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Microsoft

This Month

MinterEllison staff say using AI tools has helped saved them hours of work time each week.

MinterEllison sets target of 80pc using AI by March

The majority of lawyers and partners at the big six Australian law firm will be required to use the new technology in their daily work next year.

  • Edmund Tadros

November

The US government has told a Federal judge it should break up Google and make it sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser, to stop an abusive monopoly.

US regulators seek to break up Google, force Chrome sale

The US government wants to break up the tech behemoth and make it sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser, to stop an abusive monopoly.

  • Michael Liedtke

Short courses offer an alternative for time-poor students

Students are choosing shorter higher education courses such as microcredentials from non-traditional providers.

  • Sian Powell
Former president Donald Trump and Apple boss Tim Cook.

The top five billionaire tech bros who are on the Trump train

From fawning phone calls to huge donations, here’s how the historically progressive bosses of Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI are preparing.

  • Amelia McGuire

Ignore the AI ‘bloatware’. This HP laptop is flipping good

HP’s latest ultraportable laptop has a lot of things going for it. AI isn’t yet one of them. 

  • John Davidson
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October

The bottom line is this: markets are efficient, except when they’re not.

The strategy that can turn $10,000 to $102,000 in two decades

An investing strategy popularised by Peter Lynch is finding favour again.

  • Lucy Dean
Former Intel CEO Paul Otellini confronted scepticism from his board over buying Nvidia and backed away from the plan.

How Intel got left behind in the AI chip boom

For decades it was Silicon Valley’s dominant chip company but missed opportunities and poor execution have left it on the sidelines in tech’s latest gold rush.

  • Steve Lohr and Don Clark
Tech Council chairwoman Robyn Denholm and her fellow board members have been criticised by members for failing to act against Richard White until he chose to resign.

Angry members brand Tech Council a ‘billionaires lunch club’

The industry association for some of the country’s largest technology firms failed to act on allegations against WiseTech founder Richard White, they say.

  • Tess Bennett and Amelia McGuire
AI can now mimic some off the ways humans work on PCs, and follow thought patterns.

These new ‘AI agents’ could change white-collar workforce

A “groundbreaking” development means bots can now work computers like a human, leading people to question whether office workers could be replaced.

  • Paul Smith
Ryan Kolln CEO of Appen.

Appen CEO apologises as tech failure leaves workers unpaid

Contractors paid by the ASX-listed company to train artificial intelligence models for technology giants have not been paid in more than a week after their money was due.

  • Tess Bennett
The Macquarie Park Data Centre in Sydney.

Big banks fund Macquarie Technology bid to cash in on AirTrunk effect

The funding agreement came as new research showed investment in data centres was expected to hit $26 billion by 2030 amid booming demand from technology giants.

  • Paul Smith
Google hit back at the proposals, calling them “radical and sweeping”.

Google targeted for break-up in landmark US case

The US Department of Justice could seek “structural remedies” such as forced product sales after a judge’s ruling of illegal monopoly in searches.

  • Stefania Palma and Stephen Morris
Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank.

SoftBank to invest $721m in OpenAI

The move is part of a funding round that would value the artificial intelligence start-up at an eye-watering $US150 billion.

  • Seth Fiegerman

September

Emissions from a coal-fired power plant in Kansas City, Missouri.

US climate change targets threatened by tech energy surge from AI

The latest assessment puts the US trajectory even further from its national target to cut its emissions by 50-52 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels.

  • Amanda Chu, Jamie Smyth and Aime Williams
Sam Altman founded the company in 2015 as a non-profit research organisation with the goal of building artificial intelligence that would be safe and beneficial to humanity.

Fast-growing OpenAI is burning through truck loads of cash

As the company looks for more outside investors, documents reveal consumer fascination with ChatGPT and a serious need for more money.

  • Mike Isaac and Erin Griffith
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Telstra’s Narelle Devine, Qantas chairman John Mullen and top cyber spy Abigail Bradshaw say the CrowdStrike outage provided important lessons for corporate Australia.

How CrowdStrike’s outage became Australia’s big cyberattack rehearsal

Qantas chairman John Mullen got the “blue screen of death” while Telstra’s cyber chief Narelle Devine was in the pool sipping cocktails when she got the call that something was seriously wrong.

  • Tess Bennett and Paul Smith
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Microsoft’s climate hypocrisy on AI

The tech giant has marketed AI technology to ExxonMobil and Chevron as a powerful tool for finding and developing new oil and gas reserves.

  • Karen Hao
Amazon

Amazon orders staff back to the office five days a week

The new rule appears to be the most stringent return-to-office decision among big tech companies and could be a harbinger of more to come.

  • Karen Weise and Emma Goldberg
Ashley Lester, Global Head of Research at MSCI, says there are still lessons to be learnt from the dot-com crash.

Investors have forgotten the lessons of the dotcom crash

MSCI’s head of research Ashley Lester has some thoughts on what many analysts have warned is the next bubble: the rapid rise in US tech valuations.

  • Joshua Peach
Robin Khuda and Chris Tynan.

What we missed in the AirTrunk frenzy

AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda is thinking bigger than his own company. He says the staggering growth prospects for data centres can change the Australian economy.  

  • James Thomson

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/company/microsoft-hqw