on multiple fronts, i.e. not just with OpenAI in text and image generation, but with Apple and Meta in wearables, Microsoft in productivity AI, and Amazon in the smart car and assistant space. The development of smart glasses and extended reality platforms suggests Google is ready to push its ecosystem beyond screens and keyboards, potentially reshaping how users, consumers, and workers interact with digital content altogether.
That said, the road ahead may not be entirely smooth. There are already valid concerns about the transparency of AI-generated results, the risks of bias or hallucination, and the implications of AI-driven advertising. Tools like SynthID and Project Astra offer a glimpse of how Google might manage those risks, but for regulators, publishers, privacy groups and end users, trust will need to be earned, not just declared.
Still, the scale and coherence of Google’s announcements at I/O 2025 suggest a company that has moved past experimentation and into execution. For anyone building, marketing, communicating or working online, especially in fast-moving sectors, this year’s developments appear to be a clear sign that the tools, workflows and digital environments we all rely on may soon be fundamentally reshaped by AI, whether we’re ready or not.
MI5 is using a 'Think before You Link’ campaign to warn its workers about the growing threat of being targeted for information by actors for hostile states using fake profiles on platforms such as LinkedIn.
Think before You Link
It has been reported that MI5 believes that more than 10,000 British nationals have been targeted online in the past five years by hostile states. With this in mind, the UK’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), an offshoot of MI5, has launched a 'Think before You Link’ campaign. The idea of the campaign is to provide practical advice on how to identify, respond to, and minimise the risk of being targeted by criminals and hostile actors who may act anonymously or dishonestly online in an attempt to connect with people who have access to valuable and sensitive information.
LinkedIn?
Although LinkedIn has not been explicitly named as a platform that is being used/could be used, LinkedIn has said in a statement published on its news page that “We welcome the online safety efforts of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and its work to expand their Think Before You Link campaign in the United Kingdom”. The statement goes on to say that “We actively seek out signs of state-sponsored activity on the platform and quickly take action against bad actors in order to protect our members” highlighting how it has a “Threat Intelligence team” to remove fake accounts.
Who?
The campaign is aimed at those who “Identify as an employee or member of HMG or Civil Service” or “Identify as working in the private sector or academia with access to classified or commercially sensitive technology or research”. These could include (among others) retired civil servants with access to technology relating to defence/defence equipment.
What?
CPNI (MI5) suggests that once links are made online with fake profiles (e.g. with LinkedIn), social manipulation could occur as business proposals/propositions could be made that require information to be given that could be of use to criminal actors/hostile states. For example, this could take the form of an invitation (paid) to speak at a conference/event as an expert, which could involve linking online with relevant people, submitting a CV and background information. This could also lead to bribery or blackmail.
Damage
According to CPNI, the risk of engaging with such profiles is 'damage’ to individual careers, damage to the interests of the person’s organisation, and damage to the interests of UK national security and prosperity. This appears to be a way of warning those with national security-related work roles not to unwittingly put themselves in a position where they may give away secrets of valuable (to other states) information online.
Campaign Materials
The 'Think before You Link’ campaign is using guidance for staff and organisations, flyers, poster sets, and videos to explain and illustrate the risks and what to do to minimise them.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
With current difficult relations between the UK, the U.S. (and all the Five Eyes) and what are now seen as hostile or potentially hostile states (e.g. Russia and China), trade wars (US and China), cyberattacks on state agencies and big businesses as well as to get vaccine secrets, online interference in elections, and chemical weapon usage (poisonings) have all contributed to the apparent need to warn of approaches by hostile actors via social media. Remote working and physical separation during the pandemic have also made the need for this warning more urgent as the numbers of targeted social manipulation attempts have grown over the last year. Businesses with access to classified or commercially sensitive technology or research, or who have working relationships with academia, or with experts in certain fields (e.g. defence), may need to be particularly cautious when it comes to approaches by new or little-known friends and connections on social media.
It is believed that a string of hacks carried out on identity and access management company Okta, were the work of teenage cyber-gang Lapsus$, believed to be led by a UK-based 16 year-old. The hacks are thought to have resulted in the theft of confidential information, which could affect thousands of companies. Lapsus$, which is reported to have previously breached Microsft's defences, is known for extortion, and it is likely that the motivation for the attack was money and reputation-building.
In this insight, we take a closer look at the new alternative positioning system to GPS that is accurate to within an incredible 10 centimetres.
Issues With Current GPS System
Society heavily relies on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like GPS for positioning and navigation, as well as the distribution of time and frequency reference signals. Although current GPS works reasonably well and has a high economic value, it has some limitations. These include:
– It uses satellites. This can mean that when received on Earth, radio signals can be weak, thereby affecting the usability of GPS positioning.
– GPS can be unreliable in urban areas because buildings block the radio signals. This has implications for location-based applications, navigation devices, and for new technologies like automated vehicles.
– GPS often doesn’t work in indoor settings due to radio waves being blocked by physical barriers, e.g. walls and other objects.
– The narrowband GNSS-signals (used in GPS) offer lower data rate transmissions, i.e. slower communication.
– There is no back-up system to GPS.
SuperGPS
'SuperGPS’ is the new system developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and VSL. SuperGPS was specifically developed to tackle many of the limitations of GPS and to work as a hybrid optical-wireless system for accurate positioning, navigation and network synchronisation for many applications.
How It Works
Instead of using satellites, SuperGPS uses fibre-optic connections in the telecom network, synchronised to an accurate optical atomic Master clock, and the system uses wideband radio signals, rather than today’s narrowband GNSS-signals. This creates a synchronised optical network which serves as a backbone for a wireless enhanced terrestrial positioning system.
The Benefits
The benefits of SuperGPS compared to GPS are:
– It could be more accurate and stable. The SuperGPS researchers say that it has 10-centimetre accuracy compared to (the several metres of) GPS, with greater stability.
– It works where GPS doesn’t, i.e. it works in circumstances in which satellite navigation is not available, or only with strongly reduced performance.
– Its simultaneous data, time and frequency transfer offers two important systems in one, i.e. connectivity like the existing mobile and Wi-Fi network, and accurate positioning and time distribution like GPS.
– Futureproofing. It offers the kind accurately synchronised infrastructure that will be needed for future applications of wireless terrestrial positioning systems, appropriate signal processing and positioning techniques.
– SuperGPS uses the existing fibre-optic connections in the telecom network, thereby speeding up its introduction and keeping costs down.
Applications
Currently, GPS has a relatively wide variety of applications including communications networks, banking systems, financial markets, and power grids, logistical supply chain management, precise time synchronisation, wireless services, personal devices including mobile phones and watches, and more.
It is hoped that the new, more accurate SuperGPS with stronger, more reliable signals will deliver many new benefits for personal smart devices, industry and e-commerce, wireless Internet (4G+), Cm level positioning, science, quantum communication, and new/emerging technologies like smart highways and autonomous vehicles.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
The reliance upon satellites in the current GPS system can mean that weak signals being blocked by buildings and other objects can affect its reliability and accuracy. The new SuperGPS system’s use of fibre-optic networks, increased speed and accuracy mean that it could offer a much more stable, reliable, and effective earth-based localised alternative. These benefits, along with its two-in-one simultaneous connectivity, coupled with accurate positioning and time distribution give it the kind of scope that is needed for next level communications and new technologies like autonomous vehicles. Putting this kind of improved infrastructure in place could boost industries like autonomous vehicles, have positive knock-on efficiency effects across many industries, plus lay a foundation for a whole new realm of innovation.
Elon Musk has stated that his x social media platform will cover the legal expenses and initiate lawsuits on behalf of individuals who have been treated “unfairly “by their employers due to posts or likes on the site, previously known as Twitter. Presumably, he is trying to reinvent champion the platform as a bastion of free speech and everything seems to be getting turned upside down, so with Elon Musk re-branding Twitter, we look at why the rebrand has happened, and what rebrands can do for companies.
As an aside, the symbol x is part of the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block in Unicode. It represents a double-struck capital letter X. In mathematics, double-struck letters are often used to represent special sets or spaces. For example, the double-struck capital letter R (ℝ) is commonly used to denote the set of real numbers, and the double-struck capital letter C (ℂ) is used for the set of complex numbers.
The symbol x itself might not have a universally recognised meaning, but it could be used in a specific context within mathematics or physics to represent a particular set or space.
For ease, we’ll stick to “X” for the remainder of this context.
From Twitter To X – What Happened?
At the end of July, Twitter replaced its familiar blue bird logo with a white X on a black background. The change is now visible in all Twitter/X accounts. What were termed 'tweets’ will now be called “x’s.”
A Slight Hiccup
In one unfortunate incident during the rapid re-brand, the replacing of the new sign at Twitter’s/X’s San Francisco headquarters was interrupted as the police were called over a 'mistake’ about a possible unpermitted street closure.
Why Rebrand?
Elon Musk explained the reason for the rebrand as: “Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app.” This indicates Musk’s intention to turn what was Twitter into a 'super app’ such as China’s 'WeChat’.
Super apps, like WeChat, are essentially like several apps rolled into one, thereby allowing the user to open just one app to do almost everything, e.g. from messaging, payments and manging subscriptions to paying bills, ordering groceries, buying travel tickets, and more.
Creating a super app called 'X’ was something Elon Musk had in mind when he bought Twitter, saying that buying the social media platform was an “accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
As Musk went on to explain in a tweet / an x: “This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing. The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video. In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”
Other Reasons?
It’s true that Musk was eyeing the super app / everything app idea when he took over Twitter, but he may also feel the time is right for a change following the many troubles and bad headlines since he took over. For example, job cuts (moderators, bosses, and workers), warnings from America’s Federal Trade Commission, key advertising partners leaving Twitter followed by a massive 68 per cent drop in media traffic, Microsoft dropping Twitter from its advertising platform, and a user vote wanting replace Musk have been just some of the high-profile bumps in the road. The decisive factor that may have helped accelerate the rebrand may well be Meta’s success in launching a competitor to Twitter in 'Threads’ which gained 100 million sign-ups in just five days.
To Re-Brand Or Not To Re-Brand?
Rebranding for Twitter, given its high profile and what’s at stake, could be seen as a high-risk move, or an opportunity to move forward in a new and better direction.
Rebranding can have both positive and negative outcomes for companies. Here are some of the main strengths and weaknesses of rebranding. For example, some of the key strengths of rebranding are:
– A Fresh Start. Rebranding can allow companies to reinvent themselves and start anew. It can breathe new life into a stagnant or declining brand or (hopefully) help a company to get away from negative associations with the previous brand or something negative it may have been involved in and made the news for.
– Differentiation. A successful rebranding can help a company stand out from competitors and help to emphasise their USP(s) and positioning.
– Market Expansion. A re-brand can facilitate entry into new markets by adapting the brand to suit the preferences and cultural nuances of different regions.
– Relevance. Rebranding can make a brand more relevant to current trends and consumer preferences, thereby appealing to a broader audience.
– Publicity and Attention. A well-executed rebranding generates media coverage and attention, which can increase brand awareness and engagement.
There are, however, some well-known weaknesses of re-branding. These can include:
– Brand Confusion. A poorly executed rebranding can confuse existing customers, leading to a decline in customer loyalty and sales.
– Costs. Of course, a rebranding exercise can be very expensive, involving changes to logos, packaging, marketing materials, and more. If not managed well, it could strain financial resources.
– Loss of Brand Equity. Unfortunately, rebranding may also lead to the loss of accumulated brand equity, especially if the new image does not resonate with the target audience.
– Negative Associations. Rebranding may not always succeed in shedding negative associations linked to the previous brand identity.
– Market Resistance. In some cases, consumers may be resistant to change, and a drastic rebranding can alienate loyal customers, leading to a temporary dip in sales.
Examples Of Where Re-Brandings Have Gone Well, And Not So Well…
Re-branding is not particularly uncommon and, in fact, as part of perhaps playing down his decision to rebrand Twitter, Elon Musk shared a Tweet by Jon Erlichman (from Bloomberg) who listed many examples of now well-known brands that resulted from re-brands. For example: “Amazon: Cadabra Best Buy: Sound of Music eBay: Auction Web Facebook: Meta Google: BackRub Instagram: Burbn Netflix: Kibble Nike: Blue Ribbon Sports Pepsi: Brad’s Drink Playboy: Stag Party 7-Eleven: Tote’m Stores Snapchat: Picaboo Starbucks: Cargo House Target: Goodfellow Tinder: Matchbox”.
Interestingly, Elon Musk’s original online banking business was called x.com before it was rebranded to PayPal in 2000 and you may recall that (before it was required to be changed by law) Musk’s baby was originally called X (First name) AE A-XII (Middle name) Musk. Clearly the symbol has significant meaning for Mr Musk!
It’s true, of course, that there are many examples of where rebranding has helped and tuned out well but, unfortunately, there are examples of where things haven’t gone to plan at all. With this in mind, here are a few high profile examples from recent history:
Rebrands that went well ….
– A very famous one – Apple’s rebranding in the late 1990s is often cited as a successful example. They shifted from the colourful Apple logo and a confusing product lineup to a minimalistic, monochromatic logo and a focused product range. This move emphasised simplicity, which resonated with consumers and helped to contribute to their resurgence.
– In 2011, Starbucks dropped the word “Coffee” from its logo, symbolising their expansion beyond coffee products. This rebranding showcased their diversification into other beverages and food items. The change was subtle but effective, signalling the company’s evolving identity.
– Uber rebranded in 2016, shifting from the black “U” logo to a new design featuring a white circle and stylised “Uber” text. This rebranding aimed to represent the company’s global presence and versatility. It was generally well-received and helped signify a more mature and evolved brand.
Rebrands that didn’t go quite so well …
– In one that many people might remember, in 2001, the UK’s postal service, Royal Mail, underwent a rebranding to become “Consignia.” The rebranding was supposed to emphasise the company’s expansion into a broader range of logistics and communication services. However, the name change received widespread criticism and confusion from the public. The decision was expensive, and within a year, due to the negative response and lack of public acceptance, Royal Mail reverted to its original name. The failed rebranding was considered to be a costly and embarrassing misstep for the company.
– Wonga, a (controversial) UK payday loan company in the, attempted a rebranding in 2013 to appear more responsible and customer friendly. Despite introducing a new logo and advertising campaigns, the rebranding was met with scepticism and critics argued that the underlying issues of high-interest rates and predatory lending practices were not addressed. Public perception didn’t improve, leading to regulatory challenges and reputational damage. In 2018, Wonga went into administration, showing that rebranding can fail if it doesn’t address core problems authentically.
– In 2010, Gap attempted a rebranding by introducing a new logo, replacing their iconic blue box. However, the new design received overwhelming negative feedback from consumers and the design community. As a result, Gap quickly reverted to their original logo.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Twitter’s re-brand is another big deal for the company in what has been a bumpy road since Musk took over.
Rebranding is a strategic move that has the potential can breathe new life into a company – if/when it’s done right but it’s crucial for businesses to keep some essential considerations in mind. Rebranding should serve a clear purpose and be in line with the company’s vision and values. For Twitter('X’), the re-branding appears to fit with Musk’s original vision of turning it into an 'everything app.’ It’s also essential in rebranding, however, to put the customer at the centre of the rebranding process, ensuring it resonates with the target audience.
Authenticity is a key consideration and successful rebranding addresses underlying issues and avoids superficial changes. With all that’s happened at Twitter in recent times, Musk’s tried to make this change appear as non-superficial as possible, saying the platform is going to be completely changed in scope. Planning and executing a rebranding with a strategic approach is also vital, considering all aspects of the business, and many people may have been taken a little by surprise at the sudden announcement and the contrast of twittering birds with the bold black and just a mysterious X. For re-branding, businesses must also be aware of potential risks, like customer confusion or negative perceptions, and take steps to mitigate them but with trouble at Twitter recently and with the arrival of Microsoft’s Threads, it may have been more of a case of not worrying too much about that now.
A rebranding should be seen as a long-term investment in a company’s growth and reputation and, as it has done for many companies, can yield significant benefits when done right. There are, however, many examples of where it hasn’t worked out for many large businesses and Musk is gambling with high stakes that the transformation to an 'everything app’ pays off.
It’s still early days in the rebrand – watch this space!
The US investment regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has dished out penalties totalling $400,000 to two investment companies who made misleading claims about how they used AI, a practice dubbed 'AI Washing’.
What Is AI Washing?
The term 'AI washing’ (as used by the investment regulator in this case) refers to the practice of making unsubstantiated or misleading claims about the intelligence or capabilities of a technology product, system, or service in order to give it the appearance of being more advanced (or artificially intelligent) than it actually is.
For example, this can involve overstating the role of AI in products or exaggerating the sophistication of the technology, with the goal often being to attract attention, investment, or market-share by capitalising on the hype and interest surrounding AI technologies.
What Happened?
In this case, two investment advice companies, Delphia (USA) Inc. and Global Predictions Inc., were judged by the SEC to have made false and misleading statements about their purported use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Delphia
For example, in the case of Toronto-based Delphia (USA) Inc, the SEC said that from 2019 to 2023, the firm made “false and misleading statements in its SEC filings, in a press release, and on its website regarding its purported use of AI and machine learning that incorporated client data in its investment process”. Delphia claimed that it “put[s] collective data to work to make our artificial intelligence smarter so it can predict which companies and trends are about to make it big and invest in them before everyone else.” Following the SEC’s investigation, the SEC concluded that Delphia’s statements were false and misleading because it didn’t have the AI and machine learning capabilities that it claimed. Delphia was also charged by the SEC with violating the Marketing Rule, which (among other things) prohibits a registered investment adviser from disseminating any advertisement that includes any untrue statement of material fact.
Delphia neither confirmed nor denied the SEC’s charges but agreed to pay a substantial civil penalty of $225,000.
Global Predictions
In the case of San Franciso-based Global Predictions, the SEC says it made false and misleading claims in 2023 on its website and on social media about its purported use of AI. An example cited by the SEC is that Global Predictions falsely claimed to be the “first regulated AI financial advisor” and misrepresented that its platform provided “expert AI-driven forecasts.” Like Delphia, Global Predictions was also found to have violated the Marketing Rule, falsely claiming that it offered tax-loss harvesting services and included an impermissible liability hedge clause in its advisory contract, among other securities law violations.
Following the SEC’s judgement, Global Predictions also neither confirmed nor denied it and agreed to pay a civil penalty of $175,000.
Investor Alert Issued
The cases of the two investment firms prompted the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy to issue a joint 'Investor Alert’ with the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) about artificial intelligence and investment fraud.
In the alert, the regulators highlighted the need to “make investors aware of the increase of investment frauds involving the purported use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies.”
The alert flagged up how “scammers are running investment schemes that seek to leverage the popularity of AI. Be wary of claims — even from registered firms and professionals — that AI can guarantee amazing investment returns” using “unrealistic claims like, 'Our proprietary AI trading system can’t lose!’ or 'Use AI to Pick Guaranteed Stock Winners!”
Beware 'Pump-and-Dump’ Schemes
In the alert, the regulators also warned about how “bad actors might use catchy AI-related buzzwords and make claims that their companies or business strategies guarantee huge gains” and how claims about a public company’s products and services relating to AI also might be part of a pump-and-dump scheme. This is a scheme where scammers falsely present an exaggerated view of a company’s stock through misleading positive information online, causing its price to rise as investors rush to buy. The scammers then sell their shares at this inflated price. Once they’ve made their profit and stop promoting the stock, its price crashes, leaving other investors with significant losses.
AI Deepfake Warning
The regulators also warned of how AI-enabled technology is being used to scam investors using “deepfake” video and audio. Examples of this highlighted by the regulators include:
– Using audio to try to lure older investors into thinking a grandchild is in financial distress and in need of money.
– Scammers using deepfake videos to imitate the CEO of a company announcing false news in an attempt to manipulate the price of a stock.
– Scammers using AI technology to produce realistic-looking websites or marketing materials to promote fake investments or fraudulent schemes.
– Bad actors even impersonating SEC staff and other government officials.
The regulators also highlight high scammers now often use celebrity endorsements (as they have in the UK using Martin Lewis’s name and image without consent). The SEC in the US says making an investment decision just because someone famous says a product or service is a good investment is never a good idea.
Don’t Just Rely On AI-Generated Information For Investments
In the alert, the US regulators also warn against relying solely on AI-generated information in making investment decisions, e.g. to predict changes in the stock market’s direction or the price of a security. They highlight how AI-generated information might rely on data that is inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading, or how it could be based on false or outdated information about financial, political, or other news events. Also, it could draw from false or misleading information.
Advice
The alert offers plenty of advice on how to avoid falling victim to AI-based financial and investment scams with the overriding message being that “Investment claims that sound too good to be true usually are.” The regulators stress the importance of checking credentials and claims, working with registered professionals, and making use of the regulators.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Just as a lack of knowledge about cryptocurrencies has been exploited by fraudsters in Bitcoin scams, regulators are now keen to highlight how a lack of knowledge about AI and its capabilities are now being exploited by bad actors in a similar way.
AI may have many obvious benefits, but the message here, as highlighted by the much-publicised substantial fines given to the two investment companies and the alert issued by regulators to beware 'too good to be true’ AI claims. The regulators have highlighted how AI is now being exploited for bad purposes in a number of different ways. These include deepfakes and pump-and-dump schemes, via different channels, all of which are designed to exploit the emotions and aspirations of investors, and to build trust to the point where they suspend any critical analysis of what they’re seeing and reading and react impulsively.
With generative AI (e.g. AI images, videos, and AI audio cloning) now becoming so much more realistic and advanced to the point where governments in a key election year are issuing warnings and AI models are being limited on what they can respond to (refer Gemini with election questions), the warning signs are there for financial investors. This story also serves as an example to companies to be very careful about how they represent their usage of AI, what message this gives to customers, and whether claims can be substantiated. It’s likely that we’ll see much more 'AI washing’ in the near future
Anthropic has unveiled an upgraded AI assistant, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, that can understand and interact with any desktop application in a human-like way, perhaps marking a new era of cross-platform automation and efficiency for businesses.
Anthropic?
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei. Based in San Francisco, the company focuses on developing AI systems that align with human values and safety principles.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet Can Interact With Your Computer Like A Human
Anthropic hopes its newly upgraded Claude 3.5 Sonnet is a substantial improvement over its predecessor and boasts that the new version has enhanced capabilities in coding and tool use. Most notably, it introduces a revolutionary feature now in public beta computer use. This feature enables the AI to actually interact with computer interfaces much like a human user, e.g. viewing screens, moving cursors, clicking buttons, and typing text.
As Anthropic says on its website: “Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the first frontier AI model to offer computer use in public beta”. However, the company also admits that, “At this stage, it is still experimental – at times cumbersome and error-prone. We’re releasing computer use early for feedback from developers and expect the capability to improve rapidly over time.”
What Can Claude 3.5 Sonnet Do?
With its new computer use feature, Claude 3.5 Sonnet can essentially automate tasks across various software applications without the need for specialised integrations or APIs. Developers can direct Claude to perform actions by providing instructions that the AI translates into computer commands. For example:
– Automating repetitive processes. Claude can handle mundane tasks such as data entry, form filling, or scheduling, freeing up human resources for more strategic activities.
– Software development and testing. Companies like Replit, for example, are using Claude to build features that evaluate apps during development, enhancing productivity and code quality. As Anthropic says,“Replit is using Claude 3.5 Sonnet’s capabilities with computer use and UI navigation to develop a key feature that evaluates apps as they’re being built for their Replit Agent product”.
– Complex multi-step tasks. The AI can carry out operations that require dozens or even hundreds of steps, thereby streamlining workflows that would otherwise be time-consuming.
Benefits for Business Users
The introduction of Claude 3.5 Sonnet, therefore, appears to offer several potential advantages for businesses, such as:
– Increased efficiency. Automating repetitive and complex tasks reduces operational bottlenecks.
– Cost savings. By handling tasks traditionally performed by humans, businesses can lower labour costs.
– Enhanced productivity. Employees can focus on higher-level functions that require human judgement and creativity.
– Scalability. The AI can handle increasing workloads without the need for proportional increases in staff.
Examples of Business Applications
Examples of how companies across various industries are exploring Claude’s potential include:
– Asana is using it to enhance project management by automating task assignments and updates.
– Canva is using Claude to assist in the designing and editing process, making creative tools more accessible.
– DoorDash (the US-based on-demand food delivery service) is using it to streamline logistics and order management through automated processes.
The Browser Company (a New York-based technology startup with its 'Arc’ browser) is using Clause to automate web-based workflows to improve user experience.
How Good Is It?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is reported to have demonstrated impressive results on industry benchmarks, showcasing its advanced capabilities in coding and tool usage. In the realm of coding excellence, the model improved its performance on the SWE-bench Verified benchmark from 33.4 per cent to an impressive 49.0 per cent. This leap not only marks a significant advancement over its predecessor but also surpasses all other publicly available models. Such a performance appears to show superior coding skills and its potential to handle complex programming tasks effectively.
In terms of tool use proficiency, Claude 3.5 Sonnet enhanced its scores on the TAU-bench, an agentic tool use benchmark, from 62.6 per cent to 69.2 per cent in the retail domain. This improvement appears to show the model’s increased ability to utilise tools efficiently within specific industry contexts, thereby reflecting a good level of adaptability and practical utility in real-world scenarios.
Also, GitLab tested the model for DevSecOps tasks (integrating security into software development and operations tasks) and observed notable enhancements. “GitLab found it delivered stronger reasoning—up to 10 per cent across use cases—with no added latency,” noted Anthropic. This improvement without compromising speed appears to make Claude 3.5 Sonnet a good candidate for things like powering multi-step software development processes, offering both efficiency and high-level reasoning skills.
Claude 3.5 Haiku Too
In addition to Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Anthropic says it’s set to release Claude 3.5 Haiku later this month. This AI model matches the performance of Claude 3 Opus, the company’s previous largest model, but offers similar speed and cost to the earlier Haiku version.
Claude 3.5 Haiku is particularly adept at coding tasks, scoring 40.6 per cent on SWE-bench Verified (a benchmark for coding accuracy and efficiency). Its low latency and improved instruction-following appear to make it ideal for user-facing products, specialised sub-agent tasks, and handling large volumes of personalised data.
Safety Measures and Concerns
However, while the capabilities of Claude 3.5 Sonnet may be impressive, there are some valid concerns regarding potential misuse. For example:
– The risk of malicious activities. The AI’s ability to interact with desktop applications could be exploited for harmful purposes if not properly secured.
– Some error-prone behaviour. Anthropic acknowledges that the computer use feature is still experimental and may be cumbersome or inaccurate at times.
– Data privacy. The AI’s interaction with sensitive data requires stringent security protocols to prevent breaches.
Addressing These Concerns
Anthropic has, however, taken a proactive approach to trying to address potential safety concerns surrounding Claude 3.5 Sonnet. For example, the model underwent joint pre-deployment testing by the US AI Safety Institute and the UK Safety Institute, ensuring that safety evaluations were thorough and rigorous before release.
To manage risks responsibly, Anthropic follows the ASL-2 Standard under its Responsible Scaling Policy, which aims to mitigate any catastrophic risks associated with advanced AI systems. This policy reflects some commitment to developing AI that aligns with safe and responsible practices.
Also, Anthropic has developed new classifiers to detect potentially harmful uses of the model’s computer interaction capabilities. These classifiers are designed to identify and prevent misuse, such as spam, misinformation, or fraud, ensuring that Claude’s actions remain aligned with safe and ethical standards.
As Anthropic says, “Because computer use may provide a new vector for more familiar threats such as spam, misinformation, or fraud, we’re taking a proactive approach to promote its safe deployment.”
Competitors
With the AI landscape evolving rapidly, it’s not surprising that there are several key players developing similar technologies. For example, OpenAI is working on AI agents capable of automating software tasks, with their GPT-4 model being a notable competitor. Also, Microsoft is introducing tools for building AI agents that can perform a variety of tasks across software platforms. Salesforce too is developing AI agent technology aimed at transforming customer relationship management and Amazon’s Adept is focusing on training models to navigate software and websites.
Anthropic, however, is hoping to distinguish itself through its commitment to safety and alignment with human values, aiming to balance innovation with responsibility.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
For Anthropic, the launch of an improved Claude 3.5 Sonnet marks a defining moment, potentially establishing the company as a leader in AI-driven business automation. By offering Claude’s computer interaction feature in public beta, Anthropic is positioning itself as a pioneer in cross-platform automation, a niche not yet fully realised by its competitors. This strategic move could strengthen its standing in an increasingly competitive field, as Anthropic’s focus on safety and ethical standards differentiates it from the likes of OpenAI and Microsoft. The enhanced capabilities and unique safety protocols built into Claude 3.5 Sonnet could provide Anthropic with a distinct advantage, particularly in appealing to businesses that are really set on only using the most secure and responsible AI applications. This focus may allow Anthropic to capture a segment of the market that is as concerned with AI safety as it is with productivity gains.
For competitors, Claude 3.5 Sonnet’s public beta launch raises the stakes. Companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Salesforce, which are also investing in AI agents for automation, will need to keep pace as Anthropic introduces new, tangible functionality that places AI capabilities directly onto the user’s desktop environment. These competitors may find themselves under increased pressure to accelerate their own development timelines, incorporate safety features, and refine their offerings to ensure they remain competitive with Claude’s human-like computer interaction abilities. For Adept (now part of Amazon), and other companies working to develop similar cross-platform tools, Anthropic’s progress may indicate the importance of safety features and real-world usability in building industry confidence.
The introduction of Claude 3.5 Sonnet offers substantial potential benefits for UK businesses choosing to incorporate this AI assistant into their operations. For organisations across sectors such as finance, healthcare, and logistics, Claude’s ability to handle repetitive tasks, complex multi-step workflows, and even creative processes could be transformative. By automating routine activities, such as data entry, scheduling, and system navigation, Claude 3.5 Sonnet could drive significant efficiency gains, freeing employees to focus on more strategic or human-centric tasks that require critical thinking and nuanced judgement. For UK businesses, which are often under pressure to maximise productivity while controlling operational costs, Claude could streamline workflows, reduce human error, and speed up project timelines, all while potentially lowering staffing costs.
Also, the scalability of Claude 3.5 Sonnet could be particularly beneficial for SMEs in the UK, which may lack the resources for extensive manual operations. By leveraging Claude’s automation capabilities, these businesses could more easily expand their services or manage growing workloads without the need for proportionate increases in staffing. The AI’s coding and tool-use improvements may also mean that it can assist developers, customer service representatives, and project managers alike, helping businesses across industries achieve smoother, more integrated operations.
For businesses that advertise heavily on platforms or deal with customer service interfaces, Claude’s ability to operate across desktop applications could allow for quicker, more personalised responses to customer inquiries, making customer interactions more efficient. Overall, the arrival of Claude 3.5 Sonnet may empower UK companies to enhance operational efficiency, improve service quality, and navigate growth challenges with greater agility. By setting a high bar for safety and adaptability, Claude 3.5 Sonnet appears to represent not only a new technological asset for businesses but also a step forward in the adoption of ethical, practical AI in commercial settings.
Finding search results cluttered with AI-generated summaries? You can cut through the noise and get more classic search results by using a few clever tweaks.
How to:
– In Google Search, add -ai (with the dash) to your search query to help remove AI-driven summaries and related content.
– Want older, pre-AI content? Add before:2023 to your query to limit results to pages published before that year.
Example searches:
'how to create a secure password -ai'
'best historical architecture books -ai before:2023'
Pro-Tip: These filters are especially useful when researching technical topics or looking for trusted, older sources that aren’t mixed with newer AI-generated content. Quick, effective, and ideal for cutting through clutter.
Following last week’s leak of proposed new rules about the use of AI systems, The European Commission looks likely to ban some “unacceptable” usage of AI in Europe.
The Leak and the Letter
This latest announcement that the European Commission aims to ban “AI systems considered a clear threat to the safety, livelihoods and rights of people” (and thereby “unacceptable”) follows the 'leak’ last week of the proposed new rules to govern the use of AI (particularly for biometric surveillance) and a letter for 40 MEPs calling for a ban on the use of facial recognition and other types of biometric surveillance in public places.
Latest
This latest round of announcements about the proposed new AI rules by the EC highlights how the rules will follow a risk-based approach, will apply across all EU Member States, and are based on a future-proof definition of AI.
Risk-Based
The European Commission’s new rules will class “unacceptable” risk as “AI systems considered a clear threat to the safety, livelihoods and rights of people”. Examples of unacceptable risks include “AI systems or applications that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent users’ free will (e.g. toys using voice assistance encouraging dangerous behaviour of minors) and systems that allow 'social scoring’ by governments.”
High Risk – Remote Biometric Identification Systems
According to the new proposed rules, high-risk AI systems include law enforcement, critical infrastructures and migration, asylum, and border control management. The EC says that these (and other high-risk AI systems) will be subject to strict obligations, especially “all remote biometric identification systems” which will only have “narrow exceptions” including searching for a missing child, preventing an imminent terrorist threat, or finding and identifying a perpetrator or suspect of a serious criminal offence.
Other Risk Categories
The other risk categories for citizens covered in the proposed new EC AI rules include limited risk (chatbots), and minimal risk (AI-enabled video games or spam filters).
Governance
Supervision of the new rules looks likely to be the responsibility of whichever market surveillance authority each nation sees as competent enough, and a European Artificial Intelligence Board will be set up to facilitate their implementation and drive the development of standards for AI.
It is understood that the rules will apply both inside and outside the EU if an AI system is available in the EU or if its use affects people who are located in the EU.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
AI is now being incorporated in so many systems and services across Europe that there is clearly a need for rules and legislation to keep up with technology rollout to protect citizens from its risks and threats. Mass, public biometric surveillance such as facial recognition systems is an obvious area of concern, as highlighted by its monitoring by privacy groups (e.g. Big Brother Watch) and by the recent letter calling for a ban by 40 MEPs. These proposed new rules, however, are designed to cover the many different uses of AI including low and minimal risk uses with the stated intention of making Europe a “global hub for trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI)”. If the rules can be enforced successfully, this will not only provide some protection for citizens but will also help businesses and their customers by providing guidance to ensure that any AI-based systems are used in a responsible and compliant way.
In this insight, we look at how Stephen Wilhite invented the GIF file, and how his invention has endured while the Internet has undergone vast changes.
Who Was Stephen Wilhite?
Stephen Wilhite is regarded as one of the inventors who changed the face of the Internet. White worked at CompuServe in the 1980s. Founded in 1969, Ohio-based Compuserve was the first major online service provider in the US and is the oldest of the Big Three information services (along with AOL and Prodigy).
Stephen Wilhite worked as part of a team at CompuServe managed by former chief technical officer Alexander “Sandy” Trevor, but Stephen Wilhite invented the GIF by himself, at home, and then brought the new file format into Compuserve to be worked on by the team. Stephen Wilhite retired in 2000 and is reported to have spent much of his time traveling, camping, and building model trains in his basement.
In 2013, Stephen Wilhite was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Webby Awards in New York for the invention of the GIF and his contribution to internet culture.
Died March 14, 2022
Sadly, Stephen Wilhite died of Covid on March 14, just days after his 74th birthday, leaving a wife, four stepchildren, a son, 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
What Is A GIF?
Graphics interchange format, commonly known is GIF (pronounced 'jiff’, according to Wilhite) is a type of compressed file for images. Invented by White in 1987, while he was at Compuserve, a GIF allowed image transfers across the slow modem connections that were available at the time. GIFs allowed for colour, replacing the black-and-white run-length encoding format (RLE), and offered lossless compression, i.e. no degradation of pixels to make the image smaller, as with JPG files. GIFs are one of the oldest images used online and the first GIF created is thought to be clip art picture of an airplane in the sky.
Extensible – Animated
Wilhite is also credited with having the foresight to make GIFs extensible, enabling developers to add their own custom information and leading to the creation of animated GIFs in 1995. The Netscape Navigator browser is often credited with helping to boost the popularity of GIFs as it supported the .GIF format, including animated GIFs.
Although, after a relatively brief period of popularity, GIFs were largely phased out in favour of other compressed file formats for static pictures. However, GIFs remained, largely because, unlike other formats, they provided a fast, easy way to create animated images.
Popularity Again
Animated GIFs have had a resurgence in popularity recent years thanks to users on platforms like 4chan and Reddit creating inventive and funny 'memes’ (from the Greek word for “imitated”) using the animated GIF format. These files have also been widely shared and popularised through other big social media platforms. GIFs have also been used recently for as a compact, universally accepted form of low-fidelity video.
It has been reported that Wilhite’s favourite was the first popular digital meme, 'the dancing baby’ from 1996.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Time has proven the value of the invention of the GIF which has stayed around and fulfilled a continuing need and filled a gap in an area which has seen massive, fast, and continuous changes – the Web. GIFs have evolved to enable creativity expression (memes), keeping them relevant, and it’s likely that they’ll be around a lot longer yet. It’s amazing that one man could simply invent this type of file at home, and it was truly an innovation that has been valuable around the world. With the death of Stephen Wilhite, the world has lost another of the great Internet pioneers.
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Managing Director, Prominent
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Pure Resourcing Solutions are professional recruitment specialists for the East of England. They boast specialisms in accountancy, human resources, technology, marketing and office support.
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Chief Executive Officer, Pure Resourcing Solutions
Abacus Employment Services are a company focused on delivering excellent recruitment solutions. As well as offering 24/7 hour support to their clients, Abacus Employment Services also benefit from being the industry leader for both permanent and temporary staff.
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Chris Addis
Managing Director, Abacus Employment Services
Sanctuary Personnel is a leading recruitment specialist with over 250 employees at their head office in Ipswich as well as offices nearby and in London.
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Marketing Director, Sanctuary Personnel
Cowells Arrow provides high quality gaming products and reliable service and pride themselves on being industry leaders for over 50 years.
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Steven Pink
Financial Controller, Cowells Arrow
Warren Anthony Estate Agents was set up in 2003 and they have over 75 years combined experience.
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Lettings Director, Warren Anthony Estate Agents
“Having had some real bad experiences with IT companies in the past it has been a breath of fresh air to have you and your team assisting all of my staff with any issues that have arisen.”
Tony King
Sales Director, Warren Anthony Estate Agents
