Your commercial news round-up: Israel and Palestine, Netflix, Amazon’s new robot, Microsoft’s AI assistant

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In this week’s round-up we take a look at the latest devastation caused by the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s arrival in Israel. Moving away from the conflict, Netflix reports success from its crackdown on password sharing, Amazon launches a humanoid robot and Microsoft announces a new AI assistant. Find out more in the round-up below.

• On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,400 people. Since then, the Israeli military has launched numerous air strikes against Gaza with more than 3,000 people killed. Israel has also blocked supplies of water, food and medical resources from entering the territory, and is demanding the release of Israeli hostages. More than one million people have been displaced inside Gaza, an area 41km long and 10km wide. While US President Joe Biden has confirmed that an agreement was reached with Israel to allow the movement of humanitarian aid from Egypt into Gaza, Israel has said it’ll not allow any aid to pass through its own territory until hostages taken by Hamas are released, according to the BBC.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has arrived in Israel with plans to meet the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. Ahead of his trip, Sunak called the civilian deaths a “tragedy”. James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, is due to meet leaders in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar with the aim of finding support for a peaceful resolution and an agreement on humanitarian access to Gaza and the release of British hostages held by Hamas.

• Following Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing, the streaming giant has reported that it’s added nearly nine million subscribers from July to September, which saw its shares rocket. In the first half of 2022, the platform lost one million subscribers, with reports that its recent growth in subscribers is partly down to the decision to charge an extra fee to have more than one household on the same Netflix account. Despite this success, it’s announced plans to increase monthly charges for some of its advert-free options in the US, UK and France. The company said it’s “optimistic” about its long-run opportunity in the market and has reported that its quarterly revenue is up nearly 8% year-on-year at $8.5 billion, while profits reach $1.67 billion.

• Amazon has introduced Digit, a two-legged robot, as the company moves forward in its plans to increasingly automate its warehouses. The humanoid robot can hold and lift items, and carry up to 16 kilograms. The multinational tech company has started testing Digit this week as concerns grown regarding the impact AI could have on its 1.5 million human workforce. However, Tye Brady, Amazon Robotics’ chief technologist, said that although some jobs will become redundant, new ones will be created – Brady claimed that the use of robots “does not” mean Amazon will need fewer employees as he described the people at Amazon as “irreplaceable”. The plan, according to Brady, is to “eliminate all the menial, the mundane and the repetitive” tasks.

Meanwhile, Amazon has also revealed plans to start using drones to deliver parcels in the UK. The service will initially be tested in one UK location at the end of 2024 and the company is working closely with the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure it meets regulations and understands how the drones can be used safely and securely. Drones are already delivering Amazon packages that weigh no more than 2.2 kilograms in California and Texas, with plans to launch “ultra-fast” deliveries in another US state and Italy.

• Sticking with the ever-evolving technology that is AI, Microsoft has developed a ChatGPT-style AI assistant, Microsoft 365 Copilot, which can summarise meetings held in Teams for those unable to attend. The AI assistant will be embedded into its Office apps and, on top of summarising meetings, can also draft emails, create Word documents, spreadsheet graphs and PowerPoint presentations. Various concerns have been raised following the reveal of this tech, including that businesses could become reliant on AI-powered assistance and that it might fail to meet the new rules governing AI that state “users should be made aware when they are interacting with AI”. The tech company has said that the new system “respects data policies”.

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