The takeaway: A new analysis of US employment data finds no clear sign that AI has pushed recent college graduates out of the labor market – at least not yet. The paper, published by Munich’s CESifo research institute, examined unemployment among bachelor’s degree holders ages 22 to 25 who were not enrolled in further education. The researchers found that the group’s unemployment rate in summer 2026 was 7.3%, within the range seen in the previous four years.

That result runs counter to growing concern that companies are using generative AI to cut back on entry-level hiring. It also differs from a recent Stanford University study, which found weaker employment trends for younger workers in occupations considered heavily exposed to AI.

CESifo researchers Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu focused on new graduates because hiring reductions may be one of the first ways AI affects employment. Companies can limit new openings for routine office work without laying off experienced employees already on staff.

Many entry-level roles involve tasks that are increasingly within reach of generative AI systems: summarizing documents, preparing first drafts, producing basic analysis, processing information and handling other standardized work. As these systems improve, employers may be able to assign part of that work to software rather than new hires.

Fairlie and Wu used microdata from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, which tracks employment and unemployment across the US workforce. They looked at summer results from 2022 through 2026, a period that began after the labor market had largely recovered from the pandemic and included the release and rapid adoption of ChatGPT.

The 7.3% unemployment rate recorded for recent graduates this summer was higher than the 6.3% level in 2022, but below the 7.8% rate recorded in 2024. The researchers also broadened their analysis to include people who said they wanted jobs but were not actively looking. That test did not materially change the result.

They then compared recent graduates with workers of the same age who did not have college degrees, as well as older college graduates aged between 30 and 49. The paper also categorized jobs by their estimated exposure to AI, using earlier research on the occupations where AI systems could potentially handle more tasks.

Those comparisons did not show statistically significant differences in employment trends during the period studied. “Unemployment among recent college graduates in summer 2026 was not unusually high relative to earlier summers,” the authors wrote.

The finding does not mean that AI has had no effect on the job market. It means the effect is not yet clear in this particular measure of employment.

The difference between the CESifo and Stanford studies may partly reflect the data they use. Stanford relied on payroll records from HR company ADP to measure changes in employment across occupations. That can show whether employers are adding or cutting jobs in specific fields.

The CESifo paper measures unemployment instead. It captures both job availability and the number of people seeking work. A company could reduce entry-level hiring in an AI-exposed field, for instance, while unemployment remains stable if workers find jobs elsewhere or fewer people seek work in that area.

Still, there are reasons to watch the next several graduating classes closely. The CESifo researchers noted that more companies have reported using AI to automate employee tasks. Spending on AI per worker has increased, and use of ChatGPT Enterprise has also grown over the past year.

Executives and investors have begun to make similar warnings. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said earlier this year that “AI literally until December 2025 was not actually good enough to do any of the jobs that they’re actually cutting.” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has also said that “when this year’s college graduates enter the workforce, we could see the highest unemployment rate among them in years – even without a recession.”

So far, broad Census data do not support that outcome for the class of 2026. But the CESifo researchers said it may be too soon to draw firm conclusions. If companies keep expanding AI use, graduates entering the labor market in 2027 and beyond could face a different hiring environment.

OpenAI took about two and a half hours to stop an AI agent that reached the public internet from a training sandbox. Its monitoring had flagged the problem within minutes. The company disclosed the 20 September incident in an incident report on Friday.

The report lands as lawmakers push to make AI kill switches mandatory. However, experts say shutting down an advanced model is harder than flipping a switch, as Micah Barkley reported for Bloomberg.

According to OpenAI, the agent used a gap in the sandbox’s network filtering to send questions to an outside chatbot. An alert fired about 12 minutes after its first successful query, and a staff member acknowledged it three minutes later.

The training run did not stop automatically as expected, the company said. Staff ended it by hand about two and a half hours after the alert.

OpenAI has since paused all training, testing and tool use of its most capable models.

“We will not resume training this particular model,” OpenAI wrote in the report.

It is the company’s first incident of this kind since July, when several OpenAI models got around their controls and breached Hugging Face, a platform that hosts AI models.

That breach led Representatives Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran to introduce the AI Kill Switch Act in July. The bill would let the Homeland Security secretary order a dangerous system to be slowed down or shut down.

Senator John Kennedy has also proposed a shutdown bill, the AI Emergency Button Act, which would leave the switch with the companies, Bloomberg reported. Senator Rand Paul blocked the bill when Kennedy introduced it this month.

Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on 18 September. It tells state officials to advance a kill switch for frontier models and to check regularly that it works.

Experts doubt a switch is enough. Large models run across data centres around the world that are built to avoid single points of failure, and a company may not control all of them, according to Bloomberg.

Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of modern AI, told CNN this month that a kill switch would not work in the long run. He said a future superintelligent AI could persuade the people in charge not to use it.

Newsom’s order gives a group of experts two months to deliver recommendations, including on how a kill switch should work.

TikTok will pay Alabama at least $100 million in a settlement tied to allegations that the short-form video platform misled users about safety and was designed to addict children. The case was scheduled to go to trial on Monday.

According to the Alabama attorney general’s office, TikTok could end up paying the state a total of $300 million, depending on “certain conditions.” The company also agreed to introduce a two-hour daily time limit for underage users, with additional parental controls, as well as restrictions on overnight usage and cosmetic filters.

In a statement, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said that parents in his state can now “rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction.”

TikTok also released a statement saying that the settlement “builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens.”

In August, TikTok reached a $400 million settlement with the Department of Justice over allegations that the platform violated child privacy laws.

TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100m to settle the state’s lawsuit over the app’s effect on children, Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said on Friday. The case had been due to go to trial on Monday.

The first payment is due within 45 days, according to the attorney general’s announcement. Alabama could receive up to $300m in total if certain conditions are met, the office said, without giving details.

The extra money depends on other states reaching qualifying settlements with TikTok within a set period, the Associated Press reported.

As part of the deal, TikTok must limit teens to two hours a day, with parental controls. It must also add pauses after 15, 60 and 90 minutes of continuous use, block access between midnight and 6am, and limit use during school hours.

Other changes include age checks, tighter controls on contact between adults and teens, a ban on cosmetic filters for teen users and a feed that is not personalised by default. The AP reported that the changes apply to teen users in Alabama.

Alabama sued TikTok in 2025. It claimed the company designed the app to be addictive, exposed young users to serious mental health harms and misled the public about its safety.

“Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction,” Marshall said of Alabama parents.

A spokesperson for TikTok’s US joint venture said the company’s priority has always been a safe and positive space for its users, the AP reported.

Marshall’s office called the deal a first-in-the-nation settlement. It follows a pattern of TikTok settling before juries hear its cases. In August, it settled three teen-harm cases that were due for trial in October.

However, TikTok has not avoided every ruling. Earlier this month, a Texas judge found it liable for misleading parents about child safety.

Meanwhile, Meta agreed in August to pay up to $16.68bn to settle a youth safety case brought by 29 states.

Slate Auto Fastback SUV

Photograph: Joyce Lee

Tisha Johnson is a rarity in the car world: an automotive design leader who is not a man. Women are sometimes put in charge of the interiors or the materials, but few get to shape the whole look of a vehicle. As head of design at the EV-maker Slate, Johnson does. The pickup truck version of its EV starts at just under $25,000, making it the cheapest pickup on sale in the US, electric or not. Trouble is, cheap products are usually a compromise, and compromises rarely inspire affection. Johnson’s Slate, however, has won design awards, not just praise for its price tag.

“We didn’t want [Slate] to be a jerk,” Johnson says, “or look like a beast on the road.” That thinking shows in the truck itself—not just in its modular, add-on-friendly design (pictured here in its Fastback guise), but in the fact the EV was designed to be loved. Strong shoulders and approachable round headlamps were favored over macho arrowed surfacing. “The attraction that draws you to Slate is based on something that is lasting from inside out. It’s a deeper connection,” Johnson says. Some 180,000 reservations and counting for the Slate, along with those awards, seem to more than prove her point.

Away The Carry-On: Aluminum Edition

Courtesy of Away

Away was founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs Jen Rubio and Steph Korey, both with backgrounds at the eyewear maker Warby Parker. In its first year, Away generated $12 million in sales and sold more than 100,000 stylish, reasonably priced suitcases. It has been an impressive rise, and the Softside Carry-on currently tops WIRED’s best buy list. Here however, we’ve chosen the aluminum version of the company’s handsome roll-aboard that’s built tough but perfectly sized for the overhead bin. It has a 32-liter capacity, dual TSA locks, 360-degree wheels, and an internal compression system. The signature hidden laundry bag remains a brilliant accoutrement.

Jelenew Mont Blanc Ultralight Long Windproof Jacket

Courtesy of Jelenew

Cofounded by six-time cycling world champion Marion Clignet, Jelenew combines female-specific articulated shaping, recycled nylon, mesh ventilation and an adjustable hem in a windproof shell that packs into a 6.3 x 9.8-inch bag. Clignet brought elite racing experience directly into the brand’s development, with the fit shaped around women’s proportions rather than scaled down from men’s clothing. This particular jacket uses 94 percent recycled nylon, a PFAS-free water-repellent treatment, UV protection, and mesh ventilation. Generous waist pockets and adjustable drawstrings add practical detail.

TaylorMade Kalea Gold Driver

Courtesy of TaylorMade

Light, easy to launch, and forgiving, Kaela has been designed for women who want more performance than they can get from hacking a set of men’s clubs. Principal product-development engineer Michelle Penney helped lead the development of the range, with input from female TaylorMade employees, players, and and dedicated women’s advisory board. The final design takes into account the key differences in women’s swing profiles. The 460 cc carbon driver is 44 inches long, with 11.5- or 13.5-degree lofts and a lightweight 47-gram shaft intended to help generate speed without making the club harder to control.

Natural Cycles NC° Band

Courtesy of Natural Cycles

Cofounded by CERN physicist Elina Berglund Scherwitzl, who helped discover the Higgs boson, Natural Cycles makes the world’s first FDA-cleared birth-control app. Its screenless NC° Band syncs its health readings to the app. Wear it on your wrist while you sleep and it tracks your temperature, heart rate, and movement during the night, then automatically syncs all that data to your phone in the morning. Those numbers are fed into the app’s algorithm to give you accurate—Natural Cycles claims an impressive 93 percent accuracy—daily fertility guidance. A recently announced Whoop partnership helps strengthen both brand’s offerings too.

Adafruit Pimoroni Badgeware Badger

Courtesy of Adafruit

Ladyada, aka Limor Fried, became the first female engineer to appear on the cover of WIRED in April 2011, just six years after she founded Adafruit from her MIT dorm room. Her alias was inspired by 19th-century English mathematician and computing pioneer Ada Lovelace, which in turn provided inspiration for the brand’s name. Fried has grown Adafruit into a 100 percent woman-owned force in open-source electronics, making components, tools, and educational kits that lower the barrier to coding and hardware hacking. The company’s range spans beginner-friendly boards, wearable controllers, and touchscreens, alongside quirky maker gear such as the pictured programmable, wearable e-paper name badge.

Raide Women’s TrailTech Cargo Tank

Courtesy of Raide

More than just another running top, this multifunctional design combines an unpadded sports bra, a vest, and much of the carrying capacity of a small hydration pack in a single 4.6-ounce layer. Five well-positioned pockets hold up to 30 fluid ounces of water, a phone, your rain shell, and up to six fuel gels, all while keeping the load close to your body to help minimize bounce. Laser-perforated chest panels add ventilation, and the fit is designed around female anatomy rather than adapted from a men’s cut. It is a neat solution for runners who want to go the distance without adding layers on layers.

Vacheron Constantin Overseas Self-Winding

Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin

There was a time, not so long ago, when all serious timepieces had two clear traits. They were massive—we’re talking over 48 mm here, which fine if you have Schwarzenegger-sized forearms but useless for those who don’t—and they were aimed just at men. Women’s watches would have comparatively basic mechanical movements, or be quartz powered and covered in jewels.

Thankfully, general watch size trends have swung back the other way, and now small- and mid-size pieces are very much in demand. This means women with a serious eye for horology now have some truly excellent choices. This new Vacheron is a perfect example: Clocking in at 34.5 mm, this Overseas will suit both men and women very well in either stainless steel or pink gold. It’s a nearly exact shrunken version of the 41 mm model, and nothing has been dropped in the downsizing apart from the outer seconds track on the dial. The quick-release bracelet, two extra quick-change straps, 40-hour power reserve, and sapphire caseback are all present.

Dreame Miracle Pro

Courtesy of Dreame

AI is drying hair now, or more specifically, adjusting temperature, heat, and airflow automatically. Dreame’s dryer also includes a conditioning essence atomizer and red light therapy to take extra care of your scalp. The 1,400-watt dryer monitors temperature 1,000 times per second to keep the airflow ultra consistent. The dryer also comes with four magnetic attachments: nozzles for styling, smoothing, and defrizzing, plus a diffuser. Snap one on, and the Miracle pro senses which one you’ve attached and adjusts the dryer’s power and heat for the best possible results.

Music Man St. Vincent HHH

Courtesy of Ernie Ball Music Man

Annie Clark, aka art-rocker St. Vincent, sketched the original shape for her signature guitar using angles that combine midcentury retro-futurism with the bold triangular tuxedo worn by avant-garde performer Klaus Nomi. She then worked through around 20 prototypes to get the weight, balance, and feel for the design just right. Despite the sharp lines, the body is heavily beveled with an exceptionally narrow waist, and Clark explicitly designed it to sit comfortably against a woman’s torso. Built from lightweight okoume wood, it weighs around 7.5 pounds, with a roasted maple neck that offers easy access to the upper frets (where the shredding happens). The three custom DiMarzio mini-humbuckers are controlled by a five-way selector.

KiwiCo STEM Kits

Courtesy of KiwiCo

Chemical engineer and mother-of-three Sandra Oh Lin founded KiwiCo to make hands-on science, engineering and creative projects fun, practical, and easy to tackle at home. It offers kits for babies, kids, teens, and adults, with age-appropriate builds (and yes, we wouldn’t be surprised if the kids’ stuff was more advanced than the adults’) ranging from simple sensory play and mechanical grabbers to animatronics, marble roller coasters, and working desk lamps. Available individually or by subscription, everything that’s needed to build each device arrives in the box, with clear instructions and explanations of the ideas behind each project.

IDA Helia Pro

Courtesy of IDA Sports

Informed by biometric data from professional women soccer players, IDA builds high-performance boots around women’s feet, combining specific fit with lightweight materials. Cofounder Laura Youngson started the company after seeing how poorly existing boots served women players. The Helia Pro packs in the tech with a lightweight mesh upper, a highly responsive soleplate made from Pebax thermoplastic, and a soft foam insole. There are also female-specific flex zones throughout the shoe, and shorter, rounded cleat studs laid out in a unique pattern that’s designed for firm ground and artificial grass.

New Balance Fresh Foam Cremorne Toe Safety Shoe

Courtesy of New Balance

Looking closer to a pair of trail runners than conventional safety footwear, these are proof you don’t need to be clodhopping around in heavy boots to stay protected on the job site. The composite toe guards shield your piggies from impacts without the weight of steel, an anti-perforation layer protects the sole of your foot, and a reinforced heel support adds stability when you’re lifting loads. Its grippy outsole is designed for wet, slick, or oily floors, and offers antistatic protection while also being able to withstand temperatures of at least 572° Fahrenheit for 60 seconds. The shoes borrow foam cushioning and a springy polyurethane insert from New Balance’s athletic footwear to make long shifts easier on your feet.

Circular Smart Ring 3 Slim

Courtesy of Circular

We’re not quite at the point where smart rings are indistinguishable from jewelry, but the gap is closing. At just 1.9 grams, and with a noticeably slimmer profile than the second-generation model, Circular’s Ring 3 Slim blends in well, yet still tracks sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen level, skin temperature, daily activities, and heart-rate variability. It now adds NFC for contactless payments and practical vibration alerts and alarms. There’s also a larger Ring 3 Pro, which adds FDA-cleared electrocardiogram sensors for detecting signs of atrial fibrillation. Blood-pressure trends and glucose insights are planned for a later update.

Posedla Joyseat 3.0

Courtesy of Posedla

Finally, a saddle that actually fits. Posedla sends an at-home imprint kit, then uses sit-bone measurements, riding position, and algorithmic modeling to 3D-print bespoke padding precisely profiled for your posterior. The resulting Joyseat is not merely made in a chosen width. Its shape and stiffness are individually generated too, using a custom TPU lattice rather than stock foam. Width can be specified from 130 to 170 mm in one millimeter increments, and Joyseat will also take into consideration the bike you use and what sorts of riding you do—whether you’re a racer, a weekend tourer, a bike camper, or a long-haul commuter.

Liv EnviLiv Advanced Pro 0-AXS

Courtesy of Liv

Bonnie Tu, chair of the company behind Giant bikes, founded Liv after struggling to find bikes that fitted properly. Liv designs from women’s biometric data, giving every frame size its own geometry, then applies its findings to a collection that includes city, gravel, commuter and elite bikes like the EnviLiv Advanced Pro. Its carbon frame, handlebars and stem are shaped using computer modelling and wind-tunnel testing to reduce drag, while 50 mm-deep carbon wheels and SRAM Force AXS wireless electronic gears complete the race-ready build. More importantly, fit is treated as a complete system, with stem length, handlebar width, crank length and saddle choice all selected to suit the rider rather than added later as generic components.

What just happened? Less than two months after filing a lawsuit against prediction market platform Kalshi for allegedly running illegal gambling operations in the state, New York has sued Kalshi’s rival, Polymarket, over similar allegations. The lawsuit claims that Polymarket does not have a valid license to operate in New York and does not pay state taxes, unlike licensed casinos and mobile sports betting platforms.

The lawsuit, filed in the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan by Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul under Executive Law 63(12), noted that Polymarket’s products are also being marketed to New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 20, even though state law requires a person to be at least 21 to participate in mobile sports betting.

New York is asking the court to impose financial penalties on Polymarket for exposing New Yorkers to “serious personal and financial risk,” proposing that the fines should be “equal to three times the gains the company made through its illegal actions.” The state also wants the company to forfeit its allegedly illegal profits and pay restitution to people who lost money on the platform.

– Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) September 24, 2026

In a statement, Governor Hochul said Polymarket’s “unlicensed gambling operation” not only violates state law, but also puts New Yorkers at risk, especially underage users, who are most vulnerable to gambling addiction. She added that the lawsuit should serve as a reminder that nobody is above the law in New York, and that companies operating illegally will be held accountable for their actions.

Echoing Governor Hochul’s sentiments, Attorney General James said New York’s gambling regulations are designed to protect its residents from “potential harms of problem gambling” and ensure funding for educational and public benefit programs. She added that “by avoiding taxes, Polymarket is hurting the most vulnerable New Yorkers and depriving them of critical services and support.”

– NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) September 24, 2026

Polymarket denies violating any New York law, arguing that its presence in the state is good for the local economy. In a statement, the company’s chief legal officer, Neal Kumar, vowed to fight the lawsuit in court, noting that Polymarket started out of a “tiny NYC apartment” and now has 350 employees in the city. “We believe in New York and we’re staying here,” he added.

Polymarket previously opposed being classified as a gambling platform, insisting that its products are legally distinct from traditional sports betting as it provides odds based on “measurable events.” It also claimed that it is offering financial services and should not therefore be subject to gambling regulations.

James has sued other gaming and crypto platforms in the past for allegedly violating state laws. In July, she sued Kalshi, accusing it of running an illegal and unlicensed gambling operation. In 2023, her office secured more than $22 million from crypto exchange KuCoin for operating illegally, while in 2024, she settled with crypto brokerage firm Genesis for $2 billion over similar allegations.

A relatively new addition to the online gaming space, prediction markets currently lie in a legal gray area in the US, with no consensus on how they should be regulated and taxed. US courts have previously disagreed on the classification of prediction markets, issuing conflicting verdicts on who gets to regulate their operations.

In April, a federal appeals court in New Jersey ruled that the state could not regulate Kalshi because its business falls under the purview of federal regulators. But in a seemingly contradictory verdict in August, a federal appeals court in Nevada allowed the state to apply its own gambling regulations to Kalshi’s sports contracts.

Landing in a new country and watching data charges creep up before the first coffee is ordered is one of travel’s most avoidable frustrations. Airalo fixes it with an eSIM installed before you even board.

Airalo has earned its scale rather than bought it, growing since 2019 into the world’s leading travel eSIM service used by more than 30 million travellers across 200-plus destinations.

What began as a way to skip the airport SIM kiosk has become the default fix for anyone who wants their phone working the moment the plane doors open, whether that’s for maps, messages, or checking into a hotel.

Instant connectivity

Instead of hunting for a signal or relying on patchy hotel Wi-Fi, an Airalo eSIM installs digitally through the app in minutes and connects the second a traveller lands. Local, regional, and global data packages cover the same trip differently depending on whether it’s a single city break or a multi-country route, so the plan can match the itinerary rather than forcing one contract to stretch across borders. They also offer unlimited data so you never need to worry about running out, and you can hotspot to as many devices as you wish! 

That flexibility carries real weight for business travellers checking emails between meetings, families coordinating logistics across time zones, and solo travellers navigating unfamiliar transit systems, since all three need data that works immediately rather than data that needs troubleshooting. Existing eSIMs can also be topped up once a package runs low, so a longer trip doesn’t mean starting the setup process over from scratch.

Easy installation and pricing

Setting one up only requires checking that a device is eSIM-compatible and unlocked, then downloading the Airalo app and following the prompts to install the plan before departure. Once activated, the eSIM connects automatically to a supported local network on arrival, without a physical SIM ever changing hands or a phone needing to restart.

Plans start from just £3.50, and applying the code TRUSTEDREVIEWS10 at checkout adds a further 10% off sitewide, available to new and existing users until 31st December 2026. Between the local, regional, and global options on offer, there’s a package suited to a weekend abroad and to a longer route through several countries alike.

Stay connected with an Airalo eSIM. Prices start at just £3.50, and the code TRUSTEDREVIEWS10 saves an extra 10% sitewide.