Good morning. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in the business world who was willing to admit that they weren’t trying to make their organization as AI-ready as possible. (Even if the applications of that AI to their existing business might be limited.)
So, pop quiz time: What percentage of companies say they’ve concocted a full change management plan for AI—that is, a plan to prepare employees for use of AI in the workplace?
Take your best guess and find the answer in “Endstop triggered.”
Have a wonderful weekend. —Andrew Nusca
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Verizon may cut some 15,000 jobs
The world’s second-largest telco is getting a little bit smaller.
According to a new Wall Street Journal report, Verizon plans to make its largest-ever workforce reduction next week in the form of some 15,000 layoffs in a workforce of about 100,000 people.
The reason? Good old fashioned tough times.
The largest U.S. carrier lost 7,000 postpaid phone subscribers to its rivals in three consecutive quarters when Wall Street was expecting even bigger gains.
Last month, Verizon’s board brought in former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman as chief executive; the founding CEO of Virgin Mobile immediately launched into cost-control mode.
“These will not be incremental changes,” Schulman told investors two weeks ago. “We will aggressively transform our culture, our cost structure, and the financial profile of Verizon in order to put our customers first, compete effectively, and deliver sustainable returns for our shareholders.”
In short, it’s gonna get messy.
Schulman said he plans to exit or reduce legacy businesses that aren’t EBITDA friendly and convert some 200 owned and operated stores into franchises. Verizon is also making moves to stem customer losses with price-lock guarantees and other favorable policies. —AN
Apple and Tencent do a WeChat deal
Apple will reportedly handle payments and take 15% of revenue generated in mini games and apps within Tencent’s popular WeChat service.
According to a new Bloomberg report, the companies spent more than a year hammering out an agreement.
Apple sought to close what it saw as loopholes to its payment scheme; Tencent sought to keep more revenue.
Fifteen percent is half of Apple’s usual 30% commission on in-app purchases. But so-called mini games, such as those found entirely within WeChat, proved to be big business. Last quarter, they netted China’s most valuable company the equivalent of $4.5 billion.
The agreement contributes to a broader program that Apple launched on Thursday for mini app providers.
It also helps Apple ease tensions in China as the U.S. and its rival wage a multifront trade war.
The iPhone maker could use all the help it can get to fend off local rivals such as Huawei and Xiaomi, whose relative success in their home market have cost the American company growth in recent quarters. —AN
‘Operation Endgame’ action knocks out 1,000 servers
Law enforcement officials in nine countries have taken down more than 1,000 servers used by malicious actors as part of the ongoing “Operation Endgame” anti-cybercrime campaign.
The computers in question were in use by the Rhadamanthys infolstealer, VenomRAT, and Elysium botnet malware operations.
The takedown action was coordinated by Europol and Eurojust and included companies like CrowdStrike, Lumen, Proofpoint, and Bitdefender.
The details are rather cinematic. Police searched 11 locations in Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands over four days this month. Twenty domains were seized; one key suspect was arrested.
"The dismantled malware infrastructure consisted of hundreds of thousands of infected computers containing several million stolen credentials," Europol said on Thursday, adding that the primary suspect behind the infostealer “had access to over 100,000 crypto wallets” belonging to victims. —AN
More tech
—China hackers heavily rely on AI. A September campaign was “80-90%” automated, Anthropic says.
—Ubisoft punts on earnings report. The Assassin’s Creed maker delays its H1 financial results and requests that its shares be halted from trading.
—xAI raises $15 billion? Elon Musk’s AI company is now reportedly worth $200 billion…though Musk called the CNBC report “false” without elaborating.
—Meta revamps Facebook Marketplace. AI, comments, collections, and more.
—EU opens fresh Google investigation. Did it unfairly demote news outlets who also publish content by commercial partners?
—Apple, MLS revise agreement. Major League Soccer games will reportedly now be available without an additional paywall.
—Meet Amazon Leo, the company’s renamed Project Kuiper satellite communication project.
Endstop triggered
Answer: 36%.
For all the talk about AI these days, just one in three companies say they have a formal change management plan to guide employees through AI adoption, according to Cisco’s recent AI Readiness Index.
(The stats look far better for ambitious and proactive companies Cisco calls “pacesetters.” More than 9 in 10 of those are prepared.)
“Without that planning, investments, strategy, and ownership may not fully translate into real-world value,” the report says. “Teams may resist new processes, struggle to integrate AI into workflows, or fail to adopt tools effectively—meaning much of the potential ROI could remain untapped.”
A daunting proposition. But as Jimmy Dugan once said: “If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” —AN