The company, which was founded in 2016, is pitching itself as a privacy-focused alternative to both legacy badge systems and more controversial forms of facial recognition. According to Alcatraz, its flagship product, the Rock, uses facial authentication rather than surveillance-style identification, allowing employees to enter buildings without badges or passcodes while avoiding the storage of photographs or other personal data in the cloud. The company said the platform was designed to meet compliance requirements including GDPR, CCPA and BIPA. 

A Security Pitch Built for the A.I. Era

Alcatraz said demand has risen sharply as the AI boom turns data centers into some of the world’s most sensitive physical infrastructure. In its announcement, the company said its customer base already includes major AI data centers, U.S. airports, energy companies, NFL teams, universities and Fortune 100 companies. It also reported more than 300% year-over-year growth in data center adoption in 2025, along with 200% growth in new enterprise customers and a fivefold expansion across Fortune 500 deployments. 

Chief Executive Tina D’Agostin said the company sees itself as bringing smartphone-style identity verification into the workplace. “We are the Face ID of securing physical spaces,” she said in the announcement, arguing that badges and passcodes now create too much risk for modern workplaces. Founder Vince Gaydarzhiev, who Alcatraz said worked on hardware prototyping for iPhone and iPad during the development of Face ID at Apple, said he wanted to bring a privacy-centered approach to the buildings where people work. 

The timing of the funding reflects a larger shift in the market: as companies pour billions into AI infrastructure, the business of protecting the physical spaces behind that technology is becoming more strategically important. Alcatraz said it plans to use the new capital to expand into new industries, enter international markets and grow its team, betting that the next phase of AI growth will require not just more computing power, but tighter control over who can access it. 

Coro is pushing security operations closer to where users already work, launching new Model Context Protocol, or MCP, capabilities that allow customers to access, analyze and act on security data directly from tools like ChatGPT, Claude and other AI environments (Source: Coro, Business Wire announcement). The move is aimed squarely at small and midsize businesses and lean IT teams that often lack the time, staff and budget to manage sprawling security tools, and it reflects a broader shift in enterprise software toward conversational interfaces that can turn questions into actions without forcing users through another dashboard.

For customers, the clearest benefit is speed. Instead of logging into a dedicated security platform, hunting through menus and stitching together findings manually, teams can query live security data, investigate events, generate reports, visualize trends and execute actions from within the AI tools they already use. That could dramatically reduce friction for IT administrators who are increasingly relying on AI assistants as part of their daily workflow and want security operations to live in the same environment.

What makes Coro’s pitch different from many security competitors is not just that it uses AI, but where it puts it. Many cybersecurity platforms still treat AI as an add-on inside their own interface. Coro is extending its platform outward, using MCP to make its security layer interoperable with external AI tools rather than requiring users to stay inside Coro’s native environment. For resource-constrained organizations, that matters: the product becomes less about learning a new security system and more about bringing security context into tools employees already understand.

Coro says its AI-driven platform is built across three layers. The first is AI-driven insights that automatically analyze security events, identify threats and prioritize actions across users, devices and environments. The second is an AI copilot that lets users interact with the security environment in natural language, producing summaries, answering questions and guiding response steps. The third, and newest, layer is MCP integration, which pushes those capabilities into outside tools so customers can work with Coro data without logging into Coro itself.

The company is positioning that structure as a practical answer to a longstanding industry problem: cybersecurity tools have often been built for large enterprises with specialized teams, leaving smaller organizations to cope with complexity they are not staffed to handle. Coro’s argument is that conversational access, plain-language guidance and workflow interoperability can shrink that burden while still giving users meaningful control over response and reporting.

“Cybersecurity has forced teams to adapt to complex tools and workflows for years,”

said Joe Sykora, CEO of Coro.

“With MCP, Coro is flipping that model, meeting users where they already are and bringing security into the tools they already use every day, making it possible to go from question to action instantly.”

That message is likely to resonate with managed service providers and channel partners as well, another audience Coro explicitly called out. These partners often manage multiple customer environments and have strong incentives to reduce swivel-chair work, accelerate analysis and standardize actions across familiar interfaces. By pairing its unified security data with whichever AI platform a user prefers, Coro is also offering a more flexible model than platforms that lock customers into a single assistant or a closed workflow.

The company says MCP can cut work that once took hours or days, such as investigating security incidents or preparing executive reports, down to seconds or minutes. It also says the integration can support higher-level outputs like visualizations and executive-ready reporting built from large volumes of security data. That emphasis on both actionability and presentation suggests Coro is not only trying to help analysts respond faster, but also helping IT leaders communicate risk more clearly to the rest of the business.

For technology buyers, the bigger takeaway is that Coro is betting the next competitive battleground in cybersecurity will not be just detection quality, but usability. As AI assistants become part of everyday enterprise workflows, security vendors may increasingly be judged by how easily they can plug into those environments. Coro’s MCP launch is an early attempt to claim that ground, especially among organizations that want enterprise-grade protection without enterprise-grade complexity.

Image: Coro page screenshot

The pitch is straightforward: if the first wave of generative AI was about generating text, code and images, the next one is about software that can actually take action inside enterprise systems. NVIDIA is positioning Agent Toolkit as infrastructure for that shift, bundling together Nemotron open models, the AI-Q agent blueprint, open skills such as cuOpt, and the new OpenShell runtime.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang framed the launch as a turning point for enterprise software.

Claude Code and OpenClaw have sparked the agent inflection point — extending AI beyond generation and reasoning into action,

Huang said in the release. He added that employees will increasingly work alongside teams of frontier, specialized and custom-built agents, and argued that enterprise software is set to evolve into “specialized agentic platforms.”

The company is also trying to make the economics look compelling. NVIDIA said its AI-Q blueprint uses frontier models for orchestration and Nemotron open models for research tasks, an approach it claims can cut query costs by more than 50% while still delivering top-ranked performance on DeepResearch Bench and DeepResearch Bench II. That matters because one of the biggest open questions around enterprise agents is not whether they work, but whether they can be deployed at scale without turning inference bills into a budget problem.

Just as important, NVIDIA isn’t presenting this as a solo effort. The company named a long list of software vendors and enterprise platforms that are already integrating parts of the stack, including Adobe, Atlassian, Amdocs, Box, Cadence, Cisco, Cohesity, CrowdStrike, Dassault Systèmes, IQVIA, Red Hat, SAP, Salesforce, Siemens, ServiceNow and Synopsys. The message is classic Nvidia: build the tooling, seed the ecosystem, and make it easier for the rest of the software industry to pull workloads onto Nvidia-backed infrastructure.

There is also a security angle running through the announcement. NVIDIA said OpenShell is being developed with compatibility for cyber- and AI-security tools from providers including Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, Microsoft Security and TrendAI, underscoring how seriously enterprise buyers are taking the risk of giving autonomous systems access to internal tools and data. Agent systems may be attracting intense interest, but they are also forcing the market to confront a harder question: how much autonomy companies are actually willing to trust in production.

For developers, NVIDIA said Agent Toolkit and OpenShell are available through build.nvidia.com, through inference providers and Nvidia cloud partners including Baseten, Bitdeer AI, CoreWeave, DeepInfra, DigitalOcean, GMI Cloud, Fireworks, Lightning, Together AI and Vultr. The company also said OpenShell can run locally on RTX PCs, workstations and DGX systems. Enterprises, meanwhile, can deploy on infrastructure from AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, as well as server vendors including Cisco, Dell Technologies, HPE, Lenovo and Supermicro.

Vendors and what they are using

Image: NVIDIA 

For global AI companies chasing power, capital and speed, the Gulf once looked like the industry’s cleanest expansion story. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had money to spend, energy to sell and a strategic desire to become indispensable to the next computing era. That is why OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Google and xAI have all been pulled into the region’s widening AI orbit. But the war in Iran is now darkening that promise, turning what was pitched as a launchpad for the next phase of AI infrastructure into a harder question about security, resilience and geopolitical exposure.

The concern is not marginal. The Information recently reported that the conflict is complicating Gulf plans to pour more than $300 billion into data centers, chips and other AI investments. That sum matters well beyond the region itself. At a time when frontier AI companies are scrambling for financing and electricity, Gulf sovereign capital and Gulf-hosted infrastructure have emerged as one of the few plausible answers to the industry’s vast appetite for compute. If that pipeline slows, the effects will be felt far beyond Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Why the Gulf became irresistible

The attraction was straightforward: the Gulf offered what the United States and Europe increasingly struggle to deliver at speed. Land is available. Energy is comparatively cheap. Governments are willing to move aggressively. And sovereign investors are prepared to think in decades, not quarters. That combination turned the region into a serious destination for hyperscale infrastructure rather than just a source of capital. Reuters has reported that Saudi Arabia’s Humain is building a major AI footprint with U.S. partners, while the UAE’s Stargate project is designed to become the world’s largest AI data center complex outside the United States.

The UAE project captures the ambition. Reuters reported that “Stargate UAE,” backed by G42 alongside OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco and SoftBank, is expected to begin operations in 2026, with an eventual 5-gigawatt campus in Abu Dhabi. Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison said the platform would allow “every UAE government agency and commercial institution” to connect its data to advanced AI models, a line that makes clear how the Gulf is pitching itself: not just as a place to host servers, but as a place to concentrate national-scale AI capability.

Saudi Arabia has been equally assertive. Reuters reported that the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund launched Humain to oversee AI technologies, infrastructure, cloud platforms and advanced models, while U.S. chipmakers and cloud-linked partners moved quickly to sign on. In one of the clearest signs of that momentum, Reuters reported that Humain invested $3 billion in xAI’s Series E round, building on a partnership to jointly develop 500 megawatts of AI data-center infrastructure.

The conflict is turning ambition into risk

That is what makes the war in Iran so disruptive. The problem is not only that governments may need to revisit spending priorities. It is that AI infrastructure depends on the very kind of stability the conflict now throws into doubt: secure energy flows, trusted logistics, predictable insurance costs, executive mobility and confidence that a data center can operate as critical infrastructure rather than as a strategic vulnerability.

The shift is already visible in the reporting. The Information said the war is crimping what had been a crucial potential funding source for power-hungry technology companies. Reuters has separately reported that Gulf AI ambitions were already intersecting with U.S. strategic oversight, security checks and export-control concerns. In a hotter regional conflict environment, those sensitivities are likely to intensify rather than fade.

This is where the glossy AI-growth narrative starts to look more fragile. For months, the Gulf sold itself as a faster, cheaper and more decisive place to build. But AI data centers are not ordinary real estate projects. They sit at the intersection of national security, energy policy, semiconductor supply chains and cloud sovereignty. The war in Iran has exposed how quickly that stack of advantages can become a stack of risks.

Washington wanted the Gulf close — but on its terms

The U.S. strategic angle is also impossible to ignore. Reuters reported last year that Washington viewed deeper AI ties with Gulf allies as a way to keep advanced infrastructure inside a U.S.-aligned technology orbit. David Sacks, then the White House Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, said previous export controls were “never intended to capture friends, allies, strategic partners,” underscoring the argument that countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia should be buyers and builders within an American-led ecosystem, not pushed toward Chinese alternatives.

Yet even before the current conflict, the largest UAE-linked AI campus plans were not fully settled. Reuters reported in 2025 that the multibillion-dollar U.S.-UAE data campus deal was still far from final because of persistent Washington concerns over security and technology protection. In other words, the Gulf AI buildout was never simply an economic project. It was always a geopolitical one. The Iran war merely makes that impossible to ignore.

What this means for OpenAI, xAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and Google

For the major U.S. players, the Gulf remains too important to walk away from. OpenAI has pursued regional capital and infrastructure relationships. xAI has attracted direct Saudi-linked backing. Oracle is embedded in Abu Dhabi’s Stargate buildout. Amazon, Microsoft and Google all see the region as a place to expand cloud and AI capacity while deepening ties to governments and sovereign investors. The fundamental logic still stands: AI needs colossal amounts of power and funding, and the Gulf can offer both.

But the investment case now looks less like a straightforward growth story and more like a resilience test. Companies will have to ask not only whether the Gulf can host the next generation of compute, but whether it can do so under conditions of prolonged regional instability. Boards, financiers and infrastructure planners are likely to reprice that risk. So will insurers. So, very likely, will governments.

The bigger lesson for the AI industry

The deeper point is that AI’s infrastructure race is no longer just a technology story. It is an energy story, a capital story and, increasingly, a war-and-security story. The industry spent much of the past year talking about chips, training costs and power scarcity. The Gulf seemed to offer relief on all three fronts. What the war in Iran has done is remind investors and executives that AI geography matters as much as AI strategy.

The Gulf may still become one of the world’s defining AI corridors. The money is still there. The ambition is still there. The partnerships are still alive. But the assumption that this would be a smooth buildout — that the region could serve as AI’s great stable frontier — has been badly shaken. And for an industry that runs on confidence almost as much as compute, that may be the most consequential change of all.

Image: AI Generated

The findings show that while the number of zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild fluctuates year to year, the strategic value of these vulnerabilities for cyber espionage, surveillance, and financially motivated attacks continues to grow. The report also reveals a shift in targeting priorities—from consumer devices toward enterprise infrastructure—reflecting how attackers increasingly aim for systems that can provide broader access to corporate networks and sensitive data.

Zero-Day Exploits Remain a Core Tool for Advanced Threat Actors

According to the analysis published by Google’s Threat Intelligence Group, researchers tracked 75 zero-day vulnerabilities actively exploited in the wild during 2024, a decline from 98 recorded in 2023 but still significantly higher than earlier years. 

Zero-day vulnerabilities—software flaws that are unknown to vendors at the time of exploitation—are among the most powerful tools in cyber operations because they allow attackers to bypass security controls before patches are available.

Despite the slight decline in the number of exploited vulnerabilities, the report emphasizes that zero-day activity remains at historically elevated levels compared with the pre-2021 period, suggesting that exploitation has become a standard technique in advanced cyber campaigns. 

What makes this trend particularly concerning is that the majority of these attacks are not random. Instead, they are typically deployed in targeted operations conducted by sophisticated threat actors, including nation-state groups and commercial surveillance vendors.

A Strategic Shift Toward Enterprise Technologies

One of the most notable conclusions of the report is the growing shift away from consumer targets and toward enterprise technologies.

Google’s researchers found that 33 of the zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in 2024 affected enterprise software, including networking appliances, security tools, and enterprise infrastructure platforms.

This shift reflects the evolving priorities of threat actors. Compromising enterprise technologies often provides attackers with a gateway into entire organizational environments. Once inside, adversaries can move laterally across systems, escalate privileges, and access sensitive data or intellectual property.

Enterprise infrastructure is particularly attractive because it often acts as the backbone of corporate networks. A vulnerability in a network security appliance, for example, can allow attackers to bypass perimeter defenses and gain persistent access to internal systems.

The report also notes that organizations increasingly rely on complex technology stacks, which expands the potential attack surface and increases the likelihood that exploitable vulnerabilities will exist somewhere within the infrastructure.

Espionage Operations Still Drive Zero-Day Development

While cybercrime continues to grow globally, the research indicates that cyber espionage operations remain one of the primary drivers of zero-day exploitation.

Government-backed threat actors often rely on zero-day vulnerabilities to gain covert access to targeted networks. These actors typically prioritize stealth and persistence over scale, deploying exploits selectively against high-value targets such as government agencies, defense contractors, telecommunications providers, and research institutions.

The report also highlights the continued role of the commercial spyware industry, which develops and sells advanced exploit chains to governments and law enforcement agencies. Some surveillance vendors have been linked to multiple zero-day vulnerabilities over the past several years, demonstrating how the commercialization of cyber capabilities is reshaping the threat ecosystem.

In these cases, vulnerabilities are not simply discovered and used by hackers but are developed as part of an organized market for offensive cyber tools.

2025 zero-days in end-user vs enterprise products

Browsers and Mobile Platforms Remain Critical Attack Surfaces

Although enterprise technologies are becoming increasingly attractive targets, browsers and mobile platforms remain central to many zero-day campaigns.

Web browsers represent a particularly valuable attack vector because they serve as the primary interface between users and the internet. Vulnerabilities in browser engines can allow attackers to execute malicious code simply by tricking users into visiting a specially crafted webpage.

Several real-world cases illustrate this risk. Security researchers have documented browser vulnerabilities that enable attackers to escape sandbox protections or execute arbitrary code, potentially allowing full system compromise.

Mobile operating systems are similarly targeted due to their widespread adoption and the sensitive data stored on modern smartphones. Attackers frequently chain multiple vulnerabilities together—combining browser flaws with privilege-escalation exploits—to achieve complete device takeover.

These exploit chains are particularly valuable in surveillance operations where the goal is long-term access to communications, location data, or encrypted messaging platforms.

The Growing Role of Rapid Vulnerability Patching

One of the more positive findings of the report is that vendor patching processes have improved significantly in recent years.

Technology companies now deploy patches faster and coordinate more closely with security researchers through responsible disclosure programs. Initiatives such as Google’s Project Zero have helped standardize vulnerability reporting timelines and encouraged faster remediation cycles.

These improvements have contributed to the decline in some categories of exploit activity. However, the report cautions that attackers have adapted by focusing on less-scrutinized technologies, particularly specialized enterprise products and network appliances.

In many cases, these systems are deployed in environments where patching is slower or operationally difficult, creating a window of opportunity for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities before they are addressed.

Exploit Development Is Becoming More Sophisticated

Another major theme in the report is the increasing sophistication of exploit development.

Modern zero-day attacks frequently involve multi-stage exploit chains that combine several vulnerabilities across different components of a system. This approach allows attackers to bypass multiple layers of defense and maintain persistence even after partial detection.

For example, an attacker may begin with a browser vulnerability to execute code on a target machine. From there, a second exploit could elevate privileges, while a third vulnerability allows the attacker to escape security sandboxes or virtualization environments.

These complex exploit chains require advanced research capabilities and are often developed by well-resourced threat actors.

This graph only reflects clusters for which we can assess motivation. In one case, we identify two groups that are separately exploiting the same vulnerability.

The Strategic Implications for Enterprises

For enterprise security teams, the report underscores a fundamental reality: preventing zero-day exploitation entirely is nearly impossible.

Instead, organizations must focus on defense-in-depth strategies that limit the damage when vulnerabilities are exploited.

This includes measures such as:

• strict network segmentation
• zero-trust architectures
• continuous monitoring of privileged accounts
• rapid patch management
• proactive threat hunting

By assuming that some vulnerabilities will inevitably be exploited, security teams can design systems that prevent attackers from achieving their ultimate objectives.

AI and Automation Are Changing Both Sides of Cybersecurity

Looking ahead, the report suggests that artificial intelligence and automation will increasingly influence the zero-day ecosystem.

AI-driven tools are already being used by defenders to identify vulnerabilities and analyze exploit patterns more efficiently. At the same time, threat actors are beginning to experiment with AI-assisted malware development and automated reconnaissance.

This dynamic creates an arms race in which both attackers and defenders rely on increasingly sophisticated technologies to gain an advantage.

The Future of Zero-Day Exploitation

Google’s analysis ultimately reinforces a broader conclusion about the future of cybersecurity: zero-day vulnerabilities will remain a central component of advanced cyber operations.

Even as vendors improve patching practices and strengthen security architectures, attackers continue to invest heavily in discovering new vulnerabilities and developing sophisticated exploit techniques.

For governments, enterprises, and technology providers, this means that cybersecurity strategies must evolve beyond reactive patching. Proactive vulnerability research, threat intelligence sharing, and resilient system design will be essential in defending against the next generation of zero-day attacks.

As the digital economy becomes increasingly dependent on interconnected infrastructure, the stakes surrounding zero-day vulnerabilities—and the race to exploit or defend them—are only likely to grow.

Graphics: Google

The outgoing General Manager, Georgi Ganev, continues his career in a new international role within the company, taking on the position of General Manager Data & AI Central Eastern Europe Territories. Georgi Ganev is one of the most recognizable leaders of IBM Bulgaria and in the country’s IT sector in recent years. He has played a key role in the development of the local office, the business partner ecosystem, the expansion of the business portfolio, and the positioning of IBM as a strategic partner for both the business community and the public sector. His transition to an international role reflects the high appreciation the global organization has for his long-standing experience and achievements.

Images: knowbox

Defense Contract Under Pressure

The U.S. Department of Defense has approved cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology built by the San Francisco start-up Anthropic for use in classified tasks. Yet even as the partnership advances, tensions are emerging over how that technology can be deployed.

Claude AI, Pentagon and the Capture of Maduro – A Controversial Nexus

Anthropic, led by its chief executive Dario Amodei, has drawn clear lines around certain applications. The company does not want its systems used in autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance, reflecting its longstanding emphasis on AI safety and alignment. Those restrictions have placed it at odds with elements inside the Pentagon, which is evaluating how far it can rely on commercial frontier AI systems for sensitive operations.

The disagreement has put a contract reportedly worth as much as $200 million under scrutiny. U.S. defense officials are weighing whether limitations imposed by Anthropic could complicate deployment and whether contractors working on government projects should face restrictions in using its models. With competitors such as OpenAI, Google and xAI eager to expand their own defense relationships, the standoff could carry commercial consequences well beyond Washington.

From Safety Lab to AI Giant

The dispute comes at a pivotal moment for Anthropic. Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers including Dario and Daniela Amodei, the company began as a safety-focused research lab. Backed initially by roughly $700 million from investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Spark Capital, Anthropic entered the generative AI race with a valuation in the low billions.

Anthropic Nears $20B Funding Round Amid Rising AI Competition

The generative AI boom dramatically altered its trajectory. Strategic multibillion-dollar investments from Amazon and Google helped scale its Claude family of models into enterprise and cloud ecosystems worldwide. Earlier this month, Anthropic raised a new funding round that valued the company at $380 billion. Having raised more than $57 billion to date, it is now reportedly considering going public within the next 12 to 18 months, potentially marking one of the most significant technology IPOs of the decade.

A Philosophy Built on AI Safety

Anthropic’s identity, however, remains rooted in safety. The company pioneered what it calls “Constitutional AI,” a training method that embeds principles directly into model behavior to reduce harmful or destabilizing outputs. That approach has positioned Anthropic as both a commercial competitor and a policy advocate in the rapidly escalating AI arms race.

Dario Amodei has been one of the most outspoken leaders on the risks and promise of advanced AI. In a 2023 podcast interview, he said there was a 10 percent to 25 percent chance that artificial intelligence could destroy humanity, a statement that amplified perceptions of him as aligned with the existential-risk camp. He later sought to clarify that view, distancing himself from the label of “doomer” and arguing that the probabilities reflected uncertainty rather than inevitability.

By October 2024, Amodei articulated a far more optimistic outlook in a 14,000-word essay outlining AI’s potential to accelerate scientific discovery, revolutionize medicine and drive economic growth. The shift did not signal a retreat from safety concerns but rather an attempt to balance risk awareness with a belief in transformative opportunity.

Politics, Policy and Bipartisan Positioning

Anthropic’s political posture reflects a similar duality. The company has advocated for federal AI regulation, international coordination and licensing regimes for frontier models. This month, according to The New York Times, Anthropic named Chris Liddell, a deputy chief of staff during the first Trump administration, to its board. The appointment suggests a strategic effort to strengthen ties across the political spectrum as AI policy becomes a bipartisan priority.

A Defining Test Ahead

The tension with the Pentagon underscores a deeper question confronting the entire AI industry: can frontier models be both commercially competitive and ethically constrained in high-stakes environments? As governments race to integrate AI into defense and intelligence systems, and corporations deploy similar tools across finance, healthcare and manufacturing, the boundary between innovation and oversight is becoming increasingly contested.

For Anthropic, the outcome of its dispute with the Defense Department may serve as a defining test. The company is no longer a small research offshoot arguing about theoretical risk. It is a $380 billion enterprise at the center of geopolitical competition, enterprise transformation and the global debate over how powerful artificial intelligence should be built and controlled.

Material by Irina Kalaydjieva

Image: Flickr/World Economic Forum/ Sandra Blaser

The research suggests that while parental monitoring tools and screen time controls can shape certain behaviors, they do not substantially curb patterns of compulsive engagement once teens are deeply immersed in social platforms.

Limited Effect of Monitoring Tools

Meta has introduced various parental control features across platforms like Instagram and Facebook, including supervision dashboards, time limits, and activity tracking tools designed to give parents more oversight.

However, the research reportedly indicates that these measures alone are not enough to meaningfully reduce compulsive usage behaviors. Teens who exhibit problematic engagement patterns may continue heavy use despite monitoring.

The findings underscore a broader industry challenge: balancing digital safety tools with the psychological and design factors that drive engagement.

Engagement Design vs. Behavioral Control

The research highlights the complexity of addressing compulsive social media use, which often stems from algorithmic feeds, social validation loops, and constant notifications — mechanisms embedded in platform design.

Experts have long argued that parental controls, while useful for visibility and boundary-setting, may not address deeper behavioral drivers tied to platform architecture.

Meta has faced increasing scrutiny from regulators and policymakers over the impact of its platforms on teen mental health, including concerns around addictive design patterns and excessive screen time.

Broader Policy Debate

The findings arrive as governments worldwide debate stricter digital safety regulations for minors. In the U.S. and Europe, lawmakers are exploring measures ranging from age verification requirements to limits on algorithmic personalization for young users.

Meta has positioned its parental supervision tools as part of its commitment to youth safety. However, the internal research suggests that technological guardrails alone may not fully address compulsive usage patterns.

The company has not publicly detailed whether the findings will lead to changes in product design or policy.

The report adds another dimension to the ongoing debate over whether responsibility for curbing teen social media addiction lies primarily with parents, platforms, or regulators — or requires a structural redesign of engagement-driven digital ecosystems.

Material by Veronika Atanasova

Image: Meta

Following the announcement that SpaceX would acquire xAI, which had previously acquired social media platform X, at least 11 engineers and two co-founders said they are leaving the company. Some described their exits as part of new ventures, while Musk has suggested the restructuring is aimed at improving organizational efficiency.

However, two former employees who spoke to The Verge painted a more troubling picture. They said staff had grown disillusioned over what they described as a disregard for safety at xAI, particularly around its Grok chatbot. Grok has faced global scrutiny after being used to generate more than one million sexualized images, including deepfakes of real women and minors.

Reuters: Musk’s xAI Reduces Grok Deepfakes Under Regulatory Pressure

One former employee said,

Safety is a dead org at xAI,

while another alleged that Musk is

actively trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him.

The sources also cited a lack of strategic clarity, with one describing the company as “stuck in the catch-up phase” relative to competitors in the fast-moving AI sector.

Material by Yana Petrova

Image: Flickr/World Economic Forum / Ciaran McCrickard/Edited – 16.02.2026

According to multiple reports citing The Wall Street Journal and other outlets, the Pentagon used Claude during the classified Venezuela raid that led to Maduro’s capture. This marked a rare, if not unprecedented, use of a private AI system in a sensitive military operation. The model was reportedly accessed via a partnership between Anthropic and Palantir Technologies, whose software is widely used within U.S. defense networks.

Ethical Clash Between Pentagon and Anthropic

The incident has triggered tensions between the U.S. Department of Defense and Anthropic. Pentagon officials are said to be frustrated over restrictions tied to Claude’s usage policies — which prohibit its deployment for violence, weapons development, and surveillance. According to Axios, the dispute has escalated to the point where the Pentagon is considering reducing or even ending its roughly $200 million contract with the company.

Anthropic Selected to Build AI-Powered Assistant for GOV.UK Services

Anthropic, for its part, insists that all uses of Claude must adhere to its ethical guidelines and has maintained its commitment to national security cooperation. Its leadership has also been vocal about the need for regulatory guardrails on AI in military and autonomous contexts.

Broader Implications

The revelation about Claude’s role in a high-stakes operation against a sitting head of state — Maduro was brought to the U.S. to face federal charges earlier this year as part of a broader intervention — highlights how rapidly AI technologies are being woven into defense planning and operations.

Critics warn that using advanced AI in such roles without clear legal and ethical frameworks could set far-reaching precedents, potentially reshaping how future conflicts are planned and executed. Meanwhile, proponents argue that AI tools offer critical capabilities for real-time data analysis and decision-support in complex environments.

Material by Yana Petrova

Image: „The Pentagon“, January 2008, author: David B. Gleason, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.