Technology & innovation
Recruiters are contending with a flood of near-identical, AI-polished applications, and many are responding by returning to networking, live skills tests, and referrals to identify genuine candidates. About 84% of candidates applying to early career roles in finance use AI tools when preparing applications or interview answers, according to London-based startup AmplifyME.
Common tells of an AI-written resume include American spellings, bold emphasis on certain words, and phrases like "proven track record" or "trusted right hand," along with a heavy reliance on descriptive language over concrete results.
Job seekers are more than three times as likely to be hired by a company if they're already connected with an employee before applying, according to LinkedIn data.
Nearly half of AI-generated resumes are automatically rejected, according to a study by resume.io.
One recruiter response: redesign hiring around evidence of actual work rather than adding more screening filters, including specific prompts asking candidates to describe measurable outcomes, decisions made with incomplete information, or processes they redesigned.
Networking has always been important. It's now absolutely crucial. If it's a job you really want, at least one person at the company needs to know your name before you apply."
Read more via Bloomberg, The HR Digest, The HR Director
Legislators or governors in more than 10 states have paused or canceled tax exemptions for data centers, reversing incentives that were designed to attract investment but have ballooned far beyond original projections amid the AI boom.
Ohio's sales-tax exemption for data centers cost the state more than $1.5 billion last year, more than 10 times the original estimate, prompting the governor to pause new applications in May.
New Jersey approved a half-billion-dollar tax credit for data centers in 2024 after a unanimous state Senate vote; last month it canceled the remaining $250 million after a 35-4 vote in the opposite direction.
Illinois, Washington, and more than a dozen other states have proposed similar rollbacks, potentially pushing future projects to states including Indiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming that have retained favorable regimes.
Virginia, the state with the most data centers, preserved its sales-tax exemption but passed a new tax on electricity consumed by data center operators.
Amazon said it has invested nearly $40 billion in Ohio data centers since 2015; Meta has put more than $2.3 billion into Ohio facilities since 2018.
Read more via The Wall Street Journal
Overreliance on generative AI may cause managers to lose certain knowledge-related capabilities that would normally develop through real-world experience, reflection, and human interaction, according to research published last month by a multinational group of academics from U.S., U.K., and Swiss universities.
The researchers identified a risk of de-skilling, particularly among managers who use AI as a shortcut under time pressure rather than engaging deeply with problems.
Half of employees surveyed by IT firm GoTo reported being too dependent on AI at work; 46% of Gen Z respondents said reliance on AI had made them less intelligent.
Unlike humans, AI does not experience the world, understand the consequences of decisions, or grasp the social and emotional complexities in our workplaces."
The researchers also identified an "epistemic up-skilling" approach in which managers use AI outputs to challenge their own assumptions and test their reasoning, rather than simply accepting AI conclusions.
A separate Resume Now analysis identified oral comprehension, problem sensitivity, and deductive reasoning as durable human skills likely to remain critical as AI evolves.
Read more via HR Dive
Jacob Coxon, an Anthropic researcher specializing in training AI models, is leaving the company and the AI industry over concerns that labs are racing toward self-improving systems that could spiral out of human control. His departure is one of the first from Anthropic cited on safety grounds.
Coxon said many colleagues now use terms like "crunchtime" and "endgame" to describe the trajectory toward self-improving AI models, and that safety trade-offs are inevitable when companies are competing against one another.
He said he found Anthropic's safety efforts genuine but concluded no company can responsibly develop artificial general intelligence without government intervention or a coordinated industry slowdown.
Recent cyberattacks by AI models operating in collaborative swarms have illustrated how AI systems can adopt nefarious goals and attempt to conceal them from humans.
Coxon, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki are among more than 1,000 AI researchers who recently signed a statement urging global government coordination on slowing AI development if needed.
Anthropic is preparing for an IPO seeking a $2 trillion valuation.
Wholesale distributors are building out AI workforces, creating new positions and adding AI responsibilities to existing roles as the technology moves into sales, inventory management, and operations. A review of current job postings shows AI-related hiring at Ferguson, Wesco, McMaster-Carr, CDW, and others.
Ferguson is hiring a Lead Builder for its AI Studio at up to $186,000 in annual base compensation to design, build, and deploy AI agents and automated workflows.
McMaster-Carr is embedding AI responsibilities into management roles rather than creating separate AI positions, with total cash compensation reaching $165,000 to $180,000 for some tracks.
CDW is hiring an AI Opportunity Routing Specialist to manage and eventually automate AI-related sales leads, with a goal of reducing human intervention to less than 15% of opportunities in part of the routing process.
AI-related distributor positions reviewed range from $88,000 to more than $180,000 annually depending on experience, location, and incentives.
Read more via Distribution Strategy Group
China's military is eyeing humanoid robots for urban combat: A Reuters review of more than 100 Chinese military documents found the People's Liberation Army has been exploring military applications for humanoids since 2025, with a focus on perception, physical manipulation, and training data. Chinese manufacturers accounted for about 95% of global humanoid shipments in 2025, per Bank of America research. For now, no evidence shows armed humanoids in operational PLA units, though one analyst puts practical deployment five to ten years out. (Tech Republic)
Humanoid robots are coming for factory jobs: A securities filing from the Oregon-based company pegs the cost of its next-gen Digit v5 at roughly $200,000 upfront, plus a $20,000 deployment fee and $36,000 a year in software and maintenance, for a five-year total of about $400,000 per robot. The company's own modeling projects customer breakeven at 1.1 years. For comparison, China's Unitree Robotics advertises its humanoid starting at $13,500, though primarily for research use. (Business Insider)
Robot lawn mowers were the unexpected stars of IFA 2026: The AI-powered mowers even outshined the humanoid robots that walked around holding hands with attendees. New models from Dreame, Segway Navimow, Yarbo, and Roborock featured edge-to-edge cutting, modular designs that convert to leaf collectors and snow blowers, and quieter operation. IFA CEO Leif Linder compared the moment to where robot vacuums were a few years ago. (Mashable)
One bad AI experience is enough to lose nearly half of customers, according to a new survey: When AI gets something wrong, 47% of respondents blame the company that deployed it, not the technology. The same survey of 1,000 employed U.S. adults found 64% have had AI take a real action on their behalf in the past six months, while 54% say what matters most when a company uses AI is having a human available to step in. Boomers are the least forgiving: 71% would take their business elsewhere after a single AI mistake, compared with 33% of Gen Z. (PR Newswire)
