A major study from the National Bureau of Economic Research looked at nearly 6,000 CEOs, CFOs and senior executives across the US, UK, Germany and Australia. 69% of firms are actively using AI. But more than 90% report no measurable impact on employment. And 89% report no measurable effect on labour productivity over the past three years. Read more on this and other news in this week's AI news.

Along with all of the useful things we can do with AI and the rapid deployment of ever powerful models come a growing concern that, in the race to the top, developers may be choosing speed and profit above safety and ethics. I recently took the opportunity to listen to a podcast interview with Stuart Russell, on of the founding fathers of AI, where he expressed his concerns about the lack of consideration for safety and ethics by the leading players in the industry. Stuart is a board member of The International Association For Safe & Ethical AI (IASEAI). Their mission is to ensure that AI systems operate safely and ethically, benefiting all of humanity. We connect experts from academia, policy groups, civil society, industry, and beyond to promote research, shape policy, and build understanding around this goal. They believe, as do I, that AI can be beneficial, but current systems are being developed without appropriate safeguards. As these systems become more capable and more directly involved in critical social and economic functions, it is essential to provide assurances that they will operate safely and benefit humanity. Policy should be developed with input from experts and affected communities to encourage the creation of AI systems that can support such assurances. This is one of the topics included in this week's AI roundup which is in the classroom now.

In this week's roundup we report on; The potential public listing of Anthropic at $2 Trillion; Google Gemini crossing 1 billion monthly users A new small open-source AI model from Meta Claude-code's auto mode of interest to coders And I test out the potential of Manus AI All that and more in today's AI News roundup.

China Stakes Its Claim On Global AI Governance Xi Jinping's keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, delivered in person in Shanghai on July 17, 2026. The full transcript was published by Xinhua, China's State Council Information Office, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and CGTN. Reuters, Al Jazeera, and Stanford's DigiChina project provided independent reporting and analysis. This was Xi's first in-person address to WAIC since it launched in 2018, and it came one day after 29 countries signed an agreement establishing a new intergovernmental body headquartered in Shanghai. Outline of the Speech 1. Opening Framing: AI as a Shared Human Project Xi opened by invoking the 1956 Dartmouth Workshop in New Hampshire, where the concept of artificial intelligence was first proposed, framing the subsequent seven decades as a collective human achievement rather than the story of any single nation. He said the gathering by the Huangpu River was an opportunity to discuss how to advance AI "for the positive, for good and for humanity." 2. The Central Metaphor: Cooperation, Not a Solo Performance Xi used a Chinese proverb — "a single string cannot make music, and a single tree does not make a forest" — to argue that AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation. 3. Announcing WAICO — The World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization Xi announced that the vision from a year earlier had become reality with the creation of WAICO, headquartered in Shanghai, calling it a response to the Global South's calls to be included in shaping AI's development and governance, and describing it as a milestone in AI history. Twenty-nine countries had signed on to establish the organisation the day before the speech. 4. Concrete Commitments to Developing Nations Xi pledged that over the next five years, China would provide developing countries with 5,000 AI training and seminar opportunities, establish international AI application cooperation centres with ASEAN, the League of Arab States, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and BRICS, and enable 30 countries to access China's AI-powered meteorological warning system, MAZU.