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Perhaps you're looking for the best deals on your favorite product, or you're hunting for a job. Or, you may just be on the lookout for fresh news and updates or need to monitor websites for academic/business purposes.

All this requires easy-to-use and effective website change monitoring software. Enter Sken.io. It's a basic website monitoring tool that tracks website content and updates you on these changes. Although pretty barebones, Sken.io gets the job done, especially for personal uses. You can easily track changes with its handy comparison mode.

Plus, Sken.io offers you a 14-day free trial to help you get started, besides being one of the most affordable monitors out there. This article will explore in detail the features, pricing, and in-use experience of Sken.

Sken.io: Plans and pricing

Sken.io has three straightforward plans, in addition to a 14-day free trial. The trial lets you run 140 checks, which is enough to gauge if the platform fits your needs. The first paid plan, the Basic Plan, starts at €30.00/year ($31), which boils down to around $2.5/month. This makes it one of the cheapest website monitoring plans out there. The basic plan lets you run 500 checks per month.

If that’s not enough, you can upgrade to the Standard plan at €120/year ($125), with 3,000 checks per month. The Enterprise plan, at €450/year ($467), allows up to 15,000 checks per month. These plans are ideal for small and mid-sized businesses. However, if you’re a large business, you can even tailor a plan as per your needs with custom check limits.

One thing that we liked about Sken.io is that each paid plan supports a monitoring frequency of up to 1 minute. This is not something you get with other providers, where a low interval of 1 minute can only be found with higher-tier plans.

Another impressive thing about Sken.io is that if you are not satisfied with their services, you can request a full refund within 48 hours of payment. This is also something not many providers offer.

Sken.io: Features

Sken.io is pretty barebones when it comes to features. However, given the low price of $2.50/month, it still manages to deliver excellent value for money.

We liked Sken’s comparison mode, where you can use a virtual slider to view the changes side by side. The right side of the screen shows the previous version, whereas the current version is on the left. Simply move the slider from left to right to see all the changes highlighted in green.

(Image credit: Sken.io)

You get two options when setting up a new monitor: regular interval and custom scheduler. The regular interval option comes in handy when you want to constantly check a website – say every hour or every 30 minutes.

However, there may be websites that do not need a regular check. For instance, if you’re monitoring your university results, you may choose the custom scheduler option. Under this, you’ll be able to select the exact date and time the crawling should take place. Not many content monitors offer this option.

You can also choose to monitor only a specific element on the webpage, say images. Next, there are also options to choose between visual check and content check. This eliminates clutter, ensuring you only get results that matter.

There’s also a unique content removal mode, where you can remove elements on a page you don’t want to track. For instance, if you’re looking for job listings, you may not be interested in tracking the images on that website. This mode helps Sken.io focus on the changes material to your needs and avoid any non-contextual change

Sken.io: Interface and in use

Sken.io’s dashboard, in spite of being basic, is free of clutter. You can check all your active jobs and detected changes at the top of the dashboard. Below this, you’ll find a list of all jobs currently being tracked.

(Image credit: Sken.io)

Simply click the ‘Detail’ button on the right side of each job to view a list of all detected changes. On the left, you can access all exported change files along with your invoices (if you have a paid plan).

Using Sken.io is pretty easy, too. Just paste the link to create a new job, choose the frequency, and start monitoring. It does take a bit of time (around a minute) to load the page once you’ve pasted the link, which isn’t a dealbreaker.

Overall, you won’t require any training to start using Sken.io – everything is pretty self-explanatory.

Sken.io: Support

There aren’t many support options on Sken.io. If you have any queries, you’ll need to fill out a form on their website and input your email address and message. Then, simply wait for Sken’s team to reach out to you. Another option is to send them an email at info@sken.io.

Besides this, we didn’t find any tutorials on the website, not that you’ll need them anyway. There are a few blogs, though, that can help you learn more about Sken’s use cases.

Sken.io: The competition

Sken.io is a good entry-level content change monitoring website. However, it fails to deliver the goods for mid- and large-sized businesses. Here are a couple of alternatives you can consider.

PageCrawl offers a comprehensive free plan where you can track 6 pages each month along with PDF, Excel, and Word files. Plus, you get a lot of integrations, reports, and customized alerts – features you only see on paid plans of other providers.

Even its paid plans offer good value for money. You can track pages in bulk, track password-protected pages, and organize your tracked pages. However, PageCrawl lacks AI features.

Fluxguard is a good option if you’re looking for an AI-backed content monitor. There’s an AI tool that can translate other pages in English. Plus, you can use AI to summarize change reports, allowing you to spot key changes quickly and saving you a lot of time.

Fluxguard also allows you to set up custom AI prompts to look only for specific words during searches. However, it can be a tad expensive.

Sken.io: Final Verdict

Overall, we found Sken.io great for beginners and personal needs. Priced at just $2.50/month, it's one of the cheapest trackers on the market right now. Using it is a cakewalk, too. All you have to do is paste the website link and choose your tracking frequency.

You can also set up a scheduled scan by choosing the exact time and date of the crawl and use its comparison mode for a quick visual snapshot of the recorded changes. Although there’s no free plan, you do get a 14-day free trial, which provides access to all Sken.io features. During this time, you can run a total of 140 checks.

However, during our testing, we found that Sken.io lacks a lot of advanced features, like report summarization, tracking password-protected pages, and integration. If you’re looking for a content monitor for business purposes, you can consider other options.

FAQs Does Sken.io offer a free plan?

Although there’s no free Sken.io plan, you get a 14-day free trial to try out the tool risk-free. The best part is that none of the features are off-limits during this trial, which means you get to try the full paid product during the trial phase. You can run 140 scans during the free trial without even entering your credit card details.

Even if you want to upgrade, the Basic plan starts at just around $2.50/month, making Sken.io one of the most affordable content change monitoring platforms.

Who is Sken.io ideal for?

Sken.io is ideal for individuals and startups looking for a cheap content monitoring platform. Its paid plans start from just $2.50/month and are more than enough for starter-level tasks. Also, Sken.io is one of the easiest platforms to use. So, even if you’re not that quick with tech, you’ll find it a joy to use.

It's worth noting that Sken.io does offer a $125 plan with 3,000 checks per month. However, a lack of advanced features like tracking locked content, PDFs, and Excels makes it a less popular choice among large businesses.

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• Microsoft and Du join forces on data center to fuel next-gen AI power
• AI adoption demands scale, and Microsoft and Du’s $544 million project meets the challenge head-on
• The new hyperscale data center will be built in phases, serving Microsoft’s cloud expansion

With AI adoption growing rapidly, hyperscale data centers are becoming essential to support the workloads of advanced AI tools, including those powering leading AI writing platforms.

At the recent Dubai AI Week, Microsoft and UAE-based telecom provider Du announced plans to build a $544.54 million hyperscale data center in the UAE.

“This marks a significant investment in digital infrastructure, reinforcing Dubai's leadership in adopting the latest technologies, innovations, and digital services,” said Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Defense, in a LinkedIn post celebrating the announcement.

Strengthening UAE AI infrastructure

The new data center will be a core component of Microsoft's ongoing effort to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure in the Middle East. It follows earlier collaborations, including a partnership with the Abu Dhabi government and Core42 to offer AI services and sovereign cloud capabilities within the UAE.

Du CEO Fahad Al Hassawi noted the investment is, “a pivotal leap in our strategic goal to revolutionize the digital ecosystem of the UAE.”

The center’s capacity will be delivered to Microsoft in phases, although specific timelines and technical details have not yet been disclosed.

Du currently operates five data centers across the UAE, and earlier in 2025 signed a deal to extend the Peace subsea cable to the country.

Microsoft has steadily expanded its cloud presence in the Middle East since launching its UAE cloud region in 2019. The company has since announced similar regions in Qatar, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, with additional plans for a new cloud region in Kuwait.

The new UAE-based hyperscale data center will help meet growing demand for low-latency access to cloud platforms that power everything from top web hosting services to next-generation enterprise applications.

Via DataCenterDynamics

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Congress created the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation to unite the expertise of two different agencies that work on electric vehicle charging. Now it seems to have turned into a ghost ship.

(Image credit: Alex Wong)

The Tennessee Legislature aimed to challenge a 1982 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that established a right to education for all students. Republican lawmakers still hope to overturn that.

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Two majority Black cities in Alabama now have Black representation in Congress because of court-ordered redistricting. The progress comes as President Trump pulls back federal diversity initiatives.

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The VA Servicing Purchase program has helped about 20,000 veterans avoid foreclosure. But Republicans in Congress have been critical of the program, saying it puts too much taxpayer money at risk.

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• A Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge teaser image includes the date May 13, suggesting that's when the phone will launch
• That's in line with previous leaks, so is likely accurate
• We've also heard full rumored camera specs for the phone, and while the main sensor could impress, the ultra-wide is a disappointment

We’ve heard from multiple sources that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge will launch on May 13, and now we’ve seen our clearest sign yet that this date is probably correct.

Evan Blass – a leaker with a superb track record – has posted an image on X that appears to show the side of a phone, along with the text “Beyond slim”. It looks very much like an official teaser image for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, and the image also includes the date May 13.

So, while we’d still take this with a pinch of salt, given that it comes from a reputable source, looks like it could well be an official image, and matches a date that’s already been tipped multiple times, we’re fairly confident that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge will indeed launch on May 13.

FYI pic.twitter.com/Y9frwPeIvmApril 30, 2025

A 200MP main and a 12MP ultra-wide

That’s not the only new Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge news though, as SammyGuru (via GSMArena) has also shared details of the phone’s cameras.

The site claims to have found these details on a regulatory database, and the highlight is the apparent presence of a 200-megapixel main camera. However, that spec isn’t at all surprising, as this is something else that has previously been tipped a number of times.

What we were less clear on is the remaining lenses, which according to SammyGuru include the same 12MP ultra-wide camera as you’ll find on the standard Samsung Galaxy S25, and the same 12MP selfie camera as every other Galaxy S25 model.

It’s no surprise that Samsung would stick with the same selfie camera, but it’s slightly disappointing that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge apparently won’t get the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 50MP ultra-wide camera.

And of course, with only two rear lenses here there’s no dedicated telephoto camera, though it’s likely the 200MP main sensor will be capable of optical quality 2x zoom, since the 200MP camera on the Galaxy S25 Ultra can achieve that.

In any case, SammyGuru isn’t a big name in leaks, so there’s a chance some of this is incorrect. But with so many other sources pointing to a 200MP main camera, and with all three current S25 models sporting the same 12MP selfie camera, we’d expect that much is accurate, so it’s only really the ultra-wide spec that has much chance of being wrong.

Assuming the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge really does launch on May 13 we’ll know for sure in under two weeks.

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AMD Radeon RX 9070: Two-minute review

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is a card that just might be saved by the economic chaos engulfing the GPU market right now.

With 'normal' price inflation pretty much rampant with every current-gen GPU, the price proposition for the RX 9070 might actually make it an appealing pick for gamers who're experiencing sticker shock when looking for the best graphics card for their next GPU upgrade.

That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that the AMD RX 9070 is going to be one of the best cheap graphics cards going, even by comparison with everything else that's launched since the end of 2024. With an MSRP of $549 / £529.99 / AU$1,229, the RX 9070 is still an expensive card, even if it's theoretically in line with your typical 'midrange' offering.

And, with the lack of an AMD reference card that might have helped anchor the RX 9070's price at Team Red's MSRP, you're going to pretty much be at the mercy of third-party manufacturers and retailers who can charge whatever they want for this card.

Comparatively speaking, though, even with price inflation, this is going to be one of the cheaper midrange GPUs of this generation, so if you're looking at a bunch of different GPUs, without question this one is likely to be the cheapest graphics card made by either AMD or Nvidia right now (yes, that's even counting the RTX 5060 Ti, which is already selling for well above 150% of MSRP in many places).

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Does that make this card worth the purchase? Well, that's going to depend on what you're being asked to pay for it. While it's possible to find RX 9070 cards at MSRP, they are rare, and so you're going to have to make a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see if this card is going to offer you the best value in your particular circumstance.

I'm fairly confident, however, that it will. Had I the time to review this card when it first launched in March, I might have scored it lower based on its performance and price proximity to the beefier AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT.

Looking at both of those cards based on their MSRPs, there's no question that the RX 9070 XT is the much better graphics card, so I'd have recommended you spend the extra cash to get that card instead of this one.

Unfortunately, contrary to my hopes, the RX 9070 XT has been scalped almost as badly as the best Nvidia graphics cards of this generation, so that relatively small price difference on paper can be quite large in practice.

Given that reality, for most gamers, the RX 9070 is the best 1440p graphics card going, and can even get you some solid 4K gaming performance for a lot less than you're likely to find the RX 9070 XT or competing Nvidia card, even from the last generation.

If you're looking at this card and the market has returned to sanity and MSRP pricing, then definitely consider going for the RX 9070 XT instead of this card. But barring that happy contingency, given where everything is right now with the GPU market, the RX 9070 is the best AMD graphics card for 1440p gaming, and offers some of the best bang for your (inflationary) buck as you're likely to find today.

AMD Radeon RX 9070: Price & availability

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

• How much is it? MSRP is $549 / £529.99 / AU$1,229, but retail price will likely be higher
• When can you get it? The RX 9070 is available now
• Where is it available? The RX 9070 is available in the US, UK, and Australia

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is available now in the US, UK, and Australia for an MSRP of $549 / £529.99 / AU$1,229, respectively, but the price you'll pay for this card from third-party partners and retailers will likely be higher.

Giving credit where it's due, the RX 9070 is the exact same MSRP as the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE, which you can argue the RX 9070 is replacing. It's also coming in at the same price as the RTX 5070's MSRP, and as I'll get into in a bit, for gaming performance, the RX 9070 offers a better value at MSRP.

Given how the RTX 5070 can rarely be found at MSRP, the RX 9070 is in an even stronger position compared to its competition.

• Value: 4 / 5

AMD Radeon RX 9070: Specs

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

• PCIe 5.0
• 16GB VRAM

• Specs & features: 4 / 5

AMD Radeon RX 9070: Design & features

• No AMD reference card
• Will be good for SFF cases

In terms of design, the RX 9070 doesn't have a reference card, so the card I reviewed is the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 9070.

This card, in particular, is fairly straightforward with few frills, but for those who don't want a whole lot of RGB lighting in their PC, this is more of a positive than a negative. RGB fans, however, will have to look at other AMD partner cards for their fix.

The card is a noticeably shorter dual-fan design compared to the longer triple-fan RX 9070 XT cards. That makes the RX 9070 a great option for small form factor PC cases.

• Design: 3.5 / 5

AMD Radeon RX 9070: Performance

• About 13% slower than RX 9070 XT
• Outstanding 1440p gaming performance
• Decent 4K performance

A note on my data

The charts shown below offer the most recent data I have for the cards tested for this review. They may change over time as more card results are added and cards are retested. The 'average of all cards tested' includes cards not shown in these charts for readability purposes.

When it comes down to performance, the RX 9070 is a very strong graphics card that is somewhat overshadowed by its beefier 9070 XT sibling, but goes toe-to-toe against the RTX 5070 where it counts for most users, which is gaming.

On the synthetic side, the RTX 9070 puts up some incredibly solid numbers, especially in pure rasterization workloads like 3DMark Steel Nomad, beating out the RTX 5070 by 13%. In ray tracing heavy workloads like 3DMark Speed Way, meanwhile, the RX 9070 manages to comes within 95% of the RTX 5070's performance.

As expected though, the RX 9070's creative performance isn't able to keep up with Nvidia's competing RTX 5070, especially in 3D modeling workloads like Blender. If you're looking for a cheap creative workstation GPU, you're going to want to go for the RTX 5070, no question.

But that's not really what this card is about. AMD cards are gaming cards through and through, and as you can see above, at 1440p, the RX 9070 goes blow for blow with Nvidia's midrange card so that the overall average FPS at 1440p is 114 against Nvidia's 115 FPS average (72 FPS to 76 FPS average minimums/1%, respectively).

Likewise, at 4K, the two cards are effectively tied, with the RX 9070 holding a slight 2 FPS edge over the RTX 5070, on average (50 FPS to 51 FPS minimum/1%, respectively).

Putting it all together, one thing in the Nvidia RTX 5070's favor is that it is able to tie things up with the RX 9070 at about 26 fewer watts under load (284W maximum power draw to the RTX 5070's 258W).

That's not the biggest difference, but even 26W extra power can mean the difference between needing to replace your PSU or sticking with the one you have.

Under normal conditions, I'd argue that this would swing things in favor of Nvidia's GPU, but the GPU market is hardly normal right now, and so what you really need to look at is how much you're being asked to pay for either of these cards. Chances are, you're going to be able to find an RX 9070 for a good bit cheaper than the RTX 5070, and so its value to you in the end is likely going to be higher.

• Performance: 4.5 / 5

Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 9070?

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler) Buy the AMD Radeon RX 9070 if...

You want a fantastic 1440p graphics card
The RX 9070 absolutely chews through 1440p gaming with frame rates that can fully saturate most 1440p gaming monitors' refresh rates.

You don't want to spend a fortune on a midrange GPU
While the RX 9070 isn't cheap, necessarily, it's among the cheapest midrange cards you can get, even after factoring in scalping and price inflation.

Don't buy it if...

You want great creative performance
While the RX 9070 is a fantastic gaming graphics card, its creative performance (especially for 3D modeling work) lags behind Nvidia midrange cards.

Also consider

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
The RX 9070 XT is an absolute barnburner of a gaming GPU, offering excellent 4K performance and even better 1440p performance, especially if you can get it close to MSRP.

Read the full AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT review

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070
The RTX 5070 essentially ties the RX 9070 in gaming performance in 1440p and 4K gaming, but has better power efficiency and creative performance.

Read the full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 review

How I tested the AMD Radeon RX 9070

• I spent about two weeks with the RX 9070
• I used my complete GPU testing suite to analyze the card's performance
• I tested the card in everyday, gaming, creative, and AI workload usage

Test System Specs

Here are the specs on the system I used for testing:

Motherboard: ASRock Z790i Lightning WiFi
CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K
CPU Cooler: Gigabyte Auros Waterforce II 360 ICE
RAM: Corsair Dominator DDR5-6600 (2 x 16GB)
SSD: Samsung 9100 Pro 4TB SSD
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 1050W Platinum
Case: Praxis Wetbench

I spent about two weeks with the AMD RX 9070, using it as my primary workstation GPU for creative work and gaming after hours.

I used my updated benchmarking process, which includes using built-in benchmarks on the latest PC games like Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, and Civilization VII. I also used industry-standard benchmark tools like 3DMark for synthetic testing, while using tools like PugetBench for Creators and Blender Benchmark for creative workload testing.

I've reviewed more than three dozen graphics cards for TechRadar over the past three years, which has included hundreds of hours of dedicated GPU testing, so you can trust that I'm giving you the fullest picture of a graphics card's performance in my reviews.

• Originally reviewed May 2025

Acting President Han Duck-soo has emerged as a potential conservative standard bearer, and South Korean media reported he will officially launch his presidential campaign Friday.

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It's not uncommon to bounce around streamers depending on what you are in the mood to watch every month. Subscription hopping has also proven to significantly help out when it comes to lessening the financial burden of maintaining access to all the best streaming services.

Because, even though we might want to keep everything going, with the costs of each steamer undergoing regular revision – Plex, Netflix, Fubo TV and Discovery+ have all announced price hikes so far this year – now's a great time to re-evaluate. Not sure where to start? That's what I'm here for!

This month, I'm going out on a limb and dropping one of my favorite streamers in favor of the granddaddy service, Netflix. There's a slew of cracking TV shows and movies arriving on Netflix in May 2025, and here's a few I'm gosh darn giddy for!

Here's why I'm keeping my Netflix subscription

Alright, first up on May 1st we have a brand-new Netflix miniseries called The Four Seasons from creators Tina Fey (30 Rock), Lang Fisher (Never Have I Ever), and Tracey Wigfield (The Mindy Project). The show is based on the 1981 Alan Alda movie and is poised to follow six friends who plan a fun weekend getaway together, only to learn that one of the couples is on the verge of splitting up.

Fey stars alongside Will Forte, Steve Carell, Colman Domingo, Erika Henningsen, Marco Calvani, and Kerri Kenney-Silver. To be fair, I love Fey's brand of humor and her previous onscreen chemistry with Forte, so this is a no-brainer watch for me.

Another short-run show is on the horizon for later in May. Sirens limited series is dubbed a 'dark comedy' and unravels over the course of a weekend at an affluent seaside estate.

Meghann Fahy (hot off The White Lotus and this year's Drop) plays Devon who decides to step in and help out her sister Simone (House of the Dragon's Milly Alcock) whose relationship with her boss is getting out of hand. While she means well, her younger sister insists that her employer, wealthy socialite Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore) won't take this interception well at all.

Honestly, I need know nothing else. This sounds like it's following this new trend of 'rich white women going off the rails' dramedies such as Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, The White Lotus, et al.

Arguably one of Netflix's biggest fan draws is the Nick Kroll-led animated series Big Mouth, which returns for its eighth and final season on May 23.

While I'm excited to revisit Josh Ruben's romantic slasher Heart Eyes on May 8, my heart really belongs to the prom queen. I'm talkin' the long-awaited follow-up to 2021's nostalgia slasher trilogy based on the Fear Street novels. Yep, Fear Street: Prom Queen arrives on May 23 and I'm ready, especially after seeing the trailer for this school-themed horror.

Like the previous entries in the franchise, the film takes place at Shadyside High during their prom season as hordes of popular girls desperate to earn the title of prom queen start to mysteriously disappear.

The movie takes inspiration from the novel of the same name by R.L. Stine, which is a classic piece of YA, and stars stalwart genre actors, Lili Taylor and Katherine Waterston. I loved the original trilogy, mostly because it never shied away from getting a bit gory and getting a tad scary. Bring it on!

On the library front – the streamer is adding a raft of critically acclaimed movies to the docket for May, including five that snagged more than 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. One of those is last year's The Wild Robot that proved popular with both children and adults (well, everyone bawled watching it, if that counts?) so be sure to add that to your watchlist.

For recognizable warm and fuzzies – or as I call them, the 'rebingeables' cause they're in constant rotation– there's Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven trilogy and the Twilight franchise. What? They're fun. Check out everything new on Netflix in May in the US for even more reasons why you'll want to sign up.

Here's why I'm canceling Paramount+

Yellowjackets season 3 has ended on Paramount+. (Image credit: Paramount Plus)

Last month, I mentioned that I was dropping Paramount+ because of one reason and one reason only: those girls stuck out in the wilderness! Well, now that one of the best Paramount+ shows is all done for the year– yep. Yellowjackets season 3 dropped its finale – it's time to drop this streamer for May.

Also, no sign of a season four renewal for Yellowjackets? Wild.

Really, there's not a whole heck of a lot new that I'm excited about – but, as I mentioned last month – sometimes personal preference plays a factor. For me, I like a mix of new titles and a bunch of fun older catalog shows and movies to keep me going. While there's a few of the latter, there's nothing really on the former. My gut on these matters sways toward newer titles hitting streaming and there isn’t anything pressing that’s must-see TV this month.

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AI agents are everywhere today and are reshaping how social engineering works. These autonomous systems now independently launch coordinated phishing campaigns across multiple channels simultaneously, operating with an efficiency human attackers cannot match. They work continuously, make fewer mistakes, and require no supervision to effectively target organizations.

And they are effective. AI-generated phishing emails achieve a 54% click-through rate compared to just 12% for their human-crafted counterparts. What makes these attacks so effective? Unlike batch-and-blast approaches, AI agents build detailed psychological profiles from vast datasets, crafting messages that speak directly to individual fears, habits and vulnerabilities.

More troubling is their adaptive intelligence. These systems learn from each interaction, adjusting tactics based on your responses in real-time across email, text, voice calls and social platforms simultaneously. A hesitant reply becomes valuable feedback that sharpens the next approach.

Security teams find themselves outpaced as conventional defenses crumble against threats that evolve by the minute. The production scale is equally concerning: thousands of personalized phishing attempts generated in seconds, each one refined by previous successes and failures.

Leading organizations are responding with their own AI-powered defensive systems that detect subtle patterns human analysts might miss. This arms race has also accelerated interest in fundamentally different authentication approaches and cybersecurity awareness programs that address these new psychological vectors.

The question isn't whether your organization will face these advanced attacks, but whether you'll recognize them when they arrive.

But What The Heck Are AI Agents Anyway?

Between marketing hype and technical jargon, understanding what constitutes an "AI agent" has become unnecessarily complicated. At its core, an AI agent is simply software that can act independently toward specific goals without constant human guidance.

Unlike traditional automation tools that follow rigid instructions, agents perceive their environment, make decisions based on what they observe, and adapt their approach as circumstances change. The most sophisticated agents can plan multi-step sequences, learn from mistakes, and improve strategies over time.

These capabilities come in different forms. Basic reactive agents respond to triggers without memory or context. More advanced proactive agents initiate actions to accomplish specific objectives. Learning agents continuously refine their performance through feedback, while fully autonomous agents operate with minimal human oversight.

What separates modern AI agents from previous technologies is their ability to handle uncertainty and complexity. Using large language models and other AI tools, today's agents can understand natural language, recognize patterns across massive datasets, and navigate ambiguous situations with remarkably human-like reasoning.

This flexibility makes agents valuable for legitimate tasks like customer service, data analysis, and process automation. However, these same characteristics—autonomous operation, adaptability, and social intelligence—create perfect tools for sophisticated social engineering when repurposed for attacks.

Why AI Agents Excel at Social Engineering

The marriage of AI agents with social engineering creates uniquely effective attacks that traditional security measures struggle to counter. Their advantage comes from automating the most labor-intensive parts of social engineering while simultaneously improving the quality of each interaction.

Reconnaissance, traditionally the most time-consuming phase, happens automatically as agents collect and analyze digital breadcrumbs scattered across social media, company websites, and public records. These systems build comprehensive profiles of potential targets without human effort, identifying vulnerabilities in seconds rather than days.

The resulting attacks achieve unprecedented personalization. Rather than generic "Dear Customer" messages, AI agents craft communications that reference specific projects, colleagues, interests, or recent activities. This contextual awareness makes phishing attempts nearly indistinguishable from legitimate communications.

Perhaps most concerning is their ability to adapt in real-time. When a target hesitates or questions an initial approach, agents adjust their tactics immediately based on the response. This continuous refinement makes each interaction more convincing than the last, wearing down even skeptical targets through persistence and learning.

The economics also shift dramatically in the attacker's favor. AI-generated campaigns achieve higher success rates at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. A single operator can now orchestrate thousands of simultaneous, personalized attacks across email, voice, text, and social platforms—each one polished and grammatically perfect.

These capabilities create a democratizing effect in cybercrime. Advanced social engineering no longer requires elite skills or resources. The technical barriers have fallen, allowing even inexperienced attackers to execute sophisticated campaigns with minimal investment or expertise.

Most alarming is how these systems improve over time. Each successful or failed attempt becomes valuable training data that refines future attacks. AI agents effectively learn which approaches work best for specific demographics, industries, or individuals, making each campaign more effective than the last.

AI Agents Expand Your Attack Surface

The introduction of AI agents into business operations creates new entry points for attackers while also expanding the scope of what they can target. Each AI-powered system, tool, or service becomes another potential vector requiring protection and monitoring.

Security leaders need comprehensive exposure management strategies that account for these expanded attack surfaces. With over 80% of breaches involving external actors, organizations must prioritize defensive measures that address these new vulnerabilities:

Focus on external exposures. Continuously monitor internet-facing assets, especially AI endpoints and related infrastructure, where the majority of initial compromises occur.

Find everything: Conduct exhaustive discovery across all business units, subsidiaries, cloud services, and third-party integrations. AI systems often create complex dependency chains that introduce unexpected exposure points.

Test everything: Implement regular security testing on all exposed assets, not just "crown jewel" systems. Traditional approaches miss how seemingly low-priority systems can provide backdoor access when connected to AI infrastructure.

Prioritize based on risk: Evaluate threats based on business impact rather than technical severity alone. Consider data sensitivity, operational dependencies, and regulatory implications when allocating remediation resources.

Share broadly: Integrate findings into existing security operations through automation and clear communication channels. Ensure relevant stakeholders receive information that informs broader security operations and incident response processes.

AI agents are already accelerating social engineering attacks beyond what traditional defenses can handle. Security teams must implement robust exposure management now, while building AI-specific detection capabilities, or risk finding themselves outmatched by attacks they can't distinguish from legitimate communications.

Check out the best antivirus software.

This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

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• LG Display announced “commercialization level” performance of a blue phosphorescent OLED panel
• The new panel is a hybrid fluorescent/phosphorescent design that consumes about 15% less power than typical OLED displays
• The new tech will be demonstrated in a "small and medium-sized panel that can be applied to IT devices such as smartphones and tablets”

Korean manufacturer LG Display today announced it has successfully verified the “commercialization level” performance of blue phosphorescent OLED panels.

The announcement comes eight months after LG Display partnered with OLED technology company Universal Display Corporation on the development of blue phosphorescence, a necessary next step in creating a “Dream OLED” display.

According to LG Display’s release, the company was able to make the technology mass production-ready using a “hybrid two-stack Tandem OLED structure, with blue fluorescence in the lower stack and blue phosphorescence in the upper stack.” This approach differs from previous OLED display panels, which use a blue fluorescent layer paired with red and green phosphorescent layers.

(Image credit: LG Display)

The issue with using a fluorescent layer in OLED panels is that it provides only 25% light efficiency compared to a phosphorescent layer, which provides 100% light efficiency. LG Display’s hybrid approach changes things up in “combining the stability of fluorescence with the lower power consumption of phosphorescence.” By doing so, it “consumes about 15% less power while maintaining a similar level of stability to existing OLED panels,” according to the company.

LG plans to demonstrate its blue phosphorescent OLED panel with two-stack Tandem technology at SID Display Week, an event that gets underway on May 11, 2025 in San Jose, California.

Has the Dream OLED TV finally arrived?

While LG Display’s announcement is intriguing, the blue phosphorescent OLED panel it plans to display at SID Display Week will showcase the technology in “a small and medium-sized panel that can be applied to IT devices such as smartphones and tablets.”

That means the current iteration of the tech, while mass production-ready (LG Display says it has “completed commercialization verification with UDC”) remains in prototype form, and is not ready for introduction in larger displays such as the best OLED TVs.

We’ve been following the news on blue PHOLED, a term used for the phosphorescent layer in OLED displays, for some time, and previously reported on LG Display’s having "successfully developed an OLED panel based on blue phosphorescence."

Today’s news goes further in certifying that a similar OLED display panel is ready for prime time, but this version uses a hybrid approach that doesn’t yet meet the full light efficiency expectations of a “Dream OLED.”

Meanwhile, LG Display’s “four-stack” OLED display panel, a design that doesn’t rely on blue phosphorescent tech, hybrid or otherwise, but instead utilizes separate red, green, and blue elements to enhance color purity and boost brightness, can be found in the impressive new LG C5 OLED, one of the best TVs to arrive so far in 2025.

We expect this panel to remain the cutting edge for OLED TVs for some time to come, while the new hybrid two-stack Tandem OLED structure with blue phosphorescence gets developed for devices like phones and tablets.

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