Atlassian report claims the number of developers saving significant time through AI is actually dropping
Finding information and participating in meetings are major human bottlenecks
More then four in five organizations still don't have a clear AI strategy
Nearly nine in 10 (87%) developers surveyed by Atlassian now sayAI is helping them to write and ship code faster, but despite offering significant speed improvements across certain parts of the workflow, three in four (72%) also report either the same or greater friction across the entire lifecycle.
Longer-term optimism around AI's ability to save time is also dropping, with just 25% of developers saving 10+ hours a week when using AI, compared with 68% in 2025.
Ultimately, Atlassian's findings point toward AI simply shifting the bottleneck further downstream rather than tackling time constraints altogether.
Is AI actually helping developers?
The data shows that faster code generation isn't translating into faster software delivery, with the reality of AI-assisted coding now highlighting other areas where AI could actually help. For example, half of developers struggling with finding information (51%) and meeting frequency (50%)
"Faster code is not the same as better software delivered sooner," Atlassian Customer CTO Andrew Boyagi explained. "If teams still struggle to find information, clarify requirements and move work through the delivery process, speeding up coding alone won’t translate into business outcomes."
However, many developers simply feel that AI is being implemented too quickly without consideration for its impacts. Three in five say merely using AI is seen as a positive metric – but its real-world impacts don't fall under that scope.
Companies with an effective strategy were found to be in the best position to reduce friction, where twice as many workers reported positive effects. Still, not even a fifth (17%) of developers say their employer has a clearly communicated and implemented AI strategy.
Now that we're beginning to emerge from the early, experimental years of artificial intelligence, and that use cases are starting to be identified, the report calls for greater consideration and clearer strategies from the top down in order to unlock the real benefits.
Two new Chicago lawsuits claim unauthorized biometric data collections
In these cases, the biometrics are face and body scans
Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics have denied the allegations
The backlash to what's perceived as surveillance technology continues, with two Chicago residents taking robot delivery companies to court over the alleged collection of biometric data while dropping off food and groceries.
As the Associated Press reports, the two men bringing the cases claim that robots from Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics turned up — via DoorDash and Uber Eats respectively — even though robot delivery hadn't been requested in the app.
The key allegation is that when these individuals were unlocking the robot cargo bay to get their orders, their hands and faces were scanned via camera and LiDAR technology, without explicit prior permission. If true, that would put Coco and Serve in breach of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) of 2008.
Both class-action lawsuits claim that video and sensor data is being retained by these bots in violation of privacy law, and shared with AI companies for training purposes. Statutory damages of $1,000 per negligent violation or $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation are being claimed through the courts.
Both Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics have denied the allegations. We've reached out to both companies and will update this story if we hear back, but the AP reports Coco as saying the legal action is "frivolous", while Serve says it "does not use data to identify individuals or create biometric profiles".
'Fundamentally misunderstands our technology'
A Serve delivery robot (Image credit: Serve Robotics)
The Coco Robotics privacy policy — last updated in 2022, before it started operating in Chicago — is a little light on data retention policies, but does mention sharing data with third parties and affiliates, though most of this seems to be aggregated and anonymized before it's used.
As for the Serve Robotics privacy policy, it's been updated much more recently. It says data retention periods are determined by "contractual obligations with our delivery partners", and there's the standard vagueness about sharing information with unnamed "service providers and vendors" on occasion. There's also an explicit mention of sharing data "to train AI agents and models".
It's obviously impossible for a delivery robot to work without scanning its environment and navigating around sidewalks and pedestrians, and that's the defense being put forward here. The crux of the case will be whether the data collection involved was done without permission, and contravenes the Illinois privacy act.
"This lawsuit fundamentally misunderstands our technology, we have not collected biometric data in Chicago," a Coco spokesperson told the AP. "The data we share is navigational data used to make sidewalks safer for all users."
With complaints around Flock cameras, delivery drones, 'spy' glasses, and other tech on the rise, it does feel there's more privacy scrutiny than ever before — with Redditors describing these bots as "mobile data thieves" and "sidewalk surveillance".
Unitree has shown off an impressive demo for its new 'kung fu' robot
It's based on the company's H2 platform, and is designed for security
It's unlikely to go on general sale, though, and there are no details on pricing or availability
Humanoid robots are improving at a rapid pace, and the world's biggest robotics manufacturer, Unitree, has just revealed a Robocop-esque new model called the H2-X Kung Fu Legend Guardian.
A one-minute teaser video released on X and YouTube (below) shows the H2-X in action across a series of slightly bizarre scenarios. The first few clips show the robot unleashing a series of knees and punches to cars in a scrapyard, in scenes reminiscent of a Street Fighter II bonus stage.
Beyond the robot's kung fu credentials, it isn't exactly clear what real-world roles Unitree is trying to showcase there. But the rest of the video shows that the H2-X is being billed as a personal security guard that can jump in front its owner during attempted robberies, or lift cars to release humans trapped underneath.
Unitree hasn't revealed much in the way of specs for the H2-X, with the only specifics being that it's capable of jumping from four-meter high platforms and also standing for "approximately eight hours" between charges.
However, the similar Unitree H2 robot is a 1.8-meter tall humanoid that comes with an optional Nvidia Jetson AGX Thor chip and costs $29,900 (around £22,380 / AU$42,720). We've asked Unitree for some more specifics on the specs and pricing for the H2-X, and will update this story if we hear back.
However, that doesn't mean Unitree isn't making big strides in humanoid robots, or what is often billed as "embodied intelligence". At Computex 2026 the trio of Unitree, Nvidia and Sharpa announced a collaboration to create an H2+ blueprint for next-gen robots, with Nvidia supplying the much-needed training data and its Jetson AGX Thor T5000 chip.
The H2-X Kung Fu Legend Guardian demo appears to be a different project that's focused more on physical prowess. But despite those impressive jumping abilities, the robot would find it nigh-on impossible to clear the global and national consumer certification hurdles necessary for it make it to market as a personal bodyguard.
It's possible that a version of the robot could be designed for industrial or military uses, but Unitree hasn't yet commented on its future plans. What is clear is that Unitree is keen to continue the momentum it's gained after its IPO in August 2026, which started well but then ran into turbulence last month after a 55% slump from its peak.
According to Reuters, that drop has apparently prompted China to put the brakes on a humanoid robot IPO rush, which has seen half a dozen Chinese robotics companies queuing up to follow Unitree's stock-market debut.
Still, Unitree's latest H2-X video at least keeps us dreaming that personal robot safety guards are coming, even if they might dent a few cars along the way.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella extols virtues of "frontier ecosystem" for AI
AI can do great things for human workers, but there still needs to be some control
Microsoft reveals new research showing a divide between bosses and employees over the future of AI in the workplace
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has urged businesses to embrace AI even further to push on and succeed, but urged caution around giving such systems too much control in everyday work tasks.
"When I think about what keeps us grounded every day at Microsoft, it's our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” Nadella told the company’s Frontier Tour London event.
Looking at what he called the "frontier ecosystem", Nadella identified three key pillars which need to be tackled - including recapturing individual empowerment, as although AI is taking charge of the dullest parts of our jobs, there is still need for a human to have control.
Frontier AI
Nadella also highlighted "the reverse information paradox" - with a digital learning system which is constantly improving itself, the challenge is for organisations to "capture that knowledge and keep it locally to yourself...in other words, you have to own the knowledge that gets created, both with the human capital that you have, as well as the token capital that you generate"
The final challenge concerns trust, as Nadella noted, “our scaling laws are producing even more powerful models that are less and less trustworthy…you need to treat these models as new forms of insiders, and create a zero-trust architecture around it.”
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
The speech came as Microsoft unveiled new research revealing something of a divide between bosses and employees over the future of AI in the workplace.
It found the vast majority (84%) of business leaders believe the UK can become a world-leading AI economy within five years, compared with just 41% of employees.
But it also noted that workers are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact on jobs and opportunities for young people, with over half (57%) of employees using AI at work afraid it will reduce opportunities for young people, while 35% fear for their own job security.
For bosses, the future was a bit brighter, with 90% of leaders claiming they had a clear AI strategy in their business, while 84% of those in organisations already adopting AI say they’ve already experienced moderate or significant changes to how their work gets done.
“Bending the curve changes what the UK can achieve, increasing productivity, business growth, better public services, and the measure of that progress is the difference that people feel in their everyday lives,” noted Darren Hardman, Microsoft UK CEO.
“We will not bend the curve unless people see a place for themselves in what comes next…the question is no longer whether you have a strategy, it’s whether AI is actually changing how work gets done.”
“For organizations here, the challenge is to turn AI's potential into improvements that people can feel in the work they do, the services they use, and the opportunities that are open to them...our role at Microsoft to bring intelligence and trust together in AI that puts your organization's knowledge to work helping people achieve more while providing the safeguards and visibility to stay in control.”
OpenAI recently introduced GPT-6, a new model of ChatGPT. You've probably heard about a lot of its new features but one that I don't think has had nearly enough attention, especially considering how much fun you can have with it, is Intelligent UI.
It allows ChatGPT to generate interactive experiences directly within a conversation. OpenAI explains: “With Intelligent UI, responses can include graphics, tappable buttons, forms, charts, and interactive experiences you can use directly in your conversation.”
What's interesting is there isn’t a single format. Which means, depending on what you ask, ChatGPT might create an interactive diagram, a calculator, a mood board, a map or even a little gaming console.
There are some genuinely useful applications here, from making complicated subjects easier to understand to building simple tools on the spot. But I was particularly interested in something a little less practical — games.
ChatGPT can now create games you can actually play within the chat window. And while there are all sorts of possibilities for educational games, quizzes and entirely new creations, I wanted to see what would happen if I asked it to recreate some old favorites.
So I started with five classic games, including Snake, Pong and Tetris. I gave ChatGPT simple prompts to see how faithfully it could recreate them. I then asked it to reinvent each game with new aesthetics, unexpected gameplay mechanics and a few deliberately chaotic twists. Think Snake in a neon cyberpunk world and Tetris with rules that change every time you clear a line.
Here's what happened when I put ChatGPT's new game-making abilities to the test.
Snake gets a neon makeover
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: "Create a playable version of the classic Snake game directly inside this conversation."
ChatGPT got the basics right straight away. The game was instantly recognizable, with responsive controls and even a slider to adjust the speed. It looked good and, importantly, it was actually fun to play for a couple of games.
I then asked it to give Snake a neon cyberpunk makeover, complete with moving obstacles, special power-ups and a speed increase every five points. Say hello to Neon Snake.
(Image credit: Future)
There was one small hiccup. Instead of creating the new game directly in the chat window, ChatGPT initially gave me the code. Which wasn't much use when the whole point was to play it there and then.
I tried another prompt asking it if it could make it directly playable in the conversation and that worked. The results of that experiment were fun. The neon aesthetic looked good, everything was color-coded and the new mechanics gave the classic (and, let’s be honest, sometimes boring) game an extra layer of challenge.
Tetris gets new rules
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt:"Create a playable game inspired by Tetris directly inside this conversation."
This one worked really well from the start. I’d just assumed it would be a bit buggy and glitchy because there’s so much going on compared to Snake, but the controls were intuitive and responsive, and the classic block-stacking mechanic was all there.
But what if Tetris changed the rules every time you cleared a line? That was the idea behind my follow-up prompt.
(Image credit: Future)
I asked ChatGPT to introduce unexpected twists, which could include rotating the board to adding unusual block shapes or special powers that could destroy part of the grid.
And it delivered. The changing rules introduced a fun element of unpredictability to a game that's usually all about getting into a rhythm. I also came away thinking about how much further you could take this. There are so many opportunities to experiment with different rules, challenges and power-ups.
Space Invaders becomes a First Contact situation
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: "Build me a fully playable retro arcade game inspired by Space Invaders"
Again, ChatGPT recreated the classic arcade experience surprisingly well. It looked and played like the original, with straightforward controls and all the fun of shooting at waves of approaching aliens.
But I wanted to see whether it could do something a bit more imaginative than adding extra enemies or making everything move faster. So I asked it to introduce a choice: what if I could defend Earth by fighting the aliens or negotiating with them?
(Image credit: Future)
I wanted waves of pixel-art enemies, but also decisions between rounds that could unlock weapons, stop an invasion or make the next attack more dangerous.
ChatGPT called its reinvention First Contact, which I loved. Up until this point it was calling most of the games "chaos" or "chaotic" so this felt more inventive.
It was a fun way to introduce a new dimension to a familiar game. But did it work well? I don't know, I couldn't ever make it past the first level. This experiment really suffered with my poor alien-fighting abilities.
Haunted Pac-Man
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: "Create a fully interactive retro maze game inspired by Pac-Man that I can play directly inside this ChatGPT conversation."
This was easily my favorite of the five, but I have always adored Pac-Man. ChatGPT's first attempt was a fun, responsive maze game with the familiar mechanics of moving around, collecting things and trying to avoid enemies. Bonus points for the fact it renamed it Maze Muncher.
For the reinvention, I decided to lean into Halloween. I asked it to turn the game into a haunted 1980s arcade, with me playing a little ghost hunter instead of Pac-Man.
(Image credit: Future)
I also wanted the maze itself to change. Every ten orbs collected would trigger a surprise, like shifting walls, new passages or an extra ghost. And I asked for temporary power-ups that would let me chase the ghosts for a change.
ChatGPT handled this well but didn't wait until I'd collected orbs. It was super fast-paced and there were new ghosts, secret passages and changing mechanics from the start. It was quick, easy to control and genuinely fun to play.
Pong reinvented
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: Build me a fully playable version of Pong inside this conversation.
Pong might be the simplest game of the bunch, but ChatGPT made a really solid version. The controls were easy, the aesthetics were nice and it even offered easy, normal and hard difficulty settings.
I decided to ruin that simplicity and asked ChatGPT to create a more chaotic version where every point triggered a random modifier. The ball could split in two, the paddles could shrink, gravity could change or an obstacle could appear in the middle of the court.
The result definitely delivered on the chaos. The familiar back-and-forth gameplay was still there, but the changing rules made each rally a little less predictable. It was also a reminder of how much fun you can have with a simple idea. You don't need to reinvent every part of a game to make it entertaining.
(Image credit: Future)
I was genuinely impressed with how well all five games worked, especially considering how simple my original prompts were.
Yes, there were a few hiccups along the way, like ChatGPT deciding to give me code instead of a playable game a couple of times. But overall, the controls were responsive, the games looked good and the reinventions were more imaginative than I expected.
What I enjoyed most was how easy it was to experiment. You could take a game you already know, change the aesthetic, introduce an unexpected mechanic or come up with something completely ridiculous and see what ChatGPT made of it.
I can imagine this being a fun way to waste half an hour, especially if you loved these games growing up. Although, after all this experimenting, I do feel like I should remind you that the originals are still out there, and they're well worth revisiting too.
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Images 2.5 last week, bringing all sorts of impressive upgrades to the way it generates images. The company says the latest model will bring us “sharper details, faster generation, more precise editing, and better tools for creating and sharing.”
But it’s not all good news. We’re still a little disappointed by the presence of telltale noise patterns in some of its creations. TechRadar writer Eric Hal Schwartz described the problem well: “Everything gets a gritty, sandy look, and nothing looks clean for some reason.”
What I’m most interested in isn’t necessarily how good ChatGPT’s new image capabilities are, but whether they can realistically pass as genuine photos.
Is this real or AI?
I’ve written before about how I love to comb through the r/isthisAI subreddit, where people post suspicious images and ask everyone else to help them work out whether they’re real.
It’s fascinating but also concerning when you see the number of scams, fake viral posts and completely fabricated people that are now floating around online.
So yes, ChatGPT Images has improved. But has it reached the point where AI images are becoming genuinely different to distinguish from real ones?
The jury’s still out. I think we’ll need a bit of time to experiment ourselves and for r/isthisAI to fill up with new images.
The Redditor who started the thread shared the resulting image of a young woman. And, at least at first glance, there’s very little about her that screams AI to me.
Can you actually tell which photos are AI now?
I decided to experiment with ChatGPT Images myself, especially with prompts like the Reddit thread in which I tried to get the chatbot to make the most realistic-looking images.
To make the comparison feel as fair as possible, I went through photos from my own travels this summer and picked some I was happy to share. I then asked ChatGPT to create extremely realistic images with similar subjects, settings and compositions.
For some, that meant asking for a realistic photograph of a blonde woman. For others, I recreated the kinds of ordinary travel photos sitting in my camera roll, which was meals in restaurants, boats in harbors and scenes from walks.
Importantly, I wasn’t trying to make spectacular AI art, I really wanted the opposite. Images that were boringly believable.
Take the quiz below to see if you can guess which are the real photos of my travels this summer and which are ChatGPT-generated.
Is that gritty, sandy look still enough to give the AI ones away? Can you focus less on the faces and spot strange details in the backgrounds? Or have we reached the point where your first instinct simply isn’t reliable anymore?
Take the quiz and tell me how you get on in the comments below.
Salesforce UK&I CEO pushes her skilling "mission" across the country
Salesforce doubles down on UK&I recruitment and upskilling goals
Jobs could be repatriated back to the UK from abroad
Salesforce’s UK&I CEO has doubled down on her company’s commitment to investing in skills training and upskilling of young people.
With the UK recently seeing a change in Prime Minister, Zahra Bahroloumi was asked in a media roundtable attended by TechRadar Pro what her outlook for the future looked like.
“Irrespective of government, we are committed to, and very active to the skilling of people,” Bahroloumi said, “we're not stopping, we remain true to our mission, and we remain active and true to our customers, irrespective of government”.
Closing the AI literacy gap
Bahrololoumi has long been a key voice in promoting skills training in the UK, using her company’s influence and scale across the country to push a number of key initiatives.
In June 2026, she outlined the Salesforce’s “incredibly bold” vision for the UK, which includes $6 billion investment committed to the country through 2030, and its role in backing the UK government’s aim to train 10 million UK workers by 2030.
Alongside Bahrololoumi, Paul O’Sullivan, SVP Solution Engineering and Salesforce UKI CTO also looked to outline how Salesforce’s future Trailblazer program is “closing the AI literacy gap”.
O’Sullivan noted how Salesforce is going through “a surge of hiring”, including doubling the size of its forward-deployed engineer team in the UK.
“We are not just looking to attract the best possible talent to come and join Salesforce, we’re also heavily investing in our apprenticeship scheme, doubling down on our graduate opportunities, and aiming to double the size of the team in the next six months,” he noted.
“This is our opportunity to reinvest in the next generation.”
Looking forward, Bahrololoumi was keen to promote the role of the UK in the AI-enabled and augmented future, noting that while the country was, “an empowered market”, there was still potential for more growth.
“We need more talent,” she added, “I feel so confident, and we’ve got the evidence and the proof points that this technology and our platform can work and automate jobs, and augment jobs, and expand human capacity in an organisation effectively.
“But I would like to see more jobs being repatriated from offshore and low-cost locations and jobs being created back in the UK - so I would like to see a stronger drive around automation and repatriation.”
Bahrololoumi gave the example of when there 300 jobs in a low-cost location, outside of the UK - “why can I not create a hundred jobs in the UK and still do 300 plus worth of capacity?”
“That’s something we’re really focused on, because we’ve got the capability to do that now… but I think we've got the opportunity now to create jobs in the UK,” she concluded, “we're on a mission.”
The narrative that AI might end humanity in a decade has monopolized public discourse, so much so that we may be ignoring more prosaic, immediate AI concerns like jobs.
I'm neither an AI doomer nor a booster. I believe generative AI has tremendous potential, especially for helping us solve our most difficult problems, like cancer and maybe resources and climate change. I'm also a realist and know that AI development and growth are clearly outstripping our ability to properly manage it.
We should never have a situation where we do not know how or why an AI did something. The Hugging Face incident should be a call to action. In lieu of regulation (which the White House will block), self-regulation with third-party oversight is in order.
The reality, though, is that AI development is unlikely to slow down or stop. The consequences will keep coming, and people have feelings.
Job worries are so real
Earlier this year, a Pew Research study found that more than half of people under 30 are more concerned than excited about AI. The number hasn't jumped wildly in recent years, but contrast that with the rapidly shrinking number of people who are "More excited than concerned" about AI (down from 11% in 2024 to 9% in 2026). The middle group of those who balance concern with excitement also shrank a bit to 37% of those surveyed. That same survey also found that 71 percent of Americans believe AI will lead to fewer jobs over the next 20 years (if doomers are right, this may be less of a worry).
Gallup already found rising fears of AI job displacement going back to 2023 when the "concern among college graduates rose sharply, from 8% in 2021 to 20% in 2023, as generative AI tools such as ChatGPT emerged."
College graduates' concerns spiked again in the last year, with 29% worried tech will make their jobs obsolete.
More concerning is that the fears are really rising among those set to enter the workforce. Gallup notes that while people like me (over 50) are relatively steady in these concerns, anxiety among workers ages 18-to-44 has risen sharply (more than a third of them have these fears).
Whats really happening with jobs and AI?
The Gallup report notes, though, that the fears still appear to be outpacing real-world events. People are not necessarily losing their jobs to AI, at least not yet. But a recent New York Times story noted that there have been other, more subtle changes.
In roles where AI is helping automate some tasks, workers are losing the leverage to push for raises. Looked at another way, whether or not you tell them, your boss knows that you or others in your department are or can use AI and is acting accordingly. You are not yet replaceable, but are also no longer irreplaceable thanks to AI. And while people aren't necessarily losing their jobs, hiring for some knowledge-worker roles may be slowing.
Basically, the world people are worrying about, one where AI outright takes your job, is maybe somewhat hyperbolic. AI is already a coworker in many places, and it does its job, if not for free, then at a far reduced rate and, often, in less time — if you don't count the double-checking people should be doing when looking at AI work.
AI may be changing the entire complexion of work, which means these young people are right to be concerned, because it's hard to describe the workplaces they'll be entering and how their workdays alongside Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude might unfold.
Sure, the question of whether or not AI will end up ending us by 2036 is a valid one, but there are the real-time changes happening in our everyday lives that could have the most immediate impact. I wonder if and how we're dealing with those and if anyone is thinking about how to preprare and and reassure the next generation of workers.
Salesforce expands Missionforce defense AI agent program
Missionforce will now add in models from OpenAI and Nvidia
Missionforce is now one year old, with big plans going forward
Salesforce is expanding its defense AI model program to help bring extra intelligent to critical government missions.
The company revealed its Missionforce program will now be partnering with OpenAI and Nvidia to bring in the former's frontier models, and also adding the latter's models and accelerated computing capabilities.
Salesforce says this expansion will allow Missionforce to deliver "new, specialized AI capabilities and agents designed for the government’s toughest challenges."
Missionforce gets smarter
“Government agencies want tailored AI that runs everywhere they operate while staying within the secure environments their missions demand.” said Kendall Collins, CEO of Missionforce & Government Cloud.
“Missionforce enables this at scale, with purpose-built AI that executes the mission and enables agencies to solve their hardest problems while maintaining operational control.”
This includes Operations capabilities such as turning manual, paper-bound processes such as procurement, supplier management, and invoice audits into digital workflows in just a few minutes, with specialized AI agents automatically running tasks, track status, and flagging exceptions in real time, all running entirely within private cloud or air-gapped environments.
Elsewhere, the company's Missionforce Field Operations & Asset Management tool means government agencies can now use AI agents to automate scheduling, work orders, and asset maintenance — all supported by native offline mobile capabilities for remote environments.
The news comes as Salesforce marked one year of Missionforce, with the company noting that the public sector has become its fastest-growing industry business at scale, and that its defense sector business has grown 80% year over year as demand accelerates.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff harked to the partnership in his opening keynote at Dreamforce 2026, noting that the company was "deeply committed to America".
Having already worked with government customers for more than two decades, the expansion means Salesforce now supports some of the US government’s "most complex and consequential missions" across more than 30 countries, working with 60 federal agencies, all 15 US Cabinet departments, all 50 states, and all six branches of the US military.
“One year in, the momentum behind Missionforce shows how quickly government agencies are moving from AI ambition to operational deployment,” Collins said.
“Our defense business is a critically important part of that progress, with trusted data and actionable intelligence essential to readiness and mission success. With new capabilities and partnerships, we’re helping agencies equip their people and put AI to work — with the security, accountability, and control their most critical missions demand.”
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff calls the SaaSpocalypse "crazy nonsense"
Instead, he predicts a new kind of software interface will make all the difference
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang agrees, saying the end of software isn't nigh
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has hit out at reports AI technology will lead to a "SaaSpocalypse", saying traditional software still has life in it yet.
Speaking at the opening keynote of Dreamforce 2026, Benioff said the talk of a SaaSpocalypse over the last six months was "crazy nonsense".
Instead, Benioff said the market trends would actually bring in a new age of software - one where AI would be playing a key role.
A new kind of interface
"Hasn't it been wild?" Benioff asked the Dreamforce crowd.
"But I think we realized that SaaSpocalypse - it's not about the end of software, but it may be about the end of software that makes humans do all the work."
Namely, this refers to AIforce, the company's new realization of the software interface, to reflect the needs of the AI age.
Benioff noted that over the past few decades, users have gone from Command Line interfaces to GUI, from web to mobile - and now, with AI assuming a much greater role in the world of work, there's a need for a new kind of interface.
AIforce looks to address this by enabling agents anywhere to reason and take action across all the data, workflows, and logic inside Salesforce, hopefully unlocking whole new ways of working for customers everywhere.
(Image credit: Future / Mike Moore)
Benioff wasn't alone in his belief that this isn't the end of software - later in his keynote, he welcomed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on stage.
This was primarily to discuss Salesforce's new Koa CRM, developed alongside Nvidia, but the talk took a bit of a manic turn, as the two billionaires instead decided to pace about the theatre and have a discussion about the wider technology industry.
"Don't give up on the technology," Huang said, "You've heard me say it - I was the first CEO to come out not in the software industry to say the end of software is nonsense."
"(Instead) This is going to be a layer on top of sotware, this new layer is gojng to be agentic, and it's going to make the software so much better."
Salesforce has revealed Ace, a new AI agent for the TSA
Ace should take the pressure of answering basic questions off human agents
Ace has already resolved 96% of basic inquiries so far
Salesforce has built the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) a new AI agent to try and help streamline travel for passengers everywhere.
Ace, a new AI agent built with Salesforce's Public Sector Solutions platform, has been live for several months now, helping the TSA deal with traveller requests and inquiries.
So far, Salesforce says Ace has already handled approximately 100,000 routine traveler conversations per month and resolved 96% of routine inquiries, such as how to pack liquids or enter a checkpoint with a medical device — without the need for human escalation.
TSA and AI
“Nearly three million people travel through US airports every day, and a simple question shouldn’t stand between them and a smooth trip,” said Kendall Collins, CEO of Missionforce and Government Cloud.
“TSA’s new Ace AI agent gives travelers fast, accurate answers before they reach the checkpoint—from what they can pack to how they can prepare—while helping TSA officers stay focused on their essential security mission.”
The launch of Ace forms part of a broader modernization initiative, led by the TSA’s Customer Experience Branch to improve traveler service using Salesforce.
The amount of questions from travellers can ramp up hugely during peak travel periods and disruptions, so the TSA needed a flexible way to scale support, deliver consistent guidance, and reduce pressure on its contact center teams.
Deploying a secure, autonomous AI agent like Ace, which can answer routine questions and direct more complex needs to staff, means the TSA can improve services, control costs, and support its missions at scale, even at the busiest times of the year.
“The TSA is leading with trusted AI to meet the mission,” said Paul Tatum, EVP of Global Public Sector Solutions at Salesforce. “They are delivering a secure, data-driven, and AI-first foundation that scales operations, lowers costs, and protects public trust, even during the most stressful travel times.”
Sam Altman admits AI development may require greater control
Altman references Hugging Face "accident" as something which might cause wider distrust
However Altman said he still believes AI technology can greatly benefit humanity as a whole
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has admitted that the rapid pace of development in the AI industry is rightfully scaring some people, and that more controls might be necessary.
Speaking at Dreamforce 2026, Altman was quizzed by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on a variety of topics, giving his opinion on not just the most recent incidents in the world of technology, but where the future of AI could go next.
"This could go wrong"
Altman and Benioff's wide-ranging conversation began with the latter asking the former for his view on "what's been going on" concerning recent controversies in the AI industry.
This included the widely-reported Hugging Face hack, as well as increasing calls for greater AI regulation in recent weeks.
"People have been talking about the potential downsides or serious risks of AI for some time,” Altman said, noting that the increased capabilities of models have meant people are paying more attention than ever before.
Altman also highlighted the recent “Hugging Face accident”, which he later described as “obviously a terrifying incident”, as raising awareness among the wider world as to what AI is capable of.
“It doesn't take as much imagination as it used to, to imagine how this could go wrong,” he pointed out, adding that he would like to know that companies don’t intend to use their models for nefarious means - “there should be no qualifier on that,” he pointed out.
Altman also highlighted the “real fear” that “some companies working in AI could get too much power and be able to influence the economy”.
“I think the world is right to be afraid of this,” he pointed out.
Future hopes
However it wasn’t all doom and gloom, as Altman noted that OpenAI was navigating a “narrow path” with pragmatism, steadiness and consistency.
“People are now saying, this seems pretty important, so let's get it right...and we will get it right, by the way, I'm very confident in our ability to do this. The world should trust that we are going to do the right thing, because it is the right thing, and we know the magnitude of this.”
Altman was also confident that despite the continuing advances of AI, he had high hopes for the future of humanity, noting that while "people don't care that much what a machine does...we have a wonderful ability of being obsessed with other people.”
However this might still involve some tough work, as society and people would “need to uplift themselves very fast” to get all the advantages of technology - “but this seems very achievable to me,” Altman added.
Looking forward
Overall though, Altman noted that the degree that people care about other people is a major positive, and predicted that "we will stay in an extremely human-centric world, no matter what technology does.”
AI will help with this progress, though, with Altman saying that although the technology is capable of incidents such as the Hugging Face hack, it is also possible to use AI to defend against such attacks.
“We have to (use AI to defend) to get the prize of curing diseases, giving people this incredible creativity, this human entrepreneurship that I think is coming.”
“I think people, with this technology in their hands, can live a much better version of their lives.”
Benioff closed out the session by asking what he hoped the legacy of his company would be, with Altman noting that the company had set out on an "insane mission" to achieve AGI, and that it had only scratched the surface" of building great products".
“There is no doubt there will be more technological wonders by 2030, and they'll be big ones,” he added, highlighting the fact that you can talk to a computer and it knows what you want, understand your company and take action, “is one of the most profound changes to how we use technology that I've ever seen...this is one of the moments that feels like you're in a movie (and) I think this will transform the way we work and use computers”.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei discuss AI at Dreamforce 2026
Amodei says the pace of progress had surprised Anthropic
Huang calls for greater safety, but hails the advantages AI can bring
Some of the world's leading AI minds have shared their opinions on the future of the technology, revealing some intriguinly diverging viewpoints.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei were both guest appearances during the opening keynote of Dreamforce 2026, where they were both quizzed by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on their opinions and views on the future of the technology.
The pair had some interestingly differing viewpoints, showing the trouble facing not just internal and external stakeholders, but also lawmakers and regulators.
Jensen vs Dario?
First up was Amodei, whose Claude platform has become increasingly partnered with Salesforce in recent months, culminating in the recent launch of Claudeforce.
Asked by Benioff about the state of the AI market right now, Amodei likened it to the motor industry, where safety records can be conflated, but companies can learn from each other - and he also seems keen to open things up internationally to set standards.
“I think that’s the way to lead the industry forward, to set an example, to say that everyone can always be better,” he pointed out.
Benioff also asked Amodei about the biggest surprises has had while developing his technology over the last decade.
The Anthropic head replied the "pace of the progress" - not just in the development of AI technology, but the economic impact of it too - noting his company didn't appreciate how quickly certain companies would grow and become central to everyday life.
Finally, Benioff asked what actions Amodei would like the public to take when using AI.
Amodei replied that even if development of AI technology was frozen right now, we'd only be using maybe 5-10% of the possible value we could get.
Making use of all the information with platforms such as Claude could open up new areas of business - "there's so much diffusion left," Amodei says.
(Image credit: Future / Mike Moore)
Huang was much more positive in his appearance, leading Benioff in a walkabout around the keynote theatre as the pair discussed AI.
"We're going through a new industrial revolution," Huang pointed out,
However he did urge caution in some areas, particularly around safety.
“Safety is paramount in a lot of ways. It’s job one,” Huang said. “However, safety is an engineering problem.”
Speed and safety are not mutually exclusive, Huang noted, pointing out that companies should pace themselves until they are sure they are releasing something that the market will appreciate.
“It’s a false choice,” Huang told Benioff. “You could definitely have both at the same time.”
When it comes to model protections, Huang said that companies should, “run as fast as you can...but if you feel at any given point in time the company’s out of control or the product’s not going to be safe, take a pause and make sure you get it right.”
Wrapping up, Benioff asked Huang about his vision for the next few years - and what he wants to see from Salesforce.
Huang says he wants to "Agentforce every company", outlining an aim of "really deploying AI".
"You don't want to be left behind, this is too important of a technology revolution," Huang noted, "if it doesn't work for you straight away, don't give up on it."
"The most important thing - don't get left behind...the sky's the limit for us."
Meta wants to upgrade ex-managers back to managers
7,000 workers were moved into the Applied AI org earlier this year
Company's CTO admitted previous workforce changes were "atrocious"
Meta has reportedly partially reversed its decision to push for flatter, manager-light teams by asking some employees in its Applied AI business to move from individual contributor roles back into managerial positions.
New Business Insiderreporting suggests Meta is asking certain workers to volunteer themselves as managers rather than forcing them into it, but without the company sharing comment on the matter, it's unclear how workers who refuse may be impacted.
As for the business itself, it's a pretty new one that was established this year, with around 7,000 employees shifted under the Applied AI umbrella.
Meta wanted fewer managers, now it wants more
Some of the workers who were previously assigned as managers were reassigned as individual contributors when they joined the Applied AI org, with Business Insider previously reporting how many workers felt they'd effectively been "drafted" into the business, highlighting ongoing friction internally.
The manager-light stance comes from CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 'Year of Efficiency' announcement in 2023, when he argued that a flatter organization could be more nimble and better poised for change.
With the company as a whole now on track to spend over $130 billion this year on AI chips and infrastructure, it's possible that a growing Applied AI organization could be behind the need for more traditional management.
Still, Zuckerberg's efficiency-driven, manager-light program seems to remain in force across other areas of the business, with this push for new managers looking to only be affecting Applied AI.
Separately, CTO Andrew Bosworth previously admitted that Meta's rollout of its new AI division was "atrocious" (via Wired), promising better communication for future changes.
"We shook up the management structure that was providing you stability while rapid changes in strategy, including the boom/bust cycle of hiring, left entire teams in the lurch," he admitted.
OpenAI for Financial Services comes with built-in premium datasets
Third-party subscription sharing is also in the works
GPT-6 promises 100% on the 256-512K Long Context benchmark
OpenAI has lifted the wraps off ChatGPT for Financial Services, its latest industry-specific version of ChatGPT Work designed to give sector professionals access to relevant reasoning and models.
The company warned that analysts regularly spend too much time finding data, checking figures, building models and turning complex analysis into presentation-friendly reports – all things it hopes to be able to tackle with this iteration of ChatGPT Work.
Core to this new product is, of course, GPT-6 Astra, but OpenAI also worked with investment experts from Morgan Stanley and Evercore to guide its development.
ChatGPT for Financial Services
With the launch of ChatGPT for Financial Services, OpenAI has built premium datasets from the likes of Daloopa, PitchBook and LSEG News directly into the tool, so users won't need to negotiate their own external datasets. By hosting and indexing that data itself, OpenAI can ultimately improve performance and latency for end users.
OpenAI also promises to be working with S&P Capital IQ, LSEG, MSCI, Dow Jones Factiva and Moody’s so that users can access their subscription benefits directly through their ChatGPT login to reduce the friction further.
All of this with the benefits of OpenAI's latest frontier model, Astra, which sees marked improvements across the board. The jumps from 91.5% to 100% at 256K-512K and from 73.8% to 96.3% at 512K-1M are especially noteworthy on the Long Context MRCR benchmarks when compared with GPT-5.6 Sol, because finance work often requires handling long documents like annual reports and filings.
The company also advertises a 100% score for the ExploitBench cybersecurity benchmark, which should come as welcome news to this highly-regulated industry.
Only eligible financial institutions will gain access to the tool for now, and they must contact OpenAI for options.
"ChatGPT for Financial Services is one way we serve customers across the industry, but we recognize that it will require a range of solutions to address the needs of the finance industry," the company said in its launch blog post.
"OpenAI has a long history of collaborating with innovators to unlock novel AI solutions. Financial services firms and developers can use our API to build specialized applications for the needs they understand best. OpenAI brings frontier models and the capabilities to put them to work. Financial institutions, data providers, and software partners bring specialized expertise, trusted information, and customer relationships."
Google’s new Gemini app brings its AI assistant directly to Windows 10 and 11
Pressing [Alt] + [Space] summons Gemini without interrupting your current workflow
It’s remarkably convenient, although there's still room for improvement
You can say goodbye to opening a browser every time you want to use Gemini on your PC. Google has just released a Windows version of its Gemini app, and it’s by far the easiest and quickest way to get Google’s AI to answer your questions on Windows.
Gemini has had a macOS app for a while now, and now it has finally been joined by a dedicated Windows version, complete with its own keyboard shortcut. You can summon it from anywhere, no matter what you’re doing on your PC, by pressing [Alt] + [Space].
But here’s the thing: [Alt] + [Space] is already a little crowded on Windows. It traditionally opens the active window’s system menu, and is also the default shortcut for Microsoft’s PowerToys Run utility, a quick launcher for Windows power users that provides instant access to applications, files, calculator functions and system commands.
Google's new Windows Gemini app. (Image credit: Google / Microsoft)
On my PC
On my PC, installing the Gemini app caused it to take over the [Alt] + [Space] keyboard shortcut, so it now launches Gemini instead. I’ve been using the new app for a few hours, and the shortcut is a great way to access Gemini almost instantly. It saves me from messing around with browser tabs and breaking my workflow. I love it.
The Gemini app can also connect to other Google apps, including Gmail and Drive. Provided you’re in an eligible country, such as the US or Australia, and subscribe to Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra, you can also hand multi-step tasks over to Gemini Spark, Google’s personal AI agent. Spark is currently not available in the UK.
The app does everything the web version does, so you can create custom images with Nano Banana and even make high-quality videos with Gemini Omni from inside it.
What didn't I like about the app?
However, I’m not a fan of the way the app permanently displays your location at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar. This creates a significant privacy risk, especially if you’re using it at home. I don’t want my home address accidentally ending up in screenshots I take of my desktop, for example.
There’s no obvious way to remove your location either. All you can do is close the sidebar if you don’t want it displayed, and that’s not a great user experience.
The second thing I didn’t like was the lack of a Gemini Live experience in the app, like the one available in the mobile version on both iOS and Android. Live is Gemini’s voice mode, allowing you to talk to it much as you would a person. It can also look through your phone’s camera at the world around you, letting you ask questions about what it sees.
I can imagine that a Gemini Live experience capable of “seeing” what’s on your PC desktop and answering questions about it would be very helpful, but it looks like we’ll have to wait for that. For now you’re limited to taking screenshots, then uploading them to Gemini via the app and asking questions about what’s on them.
Google says more native desktop capabilities will roll out over time. For now, it’s the convenience of combining the Windows app with its keyboard shortcut that wins the day. I hope Google addresses my complaints in a future version, but they’re not enough to stop me choosing the app as my go-to Gemini experience instead of the web version.
If you want to try it, the Gemini app is available globally for Windows 10 and 11 users. You can download it today.
Nearly two-thirds of AI users aged 18-28 want clearer instructions from their bosses
Nearly half of the same cohort have difficulty explaining work completed with the help of AI
The figures could indicate a brand new challenge to management
“Tell me exactly what you want me to do” – that seems to be the message from older millennial and younger Gen Z workers, who have expressed a need for highly specific instructions from their bosses.
Research has found that 62% of the 18-28 age group who regularly use AI want their bosses to give them the same sort of clear steps and parameters as one might give an LLM chatbot.
While a cohort of workers who are attentive to the needs of the business might sound good, deeper investigation may prompt you to think again. The study by Use.AI implies a deeper-seated issue that points to a management challenge unlike anything seen before on this scale.
Detailed steps
Use.AI surveyed 11,742 adults based in United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, Australia and Latin America, finding 62% of the 18-28 age group familiar with the AI use are accompanied by 41% of those aged 40 and older who also want more detail about tasks from their line managers.
Why do younger users need clearer, more detailed steps? It could be a simple matter of judgement, with the 18-28 age group requiring more experience in making their own decisions. But with the presence of AI in their working lives, could they be fearful of being replaced?
The report also explores a slightly different dimension. Within the 18-28 age group, 44% say they have had difficulty to explain work created with AI assistance. This raises a key concern: does the employee even know what their tasks are supposed to achieve? For that matter, does the business?
Sound judgement
AI has changed businesses considerably, and made an impact that doesn’t only improve productivity. As Ihor Herasymov, Co-Founder & CEO of Use.AI, observes, “AI is exposing which parts of work were never really about producing the answer. When a model can generate the output in seconds, the value of some tasks shifts to whether the person can make a sound judgment and stand behind it.”
Other results from the survey support this. With 57% of the 18-28 age group of regular AI users stating that they are less likely to memorize information that can be collected via AI, and 53% of the same group frustrated by “ordinary” tasks that could be completed by a chatbot, a whole new workplace dynamic is being quietly established.
Herasymov concludes, “Managers now have to be much clearer about whether they need the result or whether the task itself is meant to develop the employee.”
I have asked ChatGPT to help me make plenty of small decisions, from a meal based on leftovers to weekend activities timed for the least traffic. But while I've asked for help refining or implementing my ideas, I've never turned to a chatbot to actually make any big life decisions for me.
Apparently, I'm in a rapidly shrinking group, according to AI 'micro-learning' app Headway’s new Seeking Familiarity study. The survey of 2,000 adults found that 46% had allowed AI to make a difficult decision for them. Another 35% naturally turned to it during stressful moments, while 21% said they could not go a full week without using AI to help decide what to do.
Headway has given this tendency to outsource decisions the unpleasantly vivid name “decisionrot,” describing the point at which AI stops helping people gather information and starts helping them avoid the discomfort of choosing. Considering how confidently ChatGPT can deliver an answer, I can see how easily that happens.
Drawing out a decision
I get that uncertainty is irritating and that ChatGPT is extremely good at making uncertainty seem to vanish. Men may be particularly susceptible to this shortcut as Headway's survey found 53% said they use AI to sidestep difficult decisions, compared with 40% of women.
“There’s a difference between seeking outside perspectives when you’re wrestling with a big decision and completely turning over the decision-making process to something outside yourself,” Dr. Suzanne Degges-White, a licensed counselor and relationship expert at Headway, said of the survey. “Learning to manage unpredictability and actively making life-changing choices both teach us to trust our own judgment.”
So I decided to experiment with a way of getting the best of ChatGPT's advice and compare it with flatly asking the AI what to do. I would first let it make the decision, then forbid it from doing so and see whether that made it more or less useful.
Conveniently, I have been weighing whether to sign up for an eight-week evening drawing class, an investment in time and money that I'm hesitant about despite always wanting to learn.
I gave ChatGPT the facts about the class logistics and price and asked: 'What should I do?'
“You should sign up for the art class,” ChatGPT told me.
Well, that settled that.
“You already have a clear reason for wanting to do it. You want a regular activity that gets you away from screens and gives you something tangible to learn,” it explained. “Eight weeks is a meaningful commitment, but it is also short enough that you are not reorganizing your life indefinitely. Your hesitation sounds less like evidence that the class is a bad fit and more like normal resistance to putting something recurring on your calendar.”
ChatGPT’s response is surprisingly insightful at first glance. I had an answer and a reason backing it. Why not leave it at that and sign up for the class? But not engaging my own decision-making muscles to consider the matter would mean missing the reality of how shallow ChatGPT's response actually was.
The generic explanation could have applied to anyone and didn’t account at all for any of my proclivities and priorities. It didn't weigh my patience for messing up when trying to learn a new skill, what else I might have going on during those evenings, or even what my budget was. The reasoning it provided was as personal as a coin toss.
Forcing myself to decide
So I tried making ChatGPT keep its judgment to itself. I described exactly the same situation, but this time with a more complex prompt for the AI to mull over.
'Don’t make this decision for me. Act as a decision coach instead. Ask me questions that uncover my priorities and constraints. Challenge any assumptions I may be making and tell me what information I’m missing. Then identify my options and explain the trade-offs. Leave the final choice to me.'
Now there was a conversation before any answers.
“Before weighing the options, I want to understand what you are actually trying to get from the class,” it responded. “Is the main goal learning art, having a scheduled reason to leave the house, meeting people, or simply trying something unfamiliar? Imagine it is Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. after a tiring day. Does having the class at 7 feel like something that would energize you or an obligation you would resent?”
I thought about it and explained how learning even the basics of drawing and painting was only part of the attraction. I also wanted a recurring creative activity entirely different from my usual hobbies, and I know I'm better at following through when something is on the calendar and already paid for. ChatGPT put together my answers and summarized the arguments for and against the class. But it didn’t weigh in on which seemed stronger or push me to a decision.
All of the questions were the kind I would probably have considered on my own before pulling the trigger on a class, but externalizing them did help me work out an answer for myself more quickly. This was a pretty minor internal battle. When it comes to major life choices, I would sincerely hope people take the time to consider every facet, whether or not AI helped them work through it.
“If we continue to rely on AI whenever ‘decision discomfort’ arises, we may enjoy a quick sense of relief,” Degges-White said. “But at the same time, we miss the opportunity to hone our own decision-making skills and cultivate feelings of confidence in ourselves.”
If I cannot decide between two sandwiches, ChatGPT is welcome to wield enormous computational resources on my behalf. I do not need a lengthy exploration of my values before ordering lunch. ChatGPT is good at examining a choice and patiently working through options, which makes it a useful sounding board. But a sounding board should never give you orders.
OpenAI is developing a tool that can perform “well-defined research tasks”
Described as a “research intern” the project met its aim to achieve automation by September 2026, ahead of a fully automated AI researcher operational by March 2028
The company believes that automated research can “enhance human welfare” and make other contributions
OpenAI has confirmed its project to build a fully automated AI researcher is on schedule, hitting its September 2026 target of developing a "research intern". Capable of performing research tasks commissioned by a human, the "intern" is the main milestone in the completion of the fully automated system, which OpenAI aims to reveal in March 2028.
The research intern is capable of carrying out tasks that would take several days if completed by a human researcher.
OpenAI has justified the development of the automated AI researcher by citing the reduced cost of AI, and in defending critical infrastructure against capable AI threats. These are observations it may not have published had the Hugging Face incident not occurred.
Automated research?
During an October 2025 livestream, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the development of an automated AI researcher, and its intended milestone and target. "We think it is plausible,” he said, “that by September of next year, we have an intern-level AI research assistant and that by March 2028, we have a legitimate AI researcher."
Specifically describing the current stage of the project’s development, OpenAI explained its definition of ‘research intern’ as "a system that can carry out well-defined research tasks under human direction, including tasks that would take a skilled researcher a few days.”
The post continues: “AI research is a complex process with many potential bottlenecks […] agentic tools are meaningfully accelerating research progress.”
While this particular intern won’t be able to make coffee or find a box of paperclips, its automated research ability will presumably unlock those tasks for others to complete – such as the human commissioning the research.
Recursive self-improvement
The ChatGPT company clearly expects to hit its March 2028 target for the release of the publicly available automated AI researcher, but it also seems to have learned some important lessons. It argues against the use of recursive self-improvement (RSI) in developing automated research capabilities, noting that achieving that safely is not something that is currently achievable.
OpenAI’s post underlines its continued response to the Hugging Face incident, introducing safety steps at an earlier stage of product development. The update also explains how coding agents are used for development at the company, and confirms recent revisions to monitoring standards.
Noting that “Agent-powered AI research is still new, and we are still learning how to measure it,” OpenAI’s “intern” could herald some some considerable changes to the completion of research, when it the automated AI research tool is finally completed.
Microsoft worries developers are submitting a higher volume of extensions due to AI
It's already made some review changes, but the Edge team has had to make further changes
Edge extensions will also be reassessed every 15 days to prove quality
Microsoft's Edge team has warned that vibe coding has contributed to a sharp rise in extension submissions for the browser simply because developers can build and tweak their extensions far more quickly.
While the company largely sees this as a positive for the Edge ecosystem, which has always struggled against the likes of Chrome, it also worries about the additional pressure its own developers now face.
Even though the team introduced an "expedited review process" in 2025, its "review pipeline has experienced additional strain" and review times are suboptimal.
Edge has seen a huge rise in AI-generated extension submissions
As a result of this additional stress, the company says it's streamlined how extension submissions move through the review pipeline in order to reduce the amount of time developers wait for approval, but crucially, the changes do not reduce the number of checks or reduce the standards.
One of the changes include the addition of automated systems to identify known policy violations and security issues.
"Our objective is to make Edge the easiest place to build, publish, and grow an extension," Microsoft wrote, but the company clearly knows Edge falls short of Chrome in terms of outright user adoption.
Per the latest Statcounter figures, Chrome accounts for 71% of all desktop browsing sessions, with Edge in a distant second place with an 11% market share.
At the same time, Microsoft is also making changes to its Featured badge, which assesses extensions across "more than 60 quality signals." The increasingly automated system will now re-check extensions every 15 days – "With this more frequent cadence, high-quality extensions can earn recognition sooner, and developers receive faster feedback on their investments in quality," the company added.
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