Roundup: Amazon vs. Perplexity, AI’s Link to Declining Skills and More

Also, my conversation with Remote General Manager Ramya Venkateswaran

Amazon’s Fight With Perplexity Signals Tension Over AI Automation

Amazon apparently doesn’t like it when AI agents wander around in its store. The retail giant has warned Perplexity that its AI shopping assistant Comet violates its terms of service because it doesn’t identify itself as an agent. According to TechCrunch, Amazon has sent Perplexity several warnings, including a “sternly worded” cease and desist letter.

In a blog post, Perplexity replied that “Bullying is not innovation,” and warned that Amazon’s “first legal salvo” against an AI company is “a threat to all internet users.” The company said that since the agent automatically is at work for a person and has “the same permissions” as the human user, it’s not required to identify itself.

Amazon says its simply applying the same rules to Perplexity that it does to everyone else. Identifying agents “is how others operate, including food delivery apps and the restaurants they take orders for, delivery service apps and the stores they shop from, and online travel agencies and the airlines they book tickets with for customers,” the company said.

Amazon offers its own shopping agent, Rufus, which could also block Comet or any similar app from the site. Perplexity believes Amazon would do just that to protect its position and its ability to sell advertising and product placements. There’s basic finance involved, too, TechCrunch points out. “Unlike human shoppers, a bot tasked with buying a new laundry basket presumably wouldn’t find itself buying a more expensive one, or getting lured into buying the latest Brandon Sanderson novel and a new set of earphones (on sale!),” the website said.

This isn’t Perplexity’s first tangle with a company whose platform it’s trying to leverage. Recently, Cloudflare reported that Perplexity scraped websites even when those site disallowed the use of AI bots. Already, job boards and talent acquisition platforms are grappling with candidates’ rising ability to use AI to scan jobs and submit customized applications to each opportunity.

Employee Skills Decline at Companies that Embrace AI

Companies adopting AI have found the humans using it are acting as a brake on their efforts. A report from Wharton and GBK Collective found that nearly three-quarters of companies now formally measure AI ROI, and 60% employ a Chief AI Officer to oversee strategy. Meanwhile, 46% of business leaders use generative AI each day, up 17 points from last year. Nearly 90% plan to increase AI budgets within twelve months.

Still, companies face roadblocks. As they pour 30% of their technology budgets into internal AI R&D, companies find skills are deteriorating. Forty-three percent of leaders worry that employee reliance on AI will erode fundamental abilities in areas like basic math, even with calculators.

Meanwhile, the Neuron reported that Remote Labor Index from Scale AI and CAIS found that AI agents don’t perform that much more work than people. Researchers tested models on 240 real freelance jobs worth $143,991. While the top performer earned just $1,720, it completed a mere 2.5% of the projects. Efforts requiring end-to-end execution – like 3D modeling, animated videos or complex web development – resulted in poor quality work, incomplete submissions and corrupted files. AI may perform well as an assistant, but autonomous project ownership remains out of reach.

Some experts say the report illustrates how businesses must manage a hybrid workforce where preventing human skill softening is as critical as implementing new technology. The bottleneck the AI, but ensuring workers don’t become effectively obsolete while they use it.

Podcast

Remote’s Ramya Venkateswara on AI, Remote Work and Human HR

My guest this week is Ramya Venkateswaran, general manager at the HCM technology provider Remote. Their suite of products works across payroll, HR and talent around the world. We talk about the evolution of HR management in the age of AI and remote work, what customers expect from AI, and the importance of usability. Ramya says that while AI is a hot topic, the focus should remain on solving customer problems and enhancing user experience. We’ll also touch on the future of AI in business software, and how it could shape the way organizations operate.

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Other News

UKG unveiled its Workforce Intelligence Hub, an AI-powered platform that functions as an operational command center. The uses the company’s set of workforce information to help employers make decisions about staffing, productivity and operational efficiency. UKG Chief Product Officer Suresh Vittal said the hub provides companies with “a complete view of their operation.” Among the product’s capabilities are demand forecasting using historical data and seasonal trends, overtime monitoring to detect unusual patterns, and real-time visibility into shift coverage and labor gaps. The hub also tracks well-being indicators by analyzing attendance, scheduling and employee sentiment data. [UKG]

Businesses are tempering their expectations about AI as they face difficulties with implementations. Research from CompTIA shows that while 82% of executives anticipate AI delivering value, 79% report backtracking when results disappoint. Uneven AI adoption and reactive training strategies are among the key challenges companies face, along with AI underperformance (52%), scalability issues (50%), costs (48%) and workflow issues (47%). Fewer than 10% of the companies surveyed displaced workers because of AI without some kind of transitions to offset the move. However, 64% admit using the technology as cover for unpopular decisions like layoffs [CompTIA]

As AI reduces transaction costs, job boards may undergo dramatic changes, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. With automated applications surging, contextual and semantic AI could replace keyword searches in talent acquisition, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The researchers foresee business models based on pay-per-click and pay-per-post giving way to outcome-based pricing, and trust, identity verification and reputation scoring becoming central to a platform’s value. Experts say the findings reflect trends already reshaping recruitment, and argue platforms must manage automation, not resist it. [AIM Group]

Image: iStock