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Google’s new $179 tracker sits between the screenless Fitbit Air and Pixel Watch 5, promising some of the best parts of both without fully committing to either.

These are all the new features you can expect to see with the Air.

For a growing small business, cybersecurity can often feel like one of those problems that belongs to larger companies with dedicated security teams.

But cybercriminals have no interest in company headcount - they are hunting for valuable data, accessible accounts and opportunities to turn a single mistake into a financial payoff, which makes cybersecurity a business priority, not simply an IT concern.

The risks will hopefully sound familiar: phishing emails, fake invoices, stolen passwords, ransomware, payment fraud and attempts to hijack business accounts, as attackers look to exploit employees and everyday business processes rather than needing to defeat sophisticated technical defences.

AI is giving cybercrime a serious productivity boost

But now there is an additional force making these threats harder to ignore: artificial intelligence.

Generative AI has obvious benefits for legitimate businesses, but the same capabilities can be turned against them, as criminals can use AI to produce convincing messages at scale, personalise phishing attempts and automate parts of an attack that previously required significant manual effort.

Europol has warned that generative AI is already being used to supercharge social engineering, enabling criminals to tailor scam messages to victims' personal and cultural context, helping criminal networks scale their operations while reducing the risk of being detected.

Microsoft has likewise documented AI-assisted phishing campaigns involving automated infrastructure and highly personalised lures, with one recent campaign seeing attackers use generative AI to create phishing emails tailored to victims' roles, including invoice and business-workflow themes.

For a small company, the significance is straightforward: an attack doesn't have to be highly sophisticated to be dangerous, especially at a small business where everyone is constantly spinning multiple plates.

If AI allows criminals to send more convincing attacks to more potential victims, the probability that one eventually reaches an employee at exactly the wrong moment increases - meaning that waiting until something goes wrong is no longer a particularly rational strategy.

Security needs to cover the way small businesses actually work

The challenge for entrepreneurs is that “taking cybersecurity seriously” can sound like a prescription for another full-time job. Most small companies don't have a security operations centre, a dedicated IT department or the resources to spend hours configuring enterprise security products - but this is where Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security can help.

Rather than concentrating on a single layer of protection, the platform is designed around the collection of risks that small businesses encounter in everyday operations. It combines cross-platform device security with email protection, scam detection, password management, unlimited VPN access, digital identity protection and monitoring of business assets.

This breadth matters because modern attacks rarely respect neat security boundaries. An employee might receive a convincing email, click a malicious link, surrender a password and subsequently expose a business account. Protecting only the endpoint, or only the email inbox, leaves opportunities elsewhere.

Bitdefender's approach is instead to cover the ecosystem around the employee. Its scam protection is particularly relevant in an era of social engineering boosted by AI, as it not only flags suspicious messages and requests, but its AI-assisted capabilities can also help employees assess whether something is legitimate before they click, respond or make a payment.

The service also includes protection against phishing emails and tools such as Scamio Pro for checking suspicious messages or links, providing a vital first line of defence against such attacks.

Protection without an IT department

Perhaps the most important feature for a small business is not a technical specification at all, but simplicity.

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security is designed for businesses with limited IT resources, with centralised management and streamlined onboarding to reduce administrative burden. Business owners can manage employees and protected devices from a single environment, while role-based access allows security responsibilities to be delegated where appropriate.

The platform also covers the mixed-device reality of modern small companies, supporting Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, as well as Windows servers depending on the plan.

VPN protection helps secure remote work, while password management addresses one of the most persistent sources of organisational risk: compromised or reused credentials.

The overall result is security intended to work in the background, rather than become another system for an entrepreneur or their employees to babysit.

Small businesses need serious security, but they also need to spend their time building the business, and Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security attempts to bridge that gap: broad protection against the threats companies actually encounter, combined with management and deployment designed for people who aren't cybersecurity specialists.

As AI makes cybercrime faster, more scalable and more convincing, and "we're too small to be targeted" is becoming an increasingly difficult assumption to defend. For a business whose reputation, revenue and customer relationships depend on digital systems, cybersecurity is better viewed as basic business infrastructure.

And for small companies that want that infrastructure without building an IT security operation from scratch, Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security should be your first port of call.

Technics EAH-A1000: Two-minute review

If you were expecting a minor update over Technics' previous over-ears in the EAH-A1000, you're in for a surprise. Because in the four-years-and-loose-change since its last over-ear offering, Technics' various audio departments have been very, very busy — and I'm referring to the design team as well as the sonic engineering squad.

Here's a novel idea to kick things off: these headphones have Technics' own proprietary, top-secret metallic juice concoction oiling the drivers. Those familiar with the company's hugely successful earbuds (and if you read this publication regularly, you will be) will remember the firm's Magnetic Fluid Driver technology.

Technics pioneered it to aid the pistonic motion of those tiny drivers. As they busily move back and forth to create physical sound waves from electrical signals, said fluid helps the units stay extra-true in their work and free from variance. But it's no small feat to scale up from 10mm mechanisms within concha-fit earpieces to 40mm drivers that cover the whole ear, and that is what has been achieved, all without adding any weight to the headset.

So are the new, far more attractive EAH-A1000 (all vegan leather, svelte arms, and brushed metallic top plates) ready to assume a spot in our best noise-cancelling headphones guide then? Yes, depending on your listening tastes. There's detail, width, a lovely circumaural presentation and musical timing in droves. However, depending on the kind of music you regularly listen to, or the sonic tuning you prefer, they'll either be just what you need or fall just slightly short in terms of oomph, bass clout and zeal. And as much as I adore them, I have to confirm that my heart and ears belong in the latter group.

(Image credit: Future)

If triple-device connectivity seems like something you'd really like from your headphones, these are an excellent buy — and believe me when I tell you it's hard to return to a state of only being connected to two source devices at once (rather than seamless sonic switching between your tablet, phone and laptop at will) when you've become used to three.

And in terms of features elsewhere, the Technics score highly for ANC, which is robust and effective but never sweetens or hollows out your music unnecessarily. I do find the Ambient profiles (there are two; 'Transparent' for sounds around you, or 'Attention' which aims to hone in on voices and announcements specifically) a little light touch, though. If you value Sony's Quick Attention feature to actively pipe in sounds when you cover an ear cup, you'll be disappointed here. Technics' profiles do dampen your audio and the result is natural, but it feels a touch too passive, no matter how much I dial up the transparency on the graph in the app.

I really enjoyed this same, slightly lighter touch feel within the spatial audio profiles, though. Your options are static or head-tracked and they are of course device- and streaming-service agnostic (Technics does not currently make mobile phones or offer a music streaming service, so it cannot tie you into an ecosystem in the way that Apple can). For me, these offer a more enveloping, engaging soundstage at the times when you may want that — in classical tracks, say.

Call quality is also very good, although Sidetone fans (and I'm one of those) might be dismayed to learn that Technics' excellent voice amplification tech for its earbuds, whereby your own voice doesn't sound so muffled as you speak, has never made it to its over-ears.

I'll get granular on my very minor issues with the on-ear controls in due course, but for this money — which is significantly less than AirPods Max 2 (but with a much better battery life) and the same asking fee as the also-new Sonos Ace Ultra — the sonic detail is excellent value for money. They're not the most punchy and zealous cans I've ever heard, but they are diligent, accurate and beautifully musical. And mark my words, some people will adore them for critical listening.

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Price & release date

• Released on September 29, 2026
• Priced $449 / £399 / AU$699

Technics has priced these headphones at $449 / £399 / AU$699, to sit comfortably within a premium space that includes much more expensive hits such as the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 (at $799 / £629 / AU$1,299) and AirPods Max 2 ($549 / £499 / AU$999, although I've seen a few discounts on these MSRPs lately).

The excellent Sony WH-1000XM6 (also $449 / £399 / AU$699) are arguably Technics' chief competition, and this is likely why they've been released at the same price-point — but the superb September 2026 Sonos Ace Ultra can be yours for exactly this money too.

The Nothing Headphone (1) Pro also recently launched at just a shade cheaper than the Technics ($399 / £349 / AU$699) so, although certainly not in the budget headphones sector, Technics' pricing is hardly unreasonable.

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Specs

Drivers

40mm Magnetic Fluid Driver with pure carbon-fiber diaphragm and SST edge

Active noise cancellation

Yes (adaptive, tweakable static, ambient passthrough)

Battery life

Up to 45 hours (ANC ON, AAC) / up to 90 hours (ANC OFF, AAC)

Up to 30 hours (ANC ON, LDAC) / up to 60 hours (ANC OFF, LDAC)

Weight

306g

Connectivity

Bluetooth 6.0 with 3-device multipoint pairing, USB-C audio output at 24-bit

Frequency range

20Hz – 48kHz

Waterproofing

No rating

Other features

Dolby Atmos with head-tracking, LDAC support, USB-C Lossless audio up to 24-bit, triple-device multipoint pairing (LDAC off)

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Features

• Spatial audio with the option of Dolby Head Tracking
• Industry-leading simultaneous triple-device connectivity
• 8-tab EQ; ANC and Transparency modes both with 0-99 sliders

There are no hearing tests, hearing aid features or scope for nodding to either answer calls or respond to your voice assistant here and, honestly, I don't miss these features.

You will get wearer detection to pause your music, plus ANC that can either be set to 'Adaptive', to automatically adjust to your surroundings, or simply 'On' to tweak yourself. This is done on a little virtual dial within the easy-to-navigate (and easy-to-tailor, thanks to the option of prioritizing certain profiles on the home screen) Technics AudioConnect app.

For me, dialling up the ANC to 100% or thereabouts gives very good results. It dulls all but the really heavy crashes and clatters in my home office — even the sound of the microwave didn't creep in. I don't say it lightly either; Technics has done a great job with the active noise cancellation here.

Transparency? It also gets its own in-app dial, but here you can also choose between 'Attention', which is supposed to seek out voices and announcements around you, or 'Transparent', which lets in all ambient noise, to make you aware of where you are. For me, these are less successful. I certainly hear quite a bit more of my other half's lovely voice when selecting 'Attention' — and there's no hiss or tinniness to either the ambient sound or audio in my cans — but I still feel as if I need to remove them to hear him properly.

Although these headphones may seem relatively light on extras (there's no Sony 'Quick Attention' rival, to actively pipe a person's voice into your ear, and that is perhaps one perk I would have liked to see) the features you need are all here and, largely, they're implemented very well. The EQ graph is well-designed and, as well as presets for Bass+, Super Bass+, Vocal, Treble+ and Dynamic, you can create custom sound profiles on an 8-band tab.

TechnicsTechnics

And although I'd love Technics' excellent Sidetone tech to trickle from its earbuds to its cans as well as that magnetic fluid has, to hear my own voice better in calls, callers said my voice was nevertheless clear.

But I've saved one of the best (best!) features for last: triple-device connectivity. It simplifies life so much more than you might think not to have to keep disconnecting one device to add another when you regularly work on a tablet, a laptop and a phone!

I asked Technics recently why so few other companies are offering multipoint to three devices and was essentially told (I say 'essentially' only because I was talking to a Technics engineer through a Japanese translator, in Tokyo) that it isn't easy to get everything on a Bluetooth chipset, because you "need to be very organized".

So, the fact that when you connect to three devices simultaneously, you'll lose LDAC streaming quality, makes a lot of sense. Choose to forego Bluetooth entirely and you can listen via USB-C Lossless audio, although the headphones do need to be powered on for this.

A quick note on the Technics EAH-A1000's battery life: it's good rather than phenomenal. Up to 45 hours with ANC on sounds great, until you realize that's without LDAC (at which point stamina drops to 30 hours), but up to 90 hours without ANC and without LDAC is still a good chunk of time. To put that into perspective, Apple's AirPods Max 2 can only go for up to 20 hours with ANC on, but Cambridge's excellent P100 SE can last for up to 100 hours without ANC, or 60 hours with it — although it's worth noting that Cambridge hasn't disclosed how much aptX listening might affect things.

All in all, Technics has given us a well-rounded and beautifully presented feature set that does the essentials well, and even adds an extra device to your regular multipoint setup. The one fly in the ointment? A light-touch 'Transparency' profile that for me could use a bit of extra oomph.

• Features score: 4.5 / 5

They also come in 'Platinum Greige' (Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Sound quality

• LDAC support, plus Lossless via USB-C or 3.5mm bundled cables
• Exceptionally detailed audio for this level
• Also very occasionally a little too polite and lacking in bite

If you, like me, cue up Jamie T's 3310, the first track on his new album Ghosts (100 Days of Morning) you'll be very happy with these headphones. I defy you to knock the Technics EAH-A1000 while listening to more pared back intros and acoustic tracks. Here, the guitar sits beautifully under your left ear, textured and three-dimensional, and Wimbledon's finest rapper-slash-crooner might just as well be in the room, glancing at you as he sings about cider, the London district of Barnes, its cash-strapped cousin Twickenham, and how he longs to be 33 again.

As the track continues and the mix intensifies, you might feel as if you're missing an extra ounce of disillusion through T's petulant, unimpressed vocal though, and I'd agree. Deploying 'Bass+' in the EQ tab does help a little, but also puts you slightly further back from other frequencies in the mix. These are not the best choice for those who listen to heavier music or grime.

(Image credit: Future)

However, I've said it before and I'll reiterate here: there's nothing wrong with refinement and pulling back just a little to gain space, breadth and add a modicum of detail to every intake of breath and strum of a guitar. The issue here is that in easing off on the throttle for fear of overstating the low end especially, the Technics err just slightly in the opposite direction; if I'm being hyper-critical, they're just a touch too polite.

It's no huge issue, but it's my job to relay what I hear. Again, this will be a matter of taste and, depending on which genres of music you most enjoy, you may hear things while listening with these headphones that truly delight you. Stream Hotel California (I don't need to tell you the name of the LA five-piece who released it, do I?) and there's a stunning level of clarity to the shakers, guitars, bass and cymbals in the intro. Stream Bad Bunny's BAILE INoLVIDABLE and you may want just a little more good old fashioned sub-bass wallop.

Switch to B&W's Px8 S2 and there's an ounce more crispness through the leading edges of notes and more palpable dynamic nuance across the frequencies, which has me dancing rather than just nodding my head to Fontaines D.C.'s Favourite, but it's a close-run race — and given the fact that the B&W product is quite a bit more expensive, that's a big compliment for the Technics set of cans.

• Sound quality score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Design

• A very good-looking set of headphones
• The case is a winner too
• On-ear physical buttons occasionally fail to respond

My review sample is the classic black version rather than the new 'Platinum Greige' set, but both are incredibly stylish and promote no small sense of pride in ownership.

The case, bijou and useful though it is (and with a lovely bit of storage for your cables, which you'd think would be a given but isn't), is not imprinted with a Technics logo save for a demure mention on the zipper tag. This is because, and I'm quoting a revered member of the Technics design team here: "Everything at Technics must either be engraved onto the metal or embroidered to the fabric of a product: we do not print."

Everything has been finessed from the EAH-A800 and the look is far less bulky. At their unveiling, I was shown dozens of samples of potential top-plates for the ear cup: too shiny, too grooved, too smooth… this goes way beyond meticulous attention to detail. Technics wants us to love the look of them, and make no mistake, I do.

To circle back to the Magnetic Fluid Driver for a moment, the EAH-A1000 incorporates Technics' SST (Symmetrical Surround Technology) Edge — aka the same tech that's also used in the company's hi-fi flagship speakers — alongside the magnetic fluid-enhanced drivers that have been scaled up from Technics' earbuds.

What's under the hood is a pure rigid carbon-fiber diaphragm with dome shape and cone shape ideas (think a dish with a slight raise in the center), along with a redesigned acoustic control chamber, to better manage airflow. The EAH-A1000 also feature a new 'Baffle Flat Structure' to reduce "uneven surfaces around the driver, limiting unwanted reflections".

The arms of the headphones have been thinned, reshaped and refined since the EAH-A800, and I think it's a careful and chic solution. The movement of the arm is silent and the headphones have remained supremely comfortable during wear, throughout the course of my listening. Clamping force? Yes, it's here to promote passive isolation, but never to a fault. I think the fit is aided by the 13-degree angle of the ear cups, relative to the headband, implemented by the female Head of Design. Apparently, over 500 people tested them prior to landing on this specific degree, and half of those tested were women. Hurrah. (In case it needs to be said, women also like music.)

Any issues? One: the physical buttons located on the right ear cup. The one closest to the nape of your neck scrolls through ANC profiles; the central rocker can slide for volume and be pushed for playback control; the one nearest your cheek is for power and pairing. The volume rocker is great to use, but pushing it to pause music is a little more hit-and-miss if you don't press firmly, or don't make sure the rocker is truly central in its mounting. And the power button needs to pressed for two seconds to initiate powering off, but if you do this while removing them, in my experience it often doesn't work. It's a small issue, but one that obviously may affect battery life — and it doesn't help that my Cambridge reference headphones have a simple, reliable slider to switch them off.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Value

• Sonically bang on for the money
• They look and feel more expensive than they are
• Not as feature-stuffed as some rivals, though

If you value an expansive, detailed, insightful listen, you cannot do much better for the money. The ANC is also more than up to snuff and among the best-in-class, and they're light and easy to transport, with a useful but fuss-free case.

That said, you can better the EAH-A1000 just slightly for zealous energy and the kind of impact that makes you get up and dance to the music in your cans — and if you rely heavily on a 'Transparency' profile to cut through the noise, they won't be for you.

Nevertheless, if sound is king, you should add these to your test drive list.

• Value score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Should I buy the Technics EAH-A1000?

Section

Notes

Score

Features

All killer, no filler. The essentials are here — and largely, they're very good too. Hearing tests though? No

4.5/5

Sound quality

Expansive and insightful, with lovely musicality. That said, they can sound just a little polite

4.5/5

Design

A beautiful set of headphones, only let down by the occasional lack of efficacy concerning the buttons on the ear cup. But that's a small issue

4.5/5

Value

They look so, so much more expesnive than they are, and the sound is more than worthy of the money

4.5/5

Buy them if...

You want excellent ANC
For this money, I think the ANC here is very effective — get it on, take the dial in the app right up and enjoy the cocoon of near-silence as your musical backdrop.

You like to feel expensive
These headphones shine and reflect, but never in a trashy, 'look at me' way. They feel every bit as padded, light in weight and — hang it all — pricey as you want them to.

You listen to acoustic tracks a lot
LDAC support is here, if you can deploy it from your Android, and with it these headphones deliver guitars, strings and pared back vocals with depth, detail and care.

Don't buy them if...

You rely on a decent 'Transparency' profile
There are two ambient profiles here, but neither is as easy to deploy or as effective at getting you in and focused on the conversation as Sony's 'Quick Attention' feature, say.

You're all about that bass
It's not that the EAH-A1000 are shy on bass, especially, they're just a little polite with it. If you listen to a lot of grime or heavier hip-hop, they may not suit your tastes.

You want aptX and aptX HD
These are definitely headphones for a certain type of listener (one who values clarity and spacious detail in their music), which is perhaps why I feel the need to point out that you're not getting a few of the higher-res Bluetooth codecs, although LDAC is on the menu. View Deal

Technics EAH-A1000 review: Also consider

Technics EAH-A1000

Sonos Ace Ultra

Nothing Headphone (1) Pro

Sony WH-1000XM6

Price

$449 / £399 / AU$699

$449 / £399 / AU$699

$399 / £349 / (approx. AU$655)

$449 / £399 / AU$699

Drivers

40mm Magnetic Fluid Driver with pure carbon-fibre diaphragm and SST edge

Next-gen 40mm custom

Bass Dynamic: 40 mm; Precision Dynamic: 13 × 8 mm; Treble xMEMS: 3.2 × 6.0 × 1.15 MM, Solid-State

30mm dynamic

Active noise cancellation

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Quoted battery life

45 hours (ANC ON, AAC) / 90 hours (ANC OFF, AAC)

30 hours (ANC ON, LDAC) / 60 hours (ANC OFF, LDAC)

35 hours (ANC on)

68 hours (ANC off)
30 hours (ANC on)

30 hours (ANC on)

Weight

306g

322g

327g

254g

Connectivity

Bluetooth 6.0 with 3-device multipoint pairing, USB-C audio output at 24-bit

Bluetooth 6.0, USB-C, Sonos Headphone Linking

Bluetooth 6.1, LDAC, USB-C Audio, 3.5mm jack

Bluetooth 5.3, 3.5mm

Frequency range

20Hz – 48kHz

20Hz - 20kHz

20 Hz - 40 kHz

20 Hz - 20 kHz

Waterproofing

No rating

No rating

Yes, IP52

None

Sonos Ace Ultra
Want headphones that play nice with your Sonos system at home and sound truly immersive in movies? OK, yes, that's a very different proposition to the cans you came here to read about, but for the same money it's worth noting that you could also buy these.
Read more in our full Sonos Ace Ultra review

Sony WH-1000XM6
They're top sellers for a reason, these Sony headphones. They're also even lighter than the Technics (although not quite as gorgeous), the ANC is similar and although they're the same price as the EAH-A1000, extra features such as 'Quick Attention' make them a great overall package.
Learn more in our in-depth Sony WH-1000XM6 review

How I tested the Technics EAH-A1000

• Tested for two weeks, listened against the AirPods Max 2, Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 and Cambridge P100 SE
• Listened on a short flight, in a hotel room in London, at home and while walking alone along a blustery seafront
• Listened to Qobuz, Tidal and Apple Music Lossless tracks via USB-C to my FiiO player and streamed to my iPhone 15 Pro, MacBook Pro and Sony Xperia smartphone

The Technics EAH-A100 became my primary travel companions for two weeks — after a 24-hour run-in period. And carrying (or wearing them) anywhere was never a chore.

They accompanied me to the airport (walking brusquely from the Airport Express train and on a brief flight) and at home, on the UK's Jurassic Coast.

To test their comfort levels (no notes), ANC (also excellent) and battery life claims (very good rather than class-leading, but there's not a lot in it), I followed TechRadar's meticulous methodology testing.

To check the audio performance across the frequencies, I listened for many hours, in various environments, to my own reference playlists on Apple Music, Qobuz and Tidal, alongside TechRadar's reference tracks, and two of my favorite podcasts.

I’ve been testing audio products for well over seven years now, as a full-time job — first at our sister site What Hi-Fi? and now here at TechRadar. I know, tough gig (but someone has to). As a dancer, aerialist and musical theater performer in another life, I have always found that sound quality (in particular musicality and cohesion), fit and the user experience take priority for me in headphones, but having heard how wonderful ANC can be when done well, I know what I'm listening for there, too.

Read more about how we test at TechRadar

• First reviewed: October 2026

Technics EAH-A1000: Two-minute review

If you were expecting a minor update over Technics' previous over-ears in the EAH-A1000, you're in for a surprise. Because in the four-years-and-loose-change since its last over-ear offering, Technics' various audio departments have been very, very busy — and I'm referring to the design team as well as the sonic engineering squad.

Here's a novel idea to kick things off: these headphones have Technics' own proprietary, top-secret metallic juice concoction oiling the drivers. Those familiar with the company's hugely successful earbuds (and if you read this publication regularly, you will be) will remember the firm's Magnetic Fluid Driver technology.

Technics pioneered it to aid the pistonic motion of those tiny drivers. As they busily move back and forth to create physical sound waves from electrical signals, said fluid helps the units stay extra-true in their work and free from variance. But it's no small feat to scale up from 10mm mechanisms within concha-fit earpieces to 40mm drivers that cover the whole ear, and that is what has been achieved, all without adding any weight to the headset.

So are the new, far more attractive EAH-A1000 (all vegan leather, svelte arms, and brushed metallic top plates) ready to assume a spot in our best noise-cancelling headphones guide then? Yes, depending on your listening tastes. There's detail, width, a lovely circumaural presentation and musical timing in droves. However, depending on the kind of music you regularly listen to, or the sonic tuning you prefer, they'll either be just what you need or fall just slightly short in terms of oomph, bass clout and zeal. And as much as I adore them, I have to confirm that my heart and ears belong in the latter group.

(Image credit: Future)

If triple-device connectivity seems like something you'd really like from your headphones, these are an excellent buy — and believe me when I tell you it's hard to return to a state of only being connected to two source devices at once (rather than seamless sonic switching between your tablet, phone and laptop at will) when you've become used to three.

And in terms of features elsewhere, the Technics score highly for ANC, which is robust and effective but never sweetens or hollows out your music unnecessarily. I do find the Ambient profiles (there are two; 'Transparent' for sounds around you, or 'Attention' which aims to hone in on voices and announcements specifically) a little light touch, though. If you value Sony's Quick Attention feature to actively pipe in sounds when you cover an ear cup, you'll be disappointed here. Technics' profiles do dampen your audio and the result is natural, but it feels a touch too passive, no matter how much I dial up the transparency on the graph in the app.

I really enjoyed this same, slightly lighter touch feel within the spatial audio profiles, though. Your options are static or head-tracked and they are of course device- and streaming-service agnostic (Technics does not currently make mobile phones or offer a music streaming service, so it cannot tie you into an ecosystem in the way that Apple can). For me, these offer a more enveloping, engaging soundstage at the times when you may want that — in classical tracks, say.

Call quality is also very good, although Sidetone fans (and I'm one of those) might be dismayed to learn that Technics' excellent voice amplification tech for its earbuds, whereby your own voice doesn't sound so muffled as you speak, has never made it to its over-ears.

I'll get granular on my very minor issues with the on-ear controls in due course, but for this money — which is significantly less than AirPods Max 2 (but with a much better battery life) and the same asking fee as the also-new Sonos Ace Ultra — the sonic detail is excellent value for money. They're not the most punchy and zealous cans I've ever heard, but they are diligent, accurate and beautifully musical. And mark my words, some people will adore them for critical listening.

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Price & release date

• Released on September 29, 2026
• Priced $449 / £399 / AU$699

Technics has priced these headphones at $449 / £399 / AU$699, to sit comfortably within a premium space that includes much more expensive hits such as the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 (at $799 / £629 / AU$1,299) and AirPods Max 2 ($549 / £499 / AU$999, although I've seen a few discounts on these MSRPs lately).

The excellent Sony WH-1000XM6 (also $449 / £399 / AU$699) are arguably Technics' chief competition, and this is likely why they've been released at the same price-point — but the superb September 2026 Sonos Ace Ultra can be yours for exactly this money too.

The Nothing Headphone (1) Pro also recently launched at just a shade cheaper than the Technics ($399 / £349 / AU$699) so, although certainly not in the budget headphones sector, Technics' pricing is hardly unreasonable.

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Specs

Drivers

40mm Magnetic Fluid Driver with pure carbon-fiber diaphragm and SST edge

Active noise cancellation

Yes (adaptive, tweakable static, ambient passthrough)

Battery life

Up to 45 hours (ANC ON, AAC) / up to 90 hours (ANC OFF, AAC)

Up to 30 hours (ANC ON, LDAC) / up to 60 hours (ANC OFF, LDAC)

Weight

306g

Connectivity

Bluetooth 6.0 with 3-device multipoint pairing, USB-C audio output at 24-bit

Frequency range

20Hz – 48kHz

Waterproofing

No rating

Other features

Dolby Atmos with head-tracking, LDAC support, USB-C Lossless audio up to 24-bit, triple-device multipoint pairing (LDAC off)

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Features

• Spatial audio with the option of Dolby Head Tracking
• Industry-leading simultaneous triple-device connectivity
• 8-tab EQ; ANC and Transparency modes both with 0-99 sliders

There are no hearing tests, hearing aid features or scope for nodding to either answer calls or respond to your voice assistant here and, honestly, I don't miss these features.

You will get wearer detection to pause your music, plus ANC that can either be set to 'Adaptive', to automatically adjust to your surroundings, or simply 'On' to tweak yourself. This is done on a little virtual dial within the easy-to-navigate (and easy-to-tailor, thanks to the option of prioritizing certain profiles on the home screen) Technics AudioConnect app.

For me, dialling up the ANC to 100% or thereabouts gives very good results. It dulls all but the really heavy crashes and clatters in my home office — even the sound of the microwave didn't creep in. I don't say it lightly either; Technics has done a great job with the active noise cancellation here.

Transparency? It also gets its own in-app dial, but here you can also choose between 'Attention', which is supposed to seek out voices and announcements around you, or 'Transparent', which lets in all ambient noise, to make you aware of where you are. For me, these are less successful. I certainly hear quite a bit more of my other half's lovely voice when selecting 'Attention' — and there's no hiss or tinniness to either the ambient sound or audio in my cans — but I still feel as if I need to remove them to hear him properly.

Although these headphones may seem relatively light on extras (there's no Sony 'Quick Attention' rival, to actively pipe a person's voice into your ear, and that is perhaps one perk I would have liked to see) the features you need are all here and, largely, they're implemented very well. The EQ graph is well-designed and, as well as presets for Bass+, Super Bass+, Vocal, Treble+ and Dynamic, you can create custom sound profiles on an 8-band tab.

TechnicsTechnics

And although I'd love Technics' excellent Sidetone tech to trickle from its earbuds to its cans as well as that magnetic fluid has, to hear my own voice better in calls, callers said my voice was nevertheless clear.

But I've saved one of the best (best!) features for last: triple-device connectivity. It simplifies life so much more than you might think not to have to keep disconnecting one device to add another when you regularly work on a tablet, a laptop and a phone!

I asked Technics recently why so few other companies are offering multipoint to three devices and was essentially told (I say 'essentially' only because I was talking to a Technics engineer through a Japanese translator, in Tokyo) that it isn't easy to get everything on a Bluetooth chipset, because you "need to be very organized".

So, the fact that when you connect to three devices simultaneously, you'll lose LDAC streaming quality, makes a lot of sense. Choose to forego Bluetooth entirely and you can listen via USB-C Lossless audio, although the headphones do need to be powered on for this.

A quick note on the Technics EAH-A1000's battery life: it's good rather than phenomenal. Up to 45 hours with ANC on sounds great, until you realize that's without LDAC (at which point stamina drops to 30 hours), but up to 90 hours without ANC and without LDAC is still a good chunk of time. To put that into perspective, Apple's AirPods Max 2 can only go for up to 20 hours with ANC on, but Cambridge's excellent P100 SE can last for up to 100 hours without ANC, or 60 hours with it — although it's worth noting that Cambridge hasn't disclosed how much aptX listening might affect things.

All in all, Technics has given us a well-rounded and beautifully presented feature set that does the essentials well, and even adds an extra device to your regular multipoint setup. The one fly in the ointment? A light-touch 'Transparency' profile that for me could use a bit of extra oomph.

• Features score: 4.5 / 5

They also come in 'Platinum Greige' (Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Sound quality

• LDAC support, plus Lossless via USB-C or 3.5mm bundled cables
• Exceptionally detailed audio for this level
• Also very occasionally a little too polite and lacking in bite

If you, like me, cue up Jamie T's 3310, the first track on his new album Ghosts (100 Days of Morning) you'll be very happy with these headphones. I defy you to knock the Technics EAH-A1000 while listening to more pared back intros and acoustic tracks. Here, the guitar sits beautifully under your left ear, textured and three-dimensional, and Wimbledon's finest rapper-slash-crooner might just as well be in the room, glancing at you as he sings about cider, the London district of Barnes, its cash-strapped cousin Twickenham, and how he longs to be 33 again.

As the track continues and the mix intensifies, you might feel as if you're missing an extra ounce of disillusion through T's petulant, unimpressed vocal though, and I'd agree. Deploying 'Bass+' in the EQ tab does help a little, but also puts you slightly further back from other frequencies in the mix. These are not the best choice for those who listen to heavier music or grime.

(Image credit: Future)

However, I've said it before and I'll reiterate here: there's nothing wrong with refinement and pulling back just a little to gain space, breadth and add a modicum of detail to every intake of breath and strum of a guitar. The issue here is that in easing off on the throttle for fear of overstating the low end especially, the Technics err just slightly in the opposite direction; if I'm being hyper-critical, they're just a touch too polite.

It's no huge issue, but it's my job to relay what I hear. Again, this will be a matter of taste and, depending on which genres of music you most enjoy, you may hear things while listening with these headphones that truly delight you. Stream Hotel California (I don't need to tell you the name of the LA five-piece who released it, do I?) and there's a stunning level of clarity to the shakers, guitars, bass and cymbals in the intro. Stream Bad Bunny's BAILE INoLVIDABLE and you may want just a little more good old fashioned sub-bass wallop.

Switch to B&W's Px8 S2 and there's an ounce more crispness through the leading edges of notes and more palpable dynamic nuance across the frequencies, which has me dancing rather than just nodding my head to Fontaines D.C.'s Favourite, but it's a close-run race — and given the fact that the B&W product is quite a bit more expensive, that's a big compliment for the Technics set of cans.

• Sound quality score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Design

• A very good-looking set of headphones
• The case is a winner too
• On-ear physical buttons occasionally fail to respond

My review sample is the classic black version rather than the new 'Platinum Greige' set, but both are incredibly stylish and promote no small sense of pride in ownership.

The case, bijou and useful though it is (and with a lovely bit of storage for your cables, which you'd think would be a given but isn't), is not imprinted with a Technics logo save for a demure mention on the zipper tag. This is because, and I'm quoting a revered member of the Technics design team here: "Everything at Technics must either be engraved onto the metal or embroidered to the fabric of a product: we do not print."

Everything has been finessed from the EAH-A800 and the look is far less bulky. At their unveiling, I was shown dozens of samples of potential top-plates for the ear cup: too shiny, too grooved, too smooth… this goes way beyond meticulous attention to detail. Technics wants us to love the look of them, and make no mistake, I do.

To circle back to the Magnetic Fluid Driver for a moment, the EAH-A1000 incorporates Technics' SST (Symmetrical Surround Technology) Edge — aka the same tech that's also used in the company's hi-fi flagship speakers — alongside the magnetic fluid-enhanced drivers that have been scaled up from Technics' earbuds.

What's under the hood is a pure rigid carbon-fiber diaphragm with dome shape and cone shape ideas (think a dish with a slight raise in the center), along with a redesigned acoustic control chamber, to better manage airflow. The EAH-A1000 also feature a new 'Baffle Flat Structure' to reduce "uneven surfaces around the driver, limiting unwanted reflections".

The arms of the headphones have been thinned, reshaped and refined since the EAH-A800, and I think it's a careful and chic solution. The movement of the arm is silent and the headphones have remained supremely comfortable during wear, throughout the course of my listening. Clamping force? Yes, it's here to promote passive isolation, but never to a fault. I think the fit is aided by the 13-degree angle of the ear cups, relative to the headband, implemented by the female Head of Design. Apparently, over 500 people tested them prior to landing on this specific degree, and half of those tested were women. Hurrah. (In case it needs to be said, women also like music.)

Any issues? One: the physical buttons located on the right ear cup. The one closest to the nape of your neck scrolls through ANC profiles; the central rocker can slide for volume and be pushed for playback control; the one nearest your cheek is for power and pairing. The volume rocker is great to use, but pushing it to pause music is a little more hit-and-miss if you don't press firmly, or don't make sure the rocker is truly central in its mounting. And the power button needs to pressed for two seconds to initiate powering off, but if you do this while removing them, in my experience it often doesn't work. It's a small issue, but one that obviously may affect battery life — and it doesn't help that my Cambridge reference headphones have a simple, reliable slider to switch them off.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Technics EAH-A1000 review: Value

• Sonically bang on for the money
• They look and feel more expensive than they are
• Not as feature-stuffed as some rivals, though

If you value an expansive, detailed, insightful listen, you cannot do much better for the money. The ANC is also more than up to snuff and among the best-in-class, and they're light and easy to transport, with a useful but fuss-free case.

That said, you can better the EAH-A1000 just slightly for zealous energy and the kind of impact that makes you get up and dance to the music in your cans — and if you rely heavily on a 'Transparency' profile to cut through the noise, they won't be for you.

Nevertheless, if sound is king, you should add these to your test drive list.

• Value score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Should I buy the Technics EAH-A1000?

Section

Notes

Score

Features

All killer, no filler. The essentials are here — and largely, they're very good too. Hearing tests though? No

4.5/5

Sound quality

Expansive and insightful, with lovely musicality. That said, they can sound just a little polite

4.5/5

Design

A beautiful set of headphones, only let down by the occasional lack of efficacy concerning the buttons on the ear cup. But that's a small issue

4.5/5

Value

They look so, so much more expesnive than they are, and the sound is more than worthy of the money

4.5/5

Buy them if...

You want excellent ANC
For this money, I think the ANC here is very effective — get it on, take the dial in the app right up and enjoy the cocoon of near-silence as your musical backdrop.

You like to feel expensive
These headphones shine and reflect, but never in a trashy, 'look at me' way. They feel every bit as padded, light in weight and — hang it all — pricey as you want them to.

You listen to acoustic tracks a lot
LDAC support is here, if you can deploy it from your Android, and with it these headphones deliver guitars, strings and pared back vocals with depth, detail and care.

Don't buy them if...

You rely on a decent 'Transparency' profile
There are two ambient profiles here, but neither is as easy to deploy or as effective at getting you in and focused on the conversation as Sony's 'Quick Attention' feature, say.

You're all about that bass
It's not that the EAH-A1000 are shy on bass, especially, they're just a little polite with it. If you listen to a lot of grime or heavier hip-hop, they may not suit your tastes.

You want aptX and aptX HD
These are definitely headphones for a certain type of listener (one who values clarity and spacious detail in their music), which is perhaps why I feel the need to point out that you're not getting a few of the higher-res Bluetooth codecs, although LDAC is on the menu. View Deal

Technics EAH-A1000 review: Also consider

Technics EAH-A1000

Sonos Ace Ultra

Nothing Headphone (1) Pro

Sony WH-1000XM6

Price

$449 / £399 / AU$699

$449 / £399 / AU$699

$399 / £349 / (approx. AU$655)

$449 / £399 / AU$699

Drivers

40mm Magnetic Fluid Driver with pure carbon-fibre diaphragm and SST edge

Next-gen 40mm custom

Bass Dynamic: 40 mm; Precision Dynamic: 13 × 8 mm; Treble xMEMS: 3.2 × 6.0 × 1.15 MM, Solid-State

30mm dynamic

Active noise cancellation

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Quoted battery life

45 hours (ANC ON, AAC) / 90 hours (ANC OFF, AAC)

30 hours (ANC ON, LDAC) / 60 hours (ANC OFF, LDAC)

35 hours (ANC on)

68 hours (ANC off)
30 hours (ANC on)

30 hours (ANC on)

Weight

306g

322g

327g

254g

Connectivity

Bluetooth 6.0 with 3-device multipoint pairing, USB-C audio output at 24-bit

Bluetooth 6.0, USB-C, Sonos Headphone Linking

Bluetooth 6.1, LDAC, USB-C Audio, 3.5mm jack

Bluetooth 5.3, 3.5mm

Frequency range

20Hz – 48kHz

20Hz - 20kHz

20 Hz - 40 kHz

20 Hz - 20 kHz

Waterproofing

No rating

No rating

Yes, IP52

None

Sonos Ace Ultra
Want headphones that play nice with your Sonos system at home and sound truly immersive in movies? OK, yes, that's a very different proposition to the cans you came here to read about, but for the same money it's worth noting that you could also buy these.
Read more in our full Sonos Ace Ultra review

Sony WH-1000XM6
They're top sellers for a reason, these Sony headphones. They're also even lighter than the Technics (although not quite as gorgeous), the ANC is similar and although they're the same price as the EAH-A1000, extra features such as 'Quick Attention' make them a great overall package.
Learn more in our in-depth Sony WH-1000XM6 review

How I tested the Technics EAH-A1000

• Tested for two weeks, listened against the AirPods Max 2, Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 and Cambridge P100 SE
• Listened on a short flight, in a hotel room in London, at home and while walking alone along a blustery seafront
• Listened to Qobuz, Tidal and Apple Music Lossless tracks via USB-C to my FiiO player and streamed to my iPhone 15 Pro, MacBook Pro and Sony Xperia smartphone

The Technics EAH-A100 became my primary travel companions for two weeks — after a 24-hour run-in period. And carrying (or wearing them) anywhere was never a chore.

They accompanied me to the airport (walking brusquely from the Airport Express train and on a brief flight) and at home, on the UK's Jurassic Coast.

To test their comfort levels (no notes), ANC (also excellent) and battery life claims (very good rather than class-leading, but there's not a lot in it), I followed TechRadar's meticulous methodology testing.

To check the audio performance across the frequencies, I listened for many hours, in various environments, to my own reference playlists on Apple Music, Qobuz and Tidal, alongside TechRadar's reference tracks, and two of my favorite podcasts.

I’ve been testing audio products for well over seven years now, as a full-time job — first at our sister site What Hi-Fi? and now here at TechRadar. I know, tough gig (but someone has to). As a dancer, aerialist and musical theater performer in another life, I have always found that sound quality (in particular musicality and cohesion), fit and the user experience take priority for me in headphones, but having heard how wonderful ANC can be when done well, I know what I'm listening for there, too.

Read more about how we test at TechRadar

• First reviewed: October 2026

• Essex man Rafal Gorfal used ChatGPT to help him win a legal dispute over a parking ticket fine
• He fed the AI the letters he received from debt collectors, and it told him what to say and where to go
• The fine was dropped just weeks before his scheduled court appearance

People use AI chatbots like ChatGPT for all manner of things, but have you ever used AI to evade a parking ticket fine before? This man did, and he went on to win a three-year-long legal battle.

Rafal Gorfal, who’s originally from Essex, was fined back in August 2023 for not paying fast enough in a Newquay pay-and-display car park. Gorfal said that when he arrived at the payment machine he had to wait in a long queue, only to learn that the machine was cash-only, to which he had no choice but to download the RingGo and pay with his phone — delaying his payment further.

Two weeks later, he was presented with a £100 fine that said he didn’t pay for a ticket until 16 minutes after entering the car park, which was delayed due to the long queue and the time it took Gorfal to set up an online account to pay.

A long three years

Gorfal submitted his first appeal a month after receiving the PCN from Smart Parking Limited, but didn’t hear anything until January 2024 when he was sent another debt collection letter, this time with an increased fine of £170. "I appealed straight away and heard nothing from them," Gorfal told The Independent, adding "They were trying to make me scared. You have to give people the time. I told them exactly what my problems were. They could see on the cameras that I was trying to sort it out".

After appealing back and forth with debt collectors for four months, the case was put on hold, and Gorfal heard nothing for the best part of a year and a half. This period of silence was broken when he was sent a new letter stating that the case would be going to court in October 2026. This is when he sought help from ChatGPT.

Over the course of his legal dispute, Gorfal kept records of every letter he was sent, which he says he entered into the AI chatbot and asked for advice. "From start to finish I was asking ChatGPT every time I got a letter what to do. It was telling me what to say, where to go, and everything," he shared. "I did it all with the help of AI. They even prepared my defense which I sent to the court". He also contacted the Citizens Advice helpline, but he says the help wasn’t as effective as ChatGPT.

(Image credit: Shutterstock / P.Cartwright)David defeats Goliath

Gorfal’s initial £100 fine had sky-rocketed to roughly £300 by the time he was issued the court order but on September 25, just weeks before he was due to make the appearance, he received an email informing him that the case and fine had been dropped — resulting in a win for Gorfal after a long three years.

That said, it wasn’t money that fueled Gorfal’s persistence, there was a big morality factor. "From start to finish it was not about the money, I could pay it, but it is about the principle. If you know you are right then you shouldn’t be paying any money to them," he said. "This is kind of a David and Goliath battle. They have lawyers and they are a big company and they just gave up in the end".

Since his case and fine were dropped, Smart Parking Limited hasn't provided comment on the dispute.

• Vibe-coded clones of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have appeared
• They're from the same developer who cloned the Adobe apps
• The developer says other open source software is 'broken'

The developer who used AI tools to clone the Adobe Creative Cloud suite and release the copied versions for free has now done the same with Microsoft Office.

As Tom's Hardware reports, there are now open-source versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint available, all looking very similar to the Microsoft apps and all with rebranded names: WordCraft, GridCraft, and DeckCraft, respectively.

These programs don't appear to be as far along in development as the Adobe clones, but the intention is there — and it's going to be a serious concern for large software companies wanting to protect their products.

The clones are the work of software engineer Brandon Thomas, who has been taking to social media to point out that he has years of experience in coding, even if he has been using the Anthropic AI Claude to do the bulk of the work on these recent projects.

'GIMP sucks'

I hate LibreOffice so bad. It once killed a 40-page essay I wrote the week it was due, during finals. https://t.co/0yRIhwwtfkOctober 11, 2026

There has also been criticism aimed at Thomas for choosing AI 'vibe coding' rather than supporting current open-source software like LibreOffice, GIMP, and Thunderbird. However, the developer doesn't seem to be a fan of these projects.

"GIMP sucks," says Thomas. "It has always sucked. There is no reason to save broken software." He's also recently related the story of a bad experience with LibreOffice that "killed a 40-page essay I wrote the week it was due, during finals".

The reaction on Reddit is split between those who see this as a "game-changing" positive for the software industry, and those who say "no job is safe" from the relentless march of AI and the increasingly powerful capabilities of these bots and agents.

Other commenters point out that free programs like LibreOffice and Google Docs have existed for years without damaging Microsoft Office sales too much, and question whether this lone developer will be able to keep up with bug fixes and upgrades.

• Nintendo has confirmed its commitment to physical games
• The statement comes as Sony abandons physical media
• “We go off of what the consumer prefers,” Nintendo declared

Physical game releases are becoming increasingly rare these days, but one company that still plans to sell its titles this way is Nintendo. The Japanese gaming giant confirmed as much in an interview that might come as some relief to fans of disc-based media — although don’t take it as a guarantee that things will stay this way forever.

Speaking to Brazilian interviewer Rodrigo Coelho, Bill van Zyll, Vice President & General Manager of Nintendo Latin America, explained that, “There are no plans to ditch physical [media]. We know how much the fans like it as well.”

Nintendo’s van Zyll gave the example of the Nintendo Switch 2, for which games are available in both digital and physical formats. That's something Nintendo appears to be committed to continuing, at least for the time being, which could help to assuage the concerns of some fans.

Nintendo fans on social media seemed hopeful about the revelation. “Maybe there is window for cartridges to make a comeback in some capacity,” mused one on Reddit, while another proclaimed that “I have no plans to abandon Nintendo. The system works!” “I hope Sony takes notice,” wrote a third, referring to Sony’s decision to completely abandon physical games by 2028.

Good news — for now

(Image credit: Future)

Of course, there’s no way to know exactly how long Nintendo will remain devoted to physical games for. As van Zyll said in the interview, “historically, we’ve been very agnostic. We go off of what the consumer prefers and take that into account very heavily”. While that might mean physical releases are here to stay at the moment, van Zyll’s response doesn’t rule out a change of approach in the future if consumer tastes shift.

With that in mind, it’s worth considering that Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has previously noted that “Our business is well over 90% digitally distributed,” which explains why GTA 6 is going to be an entirely disc-less launch. While Graft Theft Auto players and fans of Nintendo games are two quite different groups, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Nintendo follow Take Two’s example in the future.

If you are a keen collector of physical games, and prefer to own hard copies of every title you play, Nintendo’s announcement will be great news. But with the industry increasingly heading in the digital direction, you might want to pick up hard copies of your favorites, just in case Nintendo decides to change course.

The Justice Department is investigating several TV networks for possible antitrust violations. And, President Trump pressures Ukrainians to elect a new leader.

(Image credit: Roberto Schmidt)

• Half say AI has significantly changed their roles, a quarter are worried about job loss
• Three in five believe their employer has no clear AI plan – or no plan at all
• Training and transparency are the most demanded changes by workers

A new Visier report has uncovered just how prolific AI exaggeration could be in the workforce, raising questions about exactly how useful the technology actually is to most workers.

As many as one in two (48%) employees admitted exaggerating their usage or expertise to colleagues or managers some or most of the time, with nearly as many (45%) feeling pressured to use AI at work.

This comes against a backdrop of major change – more than half (54%) say AI has significantly changed their roles over the past two years. With that in mine, the report details how workers feel they've been impacted, and how much support they're getting from the workplace.

AI is changing roles, and many are lying about how they use it

One in three (32%) admit their employer has no clear plan, and more than a quarter (27%) aren't even sure their employer has any AI plan at all, and that much is clear in that only one-third believe their leaders understand how much AI training and support they need.

Barely one-fifth (21%) would strongly agree that their employer provides sufficient training and support, making upskilling opportunities (32%) the most sought-after thing workers are calling for – a close first, just ahead of greater transparency (31%).

Workers are also worried about AI's impacts on their jobs, with 24% calling for more career advancement opportunities and 18% calling for clearer communication about how it could impact them. In fact, the most frequently identified concern is job loss – a worry raised by one in for (24%).

"People told us that they actually want to be equipped and informed, not shielded or protected from AI-driven change," Research and Customer Value Principal Dr Andrea Derler explained.

The report urges businesses to prioritize training and transparency in order to build worker trust, with which they'll be able to build the productivity gains they'd hoped.

As organizations race to adopt SaaS applications and AI-powered tools, shadow integration has become a more dangerous and often overlooked entry point for modern breaches. Every new application introduces its own identities, roles, and permissions, while every third-party integration creates another trusted pathway into enterprise systems.

There may already be hundreds of agents currently inside the average enterprise, and these deployments are not slowing down. Employees routinely authorize third-party OAuth applications that gain persistent access to business-critical systems, often with broad permissions that remain long after they're needed. At the same time, AI agents and automated workflows are being embedded into critical SaaS platforms like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, and Slack.

Each new connection expands the attack surface, yet few organizations have a complete understanding of how these trusted relationships interact, and cyber criminals have noticed. In fact, SaaS breaches have increased by 300%. These identities often operate with elevated privileges, which makes them attractive targets if compromised.

The threat landscape is expanding faster than traditional security models can track. Without simple, trusted controls that can instantly govern SaaS applications and AI agents, organizations are left with systems that can access sensitive data, interact with business systems and take actions on users’ behalf.

To mitigate the threats, security leaders must be able to know at any moment, which third-party apps are connected to their environment, what those connections can reach, and whether they're behaving normally, rather than finding out after a security incident.

Where SaaS innovation creates security risk

As SaaS sprawl grows, IT teams are dealing with fragmented signals across hundreds of applications, making it difficult to understand what’s connected and where access actually lies.

This threat landscape is expanding rapidly. With projections of over one billion agents in enterprise environments by 2028, organizations are deploying these tools faster than any manual review process. As agents gain access to business systems and integrations, traditional approaches to managing permissions and access are no longer sufficient.

Low-code, no-code and AI platforms are making it easier for anyone to build and deploy autonomous agents, often without security or oversight built in. These agents can inherit real access to business systems and data, while organizations still lack a consistent way to discover them, trace their privileges and enforce guardrails across the SaaS environment.

Recent security incidents illustrate this evolving threat. For example, Obsidian Security disclosed a one-click remote code execution vulnerability in Flowise (CVE-2026-40933), an open-source platform for building AI agents and LLM workflows with more than 52,000 GitHub stars.

The research found that an attacker could fully compromise a server by persuading an authorized user to import a malicious chatflow. The risk includes a combination of multiple factors: a trusted user importing a shared workflow, permissions that allowed custom MCP configurations, the ability to launch external processes, and access to connected credentials, APIs, databases, and cloud services. Together, they created a path to full environment compromise.

Traditional solutions don't discover these integrations, can't evaluate their permissions, and have no visibility into the cross-app activity that happens between connected systems. But that’s increasingly how attackers are escalating access and moving laterally.

The role of visibility across SaaS ecosystems

To maintain the speed of innovation while keeping a security-first approach, IT teams need visibility across users, applications, OAuth grants and permissions so they can understand risk as it changes, not after an action has already taken place. They need to be able to answer questions such as, “Who still has admin rights across multiple apps?” or “Which inactive accounts still have effective access?”.

This is where approaches such as knowledge graphs can offer a different way to understand SaaS risk. A knowledge graph connects entities such as people, accounts, tokens and resources, showing how they relate to one another and revealing context that might otherwise be missed.

Rather than forcing every SaaS application into a standardized permission model, it captures how users, roles, permissions and integrations actually interact across systems, allowing security teams to understand who has access, what they can reach and how that access was granted.

With that foundation, security becomes adaptive rather than restrictive. High-risk or unusual integrations can be automatically flagged or constrained based on factors such as agent behavior or access patterns, while trusted activity can move forward with minimal friction. This allows IT teams to maintain strong control over the SaaS environment without slowing down legitimate business activity.

OAuth and API integrations make this visibility even more important. They can access large amounts of data and connect directly to critical systems, often without the same oversight applied to human users. Traditional tools such as SIEMs and CASBs can struggle to capture this risk because they were largely designed around human activity and security events.

But SaaS risk increasingly lives in the relationships between users, applications, permissions and integrations. A dormant administrative account may appear harmless until it is connected to an overprivileged OAuth integration or an AI workflow that inherits unnecessary access.

The future of SaaS security won't be defined by collecting more alerts or deploying more point solutions. It will be defined by bringing evidence to show where guardrails are needed, who has access, what they can reach, how that access was granted, and how those relationships change over time. Ultimately, the leaders that can turn this visibility into informed control will be best positioned to embrace SaaS and AI innovation for the business.

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ChatGPT has been pushing further into becoming a shopping assistant for a while now. You can ask it for product recommendations and it’ll find specific items, show you images, prices and links to buy them. Sometimes it’ll even add contextual details from what it knows about you, like your color preferences or budget, to help personalize its recommendations even more.

I've been testing it over the past few months and I find it a strange way to shop. OpenAI has tried to make the experience as slick as possible, but I still like visiting a retailer’s website, seeing more photos, browsing the rest of the range and checking reviews and product details before I buy anything.

But its latest shopping feature is much more interesting. Because you can now virtually try on clothes within ChatGPT.

This makes a lot of sense. ChatGPT’s image generation capabilities have become much more realistic since its Images 2.5 update. With more natural lighting, convincing textures and a better understanding of how objects should look in the real world. Apply that to shopping and suddenly the idea of virtually trying on a jacket or dress becomes much more appealing.

To use the feature you’ll need to upload a photo of yourself and then look for something you want to buy, with a Try On button now appearing alongside supported shopping results. Alternatively, you can give ChatGPT an image of an item and ask it to show you what you’d look like wearing it.

Now, this sort of virtual try-on technology itself is nothing new. We’ve seen versions of it for clothes, glasses and makeup for years. But I wanted to know whether ChatGPT's newer and more realistic image generation could make the experience genuinely useful.

I find shopping in person pretty overwhelming sometimes. But online shopping comes with its own problems too. Colors can look different in person, textures aren't always what you expect and it's difficult to know whether something that looks great on a model will work on you.

So I decided to put ChatGPT's virtual fitting room to the test.

Trying it on for size

From L-R. The photo of me I initially uploaded to test the try-on feature. Me wearing the jacket IRL that ChatGPT found. ChatGPT's first try-on result. Then the result after I'd asked it to show me what it would look like slightly open. (Image credit: Future / Becca Caddy / OpenAI)

I started with a full body photo of myself taken while I was out shopping and used that as the photo I uploaded after I clicked the Try On button.

I’d seen examples of ChatGPT recreating the original surroundings in the photo when generating try-on images for other people but that wasn't my experience. Despite trying several different items, it consistently placed me against a fairly plain studio-style background.

But I actually preferred that because it meant there was less visual noise and it made it much easier to concentrate on the clothes.

I started by asking ChatGPT to help me find suede jackets. It surfaced several options currently available to buy on the high street and I virtually tried on the ones I liked.

After it surfaced a jacket available in a shop near me, I decided to go and find out in the wild. That meant I could compare ChatGPT’s interpretation with what happened when I actually put the jacket on. And I was surprised by how close it was.

I deliberately picked an oversized jacket because I thought that would make a good test. It’s relatively easy to paste a fitted garment onto somebody. But understanding that something is supposed to hang loosely seemed like a bigger challenge.

I didn't recreate the exact pose or camera angle from the AI-generated image, so this wasn't a perfectly controlled comparison. But ChatGPT did a surprisingly good job of guessing where the jacket sat on my body, its oversized shape and the way the material fell.

It wasn't perfect, but as a way of answering the question “roughly what might this look like on me?”, I can imagine it being helpful. Even just as the first step in the buying process.

(Image credit: Future / Becca Caddy / OpenAI)Changing things up

After trying a few more suede jackets, I wanted to see how well the feature worked when I moved away from the fairly straightforward jeans and jacket combination.

So I asked ChatGPT to find me dresses I could wear to a formal event and started virtually trying those on too.

Again, the results were convincing enough that I could imagine using them to narrow down a long list of potential purchases. One thing I found particularly useful was color. Seeing a garment against my own skin and hair gave me a much better sense of whether I actually liked a shade than seeing it on a retailer's model.

Then I decided to take things one step further. I told ChatGPT to find me something extravagant that I could wear to a 1920s-style ball and tried on one of the more dramatic options.

Even here, the result was remarkably convincing at first glance. The clothing looked like clothing rather than something crudely pasted onto my body, and ChatGPT handled the radically different silhouette surprisingly well.

But by this point I'd also noticed something else sort of awkward was going on. The woman in these pictures wasn't quite shaped like me.

ChatGPT gave me a makeover

The full-body photograph I uploaded was an accurate representation of my proportions. Yet across the generated images, ChatGPT seemed to subtly change them. I looked taller noticeably and more statuesque. My torso appeared slightly shorter and my legs were longer.

You might think that's hardly something to complain about. But that's a huge problem when the entire purpose of the feature is to show me what clothes will actually look like on my body.

We know that generative AI has a tendency to beautify people. I’m convinced this is one of the reasons people make AI images of themselves, because it makes everyone look a little more conventionally attractive. But in a virtual fitting room accuracy matters far more than flattery.

If a dress looks fantastic because the AI has subtly changed your proportions, that's potentially no more useful than looking at the dress on a model in the first place.

(Image credit: OpenAI / Apple / Becca Caddy)Should you use ChatGPT’s try-on feature?

Maybe. I went into this experiment pretty skeptical. I've tried enough AI image tools to know that "realistic" can fall apart very quickly when you look closely, and virtual try-on technology has been around long enough that simply putting digital clothes onto a photograph isn't particularly impressive anymore.

But ChatGPT did do something useful. For me, its biggest strength was color. It might have changed my body, but it kept my skin tone and the color of my hair identical.

Which meant that being able to quickly see several different shades against something approximating my own appearance could genuinely help me decide between them. I was also impressed by its ability to communicate the overall silhouette and feel of an item, particularly with the oversized jacket I was able to compare with the real thing.

So sure, it could take some of the stress out of shopping. Rather than ordering five jackets and hoping one works, I can imagine using virtual try-on to narrow those five down to two.

But I'd still be cautious about treating the resulting images as anything like an accurate prediction of exactly how something will fit. Fabric weight, sizing, movement and all the strange little differences between our bodies are difficult to judge from a generated image. And, based on my experiment, ChatGPT may give you slightly more conventionally flattering proportions in the process.

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The robots are among us. They’re carrying passengers through the streets of San Francisco, delivering parcels over the air, and working their way across farms, factories, mines, and industrial sites.

The collision we’re now witnessing between artificial intelligence and the physical world is often described as “Physical AI” – machines capable of perceiving their surroundings, making decisions, and taking action among us in the real world. But every new machine that clocks in has a second job we rarely see. It creates data. Lots of it.

In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration expects the commercial drone fleet to grow from approximately 966,000 aircraft at the end of 2024 to around 1.18 million by 2029. And in factories around the world, there was an estimated 4.66 million industrial robots working in 2024, while another half a million were installed during the year – more than twice the number installed a decade earlier.

Today’s autonomous machines are vastly more capable, but moving all that accumulated experience off them can still be surprisingly manual. In 2026, the fastest way to move masses of data off a machine is still a person carrying a hard drive. And as autonomous machines spread further into our cities and industries, keeping that information moving could become one of the defining infrastructure challenges of the robotics age.

Data runs both ways

Imagine what an autonomous vehicle experiences. Cameras watch the roads from multiple angles, sensors and AI measure and make sense of the surrounding environment, while on-board systems track position and performance of the vehicle itself. Decisions are made and recorded in real-time as pedestrians cross roads, traffic lights change, and thousands of other vehicles and connected technologies move and exchange data around it.

Delivery drones, agricultural machinery, warehouse robots, and autonomous industrial equipment may operate in different environments, but the logic tracks. Every journey or task leaves behind a digital trail of sensor readings, video, telemetry, diagnostics, and operational logs.

And the information doesn’t travel in only one direction. These machines may also need fresh maps, software updates, configurations, AI models, and instructions from the computing infrastructure behind them. What they experience in the physical world flows back toward data centers, while the intelligence needed for their next task travels outward.

Multiply that exchange across millions of machines and an interesting new layer of internet traffic begins to emerge that we’re only just beginning to think about.

The direction of travel was visible as early as 2019, when a landmark university paper on 6G identified mobile robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles would drive demand for ubiquitous wireless intelligence – its vision for the 6G era included networks capable of supporting a 10,000-fold increase in traffic. The US commercial drone fleet alone is now heading toward seven figures, while industrial robots already number in the millions globally.

Perhaps most notable to casual observers, autonomous vehicles are becoming far more prevalent on the streets of our capitals and major cities. In June of this year, machines surpassed 57% of web traffic globally – the first time that bots have outnumbered humans – and they use networks in a very different way. Cloudflare predicts that non-human traffic could eventually surpass human traffic by a factor 1,000 within the next five years.

And a lesson learned by one machine needn’t remain with that machine. There’s an opportunity here that only connectivity can unlock. Google DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics 1.5 showed skills transferring “zero-shot” between physically different robots – a task taught using a two-armed Franka robot was executed by a humanoid, without any data collected on the target machine.

Sit with that implication. A person who masters a technique carries that knowledge around in their head, and when they retire, much of that experience leaves with them. A robot can potentially hand what it has learned to every other robot on the network, which means experience stops being “local” and starts becoming a shared asset across the network, compounding intelligence for the company’s moat.

The physical footprint of robots is spreading outward, but the data traffic they create remains concentrated at central locations. AI may increasingly have wheels, wings, and arms, but their intelligence and interactivity with the world remain still wholly dependent on their relationship with the nearest data center hub, and that’s a problem we now have to solve.

What’s the hold up?

When a robot arrives back at the depot and “clocks out” for a while, it presents an ideal opportunity to recharge, undergo inspection, run self-diagnostics, download updates, and get the data it needs for its next shift. This is when potentially enormous volumes of data, depending on the fleet size, need to be moved both to and from the device.

Sites that house, charge, or service machinery can therefore find themselves functioning as miniature data hubs, dealing with bursts of traffic as machines arrive and depart. And as fleets grow, so does the strain on the network connecting all these hubs. When uploading and downloading take longer than charging or maintenance, the network becomes the operational bottleneck to scale.

A new layer of connectivity

A wired network simply can’t evolve at the same speed as the mobile economy. A fleet operator might need to open a new depot in another city, place drone nests closer to customers, or connect autonomous equipment at temporary industrial sites. Extending fiber to each location would involve trenching, permitting which are often cost and time intensive.

Wireless connectivity offers a faster and more flexible approach. Links can be installed without digging or waiting for permits, allowing operators to connect new sites quickly. Links can also be redeployed or expanded as fleets grow as their physical footprint expands dynamically.

Wireless optical communication (WOC) could provide that high-capacity bridge. Using narrow beams of light, it carries fiber-like capacity through the air between two points with a clear line of sight, up to 20 Gbps across distances of up to 20 kilometers. It can be installed on existing radio masts or buildings in a matter of hours.

For autonomous fleets, that creates a way to rapidly offload telemetry and operational data, upload new maps and models, and return high-value assets to work instead of leaving them waiting at the depot.

WOC isn’t magic though. Optical links still need line of sight, and heavy fog and rain can degrade their connectivity. That’s why serious deployments pair them with an RF path and engineer them for availability rather than simply assuming it. It won’t replace fiber, but it will extend fiber’s reach to the places fiber can’t go, and it’s getting smaller, faster, and more affordable as the technology moves from mechanical to solid-state beam steering with silicon photonics. Light is the answer.

The arrival of electric vehicles taught us to look beyond the machine and consider the infrastructure behind it. Autonomous machines will require us to do the same again, but this time what needs to be replenished isn’t just the machine’s battery – it’s the machine's experience, and from it, the shared intelligence of the entire fleet.

Robots are becoming extraordinarily good at navigating the physical world. We shouldn’t leave the final mile of their learning journey to someone carrying a hard drive across a parking lot.

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• AI named as one of the three biggest factors to boost productivity
• Visibility over costs and ROI falls short, study finds
• Legacy tech and skills gaps are ongoing issues

Over half (50%) UK CEOs have credited AI with being one of the three biggest contributors to their productivity improvements over the past year, ranking ahead of more traditional aids like redesigning and simplifying business processes (40%) and reselling workers (38%).

But despite naming AI as one of the biggest influencers on productivity, business leaders aren't exactly sure how it's helping, and only 14% of UK CEOs have full real-time visibility over their AI costs, a new EY report has claimed.

As such, one in three (32%) say they're unable to properly asses AI's ROI, making it difficult for them to actually know whether its impacts are translating into financial value.

AI is probably boosting productivity, but we don't really know how

"UK CEOs now want clear evidence that their investment is delivering stronger productivity and measurable business value," UK&I Managing Partner Silvia Rindone explained, implying that companies need greater visibility across their AI spend and impacts.

However, it's not just difficulties quantifying ROI that's helping non-adopters back when it comes to AI. Legacy systems (34%) and organizational complexity (29%) are still considered major blockers four years after generative AI was considered to have gone ultra-mainstream with the public launch of ChatGPT.

Skills shortages also continue to plague businesses, with three in four (74%) UK CEOs anticipating these gaps to worsen over the next three years – more so than access to capital, proving they can't even buy their way out of difficulties.

While organizations are seeking solid evidence that their investments are delivering measurable ROI in terms of productivity and revenue growth, EY's report emphasizes the fact that they can't overlook the same blockers that have been reappearing in studies over the years – legacy tech and skills shortages.

"Realising value still depends on rigorous analysis, clear strategic choices and disciplined execution," UK&I AI & Data Leader Matthew Ringelheim summarized.

• Control Resonant composer Petri Alanko says every Remedy game has "absolute evil lurking in there"
• Alanko says he and Remedy rely on players' intelligence to understand the "psychological aspect to it all"
• He adds that "Remedy is not a dictating entity; we don’t do walking simulators, and we don’t hold hands"

According to Control Resonant composer Petri Alanko, every Remedy Entertainment title has a sinister aspect at its core, and he relies on the player's intelligence to understand it through his music.

When asked if there is a particular approach to the whole Remedy-verse score and musical landscape in an interview with TechRadar Gaming, Alanko explained that "There’s always the absolute evil lurking in there," with an added psychological aspect.

He said, "It affects instruments, instrumentation," as well as "the overtone series" (a sequence of musical pitches or frequencies that naturally sound above a main base note when it is played), as something so evil it "has a gravity" and "that affects the sounds, too, by bending and separating the overtones from each other."

"Its nature is very prominent, and there is a psychological aspect to it all: when you hear something familiar to be slightly off, it triggers your lizard brain into action, and with some preparation, we’re able to have a very suitable fight-or-flight reaction to introduce some action as a spice," Alanko said. "It is a very, very interesting process to affect people, to sort of kick them into action without actually telling them what to do."

As for how he and Remedy portray that "evil" across the games, he explained that they rely on players' understanding of subtext and context clues to find the meaning of what they're experiencing.

"Remedy is not a dictating entity; we don’t do walking simulators, and we don’t hold hands; we believe in intelligence and the ability to think and deduce something from the facts given," he said. "Same applies to music: a set of hints and a basic feeling may be introduced, but it ends there.

"A good mentalist always lets the audience do the magic. And everyone has seen those really awful marketplace magicians; nobody wants that for a birthday. Remedy is not that. We believe in a thinking, investigating, curious human being."

This applies across all of Remedy's games, whether it's Control, Alan Wake, or Quantum Break; however, Alanko and the studio know they can't regurgitate the same thing over and over again, but players will find a commonality between each series.

"Every new IP adds to the recipe, more or less, and though we don’t exactly want to repeat ourselves, there must be something in common and something familiar to the scores and the soundtracks, and that’s something you can’t really create overnight," Alanko said.

"The same applies with everything: it gets better with time. For instance, we introduced orchestra to Remedy’s sonic identity with Alan Wake, and it was there as is, but also as a slightly mangled version of itself, too. Then there was a very softly played grand piano, with enough compression to turn Manhattan into a peanut, with a reverb that ate half of Helsinki, basically. Quantum Break allowed for much more industrial and electronic flavours to enter the soup, and Control brought musique concrète in."

He added that those three qualities created "What I love to call 'A Remedy Sonic Bermuda Triangle', some top-notch processing," noting that a "huge amount of raw material is originated from acoustic sources, as "There’s very little 'just synths' stuff, although I do love my arsenal."

In the same interview, Alanko has suggested studios should value music more if they care about their games and avoid AI at all costs.

For the past few years, much of the conversation around AI has centered on capability. We have watched it move from generating content and summarizing information to analyzing data, writing code and completing increasingly complex tasks. Now, with the rapid development of AI agents, we are beginning to hand over not just tasks, but portions of workflows and decisions as well.

That progression has understandably raised questions about what happens to people as AI becomes more autonomous, but we are looking at that question the wrong way. The bigger change will be in what we need people to do. When AI tools can handle more of the execution, people have to spend more time thinking about the system around it. We need to ask ourselves important questions to do this:

• What are we actually trying to accomplish?
• What information does the technology need to make a good decision?
• How should work move from one step to another?
• When can AI make a decision on its own, and when does someone need to get involved?

These are questions companies already deal with today, but AI raises the stakes because decisions and actions can happen much faster and at a much greater scale. Take a marketing organization as an example.

We are already at a point where AI can analyze an audience, develop content, adapt that content for different channels, check it against requirements and evaluate the results. It is not difficult to imagine those capabilities becoming connected so that one action automatically triggers the next.

The strategy comes in the coordination

The challenge is that every part of that process can work exactly as designed and still produce a bad result. An audience model could identify the people most likely to respond to an offer while missing the customers the business most wants to develop over time.

A content agent could produce something likely to generate clicks but inconsistent with where the brand wants to go. A system evaluating performance could make a perfectly reasonable recommendation based on the metric it was given, even though that metric does not reflect the larger business objective.

Those are not necessarily failures of the AI. In many cases, the technology has done exactly what it was asked to do. The failure happened earlier, when the objective, context or connections between decisions were not designed well enough. This is where the role of people becomes increasingly important.

Someone has to understand the broader business context and make sure the individual decisions being made across a workflow ultimately support the same goal.

Anyone who has spent time inside a large enterprise has seen a version of this before. Over the past two decades, companies bought specialized technology for almost every business need: CRM platforms, marketing automation systems, analytics tools, project management software, content platforms and countless point solutions. Each solved a real problem, but companies then had to figure out how to make all of those systems work together.

Teams built integrations, moved data between platforms, reconciled conflicting information and created processes to bridge gaps between systems that had never been designed to operate as one. In many organizations, employees effectively became the integration layer, carrying context from one platform or team to the next.

As companies adopt AI across functions, there is a very real possibility that we recreate the same problem, only much faster and with technology that can independently make decisions and take action.

It is relatively easy for a department to adopt an AI tool or build an agent that solves a particular problem. As that happens across an enterprise, however, organizations could quickly find themselves with large numbers of models and agents acting on different data, following different instructions and optimizing for different outcomes.

The individual components may be far more intelligent than the software systems that came before them, but that makes coordinating them even more consequential and increases the importance of having a strategy that extends beyond any individual agent or use case.

Finding the balance is key

Human strategy becomes critical in designing that larger system, but that should not be confused with putting a person behind every AI decision. Requiring someone to approve every output would defeat much of the purpose of creating autonomous systems in the first place.

Companies will have to determine where they are comfortable allowing AI to operate independently, where monitoring is sufficient and where the consequences of a decision justify direct human involvement.

That balance will probably look different across every organization and even across workflows within the same company. A routine decision with clear rules and limited consequences may require very little intervention, while a decision affecting a customer relationship, a brand, significant spending or strategic direction deserves a different level of scrutiny.

There will also be situations where the system simply needs to recognize that something unusual has happened and bring a person back into the process. Determining those boundaries and designing the workflow around them may ultimately matter more than the individual model or agent a company chooses.

Adapt and adjust, as technology changes

The technology underneath all of this will continue to change quickly. Models that seem dramatically better than their competitors today may be overtaken within months, and capabilities that currently feel differentiated will become widely available. Companies cannot assume that access to a particular model will provide a lasting advantage, especially as the gap between competing technologies continues to narrow.

What will be much harder to replicate is the thinking that surrounds the technology: an organization's understanding of its customers and operations, the way its workflows have been designed, the context it gives its AI systems and the judgment it applies to the decisions that matter most. Those things are specific to the business, and they become more valuable as the underlying technology becomes more widely accessible.

Greater AI autonomy therefore does not lead to a future with less need for human intelligence. It creates a greater need for people who can look across the entire system and understand what the technology is being asked to accomplish, whether the pieces are working together and whether the outcome actually makes sense for the business.

We are going to get very good at building AI that can do things on our behalf. The harder challenge will be making sure all of those things add up to something worth doing.

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