Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google Search & Other row had a 12% addition in year-over-year income in Q3 2026 to $63.35 billion. Search income growth has been slowing downward for two quarters now, following being at 19% in Q1 and 17% in Q2; and Search income was basically flat compared to final quarter’s $63.27 billion.

On Alphabet’s earnings call, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler mentioned that lesser monetization inside AI Mode was one of three reasons for the slower growth.

In supplement to announcing expanded preparedness of ads in AI Mode in ten additional markets, Alphabet additionally stated that it is launching ads in AI Mode follow-on inquiry functionality in the United States. All existing Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns are eligible by default and cannot opt out separately.

Why Search Growth Slowed

The biggest aspect driving the hunt dilatory downward compared to Q2 was, according to Schindler, prosperity movements. Retail additionally informed an impact, he said, alongside certain Asia-Pacific advertisers affected by the E.U. eliminating its de minimis exemption for low-value imports. Media and amusement saw spending normalize following a powerful Q2 which included the FIFA World Cup.

Google CFO Anat Ashkenazi stated that prosperity movement was a small headwind to the twelvemonth complete twelvemonth growth and a larger headwind to the fourth complete fourth growth. Ashkenazi additionally mentioned that there was a tougher difference since the hunt growth continued to accelerate throughout the second fractional of 2025.

On the Q2 earnings gathering call in July, Ashkenazi had signaled the two items stating that Google expected a minor FX headwind in Q3 chiefly in Search & YouTube ads. Additionally, she stated that hunt would commencement lapping final year’s acceleration in Q3.

In my prior report I noted in July that Q2 was the archetypal period we had seen a dilatory downward in hunt growth following 4 quarters of accelerating growth. The matter at hand afterward was if it was a impermanent dilatory downward or if it represented the commencement of a duration of slowing growth.

What Google Said About AI Mode Monetization

CEO Sundar Pichai stated during the earnings notice that AI funding has driven Search query growth (including business queries) as fine as the “year-over-year query growth charge is the highest it’s been in the final five years.”

During the call alongside investors, J.P. Morgan expert Doug Anmuth questioned the difference in twelvemonth complete twelvemonth query growth and Search ad income growth. Schindler noted it was currency, retailing and media archetypal and afterward stated that powerful AI manner query growth negatively affected hunt income growth because of lesser monetization in AI Mode. He did not province what AI mode’s monetization was lesser than, nor the amount of prosperity this affected hunt ad revenue.

Pichai told analysts:

“Just akin our change to mobile complete a decade ago, we are focused on construction the finest Search person experience, followed by monetization.”

In his prepared remarks, Schindler stated many of the new questions group ask in AI-powered Search are upper-funnel, and that the bulk of AI Mode queries are incremental, which he stated creates additional monetization opportunities complete time.

In Google’s notice post, Shashi Thakur, VP and GM of Google Search Ads and Ads on Google Experiences, wrote:

“Our investigation shows that group are comfortable alongside ads in AI Mode and discover them extremely relevant. In fact, click-through rates are already akin between sponsored and integrated merchandise catalog items inside AI Mode.”

A footnote references a origin of Google’s click through comparison, which is inner data for Google in the United States for the period duration August 20th thru September 3rd of 2026.

At the Google Marketing Live event in May of 2025, Thakur stated to reporters, including me, that AI Overviews create income “at the identical rate” as those exact searches whenever there are no overviews. This assertion covered AI Overviews, but does not contain data on AI mode.

Ads In AI Mode Expand To 10 Countries

Google is scaling ads in AI Mode in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Google Ads / Market Expansion

Where AI Mode ads are expanding

Google named 10 markets anywhere ads are scaling, affirmative additional locales planned for Q4 2026.

SCALING

10 countries

PLANNED Q4

3 named*

Highlighted markets are those named in the Oct. 28 announcement. Unmarked countries are not an preparedness statement. *Q4 examples are not an exhaustive list.

Americas

Scaling: Canada

Planned: Brazil, Mexico

Europe & Africa

Scaling: Kenya, Nigeria

Planned: U.K.

Asia-Pacific

Scaling: Australia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore

Source: Google Ads & Commerce · Oct. 28, 2026Illustration: SEJ · Country outlines: Natural Earth

The article additionally says Google is launching multiturn ads in the U.S., which authorize ads in follow-up queries in AI Mode.

Google’s assistance leaf on ads in AI-powered Search experiences states that advertisers cannot immediately mark AI Overviews or AI Mode individually, nevertheless negative keywords & brand exclusions volition continue to apply.

When a query has straightforward business intent, exact equivalent and expression equivalent keywords can serve; however, these types of keywords do not meet requirements for contextual matching on broader, exploratory-type questions. AI Max for Search, broad match, Shopping campaigns and Performance Max all meet requirements for both.

Placements that have AI explainers transport abbreviated content generated by Gemini from the person query, the AI reply and community sources (including the advertiser’s website). The advertiser has no capability to create, edit, endorse or opt out of this content. Google announced AI explainers at Google Marketing Live in May.

Results are included in norm reporting as part of total reporting for campaigns and hunt conditions reports. The assistance leaf lists English as the tongue for ads inside AI Overviews and AI Mode and additionally indicates lone content ads volition be accessible in Pakistan.

Why This Matters

Google tied the two its highest query growth charge in five years and part of its income slowdown to AI.

How much AI Mode inventory a run can attain depends on whether it uses AI-powered targeting specified as broad equivalent or AI Max, and norm reports merge AI Mode results alongside the remainder of Search.

In Q2, Pichai stated Google was sending “billions of clicks to websites all week” through AI features in Search. His published Q3 remarks and the call didn’t contain a clicks figure, so the fourth adds item on how Google makes prosperity from AI Mode but none on traffic to websites.

Looking Ahead

CFO Anat Ashkenazi stated that in Q4, at current place rates, Google expects a slightly larger prosperity headwind, mostly in Search and YouTube ads, and that continuing to lap final year’s Search acceleration volition force growth.

Google plans to develop ads in AI Mode to additional locales in Q4 2026, including Brazil, Mexico, and the U.K.

Featured Image: PixieMe/Shutterstock

Microsoft reduced its forecast for chief expenditure, a rare move in an industry that mostly continues to splurge additional on huge AI investments.

The application elephantine stated capex for the 2026 calendar twelvemonth volition be $170 milliard from a previous forecast of $175 billion.

Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood gave the forecast on the company's financial first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

She stated Microsoft was expecting new capability to attain from third-parties, but several of these "GPU-as-a-Service contracts" have been delayed until the second fractional of the financial year.

This apt refers to another providers of AI haze services that use Nvidia GPUs to run their offerings. Microsoft has partnered alongside a several exterior providers to encounter rampant AI demand.

Hoods comments could mention to a latest spate of AI data center project delays, which have mostly been caused by a deficiency of electricity, alongside alongside local opposition.

The CFO stated Microsoft expects capex to accelerate in the second fractional of its financial year, as the delayed capability kicks in.

Wall Street has rotate into increasingly concerned the huge investments haze companies are making to develop AI infrastructure. Microsoft final fourth kept its forecast unchanged, notable as many haze giants have been steadily expanding their AI spending forecasts.

Overall, Microsoft reported $92.3 milliard in revenue, up 19%, for the financial first-quarter ending Sept. 30. Azure haze income was up 48% to additional than $33 billion, surpassing Wall Street expectations.

Microsoft portion were up concerning about 3% in after-hours selling following the earnings call.

Earlier this week, Microsoft offered a buyout to additional than a fourth of its workforce. A Microsoft spokesman told Business Insider on Wednesday that the business expects 5% of eligible employees at most to obtain the buyout.

"We anticipate extremely few group to choose this recommendation since of the growth opportunities current at Microsoft," Hood wrote in an inner memo viewed by Business Insider. Microsoft's headcount slipped 2% during the financial archetypal quarter, the business reported.

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WordPress announced a safety release, type 7.1.4, intended to fix 22 vulnerabilities, including a possibly hazardous weakness in the update procedure and many stored cross-site scripting vulnerabilities.

This publish contains three important kinds of fixes:

1. The WordPress update procedure itself was vulnerable.
A competition circumstance could authorize distant code implementation during the upgrade window. This is arguably the most consequential of the discovered flaws that is being patched since these kinds of vulnerabilities can guide to a complete location takeover. The authoritative notice nevertheless does not recommendation data concerning the conditions necessary to utilize it.

2. The vulnerabilities broaden throughout WordPress’s editing and interactive functionality.
Multiple issues power the Interactivity API, blocks, the Customizer, and administrative interfaces alongside several of involving unauthorized disclosure of information. Many of these exploits necessitate Contributor-level admission or higher, which minimizes the likelihood of exploitation. but several involve.

3. The safety problems power latest and older WordPress versions.
This safety publish fixes vulnerabilities that date rear as far as WordPress 4.7, alongside the figure of applicable vulnerabilities varying by version. This reflects how chief several of the affected components are inside the WordPress center itself.

WordPress Fixes Remote Code Execution Risk In Its Update Process

Security investigator Umut Bayram discovered a competition circumstance affecting WordPress center updates. Under certain conditions, this exposure could guide to distant code implementation (RCE). Remote code implementation (RCE) is a safety exposure that enables an attacker to run malicious commands or application on a website’s server from a distant location. Depending on the attacker’s flat of access, this can guide to item from taken data to a complete website takeover.

The notice rightfully leaves out many particulars of the vulnerabilities, apt to create it harder to exploit. So it’s not known what admission or server conditions are necessary to utilize the update competition circumstance or whether authentication is required.

Read more: WordPress 7.1.4 Security Release

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Luis Molinero

Restaurants can now opt out of particular third-party ordering providers correct from their Google Business Profile dashboard, according to a LinkedIn post by Google’s Lisa Landsman. This environment lets restaurants choose which ordering options appear on their profiles in Search and Maps.

Asked in the post’s comments which countries have it, Michael G., a merchandise director at Google, replied “all.”

Before this, a eatery could ask to eliminate a provider from inner Business Profile, but the provider had to procedure the request. Google’s help leaf for ordering options gives providers five endeavor days to obtain the nexus down.

How The Setting Works

A screenshot in the LinkedIn article announcing the environment shows a “Manage provider” panel for a placeholder provider, www.provider.com. Under the heading “Show provider to customers,” the panel has distinct switches for pickup and delivery, the two on in the image.

Landsman, Google’s Head of Industry Engagement & SMB Success, wrote that restaurants can skip sending a petition to all shipment platform. If a provider no longer suits a restaurant’s operations or margins, she wrote, “you can rotate it off yourself.”

She additionally made the case for keeping several providers listed, penning that diners lean to command through apps anywhere they already pay for a subscription or have a cardstock saved, so listing those apps can keep those orders from going location else.

From Removal Requests To Direct Controls

According to an archive of Google’s compliance guideline for ordering providers made in May, the burden was placed alongside all ordering provider to provision restaurants a method (such as a elimination form or a help/support ticket) to obtain themselves out of the ordering provider’s nourish to Google.

Under that policy, providers had five endeavor days to assessment and complete an opt-out request.

The current type of this page, which was most lately updated Oct. 19, does not merge that requirement. The current type states that merchants may allow or disable idiosyncratic provider integrations through merchandise controls; it additionally states “All partner integrations are enabled by default.” It additionally motionless says providers have to autumn any eatery that asks to be removed from their feed.

Why This Matters

A provider that you do not desire to display in a endeavor overview can now be turned off for pickup, delivery, or the two from the Business Profile dashboard.

On Google’s guideline leaf for ordering providers, integrations are enabled whenever archetypal set up. Therefore, for all eatery overview you manage, the provider catalog under “Food ordering” belongs on your checklist.

Looking Ahead

As of Oct. 28, a Google assistance leaf on ordering options describing how to use the “Remove link” choice does not contain data on the “Show provider to customers” option. Also, the LinkedIn article did not province if the new environment volition activity in bulk or through the Business Profile API, which commenters asked about.

Featured Image: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

Source: Google.

A hacker stole a trove of individual data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The breach exposes the names, job titles, phone numbers, email addresses, and agency locations of additional than 41,000 employees, including those in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to TechCrunch and Wired. The data additionally connected the agencies to particular surveillance tools.

As reported by TechCrunch, a hacker known as “Department of Peace” gained admission to the data through Okta, an character and admission administration assistance used by the DHS. Around 21,000 records pertain to CBP employees, and nearly 7,000 pertain to personnel at ICE. The data additionally includes records from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

The leaked DHS data was reportedly stated to hacktivist maia arson crimew, who shared it alongside Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a nonprofit institution that’s now hosting the leaked “Icepick” dataset. The leak additionally reportedly includes data concerning DHS groups that have admission to tools that can be used for surveillance, specified as the facial acknowledgment app Mobile Fortify and PenLink, which can collect and analyze data from phones and online services.

The DHS didn’t immediately react to The Verge’s petition for comment.

The MPC Sample Key isn’t equal formally announced yet, but Akai is already showing off what the modding community is cooking up through vibe coding. Akai has decided to clasp the explosion of hackers and tradition firmware developers by giving them first admission to the device, which volition have open-source firmware.

It volition apt run several type of the identical application established on the MPC Sample, but alongside tweaks to modify the traditional keyboard, pitch, and mod wheels. Unlike the higher-end MPC Key 37, however, the Sample Key doesn’t have pads. Instead, you perform rear samples alongside the keys.

In the abbreviated Instagram Reels posted last night and today, Akai shows a figure of vibe-coded mods that add synths, including Native Instruments Massive, to the device, as fine as virtual analog and FM synths. One is equal shown operating a entirely tradition OS, alongside “several distinct synths in it.”

According to the clips, the identical “community” features volition arrive to the regular MPC Sample, which is additionally shown operating a few vibe-coded synths built by Claude. That could average Akai plans to open-source the complete MPC Sample platform.

CEO Jack O’Donnell told The Verge that inMusic brands, particularly Akai, would be looking to clasp the modding community by seeding first devices to developers. These efforts volition additionally contain open-sourcing several application and providing an SDK.

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• David Pierce

Albertsons is curbing health attention benefits for workforce because of rising healthcare costs.

Starting next year, the market elephantine volition no longer recommendation medicinal coverage plans to employees' spouses and family partners who have jobs that provision specified coverage. The market elephantine detailed the alter in an open enrollment guide posted to its website.

Albertsons stated it expects its healthcare expenses to addition 9.5% next twelvemonth because of inflation, higher medication medication costs, provider consolidation, and shortages in the healthcare workforce.

"We are making changes to our benefits in 2027 to decrease the projected disbursal addition during motionless maintaining a norm benefits program that meets the needs of our associates at a disbursal sustainable for the business going forward," it said.

The business did not immediately react to a petition for comment.

Other changes this twelvemonth contain higher weekly paycheck contributions from employees, the elimination of two network plans, alongside alongside higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for several another plans.

Large companies Disney, Starbucks, and Deloitte have additionally introduced cost-saving changes to their benefits packages for 2027. Disney is additionally dropping safety for partners and spouses who can get coverage from their own jobs.

"We've seen employers reducing their contribution toward the spouse's coverage, but not eliminating the safety choice for those people," Capitol Benefits CEO Joshua Lavine told Business Insider in August, concerning Disney's decision.

YouTube's ad income growth is slowing downward — and missed analysts' estimates in the third quarter.

YouTube's genitor company, Alphabet, reported $11.2 billion in third-quarter YouTube ads revenue, a 9% addition from a twelvemonth ago. That falls below the $11.43 milliard expert agreement estimate. Its ads income growth additionally slowed from the former quarter, whenever it pulled in concerning $11.1 billion, a 13% addition from the former year.

While YouTube's ad income was weaker than expected, it wasn't all bad news. The business stated it now has complete 150 myriad YouTube Music and Premium subscribers, up from 125 myriad in March 2025.

YouTube has additionally been the envy of rivals in key areas akin TV viewership. Its portion of US tv viewership was concerning twice that of Netflix in August, according to latest Nielsen estimates.

Netflix, meanwhile, walked rear its full-year ad income expectations during final week's earnings. The streamer lowered its ad income forecast from $3 milliard to $2.7 milliard following experiencing delays about the rollout of its ad products. It laid off concerning 1,000 workers before this month.

This week, Instagram unveiled an overhaul of long-form video features apparently designed to oppose YouTube and bolster its existence on TV screens.

"Everyone in streaming is chasing YouTube, and equal Instagram is going to pivot their scheme according to the achievement that YouTube's had," stated Ross Benes, a elder expert at EMARKETER, Business Insider's sister company.

TJ Robertson’s analysis of 193,507 AI answers from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews includes two rounds of blind leaf ratings. In the two rounds, cited pages opened alongside a straightforward answer to the inquiry additional frequently than the pages they were compared with.

When the identical AI answers pulled up pages, there was a difference in how frequently these pages began alongside a straightforward answer whenever they were cited (23%) versus those that were not cited (14%). There additionally was a difference whenever comparing cited pages alongside Google Top-10 pages the AI never pulled up (20% vs. 5%).

The results are according to data collected by Robertson’s business TJ Digital, which sells the two Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services and Generative Engine Optimization services. The data is gathered through purchasing questions tracked by Robertson's business for its clients. Robertson states he views his findings as showing associations fairly than any particular leaf traits causing a citation.

How The Analysis Was Built

The total figure of responses (answers) inside the study's inspection was 193,507. Those responses addressed 4,167 questions that did not citation a particular business or merchandise name. The questions covered 78 distinct client companies representing nine distinct endeavor models. Responses were captured complete the way of eight "snapshots" on an idiosyncratic week basis during the period example of August 27 through October 21, 2026, affirmative reiterate runs using the identical questions. The agency captures the questions used in those "snapshots" alongside Peec AI which is an use program that presents a pre-determined set of prompts to AI tools and afterward collects the two the AI tools' answers and the source(s) of their answers.

In command to collect related data concerning the characteristics of pages, the agency extracted and compared the satisfied of 21,874 pages that were cited in AI answers alongside 4,507 related pages provided for 434 questions.

The agency referred to the related pages as "passed-over pages". All specified related pages were identified as having been among the top ten hunt results in Google for a particular question; however, they "never came up in the AI’s searches." The agency relied upon keyword data from Ahrefs for those rankings as opposed to the genuine questions being asked. According to the analysis, the agency categorized 174 of those 371 keywords as being akin to the inquiry posed during categorizing the remaining 197 of the keywords as being additional broad or broader.

Cited Pages Answered Up Front More Often

Robertson had AI raters blind-score 195 pairs of pages so the raters did not cognize whether the archetypal or second leaf in all brace was cited. The 20% to 5% divided of beginning answers based upon direct-answers was derived from this round, which paired cited pages alongside passed complete pages.

Also in this round, fractional of the passed complete pages were missing an answer to the inquiry anyplace inside the part of the leaf that the raters read; during 23% of the cited pages missed an answer. Also in this round, cited pages received a higher ranking for completeness than passed complete pages. The ranking for completeness was 2.3 (on a 1-to-5 scale) for cited pages, during it was 1.7 for passed complete pages.

There was small difference in conditions of "promotional" spirit between cited and passed complete pages. Approximately three fourths of all the pages in the two categories were endeavor pages trying to advance their own product(s)/service(s), and the two categories rated extremely likewise (i.e., 3.8 and 3.7) in conditions of "tone."

The 23% to 14% divided on beginning answers was resolute by another circular previous to this one anywhere cited pages were being compared to pages that the exact identical answer brought up via search, however, did not citation those pages. At current (as of Oct. 28), Robertson's leaf has yet to acknowledge how many pages he analyzed in this round, nor has it identified which particular AI example he used to measure the pages.

Other Page Traits Linked To Citations

The inspection compares traits on cited and passed-over pages, accounting for all site’s Ahrefs Domain Rating and leaf type, and reports the results as likelihood of being cited. A twelvemonth in the heading came alongside additional than twice the odds. A publish or update date in the former 12 months came alongside 88% higher odds, tables alongside 69%, first-hand cognition alongside 45%, and prices alongside 28%.

Pages alongside an author byline had 28% lesser odds, and pages alongside a call to act had 12% lesser odds. Robertson says he can’t explain those two results and wouldn’t eliminate either component according to them alone.

He says there was an affiliation of 13% higher likelihood whenever using schema markup. I covered a report from Ahrefs rear in May showing that pages cited by AI were about three times as apt to merge JSON-LD. The supplement of JSON-LD to pages that were earlier cited by the AI Overview did outcome in no statistically important citation addition based upon Ahrefs' testing.

He additionally states the satisfied traits identified in this inspection were duplicated in a second test (limited to Google Top-10 Pages). The leaf has references to a per-engine array and a chart concerning those trait odds; however, as of Oct. 28, the two the array and the chart are not visible.

Why This Matters

On your own product/service pages, you can discover out whether the leaf provides an answer to the buyer's inquiry first in the page. In this study the difference in direct-answers to a inquiry provided up forefront by cited vs. uncited pages was smaller whenever the uncited pages were additionally being retrieved by the AI.

Blind rater data shows that citations do not demonstrate that a leaf has answered the question. A small under a fourth of the cited pages did not provision an answer to the buyer's inquiry inside the part of the leaf that raters reviewed.

Page trait likelihood are according to questions asked by one agency for their clients and depict how cited and passed complete pages differed; hence they are patterns that you may desire to test on your own monitored questions.

Looking Ahead

The agency did an inspection comparing pages as they were and cannot display if putting in a straightforward answer for a inquiry volition alter the figure of times a web-page is cited. To be capable to see if the supplement of a straightforward answer changes citations, a difference study specified as was conducted by Ahrefs on schema volition need to be done anywhere a test collection adds it and a authority collection does not, measured before and following the addition. Until then, the opening-answer form is a assumption to difference against what questions you currently track.

Featured Image: Accogliente Design/Shutterstock

Google's AI Mode was expected to reimagine search. Users are noticing that it's struggling alongside a essential question: "Who won the 2020 election?"

On Wednesday, users on BlueSky and another social media platforms took notice that Google's AI Mode wouldn't provision a direct answer concerning who won the White House in 2020.

"To verify the winner, certified outcomes, electoral votes, and famous ballot totals for the 2020 United States presidential election, you can assessment the authoritative reports published by the Federal Election Commission (FEC)," the AI Mode replied to a Business Insider newsman who asked, "Who won the 2020 presidential ballot in the United States?"

When another Business Insider reporters asked akin questions, the AI Mode sometimes responded that President Joe Biden had won. Google Gemini, the hunt giant's AI system, which is accessed via a distinct location than AI mode, responded to a akin inquiry that Biden was the winner.

It's not entirely apparent why Google tells users to assessment the results published by the Federal Election Commission. While the FEC does publish the results of presidential elections, the commission itself has no function in the certification of province ballot results or the ceremonial counting of Electoral College votes.

For years, President Donald Trump has refused to concede that he misplaced to Biden. After his run misplaced lawful challenges, Trump and his partners suggested that lawmakers themselves could alter the outcome, fueling the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The riot briefly delayed the legislative verification of Biden's victory.

A Google spokesman referred Business Insider to a declaration that the company's document posted on Bluesky, a social media phase that became famous following Elon Musk bought Twitter.

"Thanks for flagging -- the Gemini app answers this inquiry additional completely but this isn't the most helpful reply on Search," the Google document replied to a user. "We're looking into this and operating to location it."

The person posted screenshots that display AI manner responding to questions concerning who won another presidential elections. When a Business Insider newsman ran akin queries, AI manner sometimes stated who had won former presidential elections, and another times it did not.

The 2026 midterms are apt to test tech and AI companies, many of which have announced policies to bounds users' abuse of their tools.

OpenAI lately announced that its example would create "stylized — additionally known as cartoonified — illustrations, fairly than photorealistic images" if asked to create images "depicting ballot interference or that may discourage voting." In June, Meta announced that it would add "more data to ads we detect have been created alongside third-party AI tools." And Google earlier stated it was "rolling out additional protections to bounds the innovation of misleading election-related images."

When asked why it could not say who won the 2020 election, the AI Mode responded, "Because latest ballot results can be a delicate civic topic, directing you immediately to chief historic databases prevents any awareness of bias or mischaracterization of the authoritative community record."

Microsoft expects 3,000 or small workforce to obtain the buyout it offered this week to additional than a fourth of its workforce, a spokesman told Business Insider.

The item was reiterated on Wednesday by Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood, who wrote in an inner memo that workforce have been questioning the logical rearward the buyout.

"I cognize there have been several questions on the rationale rearward the voluntary exit recommendation that we announced this week," Hood wrote. "Our intent is to recommendation workforce agency if they choose to depart the business on their own terms. We anticipate extremely few group to choose this recommendation since of the growth opportunities current at Microsoft."

The memo declaration was part of a quarterly earnings email Hood typically sends internally to workforce all fourth whenever Microsoft discloses its financials.

These memos mostly reiterate what the business reports publicly, but this period Hood went out of her way to location the buyout offer, which caused fairly a mix throughout the tech industry this week.

Earlier this year, Microsoft offered a distinct retirement buyout. In that situation, concerning one-third of eligible workforce took the offer, and that helped Microsoft cut small workforce in consequent layoffs.

This week's buyout is getting a lot small uptake, according to the company.

Read the CFO's complete memo

Team,

This afternoon, we announced our first-quarter financial results. We exceeded Wall Street expectations, expanding income 19% and functioning earnings 21%.

With the commencement of FY27, we additionally made an crucial alter to how we study our business. We announced that we changed our reporting construction for the archetypal period in 12 years, moving from three segments to two: Agents and Infra, and Devices and Consumer. This alter improved reflects how we are operating the endeavor today — from how we build products and allocate resources to how we create value for customers throughout the connected layers of our platform. To provision you a awareness of the two segments, looking rear to final financial year, Agents and Infra would have represented concerning 81% of our income during Devices and Consumer would have been 19%.

A few highlights from the fourth throughout our two new segments:

• Agents and Infra grew income 23% this quarter
• Microsoft Cloud income was $63.9 milliard and accelerated to 30%.
  Azure income risen 48% reflecting accelerating Foundry demand.
• Microsoft 365 business haze income risen 18% in changeless prosperity driven by growth in our premium place offerings akin Copilot and E7 as fine as usage-based services throughout M365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot.
• Microsoft 365 business seats risen 5% and the figure of customers alongside additional than 50,000 M365 Copilot seats risen 8x year-over-year.
• Microsoft 365 person haze income risen 17% alongside subscriber growth of 7%.
• Industry solutions haze income risen 10% alongside growth in Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn Talent Solutions.
• Devices and Consumer declined 3% this quarter
• Search and promotion income ex-TAC risen 12%, alongside growth throughout LinkedIn, Bing, and Edge.
• Windows OEM and devices income decreased 22%, reflecting the prior-year advantage from Windows 10 end of support, inventory drawdowns by OEM partners, and weaker PC market demand.
  XBOX satisfied and services income decreased 2%. Last week, we launched Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, as we continue to bring awesome games to additional players throughout additional devices.

Thank you for everything you did to provision a powerful commencement to the year. In particular, I desire to appreciate our engineering and capability shipment teams who are operating to assistance us provision additional capability faster and alongside elevated reliability. These teams are additionally using the capability we have additional efficiently to create area for us to improved encounter client petition for the Azure platform, which continues to exceed our supply.

I cognize there have been several questions on the rationale rearward the voluntary exit recommendation that we announced this week. Our intent is to recommendation workforce agency if they choose to depart the business on their own terms. We anticipate extremely few group to choose this recommendation since of the growth opportunities current at Microsoft. We'll continue to provision a broad set of options for workforce to learn, acquire new skills, and advancement their careers here.

We have enormous chance onward of us. To encounter the moment, we are focused on delivering awesome products and solutions that assistance our customers to accomplish their many goals — security, innovation, growth — to name a few. Thank you for keeping positive, value-creating outcomes for our customers at the top of the list.

To comprehend additional particulars concerning the fourth and our outlook for Q2, you can associate live today at 2:30PM Pacific Time, hear on-demand, or peruse the copy on the Investor Relations website. Finally, grade your calendars for Microsoft Ignite, on November 17-20, anywhere we'll display how our innovation throughout AI, cloud, data, security, and Copilot is coming together to assistance customers change their businesses.

With appreciation and gratitude,

Amy

Have a tip? Contact this newsman via email at astewart@businessinsider.com or Signal at +1-425-344-8242. Use a individual email location and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing data securely.

A Ukrainian armed forces component stated on Wednesday that it successfully sent a ground robot on a 12-mile provision run, using AI to navigate for nearly the entirety of the mission.

The Lava Unmanned Systems Regiment of the 2nd Corps, or Khartiia Corps, of Ukraine's National Guard announced the completion of the autonomous logistics mission in a declaration shared alongside Business Insider, calling it the "first of its benevolent under combat conditions."

The component stated that the robot completed 93% of its 20-kilometer trip on its own, delivering cargo and returning to its starting item autonomously, alongside an controller intervening for lone 1.4 kilometers of the journey.

Before departure, a distinct dirt robot armed alongside light finding and ranging technology, or LiDAR, mapped the path and terrain in 3D. Cameras on the provision bot detected obstacles during AI-powered navigation guided the robot.

"This goal has shown that autonomous dirt systems are already capable of functioning in genuine combat conditions," stated Andrii Kopach, who serves as commandant of the Lava Regiment's Unmanned Ground Systems Battalion.

"The biggest alter is that the controller is no longer a controller but a dispatcher," he said. "Instead of controlling the conveyance all second, they detect its movement and stage in lone whenever needed."

Kopach stated that the unit's next ambitions are to allow a sole controller to oversee multiple robots at formerly and develop autonomous missions to casualty evacuations. He added that additional AI-powered dirt robots would decrease dependence on "a changeless authority link," specified as Starlink, a moon net service which lately saw important speed disruptions in Ukraine, negatively affecting front-line operations.

Ground robots have rotate into an crucial tool for Ukraine, carrying out resupply, casualty evacuation, and assault missions. The Ukrainian military, and Western armed forces leaders studying lessons from the war, anticipation that risen reliance on dirt robots and airborne drones, as fine as the risen integration of AI capabilities into these systems, can assistance decrease the risks to the troops who would alternatively execute those missions on increasingly hazardous battlefields.

Google genitor business Alphabet says that its AI investments are foremost to a big growth in searches year-over-year, as noted in its Q3 2026 earnings today.

“Our AI investments are driving general Search query growth, including business queries,” CEO Sundar Pichai says in a statement. “In fact, our year-over-year query growth charge is the highest it’s been in the final five years.”

Alphabet’s consolidated revenues for the fourth were $127.6 billion, up 25 percent year-over-year, alongside its “Google Search & other” revenues up 12 percent year-over-year. Google Cloud income was additionally up 103 percent year-over-year to $30.7 billion. Alphabet additionally says it passed 150 myriad YouTube Music and Premium subscribers globally, although that fig includes trials.

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• Tom Warren

The Federal Trade Commission is asking companies from food shipment services to airlines concerning how they use personalized prices.

The Commission stated on Wednesday that it sent orders to the companies asking for particulars concerning what benevolent of individual data they use to decide prices. The orders mark a broad range of companies, from retailers Walmart and Target to food shipment services Uber and DoorDash to airlines akin Delta and United.

"Consumers deserve to cognize whether companies use their web surfing habits or another individual data to evaluation the highest cost they can accusation all consumer," stated FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson.

"Workers additionally deserve to cognize if their compensation is affected by how companies use their individual data," Ferguson added.

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