Baidu Supercharges Search With AI Video

Brace for the singularity, Tech Insiders.

Today, we're tracking the whiplash of our new AI reality—the same tech that turns doodles into videos now spits out pink slips, phishing kits, and talking points for mass layoffs.

The full patch notes on this brave new world are just below.

Here's what you need to know today:

Baidu's Big AI Play: Smarter Search, Squeezable Videos

Turns out Beijing's newest blockbuster is only 10 seconds long.

Baidu has unveiled MuseSteamer, an image-to-video model that spits out 10-second clips in Turbo, Pro, and Lite flavors, but only for business users… for now.

At the same press event last week, Baidu refreshed its flagship search box to handle thousand-character prompts, as well as voice and image queries, which pipes results through its AI ranking engine for snappier, mixed-media answers.

The push comes as rivals like ByteDance's Doubao and Tencent's Yuanbao siphon traffic with conversational bots, while OpenAI's Sora courts global creators.

By focusing on enterprise tools (and touting bargain-basement token pricing for its Ernie models), Baidu hopes to lock in Chinese marketers before Western services gain regulatory footing.

Internally, executives frame MuseSteamer, built on Baidu's new Steamer-I2V model, as the "gateway drug" to a broader multimodal ecosystem: imagine shoppable search results that seamlessly integrate with AI-generated mini-commercials.

The company is even running a month-long contest on its HuiXiang platform to encourage brands to experiment with elastic, "squeezable" videos. Prizes include gift cards and, presumably, bragging rights.

Why it matters: If your paid-search budget already hemorrhages on keywords, get ready for AI video upsells. Baidu is betting that scroll-stopping clips—not static links—will drive the next ad boom, and its bargain pricing could pressure US platforms to follow suit.

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Insider Intel

AI Now Ranks You for Raises and Pink Slips

Your manager's gut feeling is now an algorithm.

A Resume Builder survey of 1,342 US managers found that 65% use AI at work, and 94% of that group lean on it for people decisions—from promotions to outright firings.

ChatGPT tops the list of tools (53%), followed by Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini.

More eyebrow-raising: 20% of AI-toting bosses sometimes let the algorithm decide without human veto, even though two-thirds admit they've had zero formal AI ethics training. Experts warn that combining hallucinations with historical bias creates a litigation minefield, yet companies continue to encourage managers toward "efficiency."

The upside? AI also drafts training plans, performance improvement documents, and salary benchmark reports in seconds, freeing supervisors from spreadsheet drudgery. However, skeptics argue that opaque models can't capture context, such as who consistently takes on last-minute projects or mentors new hires.

Welcome to the new era of performance reviews, where your biggest weakness might just be a biased training dataset.

Flash Bytes

Security Alerts

Qantas Contact Center Hack Snares Flyer Data

Australian flag carrier Qantas reports that a third-party call center platform was compromised compromised, exposing the names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, and frequent flyer IDs of up to 6 million customers.

No passports or payment info were stored, and flights continued.

Investigators—and an FBI alert—point to Scattered Spider, the crew behind 2025 hits on Hawaiian Airlines and WestJet. They join a crowded breach list that includes Cyprus Airways, GlobalX, Delta Airlines, and South African Airways.

Add at least eight commercial jet accidents worldwide and 50-plus fatal US plane crashes of all kinds, and 2025's skies feel turbulent for both passengers and their data.

Phishers Fast-Track Fake Logins with Vercel v0

Okta researchers spotted crooks using Vercel's v0.dev, a gen-AI-powered site builder, to clone corporate login pages from simple text prompts, hosting logos and code on Vercel subdomains to dodge filters. Some pages spoofed Microsoft 365 and cryptocurrency exchanges.

Vercel has nuked the URLs and is tightening abuse-reporting workflows, but open-source v0 clones on GitHub remain freely available, allowing low-skill scammers without coding know-how to spin up polished phishing sites at scale.

Easy defense: Enable phishing-resistant authenticators such as hardware security keys or built-in device biometrics to access apps, websites, and online services.

Industry Shakeups

Microsoft Trims 9,100 Jobs, Shutters Game Studios and Projects

Microsoft's latest cuts slash roughly 4% of its 228,000-strong workforce, with its gaming divisions taking the heaviest hit.

The casualty list is brutal: the company is shuttering The Initiative and canceling its still-in-development Perfect Dark reboot. It has also ceased development on Rare's decade-long project, Everwild.

Additionally, Candy Crush maker King saw a 10% reduction in headcount, marketing teams at ZeniMax (Bethesda's parent company) were affected, and Blizzard's Warcraft Rumble is ceasing new content development, with some of its team also laid off. And those are just some of the hits.

CEO Satya Nadella's cost-control drive follows a staggering $80 billion in pledged AI infrastructure funding this fiscal year, squeezing margins even as Game Pass subscriptions rise.

For employees, these cuts deepen a pattern of instability. Staff morale is reportedly low, still reeling from the 1,900 Activision layoffs in January 2024 and the shocking closure of acclaimed studios like Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks last year.

HR has promised priority reviews for displaced developers eyeing other Microsoft posts, but the string of high-profile closures sends a chilling message.

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