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Microsoft goes all in on AI agents. AI-Generated Influencers Flood Instagram, Google is getting ready to fight if its anti-trust case leads to a demand to sell off its Chrome browser.Infosys Founder Narayana Murthy Reaffirms Call for 70-Hour Workweeks
Welcome to Hashtag Trending. I’m your host, Jim Love. Let’s get into it.
Satya Nadella lays out the future of AI – and it’s agents. Nadella was speaking at the Ignite conference and revealed how integrated agents will be in the new Copilot rollout. He talked about and had a staff person demo a large series of agents and how they will work with Microsoft products, providing not just assistants, but a new starting point for accessing applications, which could provide a way of unifying all of the Microsoft Suite.
While Copilot will ship with a number of predefined agents, trained to do specific tasks to assist the end user, Nadella was clear that Microsoft was planning that agents would be so simple to write, that anyone could do it. He made the comparison with a word or excel document, saying that if developing your own agents should be as simple as creating a document.
And the agents he envisioned extended well beyond just Microsoft products. He gave examples of SAP and ServiceNow agents that would extend these applications to businesses.
We’ll place a link to the speech and the demo in the show notes. It’s worth checking out.
AI-Generated Influencers Flood Instagram, Threatening Human Creators
AI-generated influencers are taking over Instagram, using stolen content from real models and adult content creators to promote dating sites, subscription platforms, and AI apps. The rapidly growing phenomenon, dubbed “AI pimping,” highlights Instagram’s inability to regulate this surge in AI-generated content, creating a new challenge for human creators trying to earn a living on the platform.
According to a review by *WIRED* and researchers like Alexios Mantzarlis, the industry has scaled up dramatically since it was first reported earlier this year. Hundreds of AI-generated influencer accounts now operate on Instagram, using off-the-shelf AI tools to create fake personas and monetize stolen content. Many of these tools are openly available on app stores like Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
Adult content creator Elaina St James reports a significant decline in her Instagram reach, falling from millions of views monthly to under 500,000 in some months. She attributes this decline partly to competition from AI-generated accounts, which use manipulated versions of her and others’ content. “I’m competing with something that’s unnatural,” St James said.
Mantzarlis, who documented around 900 of these accounts, warns that AI-generated influencers represent a broader trend toward what he calls “blended unreality” on social media. He noted that finding more of these accounts was only limited by Instagram’s restrictions on his data scraping efforts.
The rise of AI-generated influencers underscores the growing challenges social media platforms face in managing AI-driven content and protecting legitimate creators in an increasingly artificial digital landscape.
Google Opposes DOJ Proposal to Sell Chrome Amid Antitrust Case
Google has harshly criticized a reported proposal from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to force the company to sell Chrome, its widely used web browser. The DOJ is expected to present this recommendation as part of remedies following a ruling that Google operates an online search monopoly.
“The DOJ continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” said Google executive Lee-Anne Mulholland. Google warned that such a move would harm consumers, developers, and U.S. technological leadership.
Chrome currently holds a 64.61% share of the global web browser market, according to Similarweb, but Google Search dominates nearly 90% of the search engine market. For example, the only other player in the browser market, Apple’ Safari, with almost 20 percent of the market, defaults to Google search, based on a highly lucrative payment from Google to keep their dominance in search.
Critics argue this combination gives Google excessive market power. Judge Amit Mehta, who ruled on the monopoly case in August, called the default search engine feature in browsers “extremely valuable real estate” for Google.
In addition to potentially requiring Chrome’s divestiture, the DOJ may also propose measures affecting Google’s Android operating system, data usage, and artificial intelligence operations. Google has pushed back, arguing that breaking up its services would increase costs for consumers, weaken competition with Apple, and jeopardize Chrome’s security.
Investors are closely monitoring the case, as Google’s revenues from search and advertising recently grew by 10% to $65.9 billion. The DOJ’s final recommendations are expected this week, and the case could reshape the tech landscape significantly.
Infosys Founder Narayana Murthy Reaffirms Call for 70-Hour Workweeks
If he wasn’t the co-founder of one of the largest outsourcing firms in the world, you’d just dismiss him as cranky old guy, but Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy is once again drawing criticism for advocating 70-hour workweeks and rejecting the idea of work-life balance. Speaking at the CNBC Global Leadership Summit, Murthy reiterated his belief, stating, “I don’t believe in work-life balance […] I will take this with me to my grave.”
Murthy first made headlines in 2023 when he urged young Indians to work 12-hour days for decades, citing a sense of duty to the nation. He pointed to post-WWII Japan and Germany as examples of hard work driving economic recovery and argued that hard work is essential for improving the lives of the poor. His proposal, however, conflicts with Indian labor laws, which prohibit such extended hours.
Murthy, who worked 14-hour days for six-and-a-half days a week until his retirement, expressed disappointment over India’s shift from a six-day workweek to five days in 1986. While reflecting on his time with his children, he emphasized quality over quantity, saying the one to two hours spent at dinner were “lots of fun.”
Before the folks in Silicon Valley buy into this, we have to say that critics have pointed to studies showing that overworking can harm productivity and lead to health risks, including death from overwork, a problem Japan has faced. Murthy’s comments also come as Infosys faces scrutiny for unpaid training programs and delays in onboarding new hires, as well as enforcing a return-to-office policy earlier this year.
I guess making the top 10 employers list is probably out of the question.
And that’s our show for today.
Thanks to our sponsor, CDW and KJ Burke’s CDW Canada Tech Talks. Check it out if you get the chance. You can find it like us on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
Reach me at editorial@technewsday.ca
I’m your host Jim Love, have a thrilling Thursday.
