Applied AI by The Information Staff

Two times/week

Applied AI

By The Information Staff

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

By providing your email, you agree to The Information’s Privacy Policy

Recent Editions

Lowe's Senior Vice President Chandhu Nair. Photo courtesy of Lowe's

Lowe’s Says ‘Semantic’ Data is Boosting Its AI Agents

By Kevin McLaughlin · May 28, 2026 1:09pm PDT

Microsoft, Databricks, SAP and other AI software providers are fighting over control and access to enterprise data known as the semantic layer, as we reported last week. Semantic layers are essentially a data management tool that companies use to standardize definitions for their business metrics, such as revenue and customers, and are now... Microsoft, Databricks, SAP and other AI software providers are fighting over control and access...

Uber CEO Andrew Macdonald. Photo by Zed Jameson/ Getty Images

Uber COO Says AI Lacks ROI

By Kevin McLaughlin · May 26, 2026 1:01pm PDT · 1 comment

Many corporate leaders say they’re getting value from AI as their spending on it skyrockets, but hype is outpacing reality in plenty of cases.On a podcast over the weekend, for instance, Uber Chief Operating Officer Andrew Macdonald said the ride-hailing company isn’t seeing a clear increase in productivity from using AI coding services despite... Many corporate leaders say they’re getting value from AI as their spending on it skyrockets, but...

Art via Shutterstock

AI Customers Negotiate a SaaS Escape Hatch

By Laura Bratton and Aaron Holmes · May 21, 2026 11:47am PDT

Businesses used to feel locked in to their enterprise software providers, but some now say they can cut and run if they need to.Companies such as insurer National Life Group, for instance, have negotiated “opt out” provisions that let them exit their software contracts or reduce their subscriptions, even in the middle of a contract term, if the... Businesses used to feel locked in to their enterprise software providers, but some now say they...

How Microsoft, Meta, xAI Get AI Training Data From Their Employees

How Microsoft, Meta, xAI Get AI Training Data From Their Employees

By Aaron Holmes and Jyoti Mann · May 19, 2026 10:30am PDT

How Microsoft, Meta, xAI Get AI Training Data From Their Employees

How Microsoft, Meta, xAI Get AI Training Data From Their Employees

By Aaron Holmes and Jyoti Mann · May 19, 2026 10:30am PDT

Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot may have lost much of its early lead in the AI coding race to rivals like Anthropic and Cursor, but Microsoft thinks it has an advantage over those companies: roughly 100,000 software engineers who work for Microsoft. As we reported Monday, Microsoft leaders think they can develop coding models using the wealth of... Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot may have lost much of its early lead in the AI coding race to rivals...

Art by Clark Miller.

Why Anthropic Costs Are Unpredictable

By Laura Bratton · May 14, 2026 12:08pm PDT · 3 comments

Anthropic customers are already feeling pinched by the company’s AI price hikes, Aaron and I reported Wednesday. Making matters harder, Anthropic customers like PagerDuty and ServiceNow—which says it already blew through its full-year budget for Anthropic AI tools—can’t predict what they’ll pay this year.One reason Anthropic costs are tough to... Anthropic customers are already feeling pinched by the company’s AI price hikes, Aaron and I...

Getty Images.

ServiceNow and FedEx Reflect the Great AI Pricing Divide

By Laura Bratton · May 12, 2026 12:45pm PDT

Software companies such as HubSpot and Adobe have started pricing their AI tools based on the number of tasks the AI successfully completes rather than based on flat fees or the number of AI tokens they consume. Many more firms plan to follow suit, even as the practice is still being hotly debated.Some 31% of 230 enterprise software firms... Software companies such as HubSpot and Adobe have started pricing their AI tools based on the...

Microsoft's Pavan Davuluri. Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Microsoft Cuts Copilot Bloat

By Aaron Holmes · May 7, 2026 10:30am PDT

After Microsoft bought the rights to use OpenAI’s technology for free, Microsoft developed a case of Copilot fever, launching Copilot-branded AI features in dozens of products, from Office and Bing to PowerBI and Dynamics. Microsoft appears to be dialing it back a bit, seemingly in response to complaints from customers that the Copilots are... After Microsoft bought the rights to use OpenAI’s technology for free, Microsoft developed a case...

Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow. Photo by Bridget Bennett/Getty Images

ServiceNow Is Putting Up a New Tollgate for AI Agents

By Laura Bratton · May 5, 2026 1:25pm PDT

Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow. Photo by Bridget Bennett/Getty Images

ServiceNow Is Putting Up a New Tollgate for AI Agents

By Laura Bratton · May 5, 2026 1:25pm PDT

The number of software tollgates is expanding.ServiceNow on Monday joined firms such as HubSpot and Workday in detailing plans to charge customers that use AI agents to tap data in its apps. During its financial analyst day in Las Vegas, the company unveiled “Action Fabric”, a new layer—effectively a tollgate—that AI agents will have to go... The number of software tollgates is expanding.ServiceNow on Monday joined firms such as HubSpot...

Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft. Photo by Chona Kasinger/Getty Images

Microsoft Pushes Usage-Based Pricing as AI Eats into Cloud Margins

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Apr 30, 2026 11:59am PDT

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Wednesday that a lot more people were heavily using the company’s AI-powered applications. But his company’s first quarter financial results showed the usage was dragging down profit margins in its cloud unit, prompting Microsoft to effectively boost prices. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Wednesday that a lot more people were heavily using the company’...

Photo by Noah Berger/Getty Images

AWS Joins Superagent Race, Pushes Its Own Version of Claude Cowork

By Laura Bratton · Apr 28, 2026 11:50am PDT

Amazon Web Services has been in the spotlight this week because it can now sell OpenAI models to its cloud-server customers for the first time, thanks to a sudden change in OpenAI’s long-running partnership with Microsoft. But AWS is still chasing its white whale: creating a hit enterprise application.With that in mind, AWS on Tuesday... Amazon Web Services has been in the spotlight this week because it can now sell OpenAI models to...

Photo via Google.

Google Conference Shows Customers Want Help Making AI Work

By Erin Woo · Apr 23, 2026 10:32am PDT

Last year at Google Cloud's Next conference, executives touted the power of the company’s AI models for businesses. This year the theme is how to help companies use the models.And with good reason: In interviews at the conference, customers and Google Cloud resellers told me that companies racing to adopt AI are hitting roadblocks. Some are... Last year at Google Cloud's Next conference, executives touted the power of the company’s AI...

Anil Chakravarthy, President, Customer Experience Orchestration Business. Screenshot via YouTube

Adobe Says It Will Start Charging For AI Agents Only When They Work

By Laura Bratton · Apr 21, 2026 10:57am PDT

Anil Chakravarthy, President, Customer Experience Orchestration Business. Screenshot via YouTube

Adobe Says It Will Start Charging For AI Agents Only When They Work

By Laura Bratton · Apr 21, 2026 10:57am PDT

A wave of AI pricing changes is keeping customers on their toes. Anthropic, Salesforce, ServiceNow and Workday have shifted to charging for AI based on how much customers use, rather than a flat subscription fee, for instance.Now Adobe is taking steps to join AI startup Sierra and other firms that want to go a step further, charging customers... A wave of AI pricing changes is keeping customers on their toes. Anthropic, Salesforce,...

LinkedIn CEO and Microsoft EVP Ryan Roslansky. Bryan van der Beek/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

LinkedIn’s AI Agent Product Becomes a Surprise Bright Spot for Microsoft

By Aaron Holmes and Laura Bratton · Apr 16, 2026 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

Microsoft has so far seen mixed results in its efforts to sell AI-powered products to businesses, with only around 3% of its Office 365 users paying to use 365 Copilot as of the end of last year. But a seemingly niche AI product released last fall by its subsidiary LinkedIn has taken off as a surprise hit. And I’m told that leaders... Microsoft has so far seen mixed results in its efforts to sell AI-powered products to businesses,...

Praveen Neppalli Naga. Photo by Big Event Media/Getty Images

Uber CTO Shows How Claude Code Can Blow Up AI Budgets

By Laura Bratton · Apr 14, 2026 10:33am PDT · 3 comments

Uber’s surging use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic’s Claude Code, has maxed out its full year AI budget just a few months into 2026, according to chief technology officer Praveen Neppalli Naga.“I'm back to the drawing board because the budget I thought I would need is blown away already,” Neppalli Naga said in an interview.Neppalli... Uber’s surging use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic’s Claude Code, has maxed out its...

Art by Getty Images.

Even Without Mythos, Researchers Say AI is Getting Scary Good at Hacking

By Aaron Holmes and Laura Bratton · Apr 9, 2026 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

Anthropic says that its new AI model, Mythos, is so good at carrying out cyberattacks that the company has decided not to release the full version of the model publicly—instead, it’s only sharing the model with top tech companies so they can start building up their defenses.But in the meantime, existing AI models—which are already publicly... Anthropic says that its new AI model, Mythos, is so good at carrying out cyberattacks that the...

Art by Clark Miller.

Microsoft’s GitHub Sees Booming Traffic—and Outages—as AI Agents Flood Platform

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 7, 2026 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller.

Microsoft’s GitHub Sees Booming Traffic—and Outages—as AI Agents Flood Platform

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 7, 2026 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

Software developers are using AI agents to crank out more lines of code than is humanly possible, with companies like Meta hosting “tokenmaxxing” contests to see which coders can spin the AI meter the fastest.That trend is leading to a surge in traffic at Microsoft-owned GitHub, which hosts repositories where companies can upload and edit their... Software developers are using AI agents to crank out more lines of code than is humanly possible,...

Art by Getty Images

Anthropic ‘Mythos’ Model Signals New Era of AI Cybersecurity Risks

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 2, 2026 11:37am PDT

The cybersecurity field is buzzing about an upcoming Anthropic AI model that could be used by hackers to “exploit [security] vulnerabilities in ways that far outpace the efforts of defenders,” according to a draft blog post the company mistakenly made public.Anthropic has been briefing cybersecurity researchers and is giving them early access to... The cybersecurity field is buzzing about an upcoming Anthropic AI model that could be used by...

Photo via Getty Images

‘Guardian’ Apps Aim to Stop AI Agents From Going Rogue

By Laura Bratton · Mar 31, 2026 3:28pm PDT

As rogue AI agents cause security problems and product outages even at sophisticated companies such as Meta and Amazon, major firms such as ServiceNow as well as startups are developing new AI to monitor and stop them.The new AI, also known as guardian AI agents, comes in the form of a cloud application and can be laborious to set up. To use a... As rogue AI agents cause security problems and product outages even at sophisticated companies ...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Ozempic Maker Says AI Agents Are Shortening Its Clinical Trials

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 26, 2026 11:00am PDT

In the ultracompetitive world of drug development, getting a new medication on the market as fast as possible can have major business implications. There’s perhaps no better recent example than Novo Nordisk, which has generated nearly $100 billion in sales of weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy while trying to fend off competition from Eli... In the ultracompetitive world of drug development, getting a new medication on the market as fast...

Slack, Workday and LinkedIn Are Resisting Customers’ AI Agents

Slack, Workday and LinkedIn Are Resisting Customers’ AI Agents

By Laura Bratton · Mar 24, 2026 1:24pm PDT · 2 comments

Slack, Workday and LinkedIn Are Resisting Customers’ AI Agents

Slack, Workday and LinkedIn Are Resisting Customers’ AI Agents

By Laura Bratton · Mar 24, 2026 1:24pm PDT · 2 comments

Every day seems to bring new excitement—or in the case of Amazon employees, trepidation—around AI agents that aim to perform any white-collar task involving a computer. Monday night, for instance, Anthropic announced its latest march in this direction with a version of its Claude chatbot that can take over your computer and operate any... Every day seems to bring new excitement—or in the case of Amazon employees, trepidation—around AI...