ServiceNow to acquire Logik.ai to boost CRM portfolio

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ServiceNow to acquire Logik.ai to boost CRM portfolio

“With CPQ more seamlessly embedded into the sales and order management capabilities, sellers can increase productivity by exponentially reducing time towards building sales quotes and recording opportunities in the system. But also, as the system learns, it can also recommend the right products and services to add to a particular deal or help in generating cross-sell and upsell revenue potential,” said Martin Schneider, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. “Logik.ai users who do not have ServiceNow can definitely add more self-service capabilities to drive more frictionless commerce inside their business and provide more seamless customer experience.”

As for how these CRM capabilities tie into ServiceNow’s service management capabilities, Schneider said the company’s approach to agentic AI and workflow will further automate the CPQ process and bring in more data sources to provide recommendations and configurations. The acquisition will take advantage of other synergies amongst the CRM and service management products as well, he said.

“Service management, whether it is internal helpdesk or external call-center or support center, is inside the ‘CRM lifecycle’ of marketing, sales, customer support/experience. ServiceNow is simply building out a full suite of CRM offerings. And given their exceptional core workflow, these are going to be compelling, again, when you consider ServiceNow’s investment in agentic and generative AI capabilities,” Schneider explained.

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AWS slashes Amazon S3 Express One Zone pricing by up to 85%

The cost of write requests, too, has been slashed by 55%. Customers using the service via the US East (N. Virginia) region will now have to pay $0.00113 per 1,000 requests without any limit against $0.0025 per 1,000 requests up to 512 KB. Both data uploads and retrieval components have

Infoblox, Google Cloud partner to protect hybrid and multicloud enterprise resources

“Google Cloud DNS Armor, powered by Infoblox delivers powerful, preemptive protection against a wide range of modern cyber threats by using DNS as a first line of defense. Because nearly every cyberattack touches DNS at some point—whether it’s ransomware calling home, data being exfiltrated, or threat actors using domain generation

NetBrain boosts AI smarts to automatically diagnose, remediate network problems

Device layer (physical and virtual devices) Topology layer (Level 2 and Level 3 connections) Control plane layer (traffic flows, security policies) Intent layer (configurations, states, and designed behaviors) Tao emphasized that in his view, the key to managing a modern network is to understand intent. The 12.1 release enhances this

Cisco, Google Cloud offer enterprises new way to connect SD-WANs

Looking back, the rapid adoption of SaaS and cloud applications led to a WAN transformation and the emergence of SD-WAN via direct internet access, Sambi asserted. “Then, to enhance application performance, enterprises built colocation-based cloud on-ramps, which, while improving latency, introduced complexity and costs. This evolution led to a proliferation

USA Crude Oil Inventories Rise by 2.6MM Barrels WoW

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), increased by 2.6 million barrels from the week ending March 28 to the week ending April 4, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report. That report was released on April 9 and included data for the week ending April 4. It showed that crude oil stocks, not including the SPR, stood at 442.3 million barrels on April 4, 439.8 million barrels on March 28, and 457.3 million barrels on April 5, 2024. The EIA report highlighted that data may not add up to totals due to independent rounding. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 396.7 million barrels on April 4, 396.4 million barrels on March 28, and 364.2 million barrels on April 5, 2024, the report outlined. Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.607 billion barrels on April 4, the report showed. Total petroleum stocks were up 1.5 million barrels week on week and up 15.7 million barrels year on year, the report revealed. “At 442.3 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about five percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest weekly petroleum status report. “Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 1.6 million barrels from last week and are the same as the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories increased and blending components inventories decreased last week,” it added. “Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 3.5 million barrels last week and are about nine percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 1.5 million

Malaysia, Vietnam to Extend Agreements for Border Fields

Petroliam Nasional Bhd. (Petronas) and Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) have agreed to extend their production sharing contract (PSC) and upstream gas sales agreement (UPSA) for the PM3 Commercial Arrangement Area (CAA) for another 20 years. The Key Principles Agreement “sets the framework for the continuation of the PSC and UGSA until 31 December 2047, ensuring production continuity across seven fields and unlocking further potential [in] PM3 CAA”, Malaysia’s national oil and gas company Petronas said in an online statement. “The PM3 CAA PSC facilities are also positioned as a strategic hub to support tie-ins from nearby discoveries – optimizing asset utilization and reinforcing energy security in both Malaysia and Vietnam”. The PM3 CAA covers over 2,000 square kilometers (772.2 square miles) on the maritime border of Malaysia and Vietnam, according to Petronas. The PSC was signed between the two state-owned companies August 1993. “With an estimated remaining reserve of up to 60 million barrels of oil equivalent, the abundant hydrocarbon resources in PM3 CAA play a key role in contributing towards sustainable energy security in the region”, said Bacho Pilong, Petronas senior vice president for Malaysia Petroleum Management (MPM). MPM is Malaysia’s upstream regulatory. The new PSC and UGSA will take effect January 2028, according to a separate press release by Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd., which will remain operator of the PSC. Hibiscus Petroleum will retain a 35 percent stake. Petronas will own 35 percent through Petronas Carigali Sdn. Bhd. Petrovietnam will have 30 percent through Petrovietnam Exploration Production Corp. Ltd. New terms for gas sales from the PM3 CAA will be established to “ensure continued supply to Malaysia via Kertih and to Vietnam via Ca Mau, supporting national energy demands of both countries”, Petronas said. “The PM3 CAA is also expected to include plans for the reinjection of carbon dioxide

Masdar Completes Acquisition of Greek RE Firm Terna Energy

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. PJSC (Masdar) has completed its purchase of Greek renewable energy developer Terna Energy SA, which has an installed capacity of 1,224 megawatts (MW). State-owned Masdar initially acquired 70 percent of Terna Energy from Gek Terna SA and other shareholders last November. Masdar bought the remaining shares through a mandatory tender offer and squeeze-out that had a price of EUR 20 ($22.82) per share. The full takeover gives Terna an enterprise value of EUR 3.2 billion, according to Masdar. “The transaction is expected to provide significant capital investment in Greece and wider Europe, supporting the company’s contribution to Greece’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the EU’s net zero by 2050 target”, Masdar said in an online statement Thursday. “The successful acquisition demonstrates the scale and ambition of Masdar’s growth plans in the region, and further solidifies Masdar’s role as a trusted global energy transition partner to governments, investors, developers and communities across the globe”. Terna Energy’s portfolio includes wind, solar, biomass and hydro energy. Most of its operational capacity is in Greece, where it has the biggest and most diversified portfolio, Masdar noted. Terna Energy’s under-construction Amfilochia project will be Greece’s biggest energy storage facility with a pumping capacity of 730 MW and production capacity of 680 MW. Abroad, Terna Energy has an installed capacity of 102 MW in Poland and 30 MW in Bulgaria. A further 197 MW of solar projects are under construction in Bulgaria and Greece. Terna Energy’s executive chair, Georgios Peristeris, and other members of Terna Energy’s senior management continue with their current roles. “With full ownership of all shares, we can fully integrate Terna Energy into our global operations and accelerate the implementation of our shared vision for renewable energy development in Greece and across wider Europe, establishing Terna

Aisha Bowe Completes Astronaut Training at Houston 3t Facility

In a release sent to Rigzone recently, 3t, which describes itself as a trusted leader in global workforce training and competency, announced that “entrepreneur, leader in STEM, and former NASA rocket scientist” Aisha Bowe had completed “specialized astronaut training” at the 3t Training Center in Houston. 3t’s training center in Houston is a safety critical training facility for energy and high risk environments, the company highlighted in the release. It pointed out that Bowe completed the training as part of her preparation for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program and noted that the bespoke training program was designed to equip Bowe “with crucial skills ahead of her upcoming mission as part of Jeff Bezos’ first all female New Shepard flight, set to launch on April 14”. The training was organized by the Equity Space Alliance, 3t highlighted in the release, adding that it “immersed … [Bowe] in sea survival and other safety critical simulations to prepare her for potential emergency scenarios during her suborbital spaceflight”. 3t revealed that Bowe trained alongside a small group of participants but added that Bowe is the only one from the cohort heading to space. In the release, 3t CEO Kevin Franklin said, “at 3t, we specialize in world class training programs that prepare individuals for extreme conditions”. “We were proud to support Aisha as she took this monumental step toward space. Our bespoke simulations gave her the confidence and skills needed for mission readiness, and we wish her every success as she makes history,” Franklin added. Bowe noted in the release, “every step of this journey is about preparation, resilience, and pushing boundaries”. “The training at 3t has been valuable in rounding out my readiness for this experience and I’m approaching this historic mission with great excitement. I’m looking forward to using this platform to

Ofgem Appoints British Gas to Take Over Rebel Energy’s Customers

The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) has appointed British Gas to take on supplying Rebel Energy Supply Ltd’s 84,000 domestic customers and 6,000 non-domestic customers. This follows a competitive process run by Ofgem to get the best deal possible for customers, it said in a media release. The process was initiated after Rebel ceased trading on April 1, 2025. Funds deposited by current and former domestic customers will remain protected if their accounts are in credit. Additionally, domestic customers will benefit from an energy price cap through their new supplier. For existing Rebel Energy customers, energy supplies will proceed as usual following their transition to British Gas on April 6, 2025, Ofgem said. If customers wish to switch suppliers, they can shop around but are advised to wait until the transfer has been completed. Customers will not be charged exit fees if they decide to switch to another supplier, it said. “Making sure consumers face as little disruption as possible when a supplier exits the market is our number one priority, so I am pleased to confirm we have appointed British Gas for customers of Rebel Energy”, Tim Jarvis, Director General for Markets at Ofgem, said. “While I know customers may be concerned, they do not need to worry. All credit balances remain protected, and there will be no interruption to their energy supply while the switch is taking place”. “Rebel Energy customers will be placed onto a competitive tariff, though should consider what’s right for them once the transfer is complete. They will also face no exit fees if they choose to switch to another supplier”, Jarvis said. To contact the author, email [email protected] What do you think? We’d love to hear from you, join the conversation on the Rigzone Energy Network. The Rigzone Energy Network is

Kistos explores ‘development opportunities’ at GLA

UK independent Kistos said that production from the Greater Laggan Area (GLA) in the UK saved production targets as its Balder Future project in Norway stalled. In its 2024 full year results, the firm’s executive chairman, Andrew Austin, said: “Strong production across the portfolio, particularly from the GLA, has ensured we met production guidance for the year, despite delays to the Balder Future project.” Kistos expects Shell’s Victory field to come online in the final quarter of this year as a tie-back to the GLA, and it is currently assessing other options in the UK. Kistos is a joint venture partner in the GLA with TotalEnergies, however, a change in operator is on the horizon, as Prax bought over the French supermajor’s stake in the asset. In Austin’s statement to shareholders, he wrote: “The change of operator in the GLA, which is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2025, will provide additional momentum in sanctioning development projects.” Additional opportunities are on the table for Kistos in the UK as it forges ahead with Norwegian operations. “We continue to explore organic development opportunities, including the Glendronach field and potential infill wells at Tormore and Glenlivet,” Austin added. Andrew Austin, executive chairman of Kistos In 2023, Kistos and TotalEnergies opted to pursue the GLA over the Glendronach field due to “adverse changes” in the fiscal environment within the UK. At the time, Kistos had hoped for both to be sanctioned. However, the French supermajor ultimately chose to develop the GLA as it labelled the UK fiscal regime “challenging”. Despite the GLA being named as one of the assets that ensured Kistos met production targets, the business saw “lower production in the Netherlands and the UK.” Kistos achieved a production rate of 8,050 boepd throughout 2024, a 750 barrel drop

Podcast: Nomads at the Frontier – AI, Infrastructure, and Data Center Workforce Evolution at DCD Connect New York

The 25th anniversary of the latest Data Center Dynamics event in New York City last month (DCD Connect NY 2025) brought record-breaking attendance, underscoring the accelerating pace of change in the digital infrastructure sector. At the heart of the discussions were evolving AI workloads, power and cooling challenges, and the crucial role of workforce development. Welcoming Data Center Frontier at their show booth were Phill Lawson-Shanks of Aligned Data Centers and Phillip Koblence of NYI, who are respectively managing director and co-founder of the Nomad Futurist Foundation. Our conversation spanned the pressing issues shaping the industry, from the feasibility of AI factories to the importance of community-driven talent pipelines. AI Factories: Power, Cooling, and the Road Ahead One of the hottest topics in the industry is how to support the staggering energy demands of AI workloads. Reflecting on NVIDIA’s latest announcements at GTC, including the potential of a 600-kilowatt rack, Lawson-Shanks described the challenges of accommodating such density. While 120-130 kW racks are manageable today, scaling beyond 300 kW will require rethinking power distribution methods—perhaps moving power sleds outside of cabinets or shifting to medium-voltage delivery. Cooling is another major concern. Beyond direct-to-chip liquid cooling, air cooling still plays a role, particularly for DIMMs, NICs, and interconnects. However, advances in photonics, such as shared laser fiber interconnects, could reduce switch power consumption, marking a potential turning point in energy efficiency. “From our perspective, AI factories are highly conceivable,” said Lawson-Shanks. “But we’re going to see hybridization for a while—clients will want to run cloud infrastructure alongside inference workloads. The market needs flexibility.” Connectivity and the Role of Tier-1 Cities Koblence emphasized the continuing relevance of major connectivity hubs like New York City in an AI-driven world. While some speculate that dense urban markets may struggle to accommodate hyperscale AI workloads,

2025 Data Center Power Poll

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How Microgrids and DERs Could Solve the Data Center Power Crisis

Microgrid Knowledge’s annual conference will be held in Dallas, Texas this year. Energy industry leaders and microgrid developers, customers and enthusiasts will gather April 15-17 at the Sheraton Dallas, to learn from each other and discuss a wide variety of microgrid related topics. There will be sessions exploring the role microgrids can play in healthcare, military, aviation and transportation, as well as other sectors of the economy. Experts will share insights on fuels, creating flexible microgrids, integrating electric vehicle charging stations and more. “Powering Data Centers: Collaborative Microgrid Solutions for a Growing Market” is expected to be one of the most popular sessions at the conference. Starting at 10:45am on April 16, industry experts will tackle the biggest question facing data center operators and the energy industry – how can we solve the data center energy crisis? During the session, the panelists will discuss how private entities, developers and utilities can work together to deploy microgrids and distributed energy technologies that address the data center industry’s rapidly growing power needs. They’ll share solutions, technologies and strategies to favorably position data centers in the energy queue. In advance of the conference, we sat down with two of the featured panelists to learn more about the challenges facing the data center industry and how microgrids can address the sector’s growing energy needs. We spoke with session chair Samantha Reifer, director of strategic alliances at Scale Microgrids and Elham Akhavan, senior microgrid research analyst at Wood Mackenzie. Here’s what Reifer and Akhavan had to say: The data center industry is growing rapidly. What are the critical challenges facing the sector as it expands? Samantha Reifer: The biggest barrier we’ve been hearing about from our customers and partners is whether these data centers can get power where they want to build? For a colocation

Data Center Jobs: Engineering, Construction, Commissioning, Sales, Field Service and Facility Tech Jobs Available in Major Data Center Hotspots

Each month Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Pkaza, posts some of the hottest data center career opportunities in the market. Here’s a look at some of the latest data center jobs posted on the Data Center Frontier jobs board, powered by Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting. Data Center Facility Technician (All Shifts Available) Impact, TXThis position is also available in: Tacoma, WA; Ashburn, VA; New Albany, OH; Needham, MA and New York, NY. Also working on lead electrical and lead mechanical CFTs in Chantilly, VA. Navy nuke / military vets leaving service accepted! This opportunity is working with a leading mission-critical data center provider. This firm provides data center solutions custom-fit to the requirements of their client’s mission-critical operational facilities. They provide reliability of mission-critical facilities for many of the world’s largest organizations facilities supporting enterprise clients, colo providers and hyperscale companies. This opportunity provides a career-growth minded role with exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive salaries and benefits. Electrical Commissioning EngineerPhoenix, AZThis traveling position is also available in: Boydton, VA; Richmond, VA; Ashburn, VA; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; Hampton, GA; Fayetteville, GA; St Louis, MO; New Albany, OH; Dallas, TX; Chicago, IL or Toronto, ON. *** ALSO looking for a LEAD EE and ME CxA Agents.*** Our client is an engineering design and commissioning company that has a national footprint and specializes in MEP critical facilities design. They provide design, commissioning, consulting and management expertise in the critical facilities space. They have a mindset to provide reliability, energy efficiency, sustainable design and LEED expertise when providing these consulting services for enterprise, colocation and hyperscale companies. This career-growth minded opportunity offers exciting projects with leading-edge technology and innovation as well as competitive salaries and benefits. Switchgear Field Service Technician – Critical FacilitiesNationwide Travel This position is also

How Tariffs Could Impact Data Centers, AI, and Energy Amid Supply Chain Shifts

The present imposition of sweeping tariffs by the U.S. government has sent ripples through various sectors of the economy, with the data center industry poised to experience significant ramifications. These tariffs, encompassing a baseline 10% duty on all imports and escalating to higher percentages for specific countries—such as 54% on Chinese imports—are set to influence data center construction, hardware manufacturing, software development, supply chains, user demand, and energy consumption. Impact on Data Center Construction, Energy Access and Site Seletion Data center construction has long been dependent on key materials such as steel and aluminum, which are essential for everything from structural frameworks to power infrastructure. The newly enacted 25% tariff on steel imports represents a significant escalation in material costs, with analysts predicting a ripple effect throughout the entire data center ecosystem. For the construction industry, this price hike means an immediate increase in the cost per square foot of building new facilities—costs that are likely to be passed on to developers and ultimately to end users. More concerning, however, is the potential for delayed project timelines. The data center industry, already operating under tight deadlines to meet surging demand for digital infrastructure, could see construction timelines stretched as a result of both rising material costs and the limited availability of key components. Steel and aluminum are used in not just the physical building, but in critical power systems—transformers, switchgear, and cooling equipment. A shortage of these materials could, therefore, exacerbate ongoing supply chain bottlenecks, pushing back go-live dates for new facilities and forcing operators to reevaluate their development strategies. Furthermore, analysts are particularly worried about the compounded impact of these tariffs on already-strained energy access. In regions like Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, and parts of Texas, data center growth has been stifled by grid congestion, making it difficult to

With Ampere Deal, SoftBank Tightens Its Grip on AI Data Centers

From Silicon to Stargate: Aligning with OpenAI, Oracle, and the Future of AI Infrastructure The Ampere acquisition doesn’t stand alone. It is the latest and perhaps most strategic move in a broader chess game SoftBank is playing across the AI and data infrastructure landscape. To understand its full impact, the deal must be seen in context with SoftBank’s recent alignment with two other heavyweight players: OpenAI and Oracle. As you might’ve heard, earlier this year, OpenAI unveiled plans for its Stargate project—a massive, multi-billion-dollar supercomputing campus set to come online by 2028. Stargate is expected to be one of the largest AI infrastructure builds in history, and Oracle will be the primary cloud provider for the project. Behind the scenes, SoftBank is playing a key financial and strategic role, helping OpenAI secure capital and compute resources for the long-term training and deployment of advanced AI models. Oracle, in turn, is both an investor in Ampere and a major customer—one of the first hyperscale operators to go all-in on Ampere’s Arm-based CPUs for powering cloud services. With SoftBank now controlling Ampere outright, it gains a stronger seat at the table with both Oracle and OpenAI—positioning itself as an essential enabler of the AI supply chain from silicon to software. The Ampere deal gives SoftBank direct access to a custom silicon pipeline purpose-built for the kind of high-efficiency, high-throughput compute that AI inference and model serving demand at scale. Combine this with SoftBank’s ownership of Arm, the bedrock of energy-efficient chip design, and its portfolio now spans everything from the instruction set to the cloud instance. More importantly, it gives SoftBank leverage. In a world where NVIDIA dominates AI training workloads, there’s growing appetite for alternatives in inference, especially at scale where power, cost, and flexibility become deciding factors. Ampere’s CPU roadmap,

Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

And Microsoft isn’t the only one that is ramping up its investments into AI-enabled data centers. Rival cloud service providers are all investing in either upgrading or opening new data centers to capture a larger chunk of business from developers and users of large language models (LLMs). In a report published in October 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that demand for generative AI would push Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, Meta, and Apple would between them devote $200 billion to capex in 2025, up from $110 billion in 2023. Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders, followed closely by Google and AWS, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Its estimate of Microsoft’s capital spending on AI, at $62.4 billion for calendar 2025, is lower than Smith’s claim that the company will invest $80 billion in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025. Both figures, though, are way higher than Microsoft’s 2020 capital expenditure of “just” $17.6 billion. The majority of the increased spending is tied to cloud services and the expansion of AI infrastructure needed to provide compute capacity for OpenAI workloads. Separately, last October Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said his company planned total capex spend of $75 billion in 2024 and even more in 2025, with much of it going to AWS, its cloud computing division.

John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

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