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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.

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Recent Editions

Art via Mike Sullivan

Why OpenAI is Going After Healthcare

By Amir Efrati · Aug 28, 2025 10:30am PDT

It was easy to miss last week’s announcement that Ashley Alexander, a 12-year veteran of Facebook and Instagram, is becoming vice president of health products at OpenAI, with the goal of improving “healthcare outcomes and access.” Alexander’s LinkedIn post didn’t give clues about exactly what products she will oversee, but it’s not hard to see... It was easy to miss last week’s announcement that Ashley Alexander, a 12-year veteran of Facebook...

‘AI Native’ Apps’ $18.5 Billion Annualized Revenues Rebut MIT’s Skeptical Study

‘AI Native’ Apps’ $18.5 Billion Annualized Revenues Rebut MIT’s Skeptical Study

By Amir Efrati · Aug 26, 2025 10:32am PDT · 11 comments

It’s been hard to avoid a study last week from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which claimed that 95% of corporate efforts to use artificial intelligence failed to boost the bottom line for the surveyed companies. In other words, “only 5% of custom enterprise AI tools reach production.” Let’s set aside the study’s limitations,... It’s been hard to avoid a study last week from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which...

Sam Altman. Photo via Getty

Why AI Still Feels Pricy

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Aug 21, 2025 10:30am PDT

Our Wednesday story about rising costs of businesses that pay for advanced artificial intelligence from OpenAI and Anthropic stirred strong reactions from readers. OpenAI researcher Aidan McLaughlin wondered aloud where we had gotten the idea that state-of-the-art AI was supposed to get cheaper. The answer: his boss, Sam Altman. OpenAI... Our Wednesday story about rising costs of businesses that pay for advanced artificial...

Art via Mike Sullivan

Is AI Better Than Humans at Interviewing People?

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Aug 19, 2025 10:39am PDT · 1 comment

Art via Mike Sullivan

Is AI Better Than Humans at Interviewing People?

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Aug 19, 2025 10:39am PDT · 1 comment

Job seekers are increasingly running into employers using artificial intelligence-powered job interviewers, and the process has garnered backlash and in some cases sparked lawsuits from spurned candidates. But AI interviewers might actually increase candidates’ chances of getting hired.A new research study published this week from the... Job seekers are increasingly running into employers using artificial intelligence-powered job...

Secret Snowflake AI Revenue Figure Shows Brand-Name LLMs Reign Supreme

By Kevin McLaughlin · Aug 14, 2025 1:02pm PDT

For all the talk about the rise of low-cost or open-source AI models, enterprises are still gravitating to brand-name models from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. That’s prompting database providers like Snowflake, Databricks and Oracle to strike deals allowing database customers to use the brand-name AI to build chatbots and search tools that... For all the talk about the rise of low-cost or open-source AI models, enterprises are still...

Replit CEO Amjad Masad. Photo via Getty

Why Flat Pricing for AI Agents Won’t Last

By Aaron Holmes · Aug 12, 2025 10:30am PDT

AI agents are getting more advanced—but they’re also getting more expensive to run. That trend is beginning to force AI agent sellers to change their pricing models to pass on more of the cost of running the agents to their users.Traditionally, AI companies have sold their products to businesses like most other types of software: by charging a... AI agents are getting more advanced—but they’re also getting more expensive to run. That trend is...

Photo via Getty

OpenAI Says GPT-5 Is One-Size-Fits-All; New Open Model Was Cheap to Train

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Aaron Holmes · Aug 7, 2025 11:05am PDT

OpenAI unveiled its new flagship AI model, GPT-5, on Thursday. And with the launch, OpenAI seems to be moving more towards offering an entire AI system to its customers versus giving them the choice between models. The company said during a live-streamed presentation that it would be withdrawing user access to its older models, meaning that... OpenAI unveiled its new flagship AI model, GPT-5, on Thursday. And with the launch, OpenAI seems...

Photo via Getty

How Chatbots Are Eating the M&A Advisory Business

By Aaron Holmes · Aug 5, 2025 10:30am PDT

Photo via Getty

How Chatbots Are Eating the M&A Advisory Business

By Aaron Holmes · Aug 5, 2025 10:30am PDT

In the M&A industry, bankers’ most important asset has historically been their rolodex. But the proliferation of AI chatbots appears to be changing that.When the boards of companies look to sell the business, they turn to M&A advisors to scope out suitable buyers. In the past, junior bankers assembling lists of potential buyers would... In the M&A industry, bankers’ most important asset has historically been their rolodex. But...

Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California. Photo by Getty

U.S. Taps Microsoft, OpenAI Tech to Cut Nuclear Red Tape

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 31, 2025 10:30am PDT

Staff at the Idaho National Laboratory, a federal nuclear research facility, have been using artificial intelligence from OpenAI and Anthropic to automate routine work, such as drafting literature reviews of research papers or generating lines of code.But now, the lab is starting a more ambitious effort: using AI to automate how companies obtain... Staff at the Idaho National Laboratory, a federal nuclear research facility, have been using...

Arsalan Tavakoli, a Databricks co-founder.

Databricks Makes It Easier to Get Out of Oracle

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 29, 2025 11:23am PDT

Artificial intelligence that rewrites code and can reprogram old apps into newer formats is lowering the cost of switching enterprise software providers and is poised to help companies tackle previously nearly impossible tasks, as Aaron reported Monday. One such task we’re hearing more about involves companies getting their data out of... Artificial intelligence that rewrites code and can reprogram old apps into newer formats is ...

Photo by Getty

AWS Took its Time Disclosing Security Flaw in AI Coding Tool

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 24, 2025 11:19am PDT · 1 comment

While artificial intelligence-powered coding is jet fuel for developer productivity, a string of incidents in recent months shows why customers should tread carefully in this version of the Wild West. In the latest worrisome development, a hacker recently found a way to upload malicious code to an Amazon Web Services’ AI coding assistant, Q... While artificial intelligence-powered coding is jet fuel for developer productivity, a string of...

Box CEO Says AI Will Entrench Old-Guard Enterprise Apps, Not Hurt Them

Box CEO Says AI Will Entrench Old-Guard Enterprise Apps, Not Hurt Them

By Kevin McLaughlin and Aaron Holmes · Jul 22, 2025 10:49am PDT

Box CEO Says AI Will Entrench Old-Guard Enterprise Apps, Not Hurt Them

Box CEO Says AI Will Entrench Old-Guard Enterprise Apps, Not Hurt Them

By Kevin McLaughlin and Aaron Holmes · Jul 22, 2025 10:49am PDT

Salesforce, Figma and other enterprise app firms have responded to a potential threat from artificial intelligence startups by limiting the startups’ access to customer data or files, even if the customers themselves give permission. But Aaron Levie, CEO of file storage firm Box, which turns 20 this year, says his company has no intention... Salesforce, Figma and other enterprise app firms have responded to a potential threat from...

Photo via Getty

AWS’ Free Agent Targets Microsoft Customers

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 17, 2025 10:00am PDT

As Microsoft and Amazon Web Services have dueled over cloud customers in the past decade, one of Microsoft’s biggest advantages has been its base of corporate customers that run Windows software on their local servers and want to move it to the cloud. AWS has complained about this dynamic for years, saying the Windows licenses effectively... As Microsoft and Amazon Web Services have dueled over cloud customers in the past decade, one of...

Art via Mike Sullivan

AWS, Google Race to Fill the Gaps in Their AI Clouds

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 15, 2025 11:01am PDT

The artificial intelligence boom is already visibly reshaping the cloud wars. For instance, Amazon Web Services looked like an insurmountable front-runner just a few years ago, but Google has made gains among AI developers thanks to its ability to serve some models at a much lower price, my colleague Kevin reported yesterday.More broadly, we’re... The artificial intelligence boom is already visibly reshaping the cloud wars. For instance,...

Art via Mike Sullivan

Why Some Companies Are Canceling ChatGPT Subscriptions

By Aaron Holmes · Jul 10, 2025 10:00am PDT · 1 comment

Companies that buy artificial intelligence chatbots for their workers have many options, and some of them have started looking for the cheapest option. That could explain new data from payments startup Ramp, showing a slight dip in the percentage of Ramp customers that spent money on AI products like ChatGPT between May and June, to 42% from... Companies that buy artificial intelligence chatbots for their workers have many options, and some...

Figma CEO Dylan Field

Figma Enters Corporate Data Wars; Cursor’s Apology

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 8, 2025 11:20am PDT

Figma CEO Dylan Field

Figma Enters Corporate Data Wars; Cursor’s Apology

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 8, 2025 11:20am PDT

The data-access battle between software incumbents and younger AI startups that could pose a threat to them continues to expand.In the latest front, Figma, which makes tools for software designers and developers, recently began limiting outside firms’ access to Figma customer projects, according to the CEO of an enterprise search startup that... The data-access battle between software incumbents and younger AI startups that could pose a...

Art by Clark Miller

Companies Spend More On Cursor, Less on Engineers

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 3, 2025 10:00am PDT · 1 comment

Hi! If you’re finding value in our Applied AI newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Information. It contains exclusive reporting on the most important stories in tech, like this story from Wayne on Microsoft's setbacks in developing an AI chip. Save up to $250 on your first year of access.Competition is... Hi! If you’re finding value in our Applied AI newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing...

Photo via Getty

OpenAI Leans Into Consulting; The New AI Data War

By Aaron Holmes · Jul 1, 2025 10:04am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI has a long habit of launching products and features that compete with other tech startups that sell apps or services using OpenAI’s artificial intelligence.Now, OpenAI has its eye on the market for AI consulting services that help large enterprises develop their own AI apps—if they’re willing to spend at least $10 million, as Sri and I... OpenAI has a long habit of launching products and features that compete with other tech startups...

Photo via Getty

Is OpenAI About to Spice Up the Productivity App Market?

By Aaron Holmes · Jun 26, 2025 10:00am PDT

As if OpenAI isn’t fighting enough battles, the startup is now eyeing a new front line: productivity apps currently dominated by Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s Workspace.As my colleagues reported this week, OpenAI has been prototyping a new tool within ChatGPT that would let multiple people collaborate on documents and communicate with each... As if OpenAI isn’t fighting enough battles, the startup is now eyeing a new front line:...

Image via Getty

Enterprises Take Model Evaluation Into Their Own Hands

By Aaron Holmes · Jun 24, 2025 10:14am PDT

Image via Getty

Enterprises Take Model Evaluation Into Their Own Hands

By Aaron Holmes · Jun 24, 2025 10:14am PDT

Buyers of artificial intelligence often need help figuring out which AI models are best at handling a particular task.Kinesso, the tech arm of advertising giant IPG, has been evaluating ways its parent company can use large language models to generate marketing-related text. By now, Kinesso and other AI buyers have become acquainted with... Buyers of artificial intelligence often need help figuring out which AI models are best at...