Good morning. The fine folks working in Fortune’s London office have published a definitive list of Europe’s most innovative companies. Have a look—it’s inspiring stuff.
Leading the pack? L’Oréal, which has developed technology to analyze the biological age of skin and AI to personalize cosmetic formulas. (You might say the R&D expense was…worth it.) GSK, Medtronic, Rolls-Royce, and Unilever also make cameos on the list.
But if you must read one thing, make it correspondent Viv Walt’s profile of Xavier Niel, a hacker turned telecom mogul turned tech tour de force. As one exec puts it to the author: “If you’re in tech, and you come to France, there are two people you need to meet: Emmanuel Macron and Xavier Niel.”
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Nvidia CEO disagrees with Anthropic CEO on AI’s jobs impact
Jensen Huang is not on board with some of Dario Amodei’s predictions about advanced AI.
Responding to a question about the Anthropic CEO’s recent prediction that AI could automate up to half of all entry-level office jobs within five years, the Nvidia CEO said he “pretty much disagree[d] with almost everything” his fellow AI chief says.
“One, he believes that AI is so scary that only they should do it,” Huang said at the Viva Technology conference in Paris. “Two, [he believes] that AI is so expensive, nobody else should do it…And three, AI is so incredibly powerful that everyone will lose their jobs, which explains why they should be the only company building it.
“I think AI is a very important technology; we should build it and advance it safely and responsibly,” Huang continued. “If you want things to be done safely and responsibly, you do it in the open…Don’t do it in a dark room and tell me it’s safe.”
An Anthropic spokesperson told Fortune: “Dario has never claimed that ‘only Anthropic’ can build safe and powerful AI,” adding that the CEO pushed for a national transparency standard for AI developers and raised concerns about the economic impact of AI.
The Nvidia chief did acknowledge that AI may have some impact on employees.
“Everybody’s jobs will be changed. Some jobs will be obsolete, but many jobs are going to be created,” Huang said, adding: “Whenever companies are more productive, they hire more people.” —Beatrice Nolan
Databricks breaks even again and ramps up hiring
There’s lots of anxiety about AI and jobs these days, but for Databricks, a data analytics startup at the center of the AI boom, the hiring season is wide open.
The San Francisco based company is hiring 3,000 people this year, CEO Ali Ghodsi told reporters during a Q&A at its annual developer conference on Wednesday.
Ghodsi also revealed that Databricks was cash flow break even in its fiscal first quarter, the second consecutive quarter the company has hit the milestone.
“We don't need the huge infusion of cash from outside, from anyone. It's self-sustainable,” Ghodsi said.
Last valued at $62 billion, Ghodsi’s startup is considered one of Silicon Valley’s top IPO prospects. The company raised $10 billion in funding in December, and added a further $5.25 billion in debt financing in January.
Of course, playing in this game isn’t cheap, as Ghodsi also made clear, with Databricks writing large checks to the cloud service providers that its products are built on top of, including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
“I can tell you we spend billions of dollars on the cloud and infrastructure,” he said. “As customers of the hyperscalers, we are a very important partner of theirs. So they love us.” —Alexei Oreskovic
Microsoft Copilot flaw signals broader risk of AI agents being hacked
Microsoft 365 Copilot, the AI tool built into Microsoft Office workplace applications including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Teams, harbored a critical security flaw that, according to researchers, signals a broader risk of AI agents being hacked.
The flaw, revealed by AI security startup Aim Security and shared with Fortune, is the first known “zero-click” attack on an AI agent, an AI that acts autonomously to achieve specific goals.
The nature of the vulnerability means that the user doesn’t need to click anything or interact with a message for an attacker to access sensitive information from apps and data sources connected to the AI agent.
In the case of Microsoft 365 Copilot, the vulnerability lets a hacker trigger an attack simply by sending an email to a user, with no phishing or malware needed.
Instead, the exploit uses a series of clever techniques to turn the AI assistant against itself, bypassing Copilot’s built-in protections ensuring that only users can access their own files.
The researchers at Aim Security dubbed the flaw “EchoLeak.” Microsoft told Fortune that it has already fixed the issue and that its customers were unaffected.
The bigger concern? That the flaw could apply to other kinds of agents—from Anthropic’s MCP to platforms like Salesforce’s Agentforce. —Sharon Goldman
More tech
—Disney, NBCUniversal sue Midjourney. Allegations of generative AI copyright infringement.
—Stripe to acquire Privy. The smaller company helps companies build crypto wallets into their products.
—Infostealer malware crackdown. “Operation Secure” spanned 26 nations and resulted in 32 arrests.
—Oracle shares jump 8%. Cloud infrastructure revenue will increase more than 70% in 2026, CEO Safra Catz says.
—X lawsuit threats: effective! The social media site’s pressure tactics successfully revived ad business from Amazon, Ralph Lauren, Verizon.
—Meta poaches for “superintelligence” team. DeepMind, Sesame AI vets make the leap.
—Wikipedia pauses AI experiment. AI-generated summaries led to an editor backlash.
—More ads on Amazon Prime Video? It’s not just you; ad load has doubled.
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