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Your boss is not paying for the AI you use at work.

A Philippine survey finds 42% of staff who use AI at work pay for it themselves, three hikers who planned a Mount Shasta climb with Gemini had to be rescued, and a blacklisted Chinese firm's US arm shipped $5.6 billion of technology to Southeast Asia.

01Top Story

4 in 10 pay for their own AI at work

A survey of 175 Philippine organizations by Manila consultancy Swarm found that 86% of staff who use AI at work bring their own tools, and 42% pay for ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude out of their own pocket instead of the company card.

why it matters
If you have been quietly paying for your own ChatGPT to get through the workday, you are the norm in this country, not the exception.
Read at BusinessMirror
02Google

Gemini planned the hike. Rangers ended it.

Three hikers who used Google's Gemini to plan a climb up California's Mount Shasta reached the top at 7pm instead of the noon turnaround time and had to be rescued the next morning, after the Siskiyou County sheriff's office said the chatbot told them to pack far less food and water than they needed.

why it matters
A chatbot answers a trip question with total confidence and no idea what that trail is actually like today.
Read at TechCrunch
03Chips

Blacklisted in the US, it shipped $5.6B

The New York Times found that Aivres, the US arm of blacklisted Chinese firm Inspur, exported at least $5.6 billion of advanced technology to Southeast Asia between April 2024 and February 2026, including more than $3 billion of computers holding Nvidia's most advanced AI chips.

why it matters
Those machines sit in Southeast Asian data centres, and the paper notes there is little stopping companies inside China from reaching them over the internet.
Read at The New York Times
04Food

Restaurants are putting fake AI food on menus

The Guardian reports diners turning on restaurants that use AI to invent their menu photos: the manager of a Denver pop-up said he used ChatGPT instead of paying a designer, and a San Francisco cafe was graffitied over its AI signage and spent about $700 painting over it.

why it matters
A 2026 National Restaurant Association report found 26% of US restaurant operators already use AI somewhere in the business, so the picture of your lunch may never have existed.
Read at The Guardian
05OpenAI

OpenAI says it built an AI research intern

OpenAI says it has hit its own September target for an automated research intern, which it describes as a system that can carry out, under human direction, research tasks that would take a skilled researcher a few days.

why it matters
The company says a full automated AI researcher is next and has put a date on it: March 2028.
Read at Engadget

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