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San Francisco startup PitPro Automation has installed its first commercial tire-changing robot system at a Kal Tire location in Calgary, Alberta. The system uses two robotic units to locate and remove lug nuts, pull wheels, and mount new or rotated tires, completing a full four-tire swap in under 15 minutes, according to the company.
Toyota plans to invest $6.42 billion annually beginning in 2028 to add 150,000 robots at its own auto plants and 250,000 more at group facilities making parts and materials, according to Nikkei Asia. Workers are already helping train Toyota's wheeled ELEY humanoid robots by wearing finger-shaped jigs to teach precise hand movements. Executive vice president Hiroki Nakajima said the goal is for robots to coexist with humans rather than replace them.
Rockwell Automation surveyed 1,500 industrial and manufacturing decision-makers across 17 countries for its new report on operational resilience and cybersecurity. The study found that while 46% of organizations suffered a cyber incident in the past year, 90% remain confident in their ability to prevent or recover from one, and 62% have already invested in cybersecurity platforms. More than a third of respondents still identify cybersecurity risk as a top external obstacle to growth, with IT/OT convergence flagged as a major vulnerability point.
A WIRED writer used Google's Gemini platform to create AI chatbots modeled on two of her editors, Brian Barrett and Sophie Kleeman, hoping the clones would help her draft better work and understand her bosses' preferences. The experiment, done with the editors' reluctant permission, quickly produced awkward and unexpected results as the bots misjudged tone and expectations.
An anonymous software engineer posting on X as 'voxium' says his employer now uses Anthropic's Claude Code to generate specs, tests, tickets and reports, leaving staff to work 12-13 hour days largely just approving AI output. He says engineers of all seniority levels are reduced to prompting the AI, with little time to review code or fix bugs, and calls the job 'soul-sucking.'
New workplace research identifies a growing performance split between employees who actively use AI tools and those who avoid them. High performers reportedly rely on specific strategies to weave AI into daily tasks—covering automation, tool choice, and quality checks—without sacrificing accuracy or independent judgment.
WIRED polled 634 women working in the technology industry about their daily experiences, gathering candid feedback on workplace culture and emerging tools. Respondents described ongoing friction with male-dominated office dynamics even as executives increasingly integrate AI into their routines.
Agility Robotics has launched Digit 5, a general-purpose humanoid robot built with proprietary AI and sensor systems that detect nearby people and respond by moving aside, stopping, or dropping into a seated crouch. The behavior, shown in a promotional video, is powered partly by Nvidia's Thor IGX chip alongside vision sensors that continuously track human presence. Agility already deploys robots with companies like Amazon and Toyota and is positioning this safety-first design to broaden commercial adoption.
A new essay argues that the fastest near-term impact of AI on the physical world won't come from robots, but from AI systems directing human workers step-by-step, similar to how GPS navigation already tells drivers what to do. The author calls this 'teleoperation,' where AI handles strategy and broad awareness while humans execute the physical actions AI can't yet perform itself. The piece uses driving and GPS as an early, already-normalized example of this pattern.
A podcast network operator built an AI pipeline linking Claude Code and NotebookLM to automate social media production for over 25 shows, turning a full day of manual work into a background process. Rather than reducing overall workload, the time saved has been redirected into taking on additional projects and responsibilities.
A new analysis reports that as generative AI tools take over drafting, analysis and content creation, founders are spending less time producing work and more time deciding what should represent their business. Citing Microsoft's 2025 Work Trend Index, the piece notes 82% of business leaders see this as a pivotal year for rethinking operations due to AI, with nearly half expecting to expand capacity through digital labor within 12-18 months. The core argument is that AI can generate output but cannot take responsibility for it, leaving leaders accountable for outcomes.
A software engineering blogger describes a growing trend where workers let LLMs perform tasks like coding or summarizing without verifying the output, simply relaying results back and forth—dubbed being a 'meat proxy.' The author argues that while this approach has improved since early 2025, its logical endpoint is self-defeating: if an LLM can eventually produce good software unsupervised, employers will simply automate the loop and remove the human entirely.