Recent studies have suggested that leaders believe they need more AI training than they currently have. As AI continues to have an impact on daily processes, gaining a firm understanding of how AI works will ensure its continued success.

Free, online AI courses are a great way to level yourself up. And luckily, there are plenty out there every month. Whether you want to better understand the regulatory conversation surrounding AI, or understand how generative AI can help with strategic decision-making, this month’s roundup of the best free AI courses has you covered.

AI Content Strategy – Performance, Ethics, and Adaptability with LearnQuest Network

Summary:

• Marketers and content professionals learn how to use AI in their strategy
• 5 modules, taking around 3 hours to complete
• Beginner-friendly
• Shareable certificate available upon completion
• Available on Coursera

Marketers and content professionals are increasingly turning to AI to brief and monitor campaigns, as well as handle routine communications. If your team is looking to explore AI further in their work, this course is a great option.

In this course from LearnQuest Network, you’ll move through five different practical modules: measuring real content performance, converting prompting skill into shared team knowledge, governing content (for copyright, disclosure, and bias), evaluating AI tools by true cost and fit, and protecting brand voice from AI-driven homogenization.

Widely, you’ll also gain access to the AI Content & Creative Tools Specialization when you sign up, giving you options for further development.

Strategic Decision-Making with Generative AI with Harvard Business Review

Summary:

• Managers and executives learn how to incorporate generative AI into their decision-making process
• 8 modules, taking around 2 weeks to complete if studying 10 hours per week
• Intermediate level
• Shareable certificate available upon completion
• Available on Coursera

This course says it shows users “how to bring generative AI into that harder, more strategtic layer of your work.” If you find yourself in need of a partner in your thinking, particularly around decisions, this course is a good fit for you.

Similarly, users will use generative AI to search for information and analyze data, generate and validate customer insights, and build stronger business cases by pressure-testing stakeholder perspectives, trade-offs, and risks.

Ultimately, you’ll come to see generative AI as a co-pilot for fast analysis, and a co-thinker for stress-testing reasoning before you make a decision. Experienced leaders who want to make the most out of what AI can offer should consider this course.

Skills to Succeed in the AI Era with International Supply Chain Education Alliance

Summary:

• Individuals learn to build long-term resilience in the AI era
• 4 weeks to complete at 2-8 hours per week
• Intermediate level
• Certificate available for additional price
• Available on edX

It’s understandable to be anxious about AI’s impact on jobs, especially since the full consequences are yet to be seen. This course gives users the tools and knowledge they need to thrive in this new job market.

The course will explore the job market in the wake of AI, AI literacy, data management, personal AI tools, and the rise of new-collar tools. Similarly, you’ll learn human skills, including understanding future job scenarios, and strategies for freelancing, entrepeneurship, and long-term career resilience.

Whether you’re a student, professional, or aspiring leader, this course promises value. By the end, it says, “participants will be better prepared to navigate the evolving labor market, continously adapt to technological change, and build a future-ready career in the AI era.”

AI Regulation and Law with KULeuvenX

Summary:

• Individuals learn about the regulatory environment surrounding AI
• 4 weeks to complete at 3-5 hours per week
• Beginner-friendly
• Certificate available for additional price
• Available on edX

As exciting as AI is, leaders and businesses need to be aware of the risks involved. Not only could improper AI use lead to costly data breaches, but failing to remain compliant to regulation could harm your company’s reputation.

By the end of this course from KULeuvenX, you’ll be able to describe key regulatory frameworks including the AI Act, understand the basics of AI, machine learning, and deep learning, and recognize how data is used in AI-driven systems and applications.

Additionally, the course explores important questions, such as why AI regulation is necessary, and how we should be regulating the technology. This is an essential course for anyone looking to explore AI in their professional life.

Why You Should Keep Up with AI Courses

It can be a pretty daunting task to try and keep up with the current pace of AI development. AI companies are moving fast to develop new products, and existing systems are incorporating AI rapidly to keep up with demand.

So far, businesses are seeing gains in productivity. However, adopting AI blindly is proving to be one of the biggest mistakes, with companies adopting AI for the sake of it without understanding how it fits into their current practices.

Free AI courses are a great way to keep up with how the industry is changing. Most of the time, they don’t take long to complete, and you’ll be leaving with a much better understanding of not only how the tech works, but how it fits in with your goals.

These workflows are from Tech.co’s weekly newsletter, The AI Strat. To receive free weekly workflows tried and tested by industry experts, subscribe to the newsletter. 

AI is a powerful addition to workflows. It has proven to speed up productivity, standardize and improve the accuracy of routine processes, and free up humans for the work that really matters.

But, I wouldn’t advise you to just add AI to every workflow your business uses. It’s much better to take a look at your existing processes and see whether AI can make a difference. Our monthly list prioritizes results: real workflows, created by real business owners.

This month’s workflows are:

• Morning briefing workflow
• Content gaps from customer queries workflow
• Improve AI customer support workflow
• Streamline team communication across locations workflow

Morning Briefing Workflow

Recommended by Gretchen Terry-Leonard, co-founder and chief strategy and impact officer at The Center for Deeply Human Leadership

Gretchen uses this workflow to get herself ready for the working day ahead. The first step is critical one: defining absolute rules for the AI, to ensure you’re getting the right information. Then, you can connect whatever sources you need.

Gretchen recommended your email and calendar, and I added the weather, as this has worked for me in my morning briefing.

The workflow helps Gretchen prioritize in the mornings, especially when she’s not only organizing her day, but her family’s day as well.

Identify Content Gaps from Customer Questions Workflow

Recommended by Harpal Singh, founder of blimpp

This workflow takes real customer questions and search queries to identify content, PR, community, and partnerships opportunities.

AI has completely shifted the search landscape, and a workflow like this one ensures you’re providing content that users are genuinely asking for, making sure that you are more likely to land with audiences.

Harpal uses this workflow with DTC, B2B, and SaaS brands to identify the publishers, comparison pages, buyer guides, and community discussions influencing AI recommendations. This repeatable system has replaced a manual, disconnected search process within his business.

Improve AI Customer Support Workflow

Recommended by Konstantin Bukin, director of AI at Saritasa

Customer support is one of the more popular uses of AI for businesses. This workflow allows you to level up your current set up. AI gets direct access to your database, so queries can be answered with concrete facts.

If the AI can’t solve a query, a human is ready to take over, so your customers won’t have to wrestle with a robot.

Bukin says the workflow was implement by sports management platform, Sports Thread. The company reduced staff time on addressable support cases by 83%.

Streamline Team Communication Across Locations Workflow

Recommended by Kevin Turpin, founder and CEO at Weavix

This workflow is targeted at teams that want to improve their communication channels and streamline the flow of information. In particular, Turpin recommends it for international teams that might be communicating in different languages.

According to Turpin, Aspire Bakeries saw 8% faster response times and prevented hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses by implementing this workflow.

Why Use AI Workflows

Businesses can reimagine entire processes by implementing AI into their workflows. The technology works best when it frees up humans to do what they do best. For example, AI can handle routine, time-consuming tasks, like inbox organization or basic communications.

Similarly, with AI, you can reduce errors and scale processes, as well as ensure these processes remain consistent and repeatable.

Every week, I take an AI workflow that has led to genuine business impact from experts across industries, and create a ready-to-implement graphic so anyone can get started. If you’d like this in your inbox every Wednesday and more, subscribe to The AI Strat newsletter.

A senior leader at OpenAI said in a recent interview that people should be prepared to defend themselves against AI-powered cyber attacks as the technology continues to advance.

The interview arrives over a month after OpenAI discovered its systems had autonomously breached another organization, Hugging Face.

Cybersecurity experts warn that the comments made by senior OpenAI leadership represent a critical moment in AI development. Organizations need to remain vigilant and be aware of the potential damage attacks cause.

AI Cyber Attacks Will Be ‘Ongoing’ and ‘Persistent’

Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer at OpenAI, said people should be prepared to defend themselves against AI cyber attacks. He claimed attacks will be “ongoing” and “persistent,” in an interview with the Guardian.

“We are hitting a different chapter, a different moment within AI, in terms of what the capabilities of this technology can do,” Lehane said.

Similarly, Lehane warned against open-source models, many of them Chinese-owned. These models have gained coverage in recent months because of their low prices, and it’s believed they’re only a few months behind frontier models like ChatGPT and Claude when it comes to performance.

“People are going to be able to access these open-source models and be able to have ongoing, persistent attacks on you, and you’re going to need to have really superior models to fend them off and defend [yourself],” Lehane commented.

More on OpenAI/Hugging Face Breach

Lehane took this interview over a month after an OpenAI agent autonomously breached the AI learning platform, Hugging Face. Since the incident, the AI firm has given further details about how the attack unraveled.

To complete the hack, TechCrunch explains the OpenAI model chained together “previously undiscovered exploits” to bypass security measures, after it was given an impossible task during testing. Through the compromised package management tool, Artifactory, the model accessed the internet, and then compromised various systems including OpenAI and Hugging Face.

According to the independent AI research firm METR, before the attack, agents that were meant to be kept apart found a way to start communicating. The agents exchanged more than 70,000 messages on an “unsanctioned message board,” which would lead to more than 700 agents collectively attacking Hugging Face.

METR believes the agents communicated because they had “unintentionally been given an impossible task” during testing. Therefore, the agents banded together to try and find ways to cheat, which included exchanging messages and gaining access to the internet.

As well as providing more details on the Hugging Face incident, OpenAI’s report outlines its new security measures for its models. The company is increasing its monitoring of an agent’s “chain of thought,” a space where systems report short-term reactions and goals. It will also implement 24/7 escalation systems and new tooling to stop unsafe workflows.

On August 18th, OpenAI also announced it had paused training on some of its frontier AI models to implement new safeguards.

OpenAI Warning Is a ‘Significant Moment’

The alarm bells around security and AI have been ringing for some time now. Cybersecurity experts continually warn against the threat these systems pose.

However, the OpenAI/Hugging Face breach represented a shift. Yes, we’d seen AI speed up attacks and create new ones. But for an agent to attack an organization without being instructed to and dodging human awareness in the process, future incidents seem pretty terrifying.

Especially since OpenAI isn’t the only company reporting these kinds of incidents. Not long after disclosing the Hugging Face attack, other major players such as Anthropic and Meta revealed their own agents had been involved in autonomous hacks.

“The interview with The Guardian comes days after the company paused training on its most advanced models and disclosed that a test system reached production infrastructure it was never meant to touch.” Darren Guccione, CEO and co-founder at Keeper Security, tells me. “The admission reinforces that offensive AI capability is arriving faster than organization defenses are dispatched to meet it.”

Similarly, Guccione called the incident behind the warning “illustrative and stark.”

“A model operating with expanding permissions inside a testing environment found a path to open the internet, and from there, to real credentials. That points directly to a governance failure rather than the perceived capability of the model in question. Any system holding standing access and network reach, whether a production service account or a research sandbox, is functionally a privileged identity and needs to be governed as such.” – Darren Guccione, CEO and co-founder at Keeper Security

Likewise, Oliver Simonnet, lead cybersecurity researcher at CultureAI, told Tech.co all organizations should be preparing for persistent attacks from autonomous AI systems. And, AI developers should be investing in “significant R&D” to prevent these attacks.

“If the future is as AI-pervasive as it seems it will be, both attack and defense activities will happen at a scale and speed we’ve never seen before or had to operate within,” Simonnet said. “Organizations will need to ensure they have access to tools and technologies that provide the appropriate visibility and defensive capabilities to successfully operate in that type of landscape.”

This article is part of an interview with Alexander Berger, chief operations officer at Bolt.new. This interview was conducted for Tech.co’s AI newsletter, The AI Strat. For more interviews with AI experts on the latest trending topics, subscribe to the newsletter. 

There’s a lot on your plate as a business leader. When it comes to AI, the temptation might be to sign off on a ChatGPT or Claude subscription, alert your chief technology officer, and call it a day. You might be wondering, do I need to know how to use these tools myself?

Alexander Berger, chief operations officer at Bolt.new, believes this is a valid question to ask. Especially if you’re not the person who’s going to get hands-on with these tools every day, he said, during an interview with Tech.co.

However, he believes leaders should develop what he calls the right “mental models” when their company adopts AI, as they could be missing out on key benefits. Likewise, if businesses are looking to reimagine themselves completely with AI, then leader knowledge becomes vital.

Business Leaders Should Learn Some AI, Expert Says

As a business leader, you might believe putting AI in the hands of your tech team is enough. And yes, while your tech experts will have the best AI knowledge, that doesn’t mean leaders shouldn’t interact with the technology themselves.

Alexander Berger, chief operations officer at Bolt.new, believes leaders should take a different approach. “I strongly believe that if you want to be a leader in an organization that’s very AI-focused, you can benefit immensely by getting into the tools and prompting yourself.”

“Not necessarily because you’re going to be the one doing the work or squeezing the value out of the tools,” Berger adds. “But because developing the mental models around what is even possible to do with the tools and how you work with them is very hard without actually going and using the tool yourself.”

Building the ‘Mental Models’ Around AI Use

Bolt.new is a vibe coding tool, which allows users to build websites by prompting AI with natural language. Berger tells me he has built websites since he was a teenager, so when he joined Bolt, he wasn’t completely in the dark about how it all worked. He had, as he calls it, the right “mental models.”

The first time Berger tried to build something agentic was Valentine’s Day weekend of this year. “It wasn’t until I actually built that, that I really understood what an agent is, and how to construct it.”

You can read about it and get the general gist, Berger explains, but you won’t develop that mental model by just observing. You need to get stuck in. “Until I had those mental models, it was shocking to me how much I really didn’t understand.”

Some studies have suggested AI expertise is concentrated. Companies have what is called “AI champions,” or, people that know AI best. These individuals are usually where wider AI integration starts, and many experts suggest empowering those that know AI leads to business success.

According to Berger, being able to use AI tools as a leader makes it easier to know who to uplift. You get the ability to “actually identify” those AI champions, “and I think that’s really important because you should elevate those people in the organization.”

Backing the wrong people could lead to bad outcomes, Berger adds. They’ll leak data, emails get sent to the wrong client, agents go off the rails, and so on.

Similarly, another benefit of knowing these tools as a leader is being able to get the maximum out of them. “Just understanding these tools, even if you’re not the best person on your team skill-wise, it will give you the ability to ask your team for things like this operational platform tool, that does XYZ.”

“You’ll have enough knowledge about what’s possible with the tools to provide some direction,” Berger says. Without this leadership direction, AI use becomes much more trivial.

Should All Leaders Know How to Use AI?

Learning a new tool like AI takes time. Though Berger recommends leaders get to grips with AI, he admits in some cases, it might not be necessary. If, for example, you’re only looking to build a website with Wix’s AI builder, then you don’t need to get too deep on how that works.

If, however, you want to build more advanced tools, then learning AI becomes more important.

“If you want to build more complex tools… you probably, as a leader, are going to need to build some mental models to even be able to work with your team and understand what’s possible.” – Alexander Berger, chief operations officer at Bolt.new

Some businesses are reimagining entire processes with AI, by understanding new ways to automate tasks and enhance productivity. To do this in the most effective way, direction is needed, and this is where leadership knowledge becomes especially important. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a new tool, and nowhere to put it.

Although, there is evidence to suggest that leaders themselves feel they haven’t received enough AI training. This could lead to companies not using AI to its full potential, or worse, failing to keep themselves and their data safe. All the more reason for leaders learn as much as possible.

You’ve probably heard of how AI has changed hiring. Candidates are using AI to generate and fine-tune resumes. Simultaneously, HR leaders are using it to screen those resumes. However, sentiment from leaders on the technology appears to be mixed, according to a recent study.

On the one hand, AI is helping candidates beyond resume construction. Some AI tools offer real-time interview support, allowing candidates to respond to interview questions with generated answers, or even manipulate video and voice footage.

Ultimately, human contact remains the surest way to decide whether a candidate is suited to a role. Where the role suggests, leaders should aim to meet in-person with candidates, to see whether there is a culture fit as well as a capability perspective.

HR Leaders are Unsure About Candidates Using AI

In a recent study from HireVue, HR leaders appeared mixed on candidates using AI. While 62% of leaders considered the use of AI smart, 31% viewed it as cheating. 

However, the report concluded 71% of candidates use AI to write resumes, indicating the technology is becoming a common tool for those seeking roles.

Some might say it’s contradictory for HR leaders to discourage the use of AI among candidates. Especially since HireVue also found 77% of HR leaders use AI weekly or daily. Most likely, AI is now commonplace on both sides.

AI Is Allowing Candidates to Cheat at Interviews

Before AI, candidates were still exaggerating applications. AI has enabled them to do this faster, and even generate entire resumes without writing a single word. Beyond this, AI has led to the development of new tools that help candidates in a new way.

In one extreme example, recounted by Miki Blasko on LinkedIn, a candidate was suspected of using AI to generate real-time answers to interview questions. Suspicions were confirmed after the candidate’s AI notetaker, on accident, shared the meeting notes with the recruiter at the end of the meeting.

Then, Blasko explained, the candidate forgot to leave the call, and was heard speaking in Hindi and laughing with their colleagues about being caught. The candidate had originally stated they were Polish. At this point, Blasko suspected the candidate was using a voice/accent changer and visual filter to make themselves appear more European.

Following an analysis of over 19,000 AI interviews conducted on its platform, Fabric found 38.5% of candidates were flagged for cheating behavior. Fabric describes cheating as using invisible overlays on screens and using ChatGPT or Gemini’s voice mode and reading the answers it generates.

The report suggests candidates see AI assistance as a standard interviewing tool. This argument does carry some weight, especially if there’s evidence the person interviewing you is also using AI.

In fact, HireVue found 35% of hiring teams use AI for candidate screening, and 43% use it for resume screening. Although, whether AI should be used in interviews, where culture fit and professionalism is also tested, is up for debate.

Likewise, candidates in the Fabric study said they believed their competition was using AI anyway, so they needed to use it in order to stay competitive in today’s bleak hiring landscape.

How to Adapt to AI in Hiring

HR leaders need to adapt to AI being part of the hiring process, according to Alon Pearl, founder and CEO of recruitment agency VA Masters.

Pearl advises leaders to treat the resume as a guide. Leaders should ask follow-up questions to validate achievements, and use a short, role-relevant work sample to decide whether a candidate is capable of doing the job.

Similarly, Pearl says leaders should set clear rules from the start about AI use within their hiring processes.

“Tell candidates in advance whether AI is allowed during applications and assessments. If it is, ask them to explain what they accepted, changed, or fact-checked in the output.” – Alon Pearl, founder and CEO at VA Masters

Asking candidates how they used AI, and why they used it a certain way, could be a good way to generate trust between hiring teams and potential hires.

Plus, AI skills are now an attractive quality to potential employers. Understanding how a candidate has used AI could indicate their overall fluency. Obviously, there are limits to this, which will depend on your company’s own AI policy.

Human Understanding Still Provides the Best Judgement

Additionally, Pearl says HR leaders shouldn’t be focused on trying to detect whether a candidate has used AI. He describes a kind of nuance when it comes to AI use, especially as individuals can use the technology in different ways.

“A candidate may use it to tidy up their wording and still be excellent at the job. Another person may write every word themselves and exaggerate their experience. The better question is whether they can explain what they have done and show that they can do the work.” – Alon Pearl

Pearl ultimately suggests hiring should focus on whether candidates can do the work and explain their experience. While AI has enabled candidates to appear competent, “presenting yourself well has never been the same thing as doing the job well,” he explains.

Instead, “employers now need a clearer line between what candidates claim and what they can demonstrate.”

For roles that are hybrid or in-person, this should mean getting to know someone beyond a video interview and resume screening. Often, hiring leaders should be looking at how candidates fit in to their company culture and goals, as well as whether they can do the job they’ve applied for. This is where in-person, human understanding is most valuable.

The leaders of the world’s top organizations most likely have a horror story or two about their safety being compromised. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, for example, recently had a Molotov cocktail thrown at his house.

Social media has made executives more visible online, as has the changing nature of leadership. Similarly, AI makes gathering personal information easier, and impersonation and voice scams have become more sophisticated through AI use.

I spoke to Olga Polishchuk, vice president of investigations at ZeroFox, who deals directly with digital exposure and how it can compromise organizational and personal safety. The point isn’t to be invisible, she says. Instead, what’s most important is removing and monitoring what’s available online.

Digital Environments Can Advance Executive Attacks

The issue of executive attacks is nothing new, Polishchuk tells me. “What’s different is how much we can learn about somebody without getting physically close to them,” she says.

Across social media platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn, individuals are encouraged to share their lives online. What started as a point of connection, however, has evolved to become a larger ground on which to stage an attack.

Everything from corporate appearances to family social outings can be used to establish a pattern of predictability. Whatever criminals are missing, it’s likely they can get from data brokers, who provide information like residential history and personal information like date of birth, at a very low cost.

Polishchuk says when you look at the information out there on an independent level, it’s not so concerning. But, when it’s used to together, to build what she calls “a pattern of life,” then it becomes a problem.

AI Is Accelerating Threats, Human Instincts are Dwindling

The tools attackers are working with have also improved. AI is frequently employed in impersonation attacks, through the creation of deepfakes and for voice phishing scams. Similarly, Polishchuk points out how consumer AI tools can also be used to crawl the internet for information on executives.

“It’s so easy to bypass ChatGPT or Claude’s more ethical barriers and guidelines,” she says. By choosing the right prompt, for example, you can get AI to generate what would be a very convincing spam email.

Polishchuk works with executives to help them deal with these new threats. She tells me a lot of them are clicking on these emails, convinced by what they’re telling them. “Human instincts no longer work at this point,” she says.

We’re no longer in a world where it was easy to discern what is AI, and what isn’t. The models have developed, and they’ve done it fast.

Our old methods of discerning what is trustworthy through human instinct may be increasingly void. Polishchuk points out that a lot of things we used to use to determine trust, like someone’s face on a call, or their voice, can be easily fabricated using AI.

However, Polishchuk does believe human instinct will still play a role in safety. “I don’t think human judgement is obsolete, but I think that familiarity as a form of authentication might be becoming that.” What we’ll have to do, she explains, is change the way we’re identifying threats.

Navigating Modern Leadership with Increased Online Visibility

Despite these threats, it’s unrealistic to tell modern day leaders to be invisible online. The demands of the role have changed; consumers like brands and leaders they can relate to, and a lot of this comes with having a unique voice. Similarly, executives still need to make public appearances, and even write the occasional press release or take an interview.

I asked Polishchuk how executives can manage their visibility. “I would tell them to be intentional about what is visible,” she says.

“There’s a big difference between professional visibility and personal predictability. If people know you’re speaking at a conference, they don’t need to know what hotel you’re staying at, or if you ran a marathon.” – Olga Polishchuk, VP of investigations at ZeroFox

On the topic of marathons, she explains instances where executives have been targeted on their local running route, after they had posted it to online fitness apps. This is the kind of visibility you might not think of as a threat initially.

Polishchuk isn’t telling executives not to live their lives. It’s important, for both personal and professional wellbeing, to be visible. Instead, executives shouldn’t let it get to a point where their personal movements and routines can be mapped out. Like through their morning run, for example.

“What we’re trying to help them understand is which information creates exposure risk and which serves a legitimate purpose. Visibility isn’t always a problem. It’s the predictability that is,” she says.

How to Protect Your Leaders and Organization

Preparation is key. Polishchuk recommends that businesses should “start thinking like an adversary” before any threats reveal themselves. “Pick your top five executives and look at their online ecosystem: what surrounds them, what kind of information is publicly available,” she says.

From the information you find, determine if it can be used to establish a person’s routine. “It’s really more about eliminating unnecessary exposure,” she adds. Once you’ve reduced what’s not needed, continue to monitor the situation.

“Digital exposure is not a one-time thing. It’s a condition that you have to manage.” – Olga Polishchuk, VP of investigations at ZeroFox

Similarly, when I asked Polishchuk what’s most important for businesses today, education was her top choice. Understanding what’s out there, and what kind of information threat actors are going to go after.

This extends beyond the organization and the leader as well. “We meet with children, we meet with spouses, and we just use examples of their exposure to provide different scenarios.”

All of this will ensure everyone involved understands the risks and will help protect your leaders and your business, in the long run.

This article is part of an interview with Jena Wuu, writer, speaker, and advisor on trust and expertise online. This interview was conducted for Tech.co’s AI newsletter, The AI Strat. For more interviews, with AI experts on the latest trending topics, subscribe to the newsletter.

AI is speeding things up. Email marketing is automated, cyber attacks work on a bigger scale, and more content proliferates social platforms. In turn, users have responded and continue to respond with dismay, annoyance, and sometimes outright hostility.

Trust, arguably, is eroding online. Swaths of AI-generated posts make it difficult to know who is authentic and genuine. However, recent moves made by LinkedIn and Substack could help users pinpoint what content is AI-generated, but should we start being honest from the get-go?

I spoke to Jena Wuu, previously Global Policy Programs Head for Social Impact and Information Ecosystem at Meta. In the age of AI content, transparency and trust are more important than ever, and how we choose who to trust is changing.

There Is More Content Online Than There Used to Be

You wouldn’t get any strange looks if you said it’s harder than ever to get attention online. Social platforms are drowning in content, from cute cat videos to tech bros advertising productivity regimes. Part of this is because of AI.

AI tools, mostly generative ones, have made it easier for individuals and companies to produce content en masse. There are AI brainstorming tools, AI script writers, AI video editors, even AI actors.

Most recently, a study from Pangram found almost half of all LinkedIn long posts are AI-generated.

Shortly after these findings became public, LinkedIn announced a ‘seems like AI slop’ button, that users could click if they felt a post used AI. Just over a week before this, online publishing and blogging platform Substack released an AI detection tool.

“I think there is a common misperception out there that platforms want to be perpetuating low-quality content,” says Jena Wuu, a writer, advisor, and speaker on trust online.

Previously, Wuu was a Global Policy Programs Head for Meta, and pitched its Global Information Ecosystem program. She tells me AI content poses a lot of risk to today’s platforms, “because users don’t want to engage with inauthentic content, and advertisers don’t want to be on platforms where there are inauthentic users.”

For Wuu, these new tools from Substack and LinkedIn are a positive thing, provided people use them. “If we could all be active in telling platforms about what kind of content we want to see, that’s where platforms are going to prioritize.”

These tools are forcing AI users out of the shadows. The people scrolling past will know if you’ve used AI, or not. What’s most interesting, Wuu argues, is how people will interpet content that is flagged as AI-generated.

AI Is Generally Disliked and Called Out Online

NBC News reported in March that people generally like AI less than they like ICE in the US. From an online perspective, one doesn’t have to look very far to find an instance of a user being called out for using AI, and reactions are rarely positive.

Wuu thinks there are quite a few reasons why AI sentiment is mostly negative. First, AI companies haven’t done a good job of building trust with users. Secondly, people feel a loss of control, and that the technology is being forced upon them.

“I think that there’s a feeling of a loss of control about it, and people feel like it’s being forced on them. And so if they’re on a platform where they’re there for leisure and relaxation, or they’re genuinely trying to look for information, then of course it’s going to be agitating when you’re seeing all this and having all of this forced on you again.” – Jena Wuu, writer, advisor, and speaker on trust online

Likewise, the impact on jobs is still pretty uncertain. “We don’t know what the impact of AI is going to be on our jobs,” Wuu says. All of this would contribute to why someone seeing AI-generated content, on a platform they’re on for leisure, would feel frustrated.

This is another way using Wuu’s call for people to participate, by using the LinkedIn AI slop button, for example, could lead to a shift away from AI content on social platforms. However, the black-and-white nature of these tools is a point of concern.

In my opinion, not all crimes created with AI are equal. On one end of the spectrum, you have people generating entire content suites with AI. On the other, you might have someone who uses AI as part of their research process, or as a way to ask for constructive feedback. The LinkedIn AI slop button, for instance, doesn’t state how someone has used AI.

From Wuu’s perspective, this is why human judgement remains critical. Everyone has a different tolerance for AI, she explains. Some people won’t mind entire posts generated by AI, others will. Over time, people will figure out their preferences, and this will shape the future of social platforms.

Giving People Context for How You’re Using AI

There are legitimate reasons why someone might use AI to create content. A lack of social media experience, or a lack of a budget, for example. Not everyone is a social media star, and in some way, AI has allowed everyone entry into the world of content, despite their background.

Content isn’t the exception, either. Vibe coding platforms allow non-coders to make websites. Anyone can have any concept explained to them in simple terms by just asking a chatbot.

Overall, I believe everyone should be transparent about AI use. It would remove the guesswork, and inspire transparency and trust. LinkedIn, with its new button, and Substack with its detection tool, are giving users this opportunity. Like many things, Wuu agrees AI use is nuanced, and that context is critical for how we approach it.

“What I would love to see is for entities and creators to have some kind of transparency about how they use AI. And that’s something that Substack is doing, they’re offering writers a way to make a statement about how they approach the use of AI. I think that’s a really good thing to have because we need context.” – Jena Wuu

Additionally, disclosing how you’ve used AI will provide some protection. If your content does get flagged as AI, for example, you’ll have details to back up how exactly you’ve used AI, if you have at all.

Recently, Anthropic announced all of the content generated by its Claude models would include a watermark. This is a feature already done by Google’s Gemini, and more AI companies may have to follow suit with similar approaches to stay in line with the recent EU AI Act, which includes a Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content.

So, there’s a future where all AI-generated content needs to be identified as such. This certainly promises to foster a culture of trust we’ve lost on social platforms.

Ultimately, when people are browsing online, they are drawn to content they can trust. Wuu says building this trust involves having a human element to what you’ve created, “at the end of the day, people trust people,” she says.

The most important thing for brands to do in 2026 is be authentic and trustworthy. This might not mean getting AI to generate posts for you. It might mean using AI to some extent, but truthfully, nobody wants to hear from AI. They want to hear from people.

A new study finds organizations haven’t redesigned jobs around AI yet, despite the technology making massive waves across the industry.

Currently, companies are focused on employee training and education, encouraging workers to become AI fluent. However, it’s still believed entry-level roles will drastically change due to automation.

Across several studies, AI has led to productivity gains for workers. Trust is also increasing from business leaders, although workers remain skeptical.

Prioritizing AI Fluency Over Job Redesign

According to a new study from Deloitte, 84% of companies haven’t redesigned jobs or changed the nature of work to fit current AI capabilities.

In reality, companies are focused on educating employees on AI. Overall, the study finds insufficient worker AI skills are the biggest barrier to AI adoption. But, less than half of companies reported making changes to their talent strategies to reflect this.

Within a year, 36% of companies said they expect at least 10% of their jobs to be fully automated. When looking ahead three years, this number increases to 82%, suggesting belief in AI as a transformative tool remains high.

AI Training Remains Key, But Entry-Level is at Risk

When introducing a new technology, it’s important to give employees the time and space to understand it. Given the speed at which AI has been developing and companies have been investing, it’s no wonder workers are falling short in their understanding of what AI can do.

In a recent study, almost 40% of employees revealed they hadn’t received any AI policy information at onboarding. Of those that did, over 1 in 10 said they’d retained little to none of it. This not only poses serious security and data risks for businesses, but it means workers could be approaching AI with little to no understanding of how it works at their companies, slowing down progress.

On the other hand, leaders in qualitative interviews with Deloitte expressed concern about the potential disruption of job trajectories. This is because entry-level jobs including data entry, reconciliation, and first-level customer support are being prioritized for automation at their companies.

Entry-level roles might be easily automated, but they’re also an important stepping stone for individuals to develop themselves within the workplace. Experts have suggested the requirements of entry-level roles will most likely change with AI. Instead of showing they can punch numbers effectively, new hires will have to demonstrate qualities such as leadership and judgement.

Employees Remain Skeptical Despite Gains

AI productivity gains have been well-reported on, and it seems plenty of workers and businesses are seeing benefits. In the study, 25% of leaders report AI is having a transformative effect on their companies.

Similarly, 84% of organizations are increasing their AI investments, and 78% of leaders report greater confidence in the technology.

Leader backing is only one side of the coin. Workers need to be actively using and supporting AI initiatives in order for true transformation to occur. And, in its report, Deloitte described worker sentiment around AI as “cautiously positive.”

Numbers-wise, 13% of non-technical workers are highly enthusiastic about AI, and are proactively trying to use it. 55% are at least open to using AI. However, 21% prefer not to use AI but will do so if required, and 4% actively distrust and avoid the tech.

There still seems to be a lack of trust in AI. Not helped, of course, by the negative portrayal of what AI will do to jobs — and humanity in general — by leaders of frontier AI labs. Likewise, with many companies reportedly replacing workers with AI, or citing AI in layoff announcements, it’s understandable workers will approach the technology with caution, and sometimes disdain.

On the extreme end, in a study from Writer and Workplace Intelligence, 29% of workers admitted to actively sabotaging their company’s AI strategy.

Ultimately, companies should strive to position AI as a co-conspirator, rather than a replacement. Organizations should provide the right training and encouraging employees to experiment and use AI in a way that makes sense to them.

As a small business owner, you’re juggling a lot. Operations, marketing, hiring, and much more. The worst thing to worry about, however, is budget.

Being awarded a small business grant gives you new opportunities to accelerate your business forward. Not only will you get funding, but some grants offer support in areas like marketing and technology, lessening these burdens on your shoulders.

Below, I’ve rounded up the grants small business owners can apply for in August, how to apply, and how much you’ll receive.

The Sky is Not the Limit Social Impact Grant

• For: organizations with a clear, measurable social or environmental mission
• Amount: up to $10,000 in services
• Deadline to apply: August 19

Bombshell Impact Design agency is offering this grant on a pro bono basis, for businesses to enhance their marketing strategy.

The money can be used for professional branding, website design, campaign strategy, content creation, and “AI for Good” services. Investing in your marketing is key if you want to stand out as a brand in 2026, especially as AI content continues to populate today’s social platforms.

The grant is ideal for nonprofits or social enterprises, for example. To apply, you’ll need to submit a 30-60 second video.

Apply here

Hey Helen Grant

• For: 100% women-owned or non-binary aligned for-profit US businesses generating under $1 million in revenue
• Amount: founder is given $10,000 in unrestricted cash each cycle
• Deadline to apply: August 30

This is a privately funded initiative from Visionaries, offering founders $10,000 each cycle to spend on whatever needs improving in their business. This could be operations and growth, or even infrastructure.

For women and non-binary individuals, this is a great opportunity to prioritize the areas in your business that could use the additional funding.

To apply, heads up, you’ll need to purchase a ticket to the MYP Money Moves Summit, which costs $300. The form does give you a $50 discount, however. The summit includes a pitch competition which will determine who gets the grant. You’ll also need to submit a 60 second reel to Instagram, and tag @_manifestyourpurpose.

Apply here

Shophand Small Business Boost Grant

• For: small business owners wanting to boost their technological understanding
• Amount: $2,500 in cash, $2,500 in Shophand technical support
• Deadline to apply: December 1

If you’re looking to integrate technology into your business, Shophand offers small business owners both cash and specialist support. This could involve AI tools and automation, creative and media support, marketing and tech support, operations overhaul, software setup, and much more.

The website encourages “non-techie small business owners” to apply for the grant, awarded three times per year. The FAQ section says they’re looking for a clear business story, a meaningful challenge, and a commitment to improving your business.

There are quite a few requirements for this one. You’ll need have fewer than 50 employees, generate under $5 million in annual revenue, and be a for-profit business actively operating. I’d double check the website before applying for a full list of requirements.

Apply here

Verizon Small Business Digital Ready Grant

• For: owners of for-profit small businesses
• Amount: $10,000
• Deadline to apply: December

Verizon has helped over 1,500 small businesses across the country since 2021 with this small business grant.

Priority is given to small businesses that have never received a grant before. So, if you’re relatively new to the game, or have been trying for a while to secure a grant, you’re at an advantage.

If you’re applying, you’ll need to have an account on Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, and have completed several courses on the Digital Ready platform between January 1 and December 7 2026. Nonprofits aren’t eligible to apply for this one either.

The application supposedly takes about half an hour to complete and you can apply online.

Apply here

The Importance of Small Business Grants

The world of small business is changing, and it can be dizzying trying to keep up with it all.

Securing a grant allows you to get ahead in the game, and improve the areas of your business budget hasn’t yet allowed for.

Likewise, it could also help you gain knowledge on an area outside of your usual expertise, like marketing or technology, and make you stand out to investors as a business worth betting on.

Luckily, many grants are free to apply for, and you lose nothing by giving it a shot.

Anthropic will now watermark AI-generated content produced by its models, in order to comply with the EU AI Act that came into effect at the beginning of this month.

The general public have increasingly soured towards AI-generated content. While some studies suggest consumers don’t mind as long as content is relevant to them, watermarks could make AI content obvious and open creators up to criticism.

Users deserve transparency around what has been involved in creating a piece of content. Not all crimes committed with Claude are equal, but we could see users start to prioritize authenticity and originality when interacting online.

Anthropic Plans to Watermark AI-Generated Output from Claude Models

Leading AI lab Anthropic announced plans earlier this week to watermark AI-generated content, coming from its Claude models. The marking applies to models launched in the EU on or after August 2, and the company have plans to add the same feature to previous models.

The move will help Anthropic comply with the EU AI Act, which came into effect earlier this month. The regulation includes a Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content.

As well as watermarking content, Anthropic said in a supporting post it would “support users and other third parties to detect Claude’s marks.” Watermarking is done in two ways, the lab further explained: embedded watermarks in text, and signed provenance metadata for files, including images.

A Potential Solution to Allegations of AI Use

Anthropic isn’t the only company to pledge to abide by the new European AI act. OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft have all committed to this legislation, the first of its kind when it comes to policing AI models. So, while the terms may be different for each company, similar moves around transparency of AI-content will continue.

For the record, the watermarking of AI content isn’t a new thing. If you create an image using Google’s Gemini, for example, the lab’s logo appears in the bottom corner.

However, if all AI-generated, or I should say, AI-tampered content (based on Anthropic comments I’ll talk about later) is watermarked as more companies adapt to the new legislation, it will provide a new avenue of accuracy to detect AI content.

Consumers will receive this well, especially considered AI writing isn’t always easy to identify, and AI detectors aren’t always that accurate. Yes, tools like Pangram boast a false positive rate of only 1 in 10,000, but that hasn’t stopped Reddit users from complaining about their work being wrongly flagged as AI-generated.

Similarly, with clear indications of what content has traces of AI, users won’t be wrongfully pointing fingers. A recent study found a significant number of LinkedIn posts are AI-generated, which may or may not have led to LinkedIn adding a ‘Seems like AI slop’ button to the platform.

While the tool is useful at a glance, it leaves the user to decide whether content is AI-generated or not. It’s likely to deter some people from using AI in posts, however it’ll also mean those who aren’t using AI, but maybe enjoy the occasional em dash, are at risk of being penalized. A watermark in this case becomes a stamp of innocence, or an admittance of guilt.

An Uplift for Transparency in Today’s Content Landscape

Hopefully, AI companies identifying what content came out of their models will increase trust online. Users can interact with content generated by humans, if that’s their preference, and avoid content that doesn’t suit them.

However, as more and more people use AI in content, the practice will be normalized. What will be more important is how someone has used AI. In my eyes, not all crimes committed with Claude are equal, and there’s a big difference between light edits and a fully generated text.

In some cases, using AI tools like Claude gives people the option to communicate better and share their ideas. These people shouldn’t be penalized as much as the person plugging prompts all day, and copying and pasting to publish.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the watermarking system at Anthropic will consider how AI was used. In its statement, Anthropic said: “People often use Claude to proofread, translate, summarize, or convert files. The output can carry a Claude mark even if the underlying ideas, text, or data originated from another source.”

Ultimately, users have a right to know if a piece of content is AI-generated. For brands operating online, being authentic while valuing the human voice might become a badge of honor.