Axios

SAN FRANCISCO — AI adoption in the workplace is largely happening on an individual level, boosting employee productivity and unlocking new levels of inspiration, technology experts say.

Why it matters: The result is faster work production, but it comes at the risk of burnout and inequitable advantages.

Axios' Mady Mills and Meg Morrone moderated the April 6 roundtable, which was sponsored by Cox Business and RapidScale.

By the numbers: The top two use cases for AI spending — coding and copilots — are for individual productivity, Automation Anywhere CMO Tim McDonough said.

• Coursera sees "one enrollment every four seconds in an AI course," said Greg Hart, the company's CEO.
• "91% of the people who take a course on Coursera see a salary increase, [and] most of those people are taking technology-focused courses."

What they're saying: AI lets workers move more efficiently and with more autonomy, but "it's so much busier and more chaotic," Imbue chief technology officer Josh Albrecht said.

• "I'm not sure the incentive structure is there for companies to really ensure that … workers are not completely overwhelmed" by what AI provides, said Vanessa Parli, managing director of programs and external engagement at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
• There is also a "bifurcation of super-elite AI" users and everyone else, said Writer chief people officer Jevan Lenox, with starkly different career outcomes.

Yes, but: Some are finding it invigorating, WordPress VIP chief technology officer Brian Alvey said.

• "There are people who work in tech who are, like, 'I was pretty much going to retire, but now I'm coding again. This is cool. I've got the magic back,'" Alvey said.
• The barriers to adoption are "attitudinal more than it is generational," said Sari Factor, Imagine Learning vice chair and chief strategy officer.

What's next: "What does it mean for AI to act in collaborative contexts?" asks Microsoft chief scientist and technical fellow Jaime Teevan.

• With tools like Asana, Slack, Google Docs and Zoom integrated, "it's truly a teammate that is collaborating across our teams to get work done," Asana chief marketing officer Prachi Gore said.

Content from the sponsor's remarks: "The true power of AI is cross-functional," Cox Business vice president of marketing Sarah Kim said. "AI is going to rewrite roles and work."

• "The education system cannot keep up with the rate of change," and the question facing people entering the workforce now is not "what are the jobs?" She added. It's "What are the skills?"

The Trump administration is pushing back on Republican-led AI bills in Nebraska and Tennessee, with sources familiar with the negotiations describing the outreach as pressure to weaken or abandon the efforts.

Why it matters: This behind-the-scenes push puts GOP state lawmakers who support AI guardrails but don't want to cross the White House in a tough position.

AI-powered monitoring platform PeakMetrics has raised $6 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $16.3 million, Axios is first to report.

Why it matters: This comes as companies scramble to keep up with reputational risks that are now shaped or accelerated by social media and AI-generated content.

High-quality CEO thought leadership can drive an average of $367 million in shareholder value in a single week, according to a new study by Cardinal40.

Why it matters: This study suggests words themselves can create value, independent of external news or disclosures — something communicators have long believed but haven't been able to prove.

Meta on Thursday began removing advertisements from attorneys who were seeking clients that claim to have been harmed by social media while under the age of 18.

Why it matters: This comes just two weeks after Meta and YouTube were found negligent in a landmark California case about social media addiction.

Nextdoor is opening early access to local journalist accounts, executives exclusively tell Axios.

Why it matters: The initiative seeks to provide tips and sources for journalists and boost distribution for stories as some local newsrooms shrink.

OpenAI expects to generate $2.5 billion in ad revenue this year and $100 billion by 2030, according to a source familiar with recent presentations to investors.

Why it matters: It's the clearest sign yet that OpenAI sees advertising as a core part of its future business.

OpenAI is finalizing a product with advanced cybersecurity capabilities that it plans to release to a small set of partners, a source familiar told Axios.

Why it matters: AI capabilities have reached a tipping point, at least in terms of autonomy and hacking capabilities. Model-makers are now so worried about the havoc their own tools could cause that they're reluctant to release them into the wild.

A federal appeals court in D.C. on Wednesday denied Anthropic's request to pause enforcement of the Pentagon's designation of the company as a supply chain risk.

Driving the news: Anthropic sought the stay to fend off financial and reputational harm. The ruling comes after a federal judge in a San Francisco court last month granted the company a preliminary injunction keeping the administration from banning the use of Claude.

Meta on Wednesday debuted Muse Spark, a homegrown AI model it says significantly narrows the performance gap with models from OpenAI, Anthropic and others.

Why it matters: The model — code-named Avocado and built over the past nine months by a team led by Alexandr Wang — is a major upgrade over its Llama 4 models, Meta tells Axios.