• Amazon shifts AI focus to business impact, not just raw usage, in new developer guidelines.
• The company warns that AI metrics can create bad incentives, including “tokenmaxxing.”
• Managers are told to examine teams at both the highest and lowest levels of AI adoption.

Amazon just issued new guidelines for software engineers in the AI era: Prioritize business outcomes over raw usage.

Terk Terkowitz, Amazon's vice president and distinguished engineer, said in a memo published Tuesday that AI is changing software development more quickly and fundamentally than earlier shifts such as cloud computing. But engineers should be judged by their impact on customers and the business, he wrote, not simply how much they use AI.

"We all need to embrace this change and take the time to learn, or we risk being left behind," Terkowitz said.

AI coding tools and agents are upending the software industry and changing what it means to be a coder. Amazon calls this the "era of the Renaissance Developer," where human judgement and machine intelligence combine to create new products and services faster and more efficiently.

"This is a time of change for our industry, and a time of change for what it means to be a software engineer," Terkowitz wrote in the memo.

The updated guidelines reflect Amazon's growing effort to make AI adoption part of how it assesses engineers and engineering managers. The company has tracked measures including AI usage, token consumption, and lines of code internally, and used leaderboards to rank teams by some of those metrics.

But the memo warns that using such measures as targets can produce bad outcomes, including "tokenmaxxing" rather than better software or customer experiences.

"Using these metrics could, if used as a target instead of a measure, drive negative outcomes," Terkowitz wrote in the memo.

Amazon has been experimenting with ways to measure and encourage AI use across its engineering organization.

Earlier this year, the company was tracking engineers's use of internal AI tools and some teams used leaderboards tied to measures such as token consumption. The programs created friction among some employees, who worried that pressure to use AI could reward wasteful activity rather than productive work.

The new guidance offers Amazon's clearest public acknowledgment of that risk. Rather than lay out a detailed AI playbook that could quickly become obsolete, Amazon said its revised developer guidelines focus on long-term impact on customers and the business.

Still, the company said AI should be "at the center of software engineering practice" and urged engineers to incorporate the technology into their daily work.

Leaders are expected to use AI tools on production work themselves, understand where they help and where they fall short, and explain that judgment to their teams, according to the memo.

Terkowitz said Amazon has found that metrics such as token use, AI-tool adoption, and code reviews can correlate with the outcomes it values. But he said the measures must be used carefully. More token use can raise costs, while a focus on lines of code can create unnecessary complexity.

He also recommended that managers pay particular attention to teams at both ends of the AI adoption spectrum: those in the bottom 10%, to understand why they are not using AI effectively, and those in the top 10%, to determine whether heavier use is translating into faster delivery.

Terkowitz said Amazon's most AI-forward "frontier teams" have shown stronger productivity and delivery. He also said teams and individuals that are not adopting AI or increasing output metrics are falling behind.

But his memo left room for engineers whose work may not yet benefit from current AI tools. In those cases, he said, employees should document why and work toward a solution by sharing their findings with peers and managers.

"An engineer who can explain where AI does not yet help their work is demonstrating the judgement we are asking for," the memo said.

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• Amazon launched a series of new devices this month, including Alexa tablets and Bee AI wearables.
• Rising memory costs forced "difficult trade-offs" on Amazon's device prices, sales, and profit.
• Amazon is seeking more Alexa revenue from enterprise sales, licensing, and ads.

Amazon launched a flurry of new consumer devices this month. Behind the scenes, rising memory costs are adding pressure to its already money-losing hardware business.

An internal planning document obtained by Business Insider shows Amazon forecasting a $612 million gross loss this year for its first-party devices business, compared with a leadership target of a $438 million loss.

The document said rising memory costs were "putting pressure" on the business's profitability, forcing "difficult trade-offs" among sales volumes, average selling prices, and gross profit.

The projected $612 million loss was at the gross profit level, meaning it did not account for all operating expenses, such as R&D, sales and marketing, and administrative costs.

The figures offer a rare glimpse into the pressure on Amazon's hardware business as it absorbs rising component costs. Other tech hardware companies, including industry leader Apple, face similar pressure from surging memory chip prices.

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

A new wave of AI devices

Despite the pressure, Amazon continues to expand its consumer hardware lineup. Even if the company loses money on device sales, it can make money in other ways, such as subscription services, as more customers use its gadgets.

In October alone, the company introduced new Kindles, Alexa-powered tablets, Ring smart locks, and AI wearables under its Bee brand. The August planning document identified Bee and new smart glasses as strategic products still in an investment phase.

Amazon has historically used low-cost hardware to pull customers into a broader ecosystem of shopping and digital content. Rising component costs could make that strategy more expensive, forcing the company to raise prices.

The clearest shift is in Amazon's tablets. Earlier this month, the company phased out Fire tablets after 15 years and replaced the budget-friendly lineup with pricier Alexa Tablets powered by Alexa+. The new devices cost between $229.99 and $499.99, a notable increase from previous generations.

Not just Amazon

The planning document was prepared in August, the same month Amazon raised prices on products including Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers, and Fire TV devices.

The pressure extends beyond Amazon. Apple has raised prices on some Macs and iPads, while Microsoft and Sony have increased console prices. Dell, HP, and Lenovo also face higher memory costs.

The AI boom is helping drive the squeeze. Huge data center investments have increased demand for memory chips, while manufacturers have devoted more capacity to high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers. That has tightened supplies and raised prices for components used across consumer electronics.

Amazon is experiencing both sides of the boom. It expects roughly $220 billion in capital expenditures this year, largely to expand AWS data centers for AI demand, while higher component costs squeeze its consumer hardware business.

The rising cost of Alexa+

The August planning materials show Amazon reassessing both Alexa+ revenue and operating costs. They called for updated forecasts, expansion through enterprise sales and advertising, and more detailed AWS cost modeling.

Amazon is now confronting the cost of operating Alexa+ at scale. Business Insider reported in July that internal forecasts put Alexa+'s AWS cloud costs at roughly $1.7 billion in 2026, nearly triple the prior year's figure. Amazon was working to lower those costs by relying less on Anthropic's AI models and routing more requests to its own, cheaper systems.

A separate project called Moonraker, intended to give Alexa more advanced AI-agent capabilities, was projected to require more than $100 million in GPU spending this year. Amazon internally considered delaying or scaling back the initiative as one option for easing cost pressure, Business Insider previously reported.

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• Cybersecurity experts found severe PHP bugs that could allow attackers to hijack web servers.
• AI is being used to exploit vulnerabilities, making Americans more susceptible to scams.
• Experts stressed basic cyber hygiene and scam awareness, especially for older Americans.

In just two days, AI exposed critical flaws in a programming language behind 70% of all websites. That may have opened the door for a rush of scams — especially those targeted to vulnerable populations like older Americans.

Last week, cybersecurity researchers uncovered two severe bugs in the PHP programming language. Attackers could hijack web servers and execute remote code. This prompted the PHP Foundation to release emergency patches to prevent widespread hacks, and governments, cybersecurity agencies, and businesses quickly moved to do damage control.

Though some experts said there could have been more problems had these flaws not been immediately addressed, such a crisis can happen again. As AI becomes more advanced and widespread, Americans are becoming more exposed and susceptible to scams.

Scams have been pervasive for decades, starting with physical mail and landline telemarketing. But they've gotten significantly more complex and deceptive, now integrating AI in ways that even tech whizzes may not spot. Older Americans are often the main targets of fraud, losing billions in fraud. An AARP survey from April found that 4 in 10 older Americans have lost money to fraud.

With attackers pouncing on any vulnerability to steal personal details or get money, five experts told Business Insider that now is the time to get ahead on scam prevention. Their quotes have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, who founded the cybersecurity awareness campaign Take9

What are some of the most common scams targeting older Americans?

Hackers are using AI to ditch the typos and make scams harder to spot. AI also makes it easier to produce large numbers of targeted scams. This includes AI voice cloning and scans of social accounts for personal details. These scams are on the rise and hurting real people, including older folks like me.

How should families react to all the recent headlines about system vulnerabilities?

Don't panic, but don't ignore them either. It shouldn't be up to regular folks to outsmart scammers. The best thing for families to focus on is basic cyber hygiene.

Organizations like Google and Apple are working hard to block scams, particularly on phones. It's just as important that we prepare loved ones with the tools to protect themselves as scammers become more sophisticated.

What are ways in which you work to make people more cautious about scams?

I've been fighting scams for 25 years. I take them personally. That's why I founded Take9 in 2024 to help people understand how to protect themselves and stay safe online.

Scams are overwhelming, and people often don't know where to begin. My advice is to start with the basics: Take 9 seconds to pause before clicking on unknown texts or links.

Once they've got that down, try multi-factor authentication, password managers, passkeys, and single sign-on. Family codes are an effective method to keep your loved ones safe, too.

Don Grant, certified financial planner at Sabre Wealth and CFP Board Ambassador

What are some of the most common scams targeting older Americans?

Scams often involve impersonation of an institution or government agency like the IRS, Medicare, or Social Security. Fake technical support scammers contact you with claims of a breach at your bank or financial institution.

A good friend and client is in his mid-60s, is a single Notre Dame graduate, and is a retired university English professor. He talked incessantly about his gorgeous, accomplished girlfriend. She has sent him photos, but he had never met her in person, nor via video chat.

Fast forward to earlier this year. They are no longer an item. He reluctantly admitted that she was attempting to scam him. He did send her about $1,200 to help get her 9-year-old daughter into a music school. When she hit him up about 10 times so she could move, he figured it out and cut the ties. From what we pieced together, this was an AI-assisted romance scam.

How should families react to all the recent headlines about system vulnerabilities?

A security breach at an institution doesn't automatically mean that your accounts have been hacked. However, it does mean it's time to change your login credentials.

Set up account notifications for withdrawals, transfers, password changes, and anything to do with your accounts. Never respond to an unsolicited email from a site or financial institution with which you do business. Don't call the number provided in the communication or click the provided link. Take the time to log into a verifiable site and call a verifiable number with questions.

What are ways in which you work to make people more cautious about scams?

Communication and education are critical. I have open conversations about financial fraud, anonymously citing actual situations where a scammer attempted to separate them from their money. Recounting others' experiences seems to really drive the point home. We also insist that all clients designate a trusted contact we can reach if we notice unusual activity or have concerns about possible financial exploitation.

Removing the stigma that they are "stupid" if they are scammed is paramount. Many victims are embarrassed to admit they've been deceived, and that embarrassment can prevent them from seeking help.

Alex Jacquez, Groundwork Collaborative's senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and research

What are some of the most common scams targeting older Americans?

The FTC recently released its Protecting Older Consumers report, describing fraud in 2025. The top fraud types by incident report numbers for older people include online shopping, business impostors, government impostors, and investment scams. These, plus romance scams, are the top fraud types by total dollars lost for older people.

Scammers use AI to create deepfakes, clone voices, and send phishing messages. These types of fraud are not new, but AI makes them increasingly convincing and enables them to be carried out on a larger scale. Scammers also use AI in predictive targeting to find the most susceptible individuals.

In March 2026, Interpol warned that "AI-enhanced fraud is 4.5 times more profitable than traditional methods" because AI agents can complete the fraud on behalf of the scammers.

How should families react to all the recent headlines about system vulnerabilities?

Families should see the recent headlines about system vulnerabilities as part of a larger problem. Companies collect lots of information on users and fail to protect it. Now, consumers are exposed to data breaches and sophisticated scams.

What are ways in which you work to make people more cautious about scams?

We put out material for consumers and policymakers highlighting how companies are using more sophisticated techniques and technologies to rip them off.

While there are best practices people can follow to remain alert and vigilant against common scams, especially in the AI age, we believe that any real fix must be systematic and undertaken by policymakers. We need companies to better protect consumer data, stop collecting irrelevant data, and stop using it to squeeze consumers for every last dime.

Amy Nofziger, senior director of victim support, AARP Fraud Watch Network

What are some of the most common scams targeting older Americans?

Impostor scams remain the number one category reported to the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline. They will say there is a problem with your account and need to remotely access it, or they will say they are with the courthouse and you missed jury duty and demand payment to avoid being arrested.

AI hasn't changed human nature, but it has changed the scale, speed, and sophistication of scams. Criminals are still exploiting the same emotions they always have: fear, trust, loneliness, hope, curiosity, and urgency. We used to tell people to look for red flags like misspellings and poor grammar in emails, but with today's AI tools, those clues are often gone.

How should families react to all the recent headlines about system vulnerabilities?

It's understandable to be concerned by headlines about system vulnerabilities and data breaches, but the key is to focus on what you can control. The goal isn't to live in fear. It's to stay informed, slow down when something feels off, and ask for help. We don't have to do this alone.

What are ways in which you work to make people more cautious about scams?

AARP Fraud Watch Network helps individuals and families protect themselves from scams. It's a free resource available to everyone. We provide fraud prevention information, online tools, the award-winning Perfect Scam podcast, and a Fraud Watch Network Helpline that receives more than 100,000 calls each year.

Ali Tager, vice president of external affairs, National Cryptocurrency Association

What are some of the most common scams targeting older Americans?

Some of the most common online finance scams are relationship scams and impersonation. Giveaway scams are when scammers impersonate public figures, promising "free" money or crypto if users start by sending a small amount first. In phishing scams, fraudsters pose as a friend or a crypto exchange and ask victims to click links or share login details to steal private information.

Pump and dump scams occur when groups inflate the price of lesser-known crypto coins via online hype. When enough people join and spike the price, fraudsters quickly sell off their holdings for a profit, leaving others in the dust.

How should families react to all the recent headlines about system vulnerabilities?

Stay alert, not alarmed. Whether it's your bank, your Venmo account, or your crypto account, security should always be top of mind. Protecting yourself starts with recognizing common scams and practicing smart online habits.

For crypto holders, guard your private key or recovery phrase like you would your bank account number and password. No legitimate company will ever ask for it, so never share it, and keep physical backups in secure locations. Watch for small clues like odd sender addresses or sloppy spelling, and remember that deepfakes and fake websites can look real at first glance.

What are ways in which you work to make people more cautious about scams?

A scammer's greatest weakness is an informed community. The NCA is dedicated to helping everyday Americans understand and use crypto with confidence. Research shows that 72% of crypto holders cite scams and security as a concern. However, 76% of crypto holders say it has positively impacted their lives overall, while just 3% report negative impacts. Of those, about one-third are scam/fraud-related.

• Nate Soares said he stopped adding to his 401(k) because AI may kill us within a decade.
• The MIRI president said humanity has a more than 50% chance of dying within a decade.
• Elon Musk said AI could make retirement savings irrelevant by creating an age of abundance.

Saving for retirement is a bet on the future. Nate Soares, the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, isn't so sure AI will let us get that far.

"I do not save for retirement right now. I have a 401(k) from when I worked at Google, but I haven't contributed for a decade," Soares told The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson in a recent interview for Thompson's "The Most Interesting Thing in AI" series.

Soares' decision reflects a grim view of the AI race.

"Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton and Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger have, respectively, put the odds of AI killing everyone within a decade at 10% and more than 10%. Soares is more pessimistic: He told Thompson he believes there is a greater-than-50% chance AI causes human extinction in less than a decade.

Soares, who is also the coauthor of "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies," has spent more than 12 years working on AI alignment, the field focused on ensuring powerful systems act as intended. Before joining MIRI, the Berkeley-based nonprofit focused on AI risks, he worked as an engineer at Google and Microsoft.

Soares said that a sufficiently capable AI could develop goals at odds with humanity's, evade oversight, improve itself, and build the automated infrastructure needed to operate without people.

From there, he said, it could reshape the planet around its own objectives, potentially making it uninhabitable for humans — a warning he shared with Business Insider last year.

A 401(k) for the apocalypse?

The question of how AI will shape the future has also prompted Elon Musk to question whether retirement savings will matter. Musk's vision of the future, however, is radically different than Soares'.

In January, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said people should not worry about "squirreling money away for retirement" in 10 or 20 years, predicting advances in AI, robotics, and energy will make retirement savings "irrelevant." (Personal finance experts and AI gurus told Business Insider the opposite: You really should be saving for retirement.)

Musk has said that supercharged productivity could create an age of abundance, in which everyone has access to a "universal high income," cheap goods and services, and better healthcare and education.

Musk has also said money could become irrelevant in a future where AI and robots outperform humans at virtually every task.

For Soares, the prospect of a vastly capable AI is an existential danger, not a route to plenty.

Echoing calls from tech leaders to "pace the frontier" of AI development, Soares said governments should halt the training of general-purpose AI systems. They should focus on developing technology for applications like cancer research and safer self-driving cars, he said.

The solution, he told Thompson on Wednesday, "is to not build the thing that would kill everybody."

"I do everything I can to stop this eventuality," he said. "I don't think it's inevitable."

• Simile raised $300 million to build models that simulate consumer behavior.
• CEO Joon Sung Park said users can define an audience and ask simulated consumers questions.
• Park said CVS and companies in finance and entertainment are already working with Simile.

Companies could soon have a new way to find out your shopping habits — by asking your digital clone.

Joon Sung Park, Co-Founder & CEO of Simile, an AI startup, told show host Molly O'Shea on the Sourcery podcast released on Monday that the company is building simulations of people that businesses can quiz about everything from products to marketing campaigns.

Park said the company is "creating a foundation model of human behavior that basically can take as input a description of a person or a group of people and then simulate what these people might do in different contexts," Park said.

"So they get access to this web interface where they can basically come in and define two things," Park added of existing users. "They can say who they want to talk to and what questions they want to ask. And really they can ask anything, and right now they can ask any number of questions."

Park said Simile raised $300 million in total at a $2 billion valuation.

Simile’s pitch comes as retailers turn to AI to get shoppers to spend. Amazon and Walmart have rolled out AI shopping assistants that answer questions, compare products, and recommend items, while retailers use customer data to personalize what shoppers see. Executives at both companies have said their AI tools are helping boost online sales.

Park said CVS has worked with Simile to better understand consumers, including their responses to store layouts and messaging. The startup also works with financial institutions and entertainment companies, Park said.

Simile maintains simulated panels for different industries and collects additional data when customers want to understand a specific population. Park said Simile's partnerships with organizations, including Gallup, which have access to actual humans who have agreed to participate, provide it with data from more than 40 million people globally. He said the company also uses behavioral information, such as transaction and mobility data, to train its models.

“If we can create simulations of people and be able to ask any questions at any time," Park said, "That becomes a superpower for these companies."

• Anthropic shows strong profit potential, with revenue growing way faster than expenses.
• Anthropic's revenue per employee exceeds $6.6 million, outpacing estimates for Meta and Google.
• Anthropic has a surprisingly diverse customer base and huge cash reserves.

For years, one of the biggest unanswered questions about the artificial intelligence boom has been surprisingly simple: Can the companies building the world's most powerful AI models actually make money?

After spending hours poring over Anthropic's IPO filing on Monday, we finally have an answer: Yes. And potentially lots of it.

A couple of Chinese AI labs went public earlier, revealing appalling financial results that sowed doubt about the industry's economics. Now Anthropic has provided a much more compelling demonstration of how this business can work at enormous scale.

The numbers are remarkable. Anthropic generated $11.6 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2026, up 1,368% from a year earlier. During that same period, spending on computing and infrastructure increased 300%, while other expenses rose 741%

So, the company is bringing in money much faster than its most important costs are rising.

For every dollar Anthropic spent on computing in the second quarter, it generated $2.08 in revenue, up from just 40 cents in the first quarter of 2025. That's a more than fivefold improvement over five quarters.

The result: Anthropic recorded $974 million in quarterly operating profit, representing an 8% margin. Its adjusted operating profit margin reached 19%, compared with -129% a year earlier.

"Frontier-lab unit economics can turn positive at scale," Mark Mahaney, a top tech analyst at Evercore ISI, wrote in a research note on Monday.

Better than Meta and Google

There's more evidence that Anthropic has built an unusually efficient business.

Over the year ending September 30, revenue increased roughly 1,200%, while its employee count grew about 170%. Revenue per employee jumped from $1.4 million to more than $6.6 million.

For comparison, Mahaney estimated that Meta generates about $3.2 million in annual revenue per employee, while Google generates about $2.5 million.

That comparison isn't perfect. Anthropic relies heavily on cloud providers, whose employees handle much of the computing infrastructure and distribution work. The improvement is still striking.

Customer surprise

Another surprise: Anthropic doesn't depend as much on a handful of enormous customers, as some investors had feared.

The company had more than 11,900 customers generating at least $100,000 in annual revenue as of September, compared with over 950 a year earlier. More than 1,900 customers spend at least $1 million annually.

No single customer accounted for more than 10% of revenue during the first nine months of 2026. Its five largest customers represented about 21% of third-quarter revenue, down from roughly 36% in the first quarter.

"Concentration may be better than feared," Mahaney wrote.

Cash cushion

Anthropic has a formidable financial cushion. Its June 30 balance sheet showed more than $130 billion in cash and short-term investments.

And Mahaney estimated that the company has burned through just $9 billion since it started more than five years ago. That's a long runway.

Now, don't ask me whether all this makes Anthropic worth $2 trillion, $1.5 trillion, $1 trillion, or considerably less. If I knew that, I'd be making a lot more money as an investor. And even professional investors don't know.

An $800 billion caveat

Some enormous caveats: Much of Anthropic's revenue comes from customers paying for what they use, rather than signing long-term contracts. Meanwhile, some of its computing agreements require minimum payments whether or not it needs all the capacity.

Mahaney estimates that Anthropic has entered into nearly $800 billion in computing arrangements, although only about $266 billion was fixed or guaranteed as of June.

That's still a staggering amount.

"The commitments assume revenue compounding that is not contracted," Mahaney wrote.

Translation: While the company has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI computing infrastructure, it hasn't secured the future revenue needed to pay for all of it.

Importantly, most of the potential $800 billion exposure isn't fixed. Many arrangements depend on capacity being delivered, can be adjusted, or include cancellation provisions.

In-house compute and capex

Another wrinkle: Anthropic warned Monday that its spending will increase as it shifts toward leasing AI chips and operating more of its own computing infrastructure, rather than relying entirely on Amazon, Google, and other cloud providers.

That could make future cash flow considerably less attractive, even if operating profits continue to improve.

Still, the central takeaway from Anthropic's IPO filing is difficult to ignore.

For years, investors have wondered whether selling AI could become a genuinely profitable business, rather than an extraordinarily expensive scientific experiment.

Anthropic has now shown that it can. The next question is whether it can keep doing so as the bills get much, much bigger.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com

• Microsoft is offering buyouts to about 60,000 employees.
• The offers are individualized to each employee based on their level, location, and tenure.
• Business Insider reviewed offers to show what employees get when they leave the company.

As Microsoft sends out its buyout offers to more than a quarter of its workforce, specific offers reviewed by Business Insider reveal exactly what employees get if they choose to leave the company.

The offers are individualized for each employee based on their level, location, and tenure. Those reviewed by Business Insider confirm that the US buyouts align with the company's US standard severance offers. A Microsoft spokesperson said about 60,000 employees would be eligible for the buyout.

Microsoft uses a levels system to represent seniority, from entry levels starting at 59 to senior levels at 70, or vice president. The company offered buyouts to employees on select teams in the US, Canada, India, and the UK at level 70.

Offers reviewed by Business Insider show employees at internal levels 64 and below were offered one week of base pay per six months of service, and employees at levels 65 to 67 were offered two weeks of base pay per six months of service.

Buyout offers also include continued regular stock vesting and health insurance. The standard stock-vesting severance offer is six or 12 months for levels 67 and below, based on years of service.

Eligible employees will have until early December to decide whether to take the offer and exit at the end of the year, and there are no plans for another buyout at this time, a Microsoft spokesperson said.

Standard severance is capped at 39 weeks of base pay for levels 67 and below, while the standard severance offer for level 68 includes 12 months of salary.

Earlier this year, Microsoft rolled out a voluntary retirement program for employees. About 7% of Microsoft's US workforce, or about 8,750 people, were eligible at the time. As Business Insider previously reported, Microsoft's voluntary retirement program offer also aligned with the company's standard severance offer, including continued regular stock vesting for six or 12 months, based on years of service.

Earlier this year, another tech giant, Google, offered buyouts to staff in its business unit, Business Insider previously reported.

As more tech companies offer buyouts, some human resources professionals previously told Business Insider that this approach could soften job cuts, and also that when they're made available to workers of all tenures, companies risk losing talent.

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• Microsoft is offering buyouts to around 60,000 employees.
• The offers will go out later today, and resemble Microsoft's standard severance offer.
• The buyout offer could help Microsoft cut costs and reshape its workforce for the AI era.

Microsoft is offering buyouts, according to a memo Chief People Officer Amy Coleman sent to employees Monday.

"The Voluntary Exit Offer reflects an important part of how we're evolving our approach to change: creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter," Coleman wrote.

Microsoft's voluntary exit offer is the company's latest attempt to slim its workforce without another round of involuntary cuts. After spending heavily on AI infrastructure and reducing headcount this year, Microsoft is offering remaining employees a chance to leave, testing whether voluntary departures can cut costs.

Eligible employees in the U.S., Canada, India, and the U.K. at level 70, which includes senior leaders at the company, and below, will receive an email later Monday with the terms of the offer. Only some teams are participating, excluding sales organizations, some engineering, and some corporate functions.

Around 60,000 employees — or more than a quarter of the company's workforce — about will be eligible, a spokesperson told Business Insider, and the terms will be similar to Microsoft's standard severance.

The US severance package offered when Microsoft laid off employees earlier this year included a minimum of 60 days of base pay, during which employees will remain on the payroll, and, for most employees, up to a maximum of 39 weeks of base pay, based on seniority and tenure.

Employees at internal levels 64 and below received one week of base pay per six months of service, for example, and employees at levels 65 to 67 will receive two weeks of base pay per six months of service, according to offers reviewed by Business Insider.

Eligible employees will have until early December to decide whether to take the offer and exit at the end of the year, and there are no plans for another buyout at this time, Microsoft's spokesperson said.

The buyout offer follows Microsoft's Voluntary Retirement Program, which offered a retirement buyout to about 9,000 eligible employees based on age and tenure.

About one-third of eligible employees took the buyout, in line with expectations, a person familiar with the turnout told Business Insider in June. That buyout allowed Microsoft to lay off a lower percentage of its workforce compared to last year, the person said at the time.

Read the memo:

Introducing a Voluntary Exit Offer

Today, we're introducing a new Voluntary Exit Offer (VEO) to eligible employees within participating organizations. This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support. It also gives participating orgs another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.

The Voluntary Exit Offer reflects an important part of how we're evolving our approach to change: creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter. This builds on what we learned earlier this year through the Voluntary Retirement Program.

What employees should know

This offer will be available to eligible employees in participating teams in Canada, India, United Kingdom and United States at level 70 and below. This is a time-limited, voluntary program that gives those who are eligible the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources. Some organizations are providing the Voluntary Exit Offer, and some are not. Participation varies based on each business's priorities, customer commitments, and workforce needs.

Eligible employees will receive an email with a link to their Voluntary Exit Offer details within the next few hours.

Looking ahead

The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us. We'll learn from it. At the same time, we'll keep helping people focus on the work that matters most, build new skills, and, where it makes sense, find new opportunities across Microsoft. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee. These are a few of the ways we're trying to meet different business needs while continuing to create opportunities for our own people to grow and contribute.

My promise is to continue to provide clarity, listen and learn, and keep improving.

Thank you for everything you continue to do for our customers, Microsoft, and for one another.

Amy

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• Micro1 pledged to spend $1 billion on licensing companies' data for AI developers.
• The startup snags Slack messages, Canva files, Google Docs, and as much other data as it can get.
• By selling company data, CEOs have a new revenue stream that popped up this year.

As AI labs go on the hunt for real-world data, Micro1 is throwing everything at getting it for them.

The startup is one in a new class of fast-moving data brokers, gobbling up companies' internal data and packaging it for the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and other model developers. The executives who sell their companies' data to Micro1 find themselves suddenly participating in a new sector of the economy, where terabytes of mundane workplace interactions can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ilya Brotzky, the CEO and cofounder of the recruiting startup VanHack, told Business Insider he was shocked when he filled out a Micro1 survey about his company's data and received a "substantial" offer.

"I didn't believe it, to be honest," he said. "I felt like it was a little too good to be true."

Micro1 says it pays $100,000 to $2 million for a single midsize company's data. It recently announced plans to spend $1 billion on the project over the next year. Brotzky and the other executives Business Insider spoke to for this story wouldn't share the exact amounts their companies received.

For Micro1, the new focus on workplace data matches a broader evolution in the industry, as Business Insider has written about in The AI Data Grab, a series about how tech giants are increasingly turning to workers, users, and the physical world to get data to train AI.

First, AI companies gobbled up text from the internet and corpora of old books. Then they realized that humans grading AI responses could improve their models. And now, companies are using complex simulations, built on real-world data, to improve the tenacity and skill of their AI.

Gartner estimated that spending on AI data is likely to surge from less than $1 billion last year to almost $6.5 billion in 2027. Micro1's chief revenue officer, William Almeida, told Business Insider in September that his company has been explaining to prospective customers why their data is suddenly so valuable for those simulations.

"Every time I talk to companies, I tell them, 'Hey, I see this as a booming business,'" Almeida said.

Slack DMs, Google Docs, Canva files: Micro1 wants all it can get

Micro1 has three ways of working with AI model developers.

First, it can take a company's raw data, transform it to protect privacy, and license it to a lab. In addition, Micro1 provides an in-progress AI agent to companies and gets feedback on how it works. The third route is the simulation: Micro1 takes a company's data up to a certain timestamp, freezes it, and then provides that "environment" to a model developer trying to teach its AI how to work from existing context.

Micro1 pays more for larger, more complex datasets, as well as for data that represents a unique type of work or knowledge. It usually wants to license a company's entire data corpus, so that an AI model can replicate what it would be like to be a human employee.

"The connection, the diversity, the traceability of all of these data points, they matter a lot when you think about model training," Almeida said.

Brotzky also received an offer from AI data startup Mercor to buy his company's data, though he opted for Micro1. Once Brotzky dug into Micro1's privacy process, he said he felt comfortable sharing all the data they requested. That included VanHack's Google suite, Confluence data, Slack messages, and customer relationship management software.

Grant Gooley, the CEO of the marketing agency MyPortal Marketing, also views his deal with Micro1 as an innovation. He has sold internal design files from Figma and Canva, as well as checklists from Monday.com.

"When we were building these processes years ago, I didn't think that we would be using it to support AI learning," Gooley said. "But doing that, it's very fulfilling."

CEOs pitch the deals to their workers

Micro1 and its rivals are full steam ahead. Still, there are open questions. Former and current employees aren't likely to get any compensation from — or a voice in — their work becoming AI fodder. Ifeoma Ajunwa, a law professor at Emory University, previously told Business Insider that data sales are an "ethically gray area."

When pitching to potential customers, Almeida tells them this business is in the early days.

"If you wait too much, you won't get the premium that the first companies are getting," he said.

VanHack's team got a confidence boost from the Micro1 deal, Brotzky said, because of the additional revenue stream it represents

Gooley said he's kept MyPortal Marketing's employees in the loop about the deal with Micro1 and hasn't heard any complaints.

"I told my team that this is something that you're going to tell your grandchildren about one day, because we are literally supporting the future growth of marketing agencies," Gooley said.

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• A version of this story originally appeared in the AI Insider newsletter.
• Sign up for Business Insider's weekly AI Insider newsletter here.

The AI data center boom looks like it's running into serious trouble. Projects are being delayed, canceled, or abandoned. Electricity shortages are holding everything up.

But there's a twist: A lot of these data centers were probably never going to get built in the first place.

Bernstein Research analyzed thousands of planned US data centers and concluded that only about 35% of the announced capacity is likely to become reality.

The industry has a wonderful name for some of the more dubious projects: "Bragawatts."

These are enormous data centers announced by companies that often have little experience building them. Some haven't secured electricity, construction permits, or even customers.

Then there are the "ghost projects." Developers submit multiple requests for electricity connections, hoping at least one location works out. In Texas, these requests have reached more than five times the state's existing electricity supply.

No wonder the grid looks overwhelmed.

This doesn't mean the AI boom is fake. Far from it.

My colleague Eugene Kim exclusively reported this week that even Amazon, one of the world's most experienced data center builders, is struggling to get enough electricity to power its expensive AI equipment.

But there's a big difference between Amazon's very real problems and an inexperienced developer announcing a gigantic project that may never happen.

The AI data center boom is real, and so are the challenges of building all these facilities. But the sheer number of speculative projects may be making those challenges look bigger than they truly are.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com

• Pilots have faced the risk of deskilling for decades because of their reliance on autopilot.
• Steven Shaw of King's College London said they can show workers how to stay sharp with AI.
• "Even experts are at risk of deskilling," he said.

Pilots have relied on autopilot for decades. Their experience could offer a lesson for workers increasingly relying on AI.

Steven Shaw, an assistant professor at King's College London and coauthor of a widely cited study on "cognitive surrender," drew a parallel between pilots' reliance on automation and workers outsourcing their thinking and delegating their work to AI.

"We've had autopilot in planes for a very, very long time," Shaw said, speaking at a recent OxGen Summit panel. "So they learn to fly manually first, and then they learn to use autopilot strategically."

Some federal aviation guidance encourages pilots to occasionally switch off autopilot to maintain their manual flying skills.

There is a long track record of this. In a 2013 safety alert, the Federal Aviation Administration warned that "continuous use of autoflight systems could lead to degradation of the pilot's ability to quickly recover the aircraft from an undesired state."

The agency reiterated the importance of manual flying in a 2017 alert, recommending that airlines encourage pilots to practice without autopilot periodically when conditions permit.

"Even experts are at risk of deskilling," Shaw said, referring to the dangers of repeatedly outsourcing cognitive tasks to AI.

Shaw's warning comes as some tech leaders, AI researchers, and politicians have cautioned that overreliance on AI could weaken workers' underlying cognitive abilities.

Speaking at More Perfect University's "Students vs. Billionaires" town hall in Maine on Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that "AI's goal is to take your thoughts away from you, your ability to think away from you so that you become dependent on a machine."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in July that one of AI's most overlooked risks was "cognitive atrophy," while Arthur Mensch, CEO of French AI startup Mistral, said last year that the technology's biggest risk could be "deskilling."

Think before you prompt

Early research is showing how readily people outsource their thinking to AI.

Vivienne Ming, an AI researcher and theoretical neuroscientist, told Business Insider in March that one of her experiments, involving 72 participants, found that roughly 90% to 95% either relied on AI to generate answers or used it to validate their assumptions, rather than challenge and deepen their thinking.

"The overwhelming trend is substitution," she said.

Similarly, Shaw's research suggests that the danger is that people increasingly accept AI's answers without thinking critically.

In experiments involving 1,372 participants, people accepted AI recommendations nearly 80% of the time even when the answers were deliberately incorrect.

Shaw calls this phenomenon "cognitive surrender."

His advice for avoiding it is straightforward: develop your own judgment before asking AI for help.

"Just think first and then go to the prompt," he said during the OxGen Summit panel.

Starting with AI, he warned, can narrow the range of ideas people consider independently.

Other experts have offered similar advice. Geetha Rajan, a former AI adoption leader at PwC, previously told Business Insider that she writes her own first drafts before using AI to check facts and challenge her work.

Ryan Deiss, CEO of DigitalMarketer, advocates a "10-80-10" rule: humans handle the first 10% of a task, AI takes on the middle 80%, and humans return for the final 10% to exercise judgment and refine the result.

• Everyone complains about AI-generated junk.
• But decades of sloppy human-written software may be a much bigger problem.
• This week's "Black October" freakout was caused by human slop, not AI.

The internet has a slop problem. And for once, we can't blame AI.

Most of us spend hours online every day without thinking much about the software holding everything together. We assume somebody, somewhere, has made sure it all works properly.

So it probably came as a shock this week to discover just how vulnerable some of that software is.

The cybersecurity freakout dubbed "Black October" has inspired warnings about AI-powered hackers, digital catastrophe, and even advice to stockpile cash and canned food.

At first glance, AI looks like the villain. But this is largely a human-made mess.

Here's the problem.

The internet runs on decades of software, some of it containing security weaknesses that have been overlooked, tolerated, or simply left unfixed.

For years, that was a manageable gamble. Fixing software takes time and money. Exploiting obscure weaknesses often required considerable expertise. Companies could convince themselves that the risk wasn't worth worrying about.

AI is changing that calculation. Someone who once needed years of training to hunt for weaknesses can now get help from an AI model. These tools can also examine software at speeds that humans can't match.

Suddenly, all those problems we've been ignoring look more urgent.

"Over the last 10 years the risk acceptance process has morphed from a way to accept risks to enable the business, to a way to justify never fixing security issues," Joel de la Garza and Zane Lackey, partners at a16z, wrote on Friday.

That's quite an indictment. The result is a recent surge in published vulnerabilities.

This looks like AI is creating new security problems. But it's actually AI exposing weaknesses that humans left behind.

Slop irony

The irony is delicious. We've spent the past couple of years complaining about "AI slop." Turns out human slop can be pretty consequential, too.

"The funny thing is everyone was saying AI slop code will cause a cyber crisis but it's actually all the old human slop causing it and the AI is just cleaning it up," software engineer Ben Kaufman wrote on X on Thursday.

"Humans have been the ones writing and reviewing each other's code for decades," tech founder Anant Jain wrote on X. "If we're being intellectually honest and holding ourselves to the same bar we hold AI to, we'd have to admit that we haven't been all that good at it either."

Humans are sloppy

Anyone who's worked with other humans for a decade or two knows exactly how this happens.

It's Friday afternoon. You've almost finished a project. You could spend another few hours making it perfect, or declare it 90% done and head off to that dinner party. We've all been there.

AI agents don't have dinner parties. They don't get tired on Friday afternoons. They can keep searching, testing, and trying again. That persistence is now colliding with an internet built by busy, imperfect humans who often settled for "good enough for now."

A tragedy of the commons

There's another wrinkle here, though, and it's an important one.

Much of the software underpinning the internet is freely available for anyone to use. Some of it is maintained by volunteers or small groups of experts, even as enormous technology companies depend on it.

In 2020, the cartoonist Randall Munroe captured this absurdity in an xkcd comic. Modern digital infrastructure still rests precariously on tiny foundations.

It's funny because it's uncomfortably close to reality. Take the specific PHP problems from this week. These flaws have existed for years, and the PHP Foundation acknowledges that limited resources and disagreements over fixes contributed to delays in fixing them.

Tom Occhino, chief product officer at Vercel, brought up Munroe's cartoon during my recent interview with him.

He explained that AI is finding weaknesses even in software that the industry has treated as dependable for decades.

This is partly a version of the tragedy of the commons: Everyone benefits from a shared resource, but no one has sufficient incentive to take responsibility for maintaining it.

And let's be clear: The volunteers keeping essential software running aren't the villains here. The companies benefiting from their work have a much greater responsibility.

Occhino thinks AI could help solve the problem it is exposing.

He described an idea being discussed at Vercel: Create a foundation or coalition that funds efforts to identify vulnerable software and replace it with safer alternatives.

"We need a consortium. We need a coalition," he told me.

He suggested companies could contribute computing resources and AI tools to the effort. Nothing has been formally announced, but the idea is compelling.

Indeed, OpenAI's Patch the Planet effort is an example of what's possible.

Rather than simply using AI to create more software, the industry could use it to repair what already exists.

Occhino put it nicely: Companies need to spend less time chasing new ideas and more time asking how to make existing systems "just work really, really well."

That's a better response than panicking about the imminent collapse of the internet.

AI didn't create decades of neglected software. We did. Perhaps it's time to clean up our own slop.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com

• Canva launched Canva Craft, a tool similar to AI image models by Google, Meta, and OpenAI.
• Surprisingly, Canva fell short on a design task but did well at generating more realistic images.
• Here is how Canva's new image generation tool stacks up against ChatGPT, Gemini, and Muse.

Canva wants a shot at winning the AI image generation race.

The design platform launched Canva Craft on Thursday, its first image-generation model, similar to those from Google, Meta, and OpenAI.

Users can access Craft through Canva’s Dream Lab, including with free accounts, though it is subject to AI usage limits. You’ll need to sign in to a Canva account to get started.

In the release announcement, Canva said the tool plans a design’s layout, proportions, and text before generating an image, an approach that aims to help it produce legible lettering and accurate details.

The company also said that the model was trained on human-designed Canva templates, including posters, menus, and presentations, rather than photographs.

To test how Canva performs, Business Insider created three image generation prompts with escalating difficulty levels — from designing a simple greeting card to creating a photorealistic image from scratch.

Here is how Canva's brand-new image generation tool stacked up against three of the most powerful models.

Canva did not respond to a request for comment.

Starting off with an illustration

We started off simple with a prompt for a birthday card.

Create a cartoon "Happy Birthday" greeting card for a friend named Jessica who has pink hair, brown eyes, likes to wear paisley, and is turning 28 years old in November.

Surprisingly, Canva, the design platform, fell short in its design of the birthday card, from the awkward font to the outsize head of the cartoon character. It didn't even bother to include any paisley.

By comparison, ChatGPT and Muse understood the assignment.

ChatGPT guessed that the recipient's favorite color might be pink, while Muse thoughtfully wove in cozy fall elements for the November birthday girl.

Meanwhile, Gemini took the request literally and produced an image of an actual card. Extra points!

Winner: Muse

Editing an image

For the second task, I tested the AI models' ability to identify an element and place it in a brand-new setting.

Edit this image of me holding a necklace pendant. Take the red garnet pendant off my hand and make it look as if it is displayed in a vitrine in a jewelry showroom.

Canva did a great job of identifying the pendant and creating an atmospheric setting, but, like Gemini, it depicted the jewelry in a way that defied physics and common sense. It would be unrealistic for a pendant to float in the air or sit propped on a metal pole.

ChatGPT and Muse once again outperformed other models in understanding how things typically look in reality. Muse, however, made some alterations to the pendant, which I didn't ask for.

Winner: ChatGPT

Creating a photorealistic image from scratch

With Halloween approaching, I asked for a realistic depiction of my favorite animal.

Generate a photorealistic image of a long-haired orange tabby cat in a Halloween costume with bat wings, perched on the edge of a gothic medieval castle under the full moon and a starless night sky.

Though the cat's fur looks a little too strandy and high-contrast in Canva's creation, no components are missing or malformed, and the image composition pretty much matches the quality of Muse and Gemini.

The clear winner for me in this round, however, would be ChatGPT.

Not only is the cat's posture majestic, but the soft glow on his left side is extremely realistic, and the white balance is well done. There are also clouds softly cradling the moon, which could be a response to my request for a starless sky.

Winner: ChatGPT

Overall, it's evident that Canva still has a lot of room to grow compared to other models, especially if graphic design is its focus. For now, I'll stick to moving components around by hand.

• Data centers and artificial intelligence have become a part of everyday conversation for Americans.
• Data center energy consumption has entered those conversations, too.
• The largest planned AI campuses could require more than 10 gigawatts of electricity.

Some Americans have new next-door neighbors: data centers.

The US has been building these computing facilities for decades, but development has ramped up dramatically in recent years as AI increasingly drives demand for computing power.

Business Insider compiled a list of some of these enormous US data-center projects to illustrate the scale of what's being built. Those on the list have at least 1 gigawatt of capacity and have broken ground.

Among the largest is a city-sized campus in Texas pursuing up to 17 gigawatts of power capacity. Another in Ohio is aiming to have up to 10 gigawatts of data-center capacity, most of which OpenAI has contracted to use. For reference, 1 gigawatt of electricity continuously supplied for a year could power roughly 835,000 average American homes.

In total, the Pew Research Center says the US has more than 3,000 operating data centers nationwide and over 1,500 more under development, mostly in rural areas. According to data from the Energy Institute's 2026 Statistical Review of World Energy, US data centers accounted for nearly 40% of global data-center electricity use in 2025, consuming about 313 terawatt-hours. That's more electricity than all of Australia used that year.

Planned capacity is the closest public proxy for how much computing these AI campuses can support, and that's important because the electricity and water needed to run their servers and cooling systems can have major implications for local grids and sustainability.

Residents affected by developments in places like Texas and Utah have pushed back over concerns about noise, property values, and the effects on nearby communities. New York has temporarily paused the construction of new large-scale AI data centers.

Still, the 2025 US Data Center Energy Usage Report from Berkeley Lab projects that data centers will consume 11.8% of US electricity by 2030, up from about 4.4% in 2023. Oracle, SB Energy, SpaceX, Google, and Meta are among the leading developers and operators.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is so eager to build its supercomputers that it's offering employees a pay bump to temporarily move to the data-center sites to help with the buildout.

Here's a closer look at some of the largest AI data-center campuses being built.

Meta Lebanon Campus — Indiana

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta currently has 21 data centers under construction. Its Lebanon, Indiana, data center is one of its biggest investments — and the company's second in the state.

The $10 billion center, which broke ground in early 2026, is planned to deliver 1 gigawatt of capacity and span 1,500 acres.

It's expected to be completed by early 2028. Neighbors have complained about light pollution from the construction, while residents across Indiana have urged state lawmakers to regulate the growing data-center industry.

Meta El Paso Data Center — Texas

Meta's data center in El Paso, Texas, is planned to be powered by 1 gigawatt of capacity and span roughly 1,000 acres. It originally called for $1.5 billion in investment, which later increased to $10 billion.

The center will support more than 300 workers once complete, while around 4,000 construction workers are expected to build it out.

The site broke ground in October 2025 and is expected to be finished in 2028. The site has also sparked backlash from residents.

Project Freebird (Stargate) — Texas

Project Freebird is part of Stargate, the AI-infrastructure initiative co-led by OpenAI and SoftBank, which OpenAI said in January 2025 would invest up to $500 billion in US infrastructure.

Freebird will be a 1.2-gigawatt data center campus in Milam County, Texas, near Austin. The first phase was expected to be completed by October, while additional phases are planned through 2028. Construction began in 2025.

However, the company has not issued any update on the data center's completion as of late October.

The site, being developed by SB Energy, a SoftBank-backed infrastructure company, will span roughly 595 acres. Phase 1 has an estimated construction cost of $470 million, while total investment in the broader project is expected to range from $1.8 billion to $3 billion.

The first phase had a scheduled construction-completion date of October 15, while SB Energy says operations are expected to begin in 2027.

Fort Wayne Data Center — Indiana

In 2024, Google broke ground on a $2 billion data center campus in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to support its AI and cloud operations.

The campus is expected to require up to 1.2 gigawatts of power at full build-out. Some Indiana politicians have expressed concern about the amount of power required to run the data center and who will foot the energy bill.

"If companies want to build a data center here, and we have to build new power generation for them, then they need to share in that risk," Indiana Rep. Ed Soliday, a Republican, previously told Business Insider. "There are a couple of data center folks who have said, 'Oh no, that's not fair.' Yes, it is. Grandma down the street shouldn't have to pay for your dreams."

Stargate Abilene — Texas

The Stargate AI data center campus outside Abilene, Texas, is expected to deliver 1.2 gigawatts of capacity. Crusoe, the lead developer and builder behind the project, broke ground on the campus in June 2024. The first phase is already operational.

The second phase, which is under construction, is backed by a $15 billion joint venture between Crusoe, Blue Owl Capital, and Primary Digital Infrastructure. It will add six buildings to the campus, bringing the total to eight and the planned capacity to 1.2 gigawatts. The site will span 875 acres.

Nebius AI Factory — Missouri

Nebius' data center in Independence, Missouri, will span roughly 400 acres and reach a capacity of up to 1.2 gigawatts. The company broke ground in May and is expected to bring roughly 1,200 construction jobs and 130 permanent jobs.

Nebius has not announced a total investment amount, though the city expects to begin collecting tax revenue from the campus in 2028.

The site hasn't come without controversy. A group of citizens is suing the city of Independence and companies involved with the project, alleging 16 counts, including claims that the city violated Missouri's Sunshine Law several times by failing to provide finalized data center construction plans. Nebius did not offer a comment.

CloudBurst San Marcos Data Center I — Texas

CloudBurst's San Marcos Data Center I is a planned 1.2-gigawatt capacity campus on 706 acres in central Texas. Guadalupe County approved a $500 million tax abatement for the project.

The company and its development partner, Evolve, broke ground in November 2025, with an initial 50-megawatt phase expected to be complete by late 2026. Construction is expected to be complete in 2029.

San Marcos residents have protested proposed data centers over water and energy concerns. The city has since become the first in Texas to ban new data centers, though the ban won't stop CloudBurst's project, which is outside city limits.

The Barn Data Center — Michigan

The Barn, part of the Stargate project, is a multi-billion-dollar AI data center campus in Saline Township, southwest of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Related Digital, a data-center developer, is building the campus for Oracle as part of its partnership with OpenAI. Construction for The Barn began in June.

The campus will comprise three data center buildings with a combined capacity of 1.4 gigawatts. The $16 billion project is backed by Related Digital and investment firm Blackstone. The first facilities are expected to enter service by the end of 2027.

Local residents have protested against the data center, citing concerns about its impact on the grid and pollution.

In October, state regulators opened public comment on a wastewater permit for the campus’s proposed on-site water-treatment system.

Stargate Frontier Campus — Texas

The Stargate Frontier Campus, developed by Vantage Data Centers, will be a 1.4 gigawatt, 1,200-acre data center in Shackelford County, Texas, near Albany in north-central Texas.

The campus is part of the broader Stargate initiative led by OpenAI, Oracle, and other partners, and is being designed for ultra-high-density AI workloads. Vantage plans to invest more than $25 billion in the project, which is expected to be fully built out by 2028.

Construction of the center began in late 2025.

xAI Colossus 2 — Tennessee

Elon Musk's xAI is building Colossus 2 to power Grok, the AI chatbot on X. Construction began in 2025 in Memphis, Tennessee, and the company has said it plans to expand the site to 1.5 gigawatts. The nonprofit research institute Epoch AI estimates its current capacity at about 946 megawatts.

Environmental justice groups, led by the NAACP, sued xAI earlier this year, alleging that the company installed and operated gas turbines that power Colossus 2 in nearby Southaven, Mississippi, without the required air permits. In March, Mississippi regulators approved a permit for xAI to build and operate a new fleet of turbines at the site.

Local residents have filed a class-action lawsuit against xAI, MZX Tech, and SpaceX, alleging that noise and vibrations from the gas turbines have disrupted their lives and harmed their property values.

Still, in late October, Business Insider reported that SpaceX was offering employees a 20% pay bump to temporarily relocate to Memphis or Southaven, Mississippi, for six weeks to help build out Colossus 1 and 2.

Project Jupiter — New Mexico

Developed by infrastructure companies STACK Infrastructure and BorderPlex Digital Assets, Project Jupiter will be an AI data center campus in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, near the Texas border. It is part of the Stargate initiative and is expected to support Oracle's AI-computing operations for OpenAI.

Construction for Project Jupiter began in September 2025. The campus's planned on-site power system could include up to 2.45 gigawatts of Bloom Energy fuel cells, replacing an earlier proposal centered on gas turbines and diesel generators.

In May, Oracle ditched its plan to construct a natural gas plant to power Project Jupiter, following local residents' concerns over the potential negative water usage and air pollution effects it could cause.

Oracle issued a force majeure notice in September due to potential delays in the project's power infrastructure, though it says the campus remains on track for 2028.

Meta Hyperion — Louisiana

Meta's Hyperion AI data center in rural northeast Louisiana, backed by more than $50 billion in investment, will span more than 3,600 acres and is planned to deliver 5 gigawatts of capacity once fully developed. Hyperion broke ground in December 2024.

Meta says Hyperion is designed to train and run its artificial-intelligence systems. Earlier this year, Louisiana gave Meta $3.3 billion in tax breaks for Meta to build Hyperion. The project is expected to be completed in the 2030s.

Since the center is located in a rural part of the state, the influx of 7,500 trade and construction workers has spurred a housing boom, with mobile homes built for workers that rent for $3,000 a month.

Still, the project has also faced pushback from local residents and environmental groups concerned about its impact on water, energy use, and the surrounding community.

Louisiana regulators held hearings in October on the proposed power build-out for the campus. The state's Public Service Commission will issue a decision in December.

PORTS-Pike Technology Campus — Ohio

The Department of Energy said SB Energy broke ground in March in Ohio on the planned AI and cloud campus at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, known as PORTS. The campus will span private land and remediated federal land leased from the DOE.

The Nvidia-backed project is expected to include up to 10 gigawatts of data-center capacity, with OpenAI set to use up to 8 gigawatts of it for its workloads.

While the DOE says the historical PORTS site is in active remediation, the project has raised concerns about potential health and environmental risks associated with the site's history as a uranium enrichment plant. SB Energy told the Guardian in August that it is "committed to paying for accelerated cleanup and remediation at the site" and that the company "performs thorough site reviews and due diligence for each of our infrastructure projects, including soil sampling."

SB Energy said in October that it would begin initial clearing and grading work for the campus’s first phase.

Project Matador — Texas

Fermi America's Project Matador, also called HyperGrid, is an AI data center and private power campus being built near Amarillo, Texas.

Fermi, which was co-founded in 2025 by former Texas Gov. and US Energy Secretary Rick Perry, said it is pursuing roughly 17 gigawatts of private power for the campus, up from the initially planned 11 gigawatts. That means the campus would generate much of its own electricity on-site rather than relying entirely on the public grid. The company says 6 gigawatts have been permitted so far.

Fermi has a 99-year land lease with the Texas Tech University System for the core site, and the project could span roughly 8,400 acres at full build-out. Fermi says construction is underway, with completion planned for the 2030s, and AI cloud company TensorWave has signed a 15-year lease expected to generate about $6.5 billion in contracted revenue for the first phase. Fermi is also developing a cooling system designed to substantially reduce water use.

The company was hit with a class action lawsuit earlier this year. The investor lawsuit alleges Fermi misled investors about the status and prospects of Project Matador; its shares fell after Amazon withdrew a $150 million construction advance in December 2025.

Fermi America said three gas turbines arrived at the site in October.

SpaceX, Meta, Google, Oracle, Fermi America, CloudBurst, and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. SB Energy did not offer a comment.

• Uber is giving its corporate employees access to OpenAI's enterprise work tool.
• ChatGPT Work can "prepare meeting briefs," among other tasks, OpenAI said.
• Uber is rolling out the tool after laying off thousands of workers last month.

Uber is giving all of its corporate employees access to OpenAI's enterprise tool weeks after laying off thousands.

About 30,000 employees at the ride-hailing service's offices will have access to ChatGPT Work, the two companies said on Thursday.

The tool will connect with other programs that Uber employees use, such as Slack and Gmail, to "research information, prepare meeting briefs, create presentations, analyze data and complete workflows across applications," a statement said.

"As AI transforms how we work, we want to give everyone the tools to innovate, solve problems and help shape Uber's future," Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga said. Uber initially tested the tool among a group of 1,000 employees.

The rollout comes the month after Uber laid off about 10% of its corporate workforce, or about 3,300 people. The company made the job cuts to reduce management layers and reduce the number of small teams, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at the time. It didn't cite AI in its announcement.

Some laid-off employees told Business Insider that AI was doing significant parts of their jobs, from answering their questions in Slack to crafting replies to messages from riders and drivers.

Uber cited AI as a reason for an earlier round of layoffs in July, which targeted Uber's customer service employees.

Do you have a story idea about Uber? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• This week's cyber freakout explained: AI is making software weaknesses easier to find and exploit.
• The message from Cloudflare's Stephanie Cohen and Vercel's Tom Occhino: Don't panic!!!
• Do we need everything connected to the internet? Paper bank statements work well.

A few weeks ago, I heard a strange story about a friend who works at one of the Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley.

She'd recently ripped out the connected devices in her home, ordered paper bank statements, and stocked up on canned goods in her basement.

Now, she's a very sane, experienced person, and quite senior at one of the largest internet companies on earth. Why was she disconnecting so much? Just to be sure, my family ordered paper bank statements, too. It was still a head-scratcher, though.

Fast forward to this week, and her actions look a little less crazy.

AI models have exposed serious security weaknesses in software used by roughly 70% of websites. Meanwhile, US banks are finding AI agents inside customer accounts, including some that appear to be acting without their owners' instructions, Axios reported.

'Black October'

The digerati have now entered full freakout mode. Much of the internet meltdown is happening on, well, the internet, my colleague Alice Tecotzky noted.

On X and Reddit, warnings of a looming “Black October” spiraled into visions of AI grinding civilization to a halt. One lengthy post on X warned of a potential “global cyberattack/AI swarm” and offered a survival checklist: Stockpile cash in small bills, print out your neighbors' phone numbers, download maps, buy a hand-crank radio, and stash a gallon of water per person per day.

Oh, and don't forget the manual can opener. You don't want to survive the AI apocalypse only to be defeated by a tin of beans.

Nikita Bier, a prominent app developer and former head of product at X, best captured the mood.

"It's time to turn off the internet," he posted Wednesday night.

A Cloudflare exec says it's 'a little bit scary'

If you're reading this, you haven't done that yet. But should we really be worried?

I put that question to Stephanie Cohen, chief strategy officer at Cloudflare, which helps protect about 20% of the internet.

"The world is a little bit scary right now," she told me on the side of Cloudflare's annual conference in San Francisco this week.

Here's the problem. The internet is built on decades of software, much of it riddled with security holes.

Some of these weaknesses have been known for years. However, fixing them takes time and money, and hackers often lacked the skills to exploit them anyway. So they were left alone.

AI changes that calculation dramatically. Someone who previously needed years of training to break into a computer system can now get help from an AI model. And these tools can search for weaknesses at a speed humans simply can't match.

The result: The number of newly published software vulnerabilities (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures in industry lingo) has exploded.

Now, there's a frantic race between people trying to break into systems and those trying to protect them.

Don't panic about AI

Cohen's message, though, was surprisingly reassuring.

AI helps the good guys find and fix these problems. Cloudflare, for instance, released protections for the latest vulnerability to customers, including those using its free service.

And there's a bigger effort underway.

OpenAI has launched an initiative called Patch the Planet, working with Cloudflare and other security professionals to use AI to find weaknesses in widely used software and help repair them.

Tom Occhino, chief product officer at Vercel, told me recently that his company has been talking with partners about launching a nonprofit that would fund a swarm of good AI agents that go out on the internet to find and fix software flaws.

Amazon is joining the fight, too. Its new Continuum service, available Thursday, uses AI agents to find security holes and propose fixes. Amazon said that people maintaining freely available software can use it to help protect the wider internet.

Humans may still have to check and approve these repairs, but the prospect of AI helping clean up decades of neglected software is encouraging.

The irony of this is not lost on some in the industry.

"The funny thing is everyone was saying AI slop code will cause a cyber crisis but it's actually all the old human slop causing it and the AI is just cleaning it up," software engineer Ben Kaufman wrote on X on Thursday.

Either way, Cloudflare's Cohen thinks these AI-inspired freakouts will push the industry to do better — by exposing issues and adding urgency to get them patched.

"We may end up in a world where actually we've become significantly more secure at the end," she said.

The trouble is getting there.

A fundamental question about the internet

When I ran into Occhino recently at a Vercel conference in San Francisco, he described a world in which software that everyone assumed was safe suddenly looks vulnerable because increasingly capable AI models are scrutinizing the basic systems that underpin the internet.

That led to a more fundamental discussion between us: Why did we connect so many things to the internet in the first place?

For years, the technology industry has raced to put everything online. Thermostats. Refrigerators. Doorbells. Cars. Bank accounts.

We assumed that connecting something to the internet automatically made it better.

Perhaps we should reconsider.

Before the internet

I remember the world before the internet. It worked pretty well. We managed to buy groceries, pay bills, heat our homes, and generally get through the day without every appliance talking to a computer somewhere.

That doesn't mean abandoning online banking or throwing your smartphone into the sea.

Occhino, for one, isn't particularly worried about hackers wiping out his bank account. Modern banks have sophisticated protections, and he recommends everyone turn on additional login security.

Maybe the cybersecurity crowd, which spends its life immersed in online threats, is missing something obvious.

Not everything needs to be connected.

Occhino put it neatly: "There's certain things that don't make sense to be on the internet in the first place."

Perhaps that's the lesson from this week's panic. We don't need to turn off the internet.

We just need to remember where the off switch is.

Alice Tecotzky contributed reporting.

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