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Applied AI

By The Information Staff

Applied AI focuses on deep storytelling and reporting around the application of AI in business and beyond. From how companies drive innovation, support their customers, and foster collaboration with their teams, to how CEOs are applying AI to optimize their organizations.

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Recent Editions

Figma CEO Dylan Field
Applied AI

Figma Enters Corporate Data Wars; Cursor’s Apology

By · Jul 8, 2025 11:20am PDT
The data-access battle between software incumbents and younger AI startups that could pose a threat to them continues to expand.In the latest front, Figma, which makes tools for software designers and developers, recently began limiting outside firms’ access to Figma customer projects, according to the CEO of an enterprise search startup that... The data-access battle between software incumbents and younger AI startups that could pose a...
Art by Clark Miller
Applied AI

Companies Spend More On Cursor, Less on Engineers

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 3, 2025 10:00am PDT · 1 comment
Hi! If you’re finding value in our Applied AI newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Information. It contains exclusive reporting on the most important stories in tech, like this story from Wayne on Microsoft's setbacks in developing an AI chip. Save up to $250 on your first year of access.Competition is... Hi! If you’re finding value in our Applied AI newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing...
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OpenAI Leans Into Consulting; The New AI Data War

By · Jul 1, 2025 10:04am PDT · 1 comment
OpenAI has a long habit of launching products and features that compete with other tech startups that sell apps or services using OpenAI’s artificial intelligence.Now, OpenAI has its eye on the market for AI consulting services that help large enterprises develop their own AI apps—if they’re willing to spend at least $10 million, as Sri and I... OpenAI has a long habit of launching products and features that compete with other tech startups...
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Is OpenAI About to Spice Up the Productivity App Market?
By Aaron Holmes · Jun 26, 2025 10:00am PDT
Photo via Getty
Applied AI

Is OpenAI About to Spice Up the Productivity App Market?

By Aaron Holmes · Jun 26, 2025 10:00am PDT
As if OpenAI isn’t fighting enough battles, the startup is now eyeing a new front line: productivity apps currently dominated by Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s Workspace.As my colleagues reported this week, OpenAI has been prototyping a new tool within ChatGPT that would let multiple people collaborate on documents and communicate with each... As if OpenAI isn’t fighting enough battles, the startup is now eyeing a new front line:...
Image via Getty
Applied AI

Enterprises Take Model Evaluation Into Their Own Hands

By · Jun 24, 2025 10:14am PDT
Buyers of artificial intelligence often need help figuring out which AI models are best at handling a particular task.Kinesso, the tech arm of advertising giant IPG, has been evaluating ways its parent company can use large language models to generate marketing-related text. By now, Kinesso and other AI buyers have become acquainted with... Buyers of artificial intelligence often need help figuring out which AI models are best at...
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Chatbots Get Cheaper; Anthropic Reigns Supreme in Coding
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Chatbots Get Cheaper; Anthropic Reigns Supreme in Coding

By Aaron Holmes · Jun 19, 2025 10:26am PDT
When DeepSeek released its high-performing open-source artificial intelligence earlier this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that the price of AI models and applications would soon come under pressure. And he said that trend would prevent any one company from gaining a permanent advantage over others in selling AI to... When DeepSeek released its high-performing open-source artificial intelligence earlier this year,...
Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering. Photo via Getty.
Applied AI

Developers Eye Apple’s Models for ‘Invisible’ AI Features

By · Jun 17, 2025 10:57am PDT
Apple is by no means a front-runner in the race to develop world-changing artificial intelligence, and its annual Worldwide Developers Conference last week did little to convince anyone that its Siri assistant would catch up to ChatGPT anytime soon.Still, Apple managed to stir up excitement among mobile app developers who want AI in their apps.... Apple is by no means a front-runner in the race to develop world-changing artificial...
Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data
Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data
By Kevin McLaughlin · Jun 12, 2025 10:40am PDT · 1 comment
Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data
Applied AI

Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jun 12, 2025 10:40am PDT · 1 comment
Photo via Adobe Stock
Applied AI

CEOs Try Cloning Themselves With AI

By · Jun 10, 2025 10:38am PDT · 2 comments
Artificial intelligence may not be advanced enough to run a company yet. But CEOs of some firms are testing ways that AI can sub in for them.They're trying chatbots and video avatars to answer employee questions, schmooze with customers and talk during earnings calls. Artificial intelligence may not be advanced enough to run a company yet. But CEOs of some firms...
Photo via Getty
Applied AI

Lowe’s Puts OpenAI-Powered Voice Assistant on the Store Floor

By Jon Victor · Jun 5, 2025 10:53am PDT
It’s not always easy for customers of Lowe’s Home Improvement to locate employees when they need to ask for help inside its cavernous facilities. But the retailer is at least giving its employees access to artificial intelligence so they can be a lot more helpful in answering questions when customers do track them down.Over the last year, the... It’s not always easy for customers of Lowe’s Home Improvement to locate employees when they need...
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Rory McIlroy at the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla in March. Photo by Getty.
Applied AI

How Anthropic Helps the PGA Tour Give Golf Fans Data on Every Shot

By · Jun 3, 2025 10:00am PDT
At any given moment during a typical professional golf tournament, 14 balls are in motion, and players hit upwards of 30,000 shots over the four-day event. It’s been next to impossible for the PGA Tour, which runs these tournaments, and sports broadcasters to provide commentary or information on every shot—even though the Tour thinks there’s... At any given moment during a typical professional golf tournament, 14 balls are in motion, and...
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The Downsides of Vibe Coding
By Jon Victor · May 29, 2025 10:00am PDT · 1 comment
Image via Getty
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The Downsides of Vibe Coding

By Jon Victor · May 29, 2025 10:00am PDT · 1 comment
Some businesses are waking up to the downsides of automated coding products. While most customers cite huge gains in developer productivity from tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Anthropic’s Claude, the code they generate sometimes doesn’t work as expected—or worse, it can make a business vulnerable to hacking or a data leak.The risks can be... Some businesses are waking up to the downsides of automated coding products. While most customers...
Image via Getty
Applied AI

Where Autonomous Coding Tools Excel

By · May 27, 2025 10:02am PDT
New AI-powered programming tools like OpenAI’s Codex or Google’s Jules might not be able to code an entire app from scratch just yet. But when it comes to working with large amounts of previously written code, those products could soon be saving developers a ton of time.For example, Codex excels at finding bugs in a large code base and... New AI-powered programming tools like OpenAI’s Codex or Google’s Jules might not be able to code...
Satya Nadella on stage at Microsoft Build 2025. Photo via Getty
Applied AI

Can AI Really Replace Human Developers?

By Aaron Holmes · May 22, 2025 10:00am PDT · 1 comment
I’m in Seattle this week for Microsoft’s annual Build conference, where the software behemoth has announced a slate of new artificial intelligence–infused products meant to get developers to build and purchase AI agents from Microsoft’s Azure cloud.Specifically, Microsoft is leaning into the idea of advanced AI chatbots that are capable of... I’m in Seattle this week for Microsoft’s annual Build conference, where the software behemoth has...
Photo via Shutterstock
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Why Databricks Is Paying for an AI Sales Coach

By · May 20, 2025 10:16am PDT
Microsoft, Salesforce and numerous startups have talked up the idea of an artificial intelligence–powered coach that gives feedback to salespeople about their pitches to customers. Databricks is one of the few companies to actually use such a product at scale. Earlier this year, the data-analysis software provider gave 1,000 employees in... Microsoft, Salesforce and numerous startups have talked up the idea of an artificial intelligence...
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Businesses’ Impatience with AI Models Spurred Cohere’s App Push
By Jon Victor · May 15, 2025 11:44am PDT
Photo by Getty
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Businesses’ Impatience with AI Models Spurred Cohere’s App Push

By Jon Victor · May 15, 2025 11:44am PDT
These have been difficult years for roughly a dozen of the major startups trying to sell artificial intelligence models to app developers or corporate customers. OpenAI and other AI firms that sell ready-to-use products for knowledge workers have sucked the oxygen out of the room for startups like Cohere, whose revenue has severely lagged... These have been difficult years for roughly a dozen of the major startups trying to sell...
Chandrasekaran screenshot via YouTube.
Applied AI

The AI Startup Using a Private Equity Growth Playbook

By · May 13, 2025 10:00am PDT
As the cost of running artificial intelligence models falls, the land grab in customer support automation has reached a new level of intensity. Nearly every major enterprise software vendor now offers a product for automating customer support, according to our analysis, which also breaks down how the race to automate knowledge work has bred new... As the cost of running artificial intelligence models falls, the land grab in customer support...
Illustration via Getty
Applied AI

Why Voice AI Is Hard to Listen To

By Jon Victor · May 8, 2025 10:00am PDT
Artificial intelligence has gotten great at automating customer support emails and text chats. But automating customer support phone calls is far more challenging because AI that can understand and generate human-sounding speech is still too costly, slow and unreliable, said Jesse Zhang, CEO of Decagon, a developer of AI for customer support.... Artificial intelligence has gotten great at automating customer support emails and text chats....
Glenn D. Fogel, chief executive officer of Booking Holdings Inc., at the Semafor World Economy Summit during the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring meetings in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, April 25, 2025. The International Monetary Fund sharply lowered its forecasts for world growth for this year and next, warning the outlook could deteriorate further as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs spark a global trade war. Image via Getty.
Applied AI

Booking Holdings’ CEO Is Hedging His AI Bets

By · May 6, 2025 10:23am PDT
We’ve written a lot about the possibility that consumers could soon use ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots for tasks like booking travel or ordering food, depriving app developers of ad revenue and eroding their relationship with customers.But Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, which generates more than $20 billion in revenue... We’ve written a lot about the possibility that consumers could soon use ChatGPT and other...
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during an event highlighting Microsoft Copilot agents, the company’s AI tool, on April 4, 2025 in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft's Move to Make People Pay for AI Starts to Pay Off
By Aaron Holmes and Jon Victor · May 1, 2025 10:00am PDT
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during an event highlighting Microsoft Copilot agents, the company’s AI tool, on April 4, 2025 in Redmond, Washington.
Applied AI

Microsoft's Move to Make People Pay for AI Starts to Pay Off

By Aaron Holmes and Jon Victor · May 1, 2025 10:00am PDT
Earlier this year, Microsoft stopped trying to convince consumers to pay extra for artificial intelligence features in its popular Office 365 software, instead opting to add the AI features by default while increasing the lowest price of the software by 30%. That strategy is showing early signs of wringing a few extra bucks out of individual... Earlier this year, Microsoft stopped trying to convince consumers to pay extra for artificial...