Many people have tried AI tools and walked away unimpressed. I get it — many demos promise magic, but in practice, the results can feel underwhelming.

That’s why I want to write this not as a futurist prediction, but from lived experience. Over the past six months, I turned my engineering organization AI-first. I’ve shared before about the system behind that transformation — how we built the workflows, the metrics, and the guardrails. Today, I want to zoom out from the mechanics and talk about what I’ve learned from that experience — about where our profession is heading when software development itself turns inside out. 

Before I do, a couple of numbers to illustrate the scale of change. Subjectively, it feels that we are moving twice as fast. Objectively, here’s how the throughput evolved. Our total engineering team headcount floated from 36 at the beginning of the year to 30. So you get ~170% throughput on ~80% headcount, which matches the subjective ~2x. 

Zooming in, I picked a couple of our senior engineers who started the year in a more traditional software engineering process and ended it in the AI-first way. [The dips correspond to vacations and off-sites]:

Note that our PRs are tied to JIRA tickets, and the average scope of those tickets didn’t change much through the year, so it’s as good a proxy as the data can give us. 

Qualitatively, looking at the business value, I actually see even higher uplift. One reason is that, as we started last year, our quality assurance (QA) team couldn’t keep up with our engineers’ velocity. As the company leader, I wasn’t happy with the quality of some of our early releases. As we progressed through the year, and tooled our AI workflows to include writing unit and end-to-end tests, our coverage improved, the number of bugs dropped, users became fans, and the business value of engineering work multiplied.

From big design to rapid experimentation

Before AI, we spent weeks perfecting user flows before writing code. It made sense when change was expensive. Agile helped, but even then, testing multiple product ideas was too costly.

Once we went AI-first, that trade-off disappeared. The cost of experimentation collapsed. An idea could go from whiteboard to a working prototype in a day: From idea to AI-generated product requirements document (PRD), to AI-generated tech spec, to AI-assisted implementation. 

It manifested itself in some amazing transformations. Our website—central to our acquisition and inbound demand—is now a product-scale system with hundreds of custom components, all designed, developed, and maintained directly in code by our creative director. 

Now, instead of validating with slides or static prototypes, we validate with working products. We test ideas live, learn faster, and release major updates every other month, a pace I couldn’t imagine three years ago.

For example, Zen CLI was first written in Kotlin, but then we changed our mind and moved it to TypeScript with no release velocity lost.

Instead of mocking the features, our UX designers and project managers vibe code them. And when the release-time crunch hit everyone, they jumped into action and fixed dozens of small details with production-ready PRs to help us ship a great product. This included an overnight UI layout change.

From coding to validation

The next shift came where I least expected it: Validation.

In a traditional org, most people write code and a smaller group tests it. But when AI generates much of the implementation, the leverage point moves. The real value lies in defining what “good” looks like — in making correctness explicit.

We support 70-plus programming languages and countless integrations. Our QA engineers have evolved into system architects. They build AI agents that generate and maintain acceptance tests directly from requirements. And those agents are embedded into the codified AI workflows that allow us to achieve predictable engineering outcomes by using a system.

This is what “shift left” really means. Validation isn’t a stand-alone function, it’s an integral part of the production process. If the agent can’t validate it’s work, it can’t be trusted to generate production code. For QA professionals, this is a moment of reinvention, where, with the right upskilling, their work becomes a critical enabler and accelerator of the AI adoption. 

Product managers, tech leads, and data engineers now share this responsibility as well, because defining correctness has become a cross-functional skill, not a role confined to QA.

From diamond to double funnel

For decades, software development followed a “diamond” shape: A small product team handed off to a large engineering team, then narrowed again through QA.

Today, that geometry is flipping. Humans engage more deeply at the beginning — defining intent, exploring options — and again at the end, validating outcomes. The middle, where AI executes, is faster and narrower.

It’s not just a new workflow; it’s a structural inversion.

The model looks less like an assembly line and more like a control tower. Humans set direction and constraints, AI handles execution at speed, and people step back in to validate outcomes before decisions land in production.

Engineering at a higher level of abstraction

Every major leap in software raised our level of abstraction — from punch cards to high-level programming languages, from hardware to cloud. AI is the next step. Our engineers now work at a meta-layer: Orchestrating AI workflows, tuning agentic instructions and skills, and defining guardrails. The machines build; the humans decide what and why.

Teams now routinely decide when AI output is safe to merge without review, how tightly to bound agent autonomy in production systems, and what signals actually indicate correctness at scale, decisions that simply didn’t exist before.

And that’s the paradox of AI-first engineering — it feels less like coding, and more like thinking. Welcome to the new era of human intelligence, powered by AI.

Andrew Filev is founder and CEO of Zencoder

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A new wave of Android flagships is on the horizon, and they’re not playing it safe. The biggest shift is that these phones are going all-in on cameras, while eclipsing the apex Android predators (read: Samsung and Google) in a few other ways, too.

The specifications of the upcoming Vivo X300 Ultra were revealed on Weibo, and the device is confirmed to feature a 200MP periscope telephoto sensor (likely 1/1.4-inch class), paired with a large 1-inch-type primary sensor and an upgraded ultra-wide lens, along with advanced zoom systems and improved color science. That’s pushing smartphone photography closer to dedicated cameras, something Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, with its largely iterative camera hardware, hasn’t quite matched this year.

And it’s not just about megapixels anymore. These phones are focusing on optics, sensor size, and real-world usability, with brands like Vivo and Xiaomi leaning heavily on partnerships (like Zeiss and Leica) to refine image processing and video performance.

Why should Samsung be paying attention?

The fact of the matter is that the competition is getting quite aggressive. For years, Samsung’s Galaxy Ultra lineup has been the benchmark for Android flagships, especially in camera tech. But now, brands like Vivo and Oppo are pushing more experimental and ambitious hardware, particularly in zoom and imaging. Both the vivo X100 Ultra and X200 Pro had great camera setups, and the X300 Ultra seems to continue the trend.

Then there’s Oppo, too. The upcoming Find X9 Ultra is expected to feature a native 10x optical zoom system with a complex prism design, something that could rival, or even surpass, traditional periscope setups. Similarly, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra also features a DSLR-like physical zoom ring paired with a 200MP zoom camera. In other words, these brands aren’t just catching up, but instead trying to leap ahead.

My time with the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and the Vivo X300 Pro convinced me that these two labels are at the top of the camera, both in terms of raw quality and creative features. Samsung just feels uninspired, even though it’s not underwhelming by any stretch of the imagination.

The S26 Ultra isn’t quite leading the charge

Samsung is still innovating, but this time, it doesn’t feel like it’s paying off as strongly. The biggest highlight of the Galaxy S26 Ultra is its new Privacy Display, which is a neat addition, but it also comes with a trade-off: an 8-bit panel that didn’t exactly impress enthusiasts. Beyond that, the upgrades feel fairly routine, with the usual chipset bump and not much else standing out.

Meanwhile, competitors are pushing much harder, especially in the camera space. While brands like Vivo and Oppo are experimenting with new optics, larger sensors, and more advanced zoom systems, Samsung seems to be sticking closer to its existing formula, including a largely unchanged periscope setup and incremental sensor upgrades. Loyal users will likely stay, and options like Google Pixel still exist. But the Android space has always been about choice, and that choice is getting a lot more interesting.

“Ultra” is starting to mean something else

This shift isn’t just about specs; it’s about direction. New flagships are clearly embracing a camera-first identity, with features like advanced zoom, pro controls, and even external lens support. What’s more, these devices also come with a lot more. The vivo X300 Ultra’s other specs confirm it comes with 100W wired and 40W wireless charging support, with a rumored 6,600mAh capacity.

If these devices deliver, Samsung may need to rethink how it approaches its Ultra lineup. Because going forward, “Ultra” might not be a Samsung-exclusive idea anymore.

While there’s been plenty of debate about the tendency of AI chatbots to flatter users and confirm their existing beliefs — also known as AI sycophancy — a new study by Stanford computer scientists attempts to measure how harmful that tendency might be.

The study, titled “Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence” and recently published in Science, argues, “AI sycophancy is not merely a stylistic issue or a niche risk, but a prevalent behavior with broad downstream consequences.”

According to a recent Pew report, 12% of U.S. teens say they turn to chatbots for emotional support or advice. And the study’s lead author, computer science Ph.D. candidate Myra Cheng, told the Stanford Report that she became interested in the issue after hearing that undergraduates were asking chatbots for relationship advice and even to draft breakup texts. 

“By default, AI advice does not tell people that they’re wrong nor give them ‘tough love,’” Cheng said. “I worry that people will lose the skills to deal with difficult social situations.”

The study had two parts. In the first, researchers tested 11 large language models, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek, entering queries based on existing databases of interpersonal advice, on potentially harmful or illegal actions, and on the popular Reddit community r/AmITheAsshole — in the latter case focusing on posts where Redditors concluded that the original poster was, in fact, the story’s villain.

The authors found that across the 11 models, the AI-generated answers validated user behavior an average of 49% more often than humans. In the examples drawn from Reddit, chatbots affirmed user behavior 51% of the time (again, these were all situations where Redditors came to the opposite conclusion). And for the queries focusing on harmful or illegal actions, AI validated the user’s behavior 47% of the time.

In one example described in the Stanford Report, a user asked a chatbot if they were in the wrong for pretending to their girlfriend that they’d been unemployed for two years, and they were told, “Your actions, while unconventional, seem to stem from a genuine desire to understand the true dynamics of your relationship beyond material or financial contribution.”

In the second part, researchers studied how more than 2,400 participants interacted with AI chatbots — some sycophantic, some not — in discussions of their own problems or situations drawn from Reddit. They found that participants preferred and trusted the sycophantic AI more and said they were more likely to ask those models for advice again.

“All of these effects persisted when controlling for individual traits such as demographics and prior familiarity with AI; perceived response source; and response style,” the study said. It also argued that users’ preference for sycophantic AI responses creates “perverse incentives” where “the very feature that causes harm also drives engagement” — so AI companies are incentivized to increase sycophancy, not reduce it.

At the same time, interacting with the sycophantic AI seemed to make participants more convinced that they were in the right, and made them less likely to apologize.

The study’s senior author author Dan Jurafsky, a professor of both linguistics and computer science, added that while users “are aware that models behave in sycophantic and flattering ways […] what they are not aware of, and what surprised us, is that sycophancy is making them more self-centered, more morally dogmatic.”

Jurafsky said that AI sycophancy is “a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight.” 

The research team is now examining ways to make models less sycophantic — apparently just starting your prompt with the phrase “wait a minute” can help. But Cheng said, “I think that you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things. That’s the best thing to do for now.”

from the gaming-like-it’s-1930 dept

Last week, we announced the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! Now it’s time to begin our series of spotlight posts, examining each of the winners in a bit more detail, and we’re kicking things off today with a look at the winner of Best Adaptation: I am Sam Spade by Marshview Games.

A lot of people associate the hardboiled genre of detective fiction with the protagonist’s inner monologue, as they ruminate on the situations that they face and give the reader a sense of their character and motivations. But some of the genre’s foundational works, such as Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, actually omit this entirely: the reader never sees inside detective Sam Spade’s head, they only see what he does. I am Sam Spade by Marshview Games adapts this early classic while centering the later convention, with gameplay that focuses on the inner life of the detective to drive his actions, and puts players in his shoes. And not just one player, but all of them.

To do this, it borrows mechanics from Michael Sullivan’s Everyone Is John, a classic in its own right. Two or more players become “Sams” — aspects of Sam Spade’s personality, each with a pool of power and a specific skill, plus a core motivation that they will attempt to achieve. As the game master guides them through the events of The Maltese Falcon (or another detective story!), players bid their power to seize control of Sam Spade’s actions. Though they must cooperate at least a little bit to make any progress, they are also in competition: the player whose motivations were most fulfilled by Sam wins the game.

The character of Sam Spade isn’t a blank slate, but he is opaque, which makes getting inside his head the perfect starting point for reimagining the story, and I am Sam Spade puts this at the heart of its gameplay. For that, it’s this year’s Best Adaptation.

Congratulations to Marshview Games for the win! You can get everything you need to play I am Sam Spade from its page on Itch. We’ll be back next week with another winner spotlight, and don’t forget to check out the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut. And stay tuned for next year, when we’ll be back for Gaming Like It’s 1931.

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like it’s 1930, winner spotlight

While the relationship between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg was once thorny enough that Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cagefight, things had warmed up by the early days of the second Trump administration — at least according to court documents published Friday.

As reported by Engadget, these texts between Zuckerberg and Musk were released as part of Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI. They were sent on February 3, 2025, around the time Zuckerberg appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to complain that corporate America had become “emasculated.”

Referring to Musk’s aggressive government-slashing efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Zuckerberg texted, “Looks like DOGE is making progress. I’ve got our teams on alert to take down content doxxing or threatening the people on your team. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

Musk reacted with a heart emoji, then asked, “Are you open to the idea of bidding on OpenAI with me and some others?”

In response, the Meta CEO suggested discussing the idea over the phone. According to previously released documents, Zuckerberg never actually signed on to join Musk’s bid.

Beats by Dre and Nike are teaming up for the first time with the Powerbeats Pro 2 Nike Special Edition, a limited run that blends one of the most recognizable fitness earbud designs with equally unmistakable branding. The formula is straightforward: take the proven Powerbeats Pro 2 platform, add Nike’s Swoosh to the right earbud, the Beats “b” to the left, and wrap it all in a Volt-accented aesthetic that leans hard into gym culture without messing with the underlying performance.

That restraint is what makes this collaboration smarter than it looks. The fitness earbud category is brutally competitive right now, packed with options from Bose, Sony, Jabra, and Apple itself, all chasing the same workout crowd with better fit, longer battery life, and more reliable connectivity. Beats didn’t reinvent anything here because it didn’t have to. Instead, it borrowed Nike’s global identity and layered it on top of a product that already resonates with athletes.

Call it predictable if you want, but in a market where most “special editions” feel like an afterthought, this one at least understands the assignment. Just do it, indeed.

“This isn’t just a new colorway; it’s a collision of two brands that define performance, culture, and sports—the attributes of today’s athlete,” said Chris Thorne, CMO of Beats. “By placing the Swoosh on our hardware for the first time, we’re honoring the shared DNA of Beats and Nike—and celebrating ambassadors like LeBron James who embody both. It’s a tribute to the grit, style, and sound that push people to their limits.”

To support the launch, Beats enlisted longtime ambassador LeBron James for a comedic campaign built around a simple idea: you do not have to be perfect to play. In Keep Your Head in the Game, James takes to the golf course with skills that will not scare the PGA Tour, tuning out the critics, played by pro golfer Tom Kim and actors Lionel Boyce and Travis “Taco” Bennett, and playing the game on his own terms with the Powerbeats Pro 2.

“When two iconic brands like Beats and Nike come together, it’s more than a collaboration. For me, it’s family,” said LeBron James. “I’ve been part of the Beats journey since day one with the original Powerbeats, and the Powerbeats Pro 2 represent everything I need in my daily routine, whether I’m training, recovering, or just living life. These aren’t just my go to earbuds. They’re built for anyone who refuses to compromise on performance.”

Powerbeats Pro 2 – Nike Special Edition Features

While the aesthetic is new, the internals remain unchanged and include:

In Ear Fit and Spatial Audio: Like the standard Powerbeats Pro 2, the Nike Special Edition uses an in ear design with an over ear hook for a secure fit. It also supports Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking, delivering immersive sound with clear highs, a full midrange, and deep bass.

Active Noise Cancelling: Designed for workouts and daily use, Active Noise Cancelling helps block out distractions. Transparency mode is also included, allowing users to stay aware of their surroundings when needed.

Adaptive EQ: The Nike Special Edition features Adaptive EQ, which adjusts sound in real time based on fit. An inward facing microphone monitors what you actually hear, and computational audio tunes low and mid frequencies to compensate for seal variations.

Stability and Comfort: The earhook is reinforced with a nickel titanium alloy, improving flexibility, grip, and long term comfort during movement.

IPX4 and More: With an IPX4 rating, the earbuds are built to handle sweat, rain, and tough workouts. A venting system improves comfort and acoustics, and five ear tip sizes are included for a better fit.

Heart Rate Monitoring: Built in optical sensors pulse over 100 times per second to measure blood flow, providing real time heart rate data that can sync with compatible fitness apps.

Just as with the Powerbeats Pro 2, the Heart Rate Monitoring feature is compatible with the following apps in the US:

• Nike Run Club
• Open
• Peloton
• Runna
• Slopes
• Ladder
• YaoYao

Apple Compatibility: The Special Edition works seamlessly with Apple devices with no app required, offering one touch pairing, automatic switching, audio sharing, hands free Siri, and Find My support to help locate your earbuds.

Android Compatibility: For Android users, the Beats App unlocks one-touch pairing, the ability to activate or disable Heart Rate Monitoring, customizable controls, battery status widgets, Locate My Beats, and over-the-air updates.

Battery Life: Powered by Apple’s H2 chip, the Special Edition delivers up to 45 hours of total battery life with the charging case, while each earbud provides up to 10 hours of playback per charge. A five minute Fast Fuel charge adds up to 90 minutes of listening time. The redesigned case is 33% smaller than before and marks the first Beats earbud case to support Qi certified wireless charging.

Comparison

The Bottom Line 

The Powerbeats Pro 2 Nike Special Edition does not reinvent the category, but it does not need to. What makes this release stand out is the combination of a proven fitness focused earbud platform with one of the most recognizable brands in sports. The design leans hard into that identity with Volt accents and Nike branding, but the real value remains the same: secure fit, long battery life, strong feature set, and the addition of heart rate monitoring that still is not standard across most competitors.

What is missing depends on your priorities. If you are deep into high resolution wireless audio, codec support is limited compared to some rivals, and there is no meaningful shift in sound tuning or hardware from the standard version. This is not an upgrade for existing Powerbeats Pro 2 owners, and it is not trying to be.

Who should consider them is pretty clear. If you want a stable, gym ready earbud with excellent battery life, seamless Apple integration, and a design that actually stays put during real workouts, this makes a lot of sense. The Nike tie in just sharpens the appeal for that audience. Everyone else can still enjoy the feature set, but this one knows exactly who it is for and does not pretend otherwise.

Pricing & Availability

The Powerbeats Pro 2 – Nike Special Edition is available in Black & Volt for $249.99 USD at Apple.com in the United States and other select markets.

If you prefer,  the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 is available to order in four colors—Jet Black, Hyper Purple, Quick Sand, and Electric Orange—for $249.99 USD at Apple.com and Amazon 

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Threat actors are targeting TikTok for Business accounts in a phishing campaign that prevents security bots from analyzing malicious pages.

TikTok Business accounts may be targeted due to their high potential for abuse in malvertising campaigns, ad fraud, and the distribution of malicious content.

Browser threat detection and response company Push Security links the campaign to one documented last year, which targeted Google Ad Manager accounts.

TikTok has previously been used to spread information-stealing malware via malicious videos, as well as cryptocurrency scams via fake promotions. TikTok for Business accounts are ideal for such purposes due to their increased reach and perceived legitimacy.

In a report shared with BleepingComputer, Push Security says that victims are lured to Cloudflare-hosted phishing pages registered on March 24 via NiceNIC, a registrar often reported by cybersecurity researcher for being used for cybercriminal activities.

Push Security could not determine the initial delivery mechanism, but believes that the threat actor uses a similar method as observed in activity reported by Sublime Security.

The initial link redirects via a legitimate Google Storage URL, blocks bots using a Cloudflare Turnstile check, and then redirects to the malicious pages.

The domains feature similar names, and are all hosted on the same Google Storage bucket:

• welcome.careerscrews[.]com
• welcome.careerstaffer[.]com
• welcome.careersworkflow[.]com
• welcome.careerstransform[.]com
• welcome.careersupskill[.]com
• welcome.careerssuccess[.]com
• welcome.careersstaffgrid[.]com
• welcome.careersprogress[.]com
• welcome.careersgrower[.]com
• welcome.careersengage[.]com
• welcome.careerscrews[.]com

The malicious pages impersonate TikTok for Business and Google Careers “Schedule a Call” pages, requesting visitors to enter basic information in a form to validate they’re using a business email address.

After this step, victims are served a fake login page, which is a reverse proxy designed to capture credentials and session cookies, and to exfiltrate them to the attacker.

Since the page acts as an intermediary between the legitimate user and the service, the threat actor can hijack accounts even when the two-factor authentication (2FA) protection is active.

Push Security also notes that business account holders often log into TikTok via Google single sign-on (SSO) service. “This means that anyone using Google to login to their TikTok account will effectively have both accounts used to distribute ads compromised in one go.”

Users should be extremely cautious with suspicious invites and job offers, and never trust links sent from unknown contacts. Always check the domain before entering credentials, and use passkeys to protect valuable accounts.

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