This comes as the company focuses on reducing costs while increasing investment in artificial intelligence.

According to people familiar with the plans, the cuts will affect fewer than 2.5% of Microsoft’s global workforce. With about 220,000 employees worldwide, that would amount to approximately 5,000 roles.

The layoffs will affect several parts of the business, including sales, consulting and the Xbox gaming division. One person familiar with the matter said some affected employees could be offered other roles within the company immediately after the announcement.

Microsoft has not commented on the reports.

The company has regularly taken decisions on its workforce at the start of a new financial year. In May last year, Microsoft cut about 6,000 jobs before announcing another round of roughly 9,000 layoffs in July, representing nearly 4% of its workforce.

This latest round is expected to be smaller than last year’s exercise. People familiar with the matter said the company had already reduced the number of compulsory layoffs after many eligible employees accepted a voluntary retirement programme introduced earlier this year in the United States.

The programme was open to employees at level 67 and below who met the company’s age and service requirements. Sales staff on commission-based pay were excluded from the offer.

The planned cuts come as Microsoft spends heavily on AI and cloud infrastructure. Reports say the company invested more than $100 billion in AI and cloud projects during the 2026 financial year, with a large share going towards AI chips and related infrastructure.

The Xbox business is also expected to face significant changes. The gaming division has been under pressure after years of heavy spending on content, hardware and gaming platforms.

Earlier this year, Xbox Gaming Chief Executive Officer Asha Sharma told employees the business needed a “reset”. Reports have also suggested that Microsoft is reviewing parts of its gaming operations, with some studios facing an uncertain future.

Before now, several companies have reduced their workforce this year as they balance AI investment with efforts to control operating costs.

Meta announced plans to cut about 10% of its workforce this year, while Amazon said it would eliminate about 16,000 jobs globally.

Data also shows technology companies in the United States have announced more than 123,000 job cuts in 2026, with growing AI investment being one of the main reasons behind many of the reductions.

The post Microsoft To Cut About 5,000 Jobs As AI Spending Increases appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The report said Google informed Meta around March that it could not supply the full Gemini capacity the company wanted to buy. The shortfall reportedly delayed some of Meta’s internal AI projects and forced teams to adjust their work.

Meta was not the only customer affected. However, the report said the impact on the social media company was greater because of its unusually high demand for Google’s AI models.

Neither Google nor Meta responded to requests for comment outside normal business hours.

As a result of the restrictions, Meta reportedly asked employees to use AI tokens more carefully. AI tokens are the units used to measure activity on AI models and play a key role in managing computing resources.

The reported limits highlight the problem facing the technology industry. Companies invest billions of dollars in chips and data centres, yet demand for computing power still exceeds available supply as businesses expand their AI services.

Google has already acknowledged those capacity challenges. During the company’s first-quarter earnings report, Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said computing power limitations prevented Google Cloud from growing even faster. 

He added that the cloud division’s backlog almost doubled from the previous quarter, despite generating $20 billion in revenue during the period.

Meta has been expanding its AI efforts across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, increasing demand for the computing power needed to train and run large AI models.

The company is also developing new AI agents and expanding its Llama family of models, making access to reliable computing infrastructure increasingly important.

The reported restrictions also reveal that even the world’s biggest technology companies are competing for limited AI resources. 

Demand for advanced chips and computing capacity overtakes supply, slowing some projects across the industry despite record levels of investment.

The post Google Limits Meta’s Access to Gemini AI Models Over Computing Capacity appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

However, the report says the country’s businesses are adopting artificial intelligence far more slowly than its workforce.

The index placed Nigeria 17th among the world’s 25 leading outsourcing destinations, with an overall score of 49.15 out of 100.

South Africa ranked first in Africa with 66.5 points, followed by Egypt with 49.35, while Nigeria finished just 0.20 points behind Egypt and 1.55 points ahead of Kenya.

One of Nigeria’s strongest performances came in workforce AI literacy, where it ranked sixth globally with a score of 66. Only India, Brazil, the Philippines, Poland and Malaysia scored higher.

The report revealed Nigeria outperformed every other outsourcing destination across Europe, Latin America and the rest of Africa in that category.

However, Nigerian companies have not matched the pace at which workers are adopting AI.

The country scored 34 for enterprise AI adoption, placing it 19th out of the 25 countries assessed. The country ranked ahead of only Ghana, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda and Ethiopia in that category.

According to the index, the 32-point difference between Nigeria’s workforce AI literacy score and enterprise AI adoption score is the widest workforce-to-enterprise gap among all outsourcing destinations covered in the study.

Nigerian workers have embraced AI tools faster than businesses and educational institutions have integrated them into their operations.

The AI readiness report also showed that Nigeria ranked 19th for its AI education pipeline with a score of 41. Combined with weak enterprise adoption, this reduced the country’s overall standing despite its strong workforce performance.

Although Egypt ranked above Nigeria overall, the report noted that Nigeria recorded a much stronger workforce AI literacy score, 66 compared with Egypt’s 50.

Egypt, however, performed better in population AI adoption, enterprise AI adoption and AI education, giving it a slightly higher overall score.

The report also found that Nigeria maintained an advantage over several competing outsourcing destinations. It scored 8.55 points higher than Pakistan and 16.35 points above Bangladesh in overall AI readiness.

The 2026 Ataraxis Global Outsourcing AI Readiness Index measures countries across four areas: population AI adoption, workforce AI literacy, enterprise AI adoption and AI education pipeline.

The study draws on publicly available data and analysis from sources including Microsoft, OpenAI, OECD, LinkedIn, Coursera, GitHub and Cloudflare Radar.

The post Nigeria Ranks Third in Africa, 17th Globally for AI Readiness, but Business Adoption Lags – Report appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

According to CNN, the request follows the government’s recent order requiring Anthropic to withdraw its advanced Mythos and Fable AI models after officials pointed to potential cybersecurity risks.

A source familiar with the matter said the White House considers GPT-5.6 to be comparable to Anthropic’s Mythos in capability. Rather than stopping the launch entirely, the government asked OpenAI to introduce the model through a controlled rollout.

OpenAI agreed to the request. In an internal memo sent to staff on Thursday, CEO Sam Altman said access to GPT-5.6 would be approved “customer by customer” during the initial release.

“We’ve made clear to the U.S. government that this is not our preferred long-term model, and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases,” Altman said in the memo.

A White House official told CNN that the administration is continuing to work with leading AI companies to develop shared approaches for managing the challenges created by increasingly advanced AI models. OpenAI declined to comment.

The request has also drawn attention to the lack of a clear regulatory framework for advanced AI in the United States.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order asking companies developing frontier AI models to voluntarily submit them for government review 30 days before public release. However, officials are yet to establish how the process will work.

The current situation has also created uncertainty within the AI industry. While the White House requested OpenAI’s limited rollout, the Commerce Department issued the export control order that forced Anthropic to suspend access to Mythos and Fable, leaving companies without a single, consistent regulatory process.

Experts say government oversight is important because advanced AI models can identify software vulnerabilities and simulate sophisticated cyberattacks. However, they also warn that regulation should be transparent and predictable.

“The Fable episode shows the need for clear regulations. Right now, you have an ad hoc, personalised, opaque, possibly lawless approach,” Brad Carson, head of Public First, a bipartisan pro-AI safety organisation, told CNN.

“It is certainly appropriate for the government to recall dangerous products, including AI models, but it has to be done in a way consistent with transparency and basic fairness.”

GPT-5.6 is expected to undergo testing with a limited number of enterprise partners before OpenAI decides on a wider public release.

The post US Government Restricts OpenAI GPT-5.6 Release Over National Security Concerns appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Across Africa, governments are investing heavily in digital transformation to improve citizen services, modernise operations, and expand access through cloud, AI, and digital platforms.

Yet despite significant progress, many public sector organisations continue to face the same fragmented processes, duplicated data, and disconnected citizen experiences that existed before digitisation began.

In many African governments, this challenge is amplified by hybrid environments that combine legacy systems, newer digital platforms, and varying levels of connectivity. This creates a reality where integration is not just a technical concern but a determinant of whether citizens can consistently access essential services.

The problem is not always the technology

The problem is often misunderstood. Government systems do not always fail because they are old. Many still perform the functions for which they were designed effectively. The real challenge is that they were never designed to work together.

Over time, departments implemented technologies independently to solve specific operational needs. The result is an environment where systems may function well in isolation, but struggle to exchange information, support integrated services, or provide a single view of citizens and operations.

Digitising complexity instead of removing it

What is concerning is that many modernisation initiatives are now replicating these same limitations on newer platforms.

Too often, organisations focus on adding digital channels, portals, or AI capabilities without fundamentally redesigning the operational architecture underneath them. Complexity is digitised instead of removed. Legacy constraints are carried forward into modern environments.

This raises an important question for leadership teams: Are we transforming government, or simply rebuilding old operating models with newer technology?

Transformation must become integration-centric

The next phase of digital transformation cannot be system-centric. It must become integration-centric.

Integration is no longer just about connecting applications. It is about creating trusted data, interoperable services, and operational foundations that allow governments to simplify processes, improve decision-making, and deliver connected citizen experiences across departments and agencies.

Importantly, this does not require replacing everything. In most public sector environments, large-scale replacement programmes are neither practical nor sustainable. The real opportunity lies in modular, interoperable architectures that allow governments to evolve incrementally while maintaining continuity of essential services.

Why architecture matters more than products

Governments that modernise around vendor ecosystems without defining long-term operational outcomes risk recreating the same fragmentation they are trying to solve. Open standards, governed integration, and composable architectures are becoming essential for sustainable transformation.

This becomes even more critical as AI adoption accelerates. Artificial intelligence cannot resolve fragmented environments built on disconnected systems and inconsistent data. Without integrated foundations, AI risks amplifying inefficiency rather than eliminating it.

When integration is addressed effectively, the results are measurable. Governments can reduce duplication, improve fraud detection, accelerate service delivery, and expand access to underserved populations.

Across African public sector environments, the shift toward integration-centric transformation is already underway. The organisations making the greatest progress are not those adopting the most technology, but those rethinking how their systems, data, and services are designed to work together.

The governments that will lead the next era of transformation will not necessarily be those deploying the most technology.

They will be the ones willing to rethink how government services, data, and operations should function in a truly connected digital society. Because the future of government is not about digitising the past. It is about designing entirely new ways to deliver public services.

The post Why Integration, Not innovation, is the Real Digital Challenge for Governments appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Ajayi takes over at a time when MTN is expanding its investments in cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, automation and digital services as it seeks to expand its reach across Nigeria’s competitive telecoms market.

Describing enterprise architecture, digital transformation and platform scale as key areas that have shaped her 27-year career in technology, Ajayi previously served as General Manager, Architecture and Engineering at MTN Nigeria.

During that period, she led architecture and engineering strategy across MTN’s digital, enterprise and customer-facing platforms, supporting services used by over 90 million subscribers.

Her responsibilities also included driving technology transformation programmes, overseeing platform resilience and security, and leading engineering teams across the business.

Ajayi joined MTN in 2003 as an Applications Support Engineer for billing systems and steadily rose through the ranks.

Over the years, she held several leadership positions across enterprise delivery, product development, customer experience operations and information systems before becoming General Manager, Architecture and Engineering.

In her new role, she will oversee the company’s technology strategy and infrastructure as MTN scales platform modernisation and the expansion of digital services.

Speaking on the appointment, Roger Shutte, general manager, Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering at MTN Nigeria, described her growth as recognition of years of hands-on leadership within the organisation.

“Bukola has been part of the engine room since the beginning. Not watching from a distance. Not arriving at the end. But deeply involved in the architecture, engineering, governance, resilience and execution that have shaped Technology in MTN Nigeria over the years,” he said.

Bukola Ajayi assumes the CIO position at a critical period for MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest mobile network operator which serves more than 90 million subscribers and accounts for a significant share of MTN Group’s revenue.

The company has been investing heavily in digital platforms, cloud technologies, artificial intelligence and financial services as it looks beyond traditional voice and data services.

With digital services now indispensable to its operations, Ajayi will be responsible for overseeing MTN’s technology strategy, platform development and information systems.

Her promotion further strengthens female representation in senior technology leadership roles within Nigeria’s telecommunications industry, where women are underrepresented in executive technical positions.

The post MTN Nigeria Appoints Long-Serving Executive Bukola Ajayi as Chief Information Officer appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The update centres on a new search experience called AI Mode, allowing users to type questions in natural language and receive answers generated by Meta’s AI system.

Instead of returning a list of links, the tool pulls information from public posts, including content from Groups and Reels, and presents a combined response.

Meta says the aim is to show discussions happening across its apps. That means answers are drawn from user posts rather than traditional news or reference pages.

The company is also linking this approach to make search feel more conversational and not dependent on scrolling through results.

Alongside this, Meta has been testing a separate app called Forum. It carries a similar design idea to Reddit and includes an “Ask” feature.

Users can post questions and receive responses built from conversations happening inside Facebook Groups. The overlap between Forum and AI Mode shows how the company is pushing community content further into search tools.

Still, the reliability of AI summaries when they rely on public posts is an issue of concern. Content shared in groups or comment threads is not always verified.

Some of it may be outdated or based on opinion rather than fact. That points to how clearly the system will separate useful information from noise.

Users on Facebook can now edit photos and videos with the help of AI, including collage-style layouts and transition effects that turn simple clips into shareable montages.

These suggestions appear when users access their camera roll, though Meta says the feature is optional and can be switched off at any time.

There are also new photo editing presets that allow users to adjust appearance in images, including clothing, hairstyles, and accessories.

One of the more noticeable additions lets sports fans digitally place themselves in team jerseys. This can be done through an “AI Edit” option in Stories or by selecting a profile picture and using the restyle feature.

The changes extend further into personalisation. Facebook is now offering tools that can automatically suggest edits based on recent photos, helping users turn everyday images into more polished posts without manual editing.

At the same time, Meta continues to expand its AI integration across Facebook. Earlier updates included animated profile pictures that add simple movement to still images, as well as automated responses for sellers using Facebook Marketplace.

More recently, creators have been given AI-assisted tools that suggest posting times and summarise audience feedback from comments.

With these updates, Meta is strengthening the link between artificial intelligence and everyday use of Facebook, from search to posting and messaging.

The company is also exploring new ways to monetise these tools. It has already introduced subscription plans across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, starting at $3.99 a month. These plans unlock additional features, and further AI-based tiers are expected to follow.

Meta has described the rollout as part of its initiative to make the platform more useful and easier to navigate. The company also places emphasis on user control, noting that features like camera roll suggestions are optional and can be disabled.

The post Facebook Reimagined: Meta Integrates AI into Search, Content Creation, and Community Interaction appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The product, called “Patching as a Service,” will be provided in Japan through a joint venture between SoftBank’s telecoms arm, SoftBank Corp, and OpenAI.

It focuses on vulnerability assessments, planning fixes, and advising companies on how to apply them.

SoftBank says it will first target selected firms linked to critical infrastructure. These include organisations whose systems support essential public and business services. Outreach to those companies will begin gradually.

Cybersecurity risks have been increasing as attackers utilise artificial intelligence to speed up and scale breaches. SoftBank says this has made it harder for organisations to keep systems secure, especially when threats change quickly and affect multiple layers of infrastructure.

The company tested the system internally before the rollout. During that phase, SoftBank Corp carried out a large vulnerability assessment across its own systems using OpenAI’s cybersecurity tools.

It said the exercise helped identify weaknesses and gave its security teams practical experience that now feeds into the commercial service.

SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said, “We want to create a system where we will be able to ‌defend ⁠critical Japanese infrastructure,”

“We want to leverage the new weapon of OpenAI to defend, we ⁠see this as our obligation,” Son added.

Junichi Miyakawa, president and CEO of SoftBank Corp, said the company would apply lessons from its internal testing to external clients.

“Leveraging the practical expertise we’ve acquired through our use of OpenAI’s cybersecurity technologies, we’ll confront the increasingly sophisticated cyber threats targeting Japan’s critical infrastructure.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “AI is transforming cybersecurity, and we’re focused on building durable programs that help it accelerate defenders. We’re excited to work with SoftBank to deliver the transformational benefits of our cyber models to more organisations in Japan and strengthen the systems all of us rely on.”

SoftBank said the cybersecurity service combines the models of OpenAI with its own operational experience in managing large-scale telecom and enterprise systems. It believes this mix will help organisations move from detection to action more quickly, rather than reacting after breaches occur.

The rollout will start with a small team of around 50 people working on deployment and support. That figure is expected to grow to about 1,000 as demand increases and the service expands across more sectors in Japan.

The post SoftBank Launches OpenAI-Built Cybersecurity Service to Detect, Fix System Weaknesses Before Exploits appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The proposed class action was filed in a federal court in Seattle by the City of St. Clair Shores Police and Fire Retirement System, a Michigan pension fund.

The lawsuit names Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood and other company executives as defendants.

Shareholders claim Microsoft gave investors an incomplete picture of Azure’s performance and the financial demands of its AI expansion between May 1, 2025 and January 28, 2026.

According to the complaint, the company downplayed the impact of high cost infrastructure while overstating the strength of products such as Copilot and the benefits of its partnership with OpenAI.

The case follows a decline in Microsoft’s share price earlier this year. On January 29, the stock fell 10% after the company released its quarterly earnings a day earlier, wiping about $357 billion from its market value. It was Microsoft’s biggest one-day stock market loss in almost six years.

In its fiscal second quarter ended December 2025, Microsoft reported 39% growth in Azure and other cloud services revenue. While that matched analysts’ expectations, it was a slowdown from the 40% growth recorded in the previous quarter.

The company also projected Azure growth of between 37% and 38% for the following quarter.

At the same time, spending still increased. Microsoft reported capital expenditure of $37.5 billion during the quarter, up nearly 66% from a year earlier and well above analysts’ forecast of $34.3 billion.

The lawsuit argues that Azure’s slower growth and the increase in spending were linked to capacity constraints as Microsoft redirected resources towards AI development.

Investors allege the company devoted significant investment to AI infrastructure, research and products such as Copilot without adequately warning shareholders about the financial impact.

Microsoft has invested heavily in AI infrastructure in recent years, including data centres, graphics processing units and custom chips designed to support growing demand for AI services.

Estimates reveal the company’s AI infrastructure spending reached an annualised run rate of roughly $37 billion during the 2026 financial year.

The company’s relationship with OpenAI also features in the lawsuit. Shareholders claim the partnership helped create an impression of sustained growth and competitive strength, while masking challenges within Azure’s underlying business. Microsoft remains OpenAI’s largest investor.

The shareholders sued Microsoft at a time when investors are scrutinising the billions of dollars being spent on AI across the technology industry.

Companies including Amazon and Google are also investing heavily in AI infrastructure, but the lawsuit alleges Microsoft’s disclosures to investors failed to fully reflect the risks and costs involved.

Microsoft has rejected the allegations.

“Microsoft stands by the integrity of its public statements and will vigorously defend itself in court,” the company said.

The case seeks to represent investors who bought Microsoft shares during the proposed class period and suffered losses following the stock’s decline in January.

The post Microsoft Sued by Shareholders Over Azure Slowdown, AI Spending Disclosures appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The company announced the changes on Monday, making AI Plus the lowest-priced paid AI subscription offered by a provider in the US market.

Vikas Kansal, product lead for Gemini AI subscriptions, said on X that the storage upgrade would reach users over the next few days.

Google AI Plus was introduced in January as an entry-level paid plan aimed at individual users and students. The service includes access to Gemini with higher usage limits, Omni Flash video generation, Google Flow creative tools, NotebookLM and AI-powered features in Gmail.

In Nigeria, alongside AI Plus at N7,700, Google still offers higher-priced plans. Google AI Pro costs N28,500 per month and includes 5TB of storage, expanded Gemini access and the company’s Pro model.

Google AI Ultra starts at N89,000 per month, offers at least 20TB of storage and provides significantly higher usage limits, as well as early access to new features.

The current price reduction follows a series of changes to Google’s AI subscription business this year. In April, the company increased storage on its AI Pro plan to 5TB without raising prices. A month later, it launched a new AI Ultra package and reduced the cost of its top-tier subscription from $250 to $200 per month.

With competition increasing among AI providers over subscription pricing, and premium plans taking over the market, companies have now started introducing cheaper options to attract more users.

This first became visible in India, one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Go there in August 2025 at about $4.60 per month, well below the price of its standard ChatGPT Plus subscription. Google followed with its own sub-$5 AI Plus offering in India later that year.

Google’s latest decision brings that pricing strategy to the United States, where subscription costs have so far played a smaller role in competition between major AI companies.

The development could increase pressure on competitors, particularly Anthropic, which has not introduced a lower-cost subscription tier or localised pricing in key international markets.

OpenAI and Anthropic are both preparing for public listings after filing confidential IPO paperwork, and growing price competition could become an important issue for investors assessing the long-term profitability of AI businesses.

The post Google Cuts AI Plus Subscription Price to $4.99 as Competition Heats Up appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.