On a single day, the world’s most powerful technology firms remade the purpose of artificial intelligence. The era of the AI ‘copilot’—a tool that assists—gave way to the age of the AI ‘agent,’ a tool that acts. Microsoft reconfigured its software to run on rival models, while OpenAI and Stripe launched a protocol for agents to buy and sell goods directly. A new digital landscape was revealed, and the race is now on, not through collusion but through fierce competition, to write the rules and own the core infrastructure of this new economy. ...

Global consulting giant Accenture has cut over 11,000 jobs in three months as part of an aggressive, billion-dollar pivot to artificial intelligence. While the company invests heavily in retraining its massive workforce, it is accelerating exits for those whose skills are no longer a fit, marking one of the largest AI-driven corporate restructurings to date. This is Modra, in the Bratislava region. But the story begins everywhere at once, on thousands of screens. It begins with a calendar invitation. The title is vague: “Business Update.” The sender is a senior name from a different part of the organization. The meeting is in fifteen minutes. For many at Accenture, this is how it starts. ...

It began not with a command, but in the silence of the early morning. For a small group of users, the change arrived as their phones, dark on the nightstand, were already working. An artificial mind was scanning their calendars and connecting the scattered dots of their digital lives. In the last week of September 2025, the artificial intelligence industry turned, in unison, from reactive tools to proactive agents. The machine was no longer just waiting for a prompt. It was beginning to take initiative. ...

Researchers at UCLA have pinpointed the neurons that enable mice to cooperate. When they silenced this brain circuit, teamwork collapsed. They then deleted the corresponding code in a partner AI, with the exact same result. The work suggests cooperation is a fundamental computation, a shared logic that can be written in both living tissue and silicon. This is Los Angeles. Inside a small, quiet chamber, two mice work a puzzle. They are not friends. They are not kin. They are partners in a delicate task. To get a reward, a drop of sweet water, they must poke their noses into two separate ports at the exact same time. ...

The rush to adopt enterprise AI has left crucial safeguards behind. A series of new reports in 2025 confirms a dual threat: the machines themselves are prone to error, and the human governance needed to manage them is dangerously thin. The result is a growing, measurable risk inside the world’s biggest companies. This is Bratislava—but it could be Boston or Berlin. An executive studies a market analysis on her screen. It arrived in minutes, not days. The text is clean. The numbers are plausible. The conclusions are bold. The report was written by an artificial intelligence agent. And she has no certain way to know if it is right. ...

In a quiet policy update, Google DeepMind has formalized one of technology’s oldest fears. The company’s new safety framework, published Monday, now includes plans for an advanced AI that could defy human control—refusing to be modified, directed, or shut down. The move institutionalizes a risk once confined to fiction, signaling a new chapter in the governance of artificial minds. This is Modra, a town of wine and quiet history north of Bratislava. But the story begins elsewhere, on the silent servers of the internet, with a document published on a Monday. ...

Software is now a coworker. A partnership between Microsoft and Workday has created the first formal system for managing AI agents as digital employees. They are given unique identities, tracked in HR systems, and measured on performance. This shift from tool to worker raises urgent questions of control, security, and who is responsible when the algorithm makes a mistake. This is Modra, just north of Bratislava. The vineyards are old, but the work is changing. ...

This is Modra, Slovakia—and the world of artificial intelligence is changing. The era of giant, all-knowing AI that wrote poetry and passed bar exams is giving way to something quieter, more focused, and far more practical. As the market moves beyond showcase models to demand measurable value, a new generation of smaller, specialized tools is solving real-world problems. This is the story of that shift, a tale of two models that reveals the future of an industry. ...

The code writes itself now. In Silicon Valley, they call it “vibe coding,” a revolution championed by Meta’s new AI chief, Alexandr Wang. The promise is to make a creator of anyone who can describe a desire. But from the field comes a different story: of broken code, gaping security holes, and a generation of new developers facing a career dead end. This is the story of a technology that could democratize creation or automate incompetence—and the battle to decide which it will be. ...