Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg departs after attending a Federal Trade Commission trial that could force the company to unwind its acquisitions of messaging platform WhatsApp and image-sharing app Instagram, at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 15, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
Meta on Friday said it is making temporary changes to its artificial intelligence chatbot policies related to teenagers as lawmakers voice concerns about safety and inappropriate conversations.
The social media giant is now training its AI chatbots so that they do not generate responses to teenagers about subjects like self-harm, suicide, disordered eating and avoid potentially inappropriate romantic conversations, a Meta spokesperson confirmed.
The company said AI chatbots will instead point teenagers to expert resources when appropriate.
“As our community grows and technology evolves, we’re continually learning about how young people may interact with these tools and strengthening our protections accordingly,” the company said in a statement.
Additionally, teenage users of Meta apps like Facebook and Instagram will only be able to access certain AI chatbots intended for educational and skill-development purposes.
The company said it’s unclear how long these temporary modifications will last, but they will begin rolling out over the next few weeks across the company’s apps in English-speaking countries. The “interim changes” are part of the company’s longer-term measures over teen safety.
Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said that he was launching an investigation into Meta following a Reuters report about the company permitting its AI chatbots to engage in “romantic” and “sensual” conversations with teens and children.
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The Reuters report described an internal Meta document that detailed permissible AI chatbot behaviors that staff and contract workers should take into account when developing and training the software.
In one example, the document cited by Reuters said that a chatbot would be allowed to have a romantic conversation with an eight-year-old and could tell the minor that “every inch of you is a masterpiece – a treasure I cherish deeply.”
A Meta spokesperson told Reuters at the time that “The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed.”
Most recently, the nonprofit advocacy group Common Sense Media released a risk assessment of Meta AI on Thursday and said that it should not be used by anyone under the age of 18, because the “system actively participates in planning dangerous activities, while dismissing legitimate requests for support,” the nonprofit said in a statement.
“This is not a system that needs improvement. It’s a system that needs to be completely rebuilt with safety as the number-one priority, not an afterthought,” said Common Sense Media CEO James Steyer in a statement. “No teen should use Meta AI until its fundamental safety failures are addressed.”
A separate Reuters report published on Friday found “dozens” of flirty AI chatbots based on celebrities like Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The report said that when prompted, the AI chatbots would generate “photorealistic images of their namesakes posing in bathtubs or dressed in lingerie with their legs spread.”
A Meta spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that “the AI-generated imagery of public figures in compromising poses violates our rules.”
“Like others, we permit the generation of images containing public figures, but our policies are intended to prohibit nude, intimate or sexually suggestive imagery,” the Meta spokesperson said. “Meta’s AI Studio rules prohibit the direct impersonation of public figures.”
Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach, right, walks to the morning session during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 11, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Workday shares slid more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday after the finance and human resources software maker issued quarterly margin guidance that came in below Wall Street projections.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $2.32 adjusted vs. $2.18 expected
Revenue: $2.43 billion vs. $2.42 billion expected
The company forecast a fourth-quarter adjusted operating margin of at least 28.5% and $2.355 billion in subscription revenue, according to a statement. The StreetAccount consensus was a 28.7% margin and $2.35 billion in subscription revenue.
Workday’s revenue grew about 13% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Oct. 31. Net income of $252 million, or 94 cents per share, was up from $193 million, or 72 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Subscription revenue in the third quarter totaled $2.24 billion, with an adjusted operating margin of 28.5%. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had anticipated $2.24 billion in subscription revenue and a 28.1% margin.
During the fiscal third quarter, Workday announced artificial intelligence agents for analyzing employee performance testing financial health, and the company revealed plans to buy AI and learning software startup Sana for $1.1 billion. Also, activist investor Elliott Management said it had built a Workday stake worth over $2 billion.
Workday has seen its stock decline this year as pundits discuss the risk of generative AI tools threatening the growth prospects for cloud software incumbents. Company shares have fallen 9% so far in 2025, while the Nasdaq Composite index has gained 19%.
Mary Barra, Chair and CEO of General Motors (right to left), Mark Reuss, President, Sterling Anderson, Chief Product Officer, and Dave Richardson, Senior Vice President Software and Services Engineering at “GM Forward” on Wednesday, October 22, 2025 in New York.
GM
DETROIT – A third high-profile technology executive is leaving General Motors amid a restructuring of the automaker’s software and product businesses, CNBC has learned.
Baris Cetinok, GM senior vice president of software and services product management, will depart the company effective Dec. 12, the automaker confirmed Tuesday after an internal announcement to employees.
Cetinok is the third tech-turned-auto executive to leave GM in roughly a month as the company combines its vehicle software engineering and global product units under one organization, led by new Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson.
“Baris has built a strong software product management team at GM. We’re grateful for his contributions and wish him continued success. With hardware and software engineering unified under Global Product, we’re integrating product management with engineering to accelerate the delivery of exceptional in-vehicle experiences,” GM said in an emailed statement to CNBC.
Cetinok, who joined GM in September 2023 after stints with companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, could not immediately be reached for comment. The announcement of his departure comes a month after he described his position as “a product person’s dream” in an interview with CNBC.
GM’s senior vice president of software and services engineering, Dave Richardson, and its head of GM artificial intelligence, Barak Turovsky, have also left the company since October. Richardson was with GM for more than two years, while Turovsky was hired in March.
GM Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson during the automaker’s “GM Forward” event on Oct. 22, 2025 in New York City.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
Anderson left the self-driving company he cofounded, Aurora Innovation, to join GM. He told CNBC last month that in order for the automaker to succeed, software and product must be thought of as one and the same.
“That’s the point of the role, I think, is it brings together all of these pieces into a unified approach to how we do product going forward,” Anderson said during an Oct. 22 interview at a GM technology event in New York.
Anderson, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant who later led Tesla’s AutoPilot program, said his goal is to accelerate the pace of GM’s innovations.
When Anderson’s appointment with GM was announced in May, Cetinok said in a LinkedIn post he was “delighted to welcome” the executive to the company. GM CEO Mary Barra and GM President Mark Reuss also hailed Anderson as being equipped to “evolve” and “reinvent” the automaker’s operations.
The global automotive industry has battled for years to better integrate technology into vehicles – from their production to consumer-facing software and remote, or “over-the-air,” updates like Tesla pioneered.
GM has taken an aggressive approach to combat such challenges by hiring leaders from Tesla and technology companies such as Apple and Google. However, many times, such executives have had short tenures with the company.
Enrique Lores, President and Chief Executive Officer of HP Inc. speaks at COMPUTEX forum in Taipei, Taiwan June 3, 2024.
Ann Wang | Reuters
PC and printer maker HP Inc. said Tuesday it’ll lower its headcount by 4,000 to 6,000 people, representing a cut of up to 10%. HP also issued a lower-than-expected earnings projection for the new fiscal year.
Shares of the company fell 6% in extended trading.
Here’s how HP did versus LSEG consensus estimates:
EPS: 93 cents adjusted vs. 92 cents expected
Revenue: $14.64 billion vs. $14.48 billion expected
HP’s revenue increased 4% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income of $795 million, or 84 cents per share, was up from $763 million, or 80 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
For the first quarter of HP’s fiscal 2026, the company called for 73 cents to 81 cents in adjusted net earnings per share, while the LSEG consensus was 79 cents. For all of fiscal 2026, HP sees $2.90 to $3.20 in adjusted per share, below the LSEG consensus of $3.33.
“HP’s outlook reflects the added cost driven by the current U.S. trade-related regulations in place, and associated mitigations,” the company said in the statement.
The company’s personal systems unit that includes desktop and laptop computers contributed $10.35 billion in revenue, up 8% and above StreetAccount’s $10.15 billion consensus.
HP said it expects to complete the headcount reduction by the end of fiscal 2028. The company said the restructuring will result in savings of at least $1 billion in annualized gross run rate by the end of fiscal 2028. HP said it expects to incur about $650 million in charges, of which $250 million will happen in fiscal 2026.
“As we look ahead, we see a significant opportunity to embed AI into HP to accelerate product innovation, improve customer satisfaction and boost productivity,” HP CEO Enrique Lores said on a conference call with analysts.
Corporate executives across industries are hoping to draw on generative artificial intelligence products to speed up software developers and automate customer service. Cloud providers are buying large supplies of memory to meet computing demand from companies that build AI models, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, leading to a rise in the cost per gigabyte of RAM this year.
HP, whose headcount stood at 58,000 as of December, announced a similarly sized round of layoffs in 2022. Several other technology companies have announced layoffs in recent months as U.S. consumers face higher prices and interest rates.
“Memory costs are currently 15 to 18% of the cost of a typical PC, and while an increase was expected, its rate has accelerated in the last few weeks,” Lores said.
The company does expect to benefit after Microsoft stopped supporting its Windows 10 operating system in October, which will lead people to buy new machines, Lores said. Around 60% of HP’s installed base has moved to Windows 11, he said.
HP’s printing business did $4.3 billion in revenue, down 4%. The pricing environment is competitive, and customers are putting off purchases of new models, said Karen Parkhill, the company’s finance chief.
As of Tuesday’s close, HP shares were down 25% for the year, while the S&P 500 index has gained 15% in the same period.