Author: Jaxon Bennett

Pitching for legal business as a law firm once meant gaining an understanding of the client’s needs and demonstrating how the firm might meet them. At Ashurst, however, a recent request for proposal came with a new demand: that the firm show how it would combine generative artificial intelligence with human expertise to handle the client’s legal projects.Whether for making pitches or training junior associates, AI is becoming a dominant presence in legal workplaces, requiring both law firms and companies’ in-house legal teams to navigate complex new working relationships between human experts and digital tools. For Ashurst, the pitch involved going…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.For over a decade, the US has been waging its chip cold war with a familiar arsenal. Blacklists, export controls and extraterritorial rules — all staples of Washington’s well-worn playbook — were meant to deny China access to critical technologies and stall the ascent of its tech capabilities. The stall never came.In response, restrictions have grown increasingly severe. The US government is now weighing additional restrictions on China, including revoking waivers that allow global chipmakers to access US technology in their China-based…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Shares of glucose-monitoring company DexCom jumped nearly 10 per cent Tuesday afternoon after US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr lauded medical “wearables” and said he would like all Americans to be using the technology within four years.Kennedy said in congressional testimony that the health and human services department would launch a big advertising campaign to encourage Americans to use wearables — medical devices that track blood sugar, heart rate, sleep and other vital signs.“We think that wearables are a key to…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The chief executive of the start-up that forced OpenAI and former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive to pull down marketing materials about their $6.4bn AI device venture has accused them of trying to “bury” his firm after discussing a potential investment. iyO founder and former Google executive Jason Rugolo told the Financial Times he had been “blindsided” by the launch of io, OpenAI’s partnership with Ive to create new AI hardware products, as both companies had previously been in deal talks…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Innovation leads, and regulation follows. Even so, the UK competition watchdog’s efforts to rein in Google are out by a country mile. While there are potential dangers to the search giant’s dominance, including large language models such as Open AI, slowcoach rulemaking is not one of them. The Competition and Markets Authority, which listed a series of possible measures against Google on Tuesday, is in familiar territory. The EU, Japan and Australia have all imposed various limitations; in the US the Department of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Australia is reviewing whether to expand its groundbreaking social media ban for under-16s to include YouTube, after the country’s internet safety regulator said the Google-owned video sharing website is where children suffer the most online harm. Australia passed legislation late last year aimed at preventing anyone under the age of 16 from registering to join social media platforms including Instagram, X, Facebook and Snapchat. The law puts the onus on technology companies to enforce the age limit or face significant fines. YouTube was exempt from…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK’s competition regulator is proposing to loosen Google’s control of its search engine and hand more power back to publishers, in the first application of Britain’s tough new digital market rules. The Competition and Markets Authority said on Tuesday that Google could be required to implement new “fair ranking” measures in its search results and give publishers more control over how it uses their content, including in output generated by artificial intelligence. The CMA said it was minded to hand Google “strategic market…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldThe US House of Representatives has warned staff members not to use Meta’s messaging platform WhatsApp due to privacy concerns.The warning marks a blow to WhatsApp, whose $1.8tn parent Meta has long battled concerns that it has been lax with user data in its hunt for commercial growth and advertising revenue. The House’s Chief Administrative Officer told staffers on Monday that WhatsApp had been deemed “a high-risk to users”, according to a copy of the memo seen by the Financial…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities will turn the spotlight on to the tools of war — and particularly those with a high-tech bent. Investors are getting on board: a €600mn investment in Germany’s Helsing announced last week values the artificial intelligence software-to-drones group at €12bn. Shares in Palantir, a data-crunching US company that serves the Pentagon, are up more than 80 per cent this year; its $325bn market capitalisation is quadruple that of BAE Systems.Some content could not load. Check your internet…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Apple is locked in last-minute negotiations with Brussels regulators over making changes to its App Store to avoid a series of escalating EU fines due to come into force this week. The $3tn company is in talks with the European Commission, after being fined €500mn for breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, the landmark legislation designed to curtail the power of big tech groups.People involved in the negotiations said Apple was expected to offer concessions on its “steering” provisions that stop users…