AI’s biggest champions have argued for some time that the technology will usher in an era of unprecedented productivity gains, richly rewarding workers who harness it while displacing those who don’t.

Zeb Evans, CEO of the collaboration software startup ClickUp, claims that this shift is imminent. Last Thursday, Evans announced on X that the company, which was last valued in 2021 at $4 billion, had laid off 22% of its workforce yet characterized that reduction as not a cost-cutting measure, but rather a radical embrace of AI that will propel the company to the next level.

“Most savings from this change will flow directly back into the people who stay. We’ll be introducing million-dollar salary bands. If you create outsized impact using AI, you’ll be paid outside of traditional bands,” Evans wrote.

ClickUp recently introduced roughly 3,000 internal AI agents to handle a wide range of complex tasks on behalf of its employees, according to a Fortune article published several days ago. Instead of performing the work themselves, staff members are now expected to direct these agents and ultimately review the output to ensure it meets the company’s standards.

Evans’s goal, according to his X post, is for AI to turbocharge ClickUp into a “100x org.”  

ClickUp is not alone in its hope that AI agents will provide massive productivity gains.

In fact, according to a recent Gartner survey, about 80% of companies using autonomous tech have cut jobs. However, the study found that workforce reductions aren’t necessarily translating into meaningful financial returns.

While Gartner’s findings suggest some companies use unproven AI as an excuse to downsize, ClickUp maintains it is not one of them.

Evans told TechCrunch via email that the startup is indeed seeing productivity gains from AI agents. Not only is ClickUp measuring those efficiencies internally, but it’s also apparently gearing up to include them in a forthcoming product for its customers.   

“Instead of gamifying token cost, we gamify value created and time saved,” Evans wrote.

In recent months, a growing number of companies have started monitoring employee token consumption, using it as a metric to see who is actually adopting AI tools. But critics argue that “tokenmaxxing”—as this concept is known—is the wrong metric because it simply racks up AI expenses.

“The people that automate their jobs with AI will always have a job,” Evans claimed in his post. But if AI keeps taking over more tasks, ClickUp will eventually need fewer and fewer people, eliminating those who fail to automate their functions well.

Tech circles have long theorized about this scenario.

One extreme example of a high-profile startup using AI automation to the max already exists. Polsia, a one-year-old startup that claims to handle all software operations for solopreneurs, is run by just one person: its founder and CEO, Ben Broca. That efficiency is apparently paying off: Polsia just raised $30 million at a $250 million valuation.

Since his earliest days in the job, Pope Leo XIV has made talking about AI a priority of his papacy. On Monday, he released his first encyclical under the name Magnifica Humanitas (which translates to magnificent humanity) — a powerful 42,300-word document calling for regulation of the technology and a moral framework that protects humanity for generations to come.

The 70-year-old American pope, who is a mathematician by training, was elected to the papacy in May 2025 and has made “the safeguarding of the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” as the encyclical’s subhead reads, a central tenet of his first year in the role.

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The document’s publication arrives at a moment when many are already comparing it to the industrial revolution in terms of its impact on our work and ways of life. AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are growing and improving the capabilities of their models at extraordinary rates, stoking the fires of the ongoing debate about whether AI will be more beneficial or harmful to society.

Amid all of this, Pope Leo identifies AI as “a valuable tool that requires vigilance,” challenging the concentration of power among tech companies and addressing developers directly in places. The document is broad scope, calling for caution in deploying AI in warfare and the workplace, and it will likely become a cornerstone text as policymakers and tech companies hammer out their strategies for building and regulating the technology in the coming years. 

One message in the text that’s already drawing attention is Pope Leo’s call to “disarm AI.” While this might sound like a warning against the military use of artificial intelligence, it goes much further than that.

“To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern,” the pope writes. “To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life.”

What the pope’s encyclical says about our use of AI

This encyclical is more than just a message to tech companies and the Catholic Church. Instead, the pope seems to be addressing all of humanity, prioritizing “equal dignity of all human beings,” “the supreme value of human rights,” and “building a common good.” For Catholics and non-Catholics alike, Magnifica Humanitas presents ideas for people across the globe to rally around as AI becomes an ever-increasing presence in our lives.

The pope cautions against allowing those who control AI to dictate and impose the ethical frameworks for governing the technology. Instead, he says, the ethics of AI should be subjected to “shared standards of social justice” and openly discussed among all people. “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few,” he writes. In other words, we should all get to have a say about the role of AI in our world.

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He also has thoughts about how we should approach our own use of AI. The speed and simplicity of using AI tools might be appealing, he says. But they can also “encourage excessive reliance and the search for ready-made answers, and weaken personal creativity and judgment.”

AI’s imitation of positive human communication can be engaging and even helpful at times, he adds. “However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject.” This is particularly risky, he adds, when the imitation of care and support occurs in contexts where real human bonds are lacking.

“Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections,” writes the pope.

Why does the pope care about AI?

To understand the extent of the pope’s interest in AI, we first need to look at his choice of name. His decision to go by Pope Leo XIV harks back to Pope Leo XIII, who held the papacy at the time of the industrial revolution and wrote an encyclical called Rerum Novarum on capital and labor.

The current Pope Leo is in many ways continuing the work of his namesake, according to Brian Boyd, US faith liaison at The Future of Life Institute.

“Leo is developing the tradition of Catholic social teaching on asking how can we, as a society, serve the common good better — recognizing that AI is the most important technology that we have in the last couple of centuries, possibly last couple of 1,000 years, for how it’s going to affect how we live together,” said Boyd, speaking with CNET ahead of the encyclical’s publication.

In the past year, the pope has spoken about AI in the context of the protection of children, what he calls “the sacred nature of the human face and voice,” and concerns about workers’ rights, Boyd added. Pope Leo has made a point of addressing the tech industry directly, including in his encyclical, where he says developers “bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity.”

Sometimes, he’s faced backlash to this stance. Back in November, for example, when the pope addressed the Builders AI Forum, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen mocked him publicly — although his use of memes fell flat when many, including some in Silicon Valley, agreed that the pope had a point.

“It was fascinating to see not just Catholics, [but] people of goodwill from all different stripes, saying, why are you upset about someone pointing out what should be common sense, but outside of certain niches is just utterly ignored?” Boyd said.

The fact that Leo is the first American pope also likely plays a role in how and why he’s addressing the big US-based tech companies, Boyd added. While he was born in the US, he spent many years working for the Catholic Church in Latin America, giving him an understanding of both America’s self-perception and the global view of the country 

“That dual perspective really makes him ideally suited to both address people in Silicon Valley and also to represent the rest of the world in a way that’s deeply needed, because… a lot of these voices aren’t listened to, aren’t cared for,” he said.

The pope might not have the power of governments to regulate AI companies and hold them accountable in a way that affects their ability to do business and their bottom line, but that doesn’t mean his soft power should be underestimated. Earlier this month, he created a Commission on AI designed to convene leaders in the name of promoting human flourishing, and the Vatican’s moral authority could well carry significant weight as regulation continues to develop.

Homegrown jewellery brand State Property is now sold beside luxury giants worldwide

Singapore is not short of jewellery stores. 

From the gleaming counters of Cartier and Tiffany at Ion Orchard to the indie labels that have quietly multiplied over the past decade, the options are vast. 

But in 2015, when Afzal Imram and his wife Lin Ruiyin launched State Property, there was a specific gap they felt no one was filling—fine jewellery that led with design rather than gemstones.

10 years on, that conviction has taken them from a home workshop to retail shelves in the US, the Middle East, the UK, Japan and Hong Kong. Their pieces have even been worn by Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift and Robert Downey Jr.—a roster that would be implausible for most independent jewellers anywhere in the world, let alone one founded by two Singaporeans straight out of university with no industry connections.

“We’re as good as anyone else from any other part of the world,” Afzal, 37, told Vulcan Post. “I don’t think we should see ourselves as being held back in some way.”

We spoke with Afzal to find out how the couple built State Property into an internationally recognised indie fine jewellery brand.

A shared obsession with design

Afzal and Ruiyin, 36, met around 2010 through mutual friends. He was studying industrial design at NUS, while she was at Central Saint Martins in London, completing a degree in jewellery design. 

The uncanny geographic distance closed when Afzal went on an exchange to Paris, where the pair spent the time collaborating on each other’s projects, each covering what the other lacked.

“What she’s good at, I’m not good at, and what I’m good at, she’s not so good at,” Afzal said. “We managed to kind of help each other out.”

Both were drawn to architecture and geometry—a design sensibility that would later define State Property. Fine jewellery felt like a natural medium for the couple, who wanted to create pieces that could endure for years, even generations.

“With fine jewellery, it’s not as throwaway as fashion accessories. The trends don’t move so fast, and people keep the pieces for much longer. For generations, sometimes,” Afzal explained

After graduating from university in 2014, the duo began taking on commissions and design consulting work from home through a studio they called Proper People—which still operates today and handles State Property’s branding—to fund State Property’s first collection. 

A year later, they launched State Property.

Crafting jewellery across continents

Where traditional jewellers start with a beautiful stone and design around it, State Property does the opposite and prioritises the concept of the piece, then sees what material best fits.

Their vision, as the founders put it, is to strike a balance between minimalism and maximalism—inspired by the 20th-century design style Art Deco, which is characterised by modern materials in symmetry. 

A new collection can take anywhere from six months to a year to develop, with each treated as a living body of work. New pieces tied to the same theme are introduced over subsequent seasons, while designs that no longer fit are gradually retired. 

Today, State Property has seven collections spanning fine jewellery for both men and women.

Prices start at S$750 for a single 14-karat gold and diamond earring, while pieces from the brand’s anniversary Story of Everything collection range from S$4,980 for a toadstool pendant to S$11,650 for the Railroad Diamond Bracelet. Bespoke commissions and special edition pieces can cost significantly more.

The creative process involves collaborative brainstorming by the duo and prototyping, which ranges from Ruiyin’s sketches to creating wax models worn for scale and comfort, before anything goes up for final production.

Eventually, all final pieces are made in 18-karat gold, with production split across a trusted network of workshops in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Italy, and elsewhere, each chosen for specific techniques. 

Diamonds are cut in India; gemstones are sourced from Sri Lanka and Brazil. For bespoke commissions involving a client’s own stone, the casting, enamelling, and stone-setting may each happen in different locations—with the final setting done by local artisans in Singapore, so the founders maintain direct oversight of the gemstone at every stage.

Every collection balances accessible everyday pieces with more experimental designs that Afzal knows may be slower to sell—but those, he’s found, generate the most excitement and allow the duo to push their creative boundaries. 

“That’s what keeps the brand moving the needle.”

Building credibility from scratch

For the first couple of years, growth was slow and almost entirely organic. The two knew how to design, and they knew how to make a brand look good. Everything else, from pricing to strategy and managing a team, had to be learned on the job.

Pricing, in particular, was a sticking point early on. The most expensive pieces from that first 2015 collection went for around S$3,000. Even that felt bold at the time. 

“Asking someone to pay S$3,000 for our work? Who wants to spend that here?” Afzal recalled thinking. 

The brand’s first real turning point came in 2017, when State Property won the Emerging Accessories Designer of the Year at the Singapore Fashion Awards. 

One of the judges was Tina Tan-Leo, a veteran of Singapore’s fashion retail industry, who offered some perspective that neither founder had considered. “She basically said, ‘Guys, your stuff is good to go international. Why aren’t you there?’” 

Tina went on to mentor the State Property for six months, reworking pricing, laying out processes for export, and crucially introducing them to the wider world of independent designer jewellers. 

“She was the key for us to put State Property on this international trajectory,” Afzal said.

From there, the brand entered the US market first, then the Middle East a couple of years later. The couple landed their first celebrity placement with Nicole Kidman wearing State Property earrings to the premiere of Boy Erased in 2018. 

Ruiyin had described the moment as “surreal”: seeing something that started as an idea in a sketchbook worn by one of the world’s most recognisable women on a red carpet.

From there, the list grew to a degree that still seems improbable for a Singapore business: Rihanna, Gigi Hadid and Florence Pugh, among others.

For a label with no family connections in the industry and no established country reputation to lean on, the cultural legitimacy this provided was transformative. 

“If you say you’re a jewellery brand from Singapore, people internationally aren’t sure what that means,” Afzal said. “We had to build that trust ourselves.” 

In 2021, that trust was further cemented when State Property became the first Singaporean fine jewellery label on global luxury e-commerce Net-A-Porter.

Getting onto the main street

For most of State Property’s early years, discovery came through word-of-mouth, Instagram, and appointments only.

The brand participated in Boutique Fairs starting in 2018, and had a consignment presence at Tangs Plaza from 2019 to 2021—both useful for visibility, but limited in reach. 

However, the audiences at these places were accustomed to affordably priced goods, not 18-karat gold and diamond fine jewellery. 

That changed with brick-and-mortar retail. State Property opened its Armenian Street atelier in early 2021, followed by a boutique at Takashimaya Shopping Centre in Sep 2022. 

The foot traffic proved what no amount of digital marketing could replicate for the luxury jewellery brand. Back then, local and international sales were roughly even. Today, Singapore has become the stronger half.

Internationally, State Property now sits in approximately 20 retailers across Hong Kong, Japan, North America, the UK, and the Middle East, including Dover Street Market London, Moda Operandi, Goop, and most recently a trunk show at Bergdorf Goodman in New York. 

Cracking those markets wasn’t just about getting stocked, it required genuinely understanding how people in different climates and cultures dress.

“In Singapore, we don’t have seasons that affect how we dress,” Afzal said. “But in temperate climates, there are considerations that don’t come to us naturally—what earrings work when you’re wearing a scarf, whether you’d even wear a bracelet if you need gloves.”

The research meant travelling to each market, observing what people were actually buying and wearing, and only partnering with retailers whose values aligned with the brand’s. “We’re fortunate to have caught the eyes of key retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue and Goop,” Afzal said.

The team today numbers about 10, and has grown to become a family affair: Afzal’s brother handles the finances, his sister-in-law manages retail partnerships, and a childhood friend of Ruiyin’s oversees manufacturing.

Building a premium brand in Singapore

State Property’s clientele is made up of people typically in their late 30s to 40s, who tend to be culturally driven and already well-versed in luxury jewellery. These are customers who own pieces from Cartier, Van Cleef, and Tiffany, and are looking for something that sits alongside that collection rather than duplicating it.

Most of its business also comes from returning clients. The brand does not chase volume. “We celebrate every sale,” Afzal has said, “because each one means so much to us and goes a long way in helping us build the brand we envision.” It is built, deliberately, on relationships.

In Jul, State Property will take part in the Singapore International Jewellery Expo, along with Singapore Diamond and Jewellery Week and the World Diamond Congress. The brand will mark the event with new designs and an art collaboration with local mushroom growers, using mycelium to create jewellery displays.

Afzal and Ruiyin are also interested in exploring adjacent categories. 

In 2019, State Property was invited to customise a Qeeboo Rabbit Chair for a group installation at design fair Saturday Indesign. They styled it with a pearl necklace and earring, keeping true to their jewellery aesthetic even on a piece of furniture. The chairs were later auctioned to raise funds for the Children’s Cancer Foundation.

Their measure of success has shifted over time. 

“When we started, success looked like recognition—getting into the right stores, having press coverage, being seen,” Afzal said. “But now success is when a piece we made becomes part of someone’s life, when we become the go-to brand for a client’s jewellery needs, or when clients come to us to commemorate deeply personal moments.”

For founders looking to build something premium from Singapore, Afzal advised not to shortchange any part of it.

“The brand has to be built holistically—from how it’s presented online all the way to your after-sales service,” he said. “There is nowhere within that where you can drop the ball.”

• Find out more about State Property here.
• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: State Property

The FBI is warning about the Kali365 phishing-as-a-service platform (PhaaS) that is used to hijack Microsoft 365 accounts by abusing OAuth device code authentication to steal session tokens and bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA).

According to the FBI PSA, Kali365 first emerged in April 2026 and is distributed via Telegram channels for cybercriminals seeking an easier way to compromise Microsoft 365 accounts without stealing passwords or intercepting MFA codes. 

The platform uses device code phishing, an increasingly popular method that abuses Microsoft’s legitimate OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization grant flow to gain access to Microsoft Entra and Microsoft 365 accounts.

This authentication method was created to allow devices with limited input capabilities, such as smart TVs, conference room systems, streaming devices, printers, and IoT devices, to authenticate via another device using a short code at Microsoft’s device code login portal, http://microsoft.com/devicelogin.

In February, BleepingComputer reported that extortion gangs, including the ShinyHunters cybercrime group, were targeting Microsoft Entra accounts via device-code and voice phishing.

In these attacks, threat actors initiate the device authorization process themselves to generate a code, then trick targets into entering it on Microsoft’s login page via phishing and social engineering.

Once the victim enters the code and completes MFA, Microsoft issues an OAuth access token that grants the threat actor full access to their account without requiring them to solve any MFA challenges.

The threat actors now have full access to all applications the user normally has access to via their single-sign-on account, including Microsoft 365, Salesforce, or any other cloud SaaS platforms, which are then used to steal data.

The FBI warns that Kali365 gives even low-skilled attackers access to advanced phishing capabilities, including AI-generated phishing lures, automated campaign templates, real-time victim-tracking dashboards, and token-capture functionality. 

Security researchers at Arctic Wolf reported on Kali365 activity in April after observing a widespread campaign targeting organizations worldwide.

The researchers said that the campaigns primarily targeted Microsoft 365 environments using phishing emails that directed victims to Microsoft’s device code login portal, where they unknowingly authorized attackers to access their accounts.

The researchers said the resulting attacks gave the hackers access to their mailboxes, where they created malicious inbox rules designed to hide their activity.

In some of the attacks, attackers also registered new devices in victims’ Microsoft environments, further extending their access to the breached network.

Arctic Wolf found that Kali365 operates as a business, with admins who manage product development, resellers who promote the service to other threat actors, and affiliates who conduct phishing attacks.

The researchers say the platform offers two separate attack modes, with the first being device code phishing and the second being an adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) mode named “Cookie Link.”

Cookie Link proxies victims through attacker-controlled infrastructure that captures authenticated browser sessions, session cookies, and tokens after targets log in and solves MFA challenges.

The FBI recommends companies restrict or completely block device code authentication flows using Conditional Access policies where possible, audit existing device code usage, and block authentication transfer policies that allow authentication sessions to move between devices. 

The agency also urged impacted organizations to report incidents to the Internet Crime Complaint Center and preserve phishing emails, suspicious login information, and unauthorized device registrations. 

Device code phishing has seen widespread adoption in 2026, with other threat actors and platforms now using it as part of their phishing campaigns and attacks.

This adoption includes the EvilTokens PhaaS and Tycoon2FA, which are also using it to compromise Microsoft 365 and Entra accounts.

Automated pentesting tools deliver real value, but they were built to answer one question: can an attacker move through the network? They were not built to test whether your controls block threats, your detection rules fire, or your cloud configs hold.

This guide covers the 6 surfaces you actually need to validate.

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The strategy outlines plans to present Ireland as a global leader in engineering by broadening the talent pool and accelerating learning velocity.

Engineering Skillnet and business representative body Ibec have unveiled a new strategic plan, ‘Engineering a Skills-First Future 2026-2029’, which aims to address industry skill issues. 

The plan was developed in collaboration with industry leaders, learners and the Engineering Skillnet steering committee to build on a robust approach to identifying talent gaps and mapping emerging technologies to ensure Ireland’s engineering workforce remains agile, productive and globally competitive. 

The strategy outlines plans to present Ireland as a global leader in engineering by broadening the talent pool and accelerating learning velocity, according to its creators.

According to research underpinning the strategy, 84pc of engineering employers are experiencing challenges in the identification of skills. Meanwhile, 54pc of all staff were found to be in need of major skilling or upskilling.  

To combat these challenges, the strategy found that there needs to be a fundamental shift from a traditional focus on job roles and fixed titles towards a more human-centric, skills-first approach, as a means of further developing the workforce. 

Commenting on the research and strategy, Pauline O’Flanagan, the director of Engineering Industries Ireland, noted a critical alignment with national competitiveness. 

“In 2026, global competitiveness is defined not by hardware or capital investment alone, but by the skills agility of our workforce to operate and optimise increasingly complex, interconnected systems,” she said.

“To remain a global leader, Ireland must look beyond traditional job classifications and embrace a skills-first approach.”

Fiona Fennell, the network manager of Engineering Skillnet, added, “Work is changing at a rapid pace, with jobs fragmenting and many skills now expiring quickly. Ireland has a uniquely multi-skilled workforce, but how we identify and develop talent needs to evolve. 

“We believe that a ‘skills-first’ blueprint is essential to secure Ireland’s economic future. This approach moves away from viewing talent purely through titles or credentials, prioritising instead the balance of confidence and competence needed to perform work well.

“Given shifting geopolitics and demographics, this strategic plan represents a profound commitment to future-proofing skills mobility, starting right from the factory floor.”

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Tech industry layoffs may be worse at large tech companies than the rest of the IT industry. The New York Times argues those layoffs have now shifted the culture at Big Tech companies, after interviewing more than two dozen of their workers. “Cooperation and collegiality are on the wane; chumminess between employees and managers has cooled as mutual suspicion pervades their relationships; and a throbbing economic anxiety infects almost every conversation.

“Perhaps no site on the internet reflects this transformation more vividly than Blind, where users can post in private channels restricted to employees of a single company, or public channels visible to anyone…”

Since 2022, large tech companies have collectively laid off more than 150,000 workers, unraveling what many tech workers once perceived as a guarantee of affluence and employability. The threat of being replaced by artificial intelligence has loomed over those who remain. This year alone, Amazon has indicated that it is laying off more than 15,000 workers, Block 4,000, Meta 8,000 and Oracle an estimated 30,000… By most measures, the sentiments that Blind tracks have taken a turn for the worse. During the nearly four years before tech companies began major layoffs in the fall of 2022, Meta and Microsoft employees posted about career success — topics like how to maximize their salary or win promotions — more than four times as often as they posted about job insecurity, according to Blind. Since then, the ratios have lurched in the opposite direction: Meta and Microsoft employees have posted about job insecurity roughly 1.5 times as often as they post about success…

The shift has had practical effects. A Meta employee said in an interview that some workers on her team now used less vacation time and that, in a break with custom, people frequently checked on their projects while on vacation. They increasingly worry about getting a poor performance review or losing their job if they aren’t constantly available. The employee, who declined to be identified for fear of retribution, said she and many of her colleagues frequently checked Blind because it could be comforting to see how many other Meta workers shared their anxieties. Employees at several companies said in interviews that their morale was further undermined by the feeling that the layoffs were abrupt and arbitrary, and executed with little empathy.

Several tech workers said it was the scarcity of information about possible layoffs that raised their cortisol levels and made it difficult to focus on their jobs. They often fill the vacuum by turning to Blind, which, in addition to posts by workers, features a “tech layoff tracker” that lists both layoff rumors and those it has confirmed. “I was on Blind five days a week,” said Faith Wilkins El, a software engineer who was laid off from Oracle in late March, after more than four years at the company. Wilkins El, who is part of the Oracle Workers Collective, a group seeking better severance agreements with the company, said navigating Blind was sometimes stressful because it was hard to know what was true or false. (Blind says it has a security team to weed out bad actors, like those who may try to register under fake email addresses.) Still, she found it more helpful than not because the layoffs came as less of a shock after she spent time on the site. “I was trying to get prepared mentally,” she said.

Blind is capitalizing on the increased interest with new products. It plans to unveil a service called Blind AI, which will allow employers to simulate their workers’ reactions to certain changes, like a stricter in-office mandate. And it is close to releasing a feature to alert users that layoffs are imminent.