AI this week: 26 October to 1 November 2026.
6 stories, Monday to Sunday, with where each one leads
A study published on Saturday found that when researchers forced AI models to name a candidate across nearly 500 midterm races, SpaceXAI's Grok 4.7 recommended the Republican in 92% of answers and OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol picked the Democrat in 97%. The two models agreed less than 10% of the time.
The S&P 500 has seven companies making serious money from AI. The other 493, it turns out, are not.
Bowen Wan was a 31-year-old software engineer with epilepsy, averaging more than 1,500 ChatGPT messages a week and, by the end, calling her parents in China considerably less often. On Tuesday, those parents sued OpenAI.
Amazon published revised guidelines for software engineers on Tuesday, announcing the age of the "Renaissance Developer" who uses AI thoughtfully rather than indiscriminately. The document is sensible enough. The context that required it is somewhat less flattering.
Andy Jassy spent part of Thursday's earnings call reassuring analysts that AI shopping agents are, in his words, "still not great, nor more convenient than coming to a retailer directly." This from the CEO of a company that blocked Meta's Muse assistant from its platform a month ago on terms-of-service grounds. If the experience is genuinely that bad, the restraining order reads a little differently.
Nearly one in five U.S. workers surveyed by talent firm SHL say they have been laid off due to AI and then asked to return, in what researchers are now calling "AI rebounding." In May 2026, employers cited AI as the primary reason for almost 40% of announced job cuts. By June and July, a meaningful slice of those same employers were phoning round asking if anyone fancied coming back.
The bigger pictures behind this week
A new story here every morning. Subscribe for an occasional email when there's something worth saying.
Subscribe →