Technology

UK companies are significantly increasing their investment in AI, with spending by small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) growing fivefold between 2022 and 2024. In fact, in 2025, SMBs could save over £29,000 annually through the adoption of AI tools. With economic uncertainty and rising operational costs still affecting UK businesses, AI’s ability to boost efficiency and drive profitability is especially important for the competitiveness of businesses.

One key area experiencing fast growth is customer communications, where AI is enabling businesses to personalize messages at scale, respond faster to queries and streamline service workflows. These capabilities aren’t just improvements, they’re becoming expectations.

When done right, AI can increase customer satisfaction, improve accuracy, and free employees to focus on more complex tasks. But without careful, responsible implementation, businesses risk eroding trust just as quickly as they boost performance.

Trusting AI to make the right connections

Generative AI is still a relatively new presence in customer communications, yet many people are already growing accustomed to its role. Nearly half (49%) of consumers aged 18–35 are now comfortable with organizations using AI-generated communication, appreciating the potential for more personalized, timely interactions that improve their experience. When implemented thoughtfully, AI enhances the human touch, handling routine tasks efficiently while enabling deeper, more meaningful engagement.

AI in communications can also drive measurable outcomes for wider business goals. According to a 2024 KPMG report, UK brands saw a 1.4 percent increase in customer satisfaction as a result of using AI in customer interactions. These improvements might take the form of real-time delivery updates, personalized recommendations based on past behaviors, or greater accuracy in billing and appointment scheduling, all of which improve the customer experience.

Building consumer trust in AI

However, the newness of AI means trust isn’t universal. Just 23% of consumers aged 55 and over feel comfortable with AI communications, highlighting the ongoing challenge of earning trust across a diverse customer base. Similarly, skepticism remains around communication quality, security and privacy. Research shows that 58% of people believe AI produces lower-quality written communication than humans, while 81% of UK consumers expect companies to disclose when AI has been involved in communications.

Failing to be transparent about AI’s role or data handling can leave customers uneasy and unsure about the systems, and companies, they’re engaging with. This concern is especially strong in sensitive sectors, where emotional and ethical stakes are high. Nearly half (45%) of consumers say they would respond with anger, discomfort or disgust if AI generated their medical test results, and more than a third (34%) feel the same about AI handling their insurance claims.

As people become more aware and discerning, the pressure is on businesses not just to use AI, but to show exactly how it improves, not undermines, customer experience and communication quality. This shift begins with thoughtful implementation.

From algorithm to ally in customer care

To build consumer trust, businesses must demonstrate that AI genuinely improves the customer experience, especially by enhancing the quality, relevance and reliability of communication. With concerns around data misuse and inaccuracy, businesses need to clearly explain how AI supports secure, accurate and personalized interactions, not just internally but in ways customers can understand and see.

AI should be positioned as an enabler of human service, taking care of routine tasks so employees can focus on complex, sensitive or high-value customer needs. A key part of gaining long-term trust is transparency around data. Businesses must clearly communicate how customer information is handled securely and show that AI is being used responsibly and with care.

This could include clearly labelling AI-generated communications such as emails or text messages, or proactively informing customers about what data is being used and for what purpose. The key to earning consumer trust lies in consistently proving that AI is not just a tool that can boost efficiency internally, but a thoughtful, secure and beneficial addition to the customer experience.

The AI audition

As conversations move beyond why AI should be used to how it must be used responsibly and effectively, companies have entered a make-or-break “audition phase” for AI. In customer communications, businesses can no longer afford to just talk about AI’s benefits, they must prove them by demonstrating how it enhances quality, security, and personalization.

Those that fail to act strategically and transparently risk losing customer trust, while those who get it right will not only pass the audition, they will secure AI’s role as a trusted voice in every interaction.

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• ChatGPT is now fielding 2.5 billion prompts a day
• In comparison, Google gets 14 billion daily searches
• People are increasingly turning to AI instead of search engines

If you use ChatGPT on a daily basis, you’re certainly not alone. According to Axios, ChatGPT users now send more than 2.5 billion prompts a day to the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, showing how incredibly popular it has become over the last few years. Of those numbers, 330 million daily prompts are thought to come from users based in the US, Axios reports.

Although we don’t know whether ChatGPT is actively searching the internet for answers in response to those prompts (or instead relying on its training data), the figure could be worrying reading for search giant Google. That’s because people are increasingly turning away from Google and heading to the best AI tools for answers to their queries.

Google, by comparison, doesn’t share its daily search figures, but its parent company Alphabet recently revealed that the search engine gets roughly five trillion queries per year.

That translates to about 14 billion daily searches – still some way ahead of ChatGPT, but perhaps not unassailably so.

Rapid growth

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Tada Images)

What’s all the more impressive about ChatGPT’s search figures is the rapid growth it's undergone since December 2024.

Back then, Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, said that the platform received about one billion prompts a day. That means it’s more than doubled its usage in around eight months.

The question remains, though, whether ChatGPT’s current model is economically sustainable for OpenAI. The report from Axios highlights that the “vast majority of the platform's more than 500 million weekly active users” are using the free version of ChatGPT, meaning OpenAI is only generating income from a small subset of users.

And given there are claims that even the paid edition of ChatGPT is struggling to make money, securing so many daily searches might not be enough for OpenAI in the long run – at least in its current format.

Still, there’s no doubt that the company has undergone rapid expansion even in just the last year, as the daily prompt numbers attest. With Google looking nervously over its shoulder, search engines might soon look very different.

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• Dell confirmed reports of a break-in by apparent hackers
• World Leaks claimed responsibility, and is demanding payment
• However Dell says the threat actors apparently stole fake data

Dell has confirmed recently suffering a cyberattack which saw threat actors steal of its data, but has added it isn't too concerned by the incident.

The hackers, going by “World Leaks”, are now asking for ransom in exchange for deleting the stolen files.

However, Dell says the stolen files were all fake, signaling that it has no intention of paying the criminals for their troubles.

Synthetic data

In a statement, Dell confirmed the breach, saying the attackers accessed a platform used to demo new products to customers.

"A threat actor recently gained access to our Solution Center, an environment designed to demonstrate our products and test proofs-of-concept for Dell's commercial customers," Dell told BleepingComputer. "It is intentionally separated from customer and partner systems, as well as Dell's networks and is not used in the provision of services to Dell customers."

The statement goes on to explain that the data used in the solution center is “primarily synthetic”, meaning it’s all made up and fake.

It also includes “publicly available datasets used solely for product demonstration purposes or Dell scripts, systems data, non-sensitive information and testing outputs,” Dell added.

“Based on our ongoing investigation, the data obtained by the threat actor is primarily synthetic, publicly available or Dell systems/test data."

World Leaks might be a new name in the ransomware scene, but the actors are rather experienced. The group came as a spin-off from Hunters International, an infamous ransomware player that breached more than 200 organizations during its active years.

Hunters International worked as the usual double-extortion group, first stealing the sensitive files from the victims, and then encrypting their systems to prevent access. World Leaks, on the other hand, ditches the encryption part and focuses solely on data exfiltration.

Many ransomware groups stopped deploying the encryptors lately, as they seem to be expensive to develop and maintain, while simply stealing files brings the same end result.

Via BleepingComputer

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• Apple CarPlay is set to support video playback
• The update will be added with iOS 26
• However, automakers will need to opt in to the feature

As with every iOS update, iOS 26 will bring with it some changes for the CarPlay interface that appears when your iPhone is connected to your vehicle – and Apple has now quietly confirmed that one of those changes will be support for video playback.

This wasn't mentioned at the grand reveal of iOS 26 at WWDC 2025, but as spotted by MacRumors, it's now listed as a feature on the Apple developers website. We're expecting iOS 26 to roll out to the masses in September.

"AirPlay video in the car enables people to watch their favorite videos from iPhone right on their CarPlay display when they aren't driving," the site says. "Integrate support for CarPlay with AirPlay video to enable this feature in your car."

And that's the catch – automakers will need to enable this feature separately to the rest of the CarPlay functionality, so it's possible that it won't appear in every vehicle, and may be restricted by local safety regulations around the world.

Keeping up

Videos would of course be too distracting for drivers, which is why this will only work when a car is parked up. It's possible that Apple hasn't mentioned it before now because it's not certain how widely this is going to be supported, at least initially.

The AirPlay streaming standard being implemented here is the default one deployed by Apple on its other devices, including the Apple TV 4K box. It's worth noting that while many iOS apps support AirPlay for streaming, Netflix doesn't.

This is a move Apple had to make really: built-in options from automakers like Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes already offer video playback, and the feature is on the way to Android Auto too. Apple won't want its CarPlay interface to fall behind.

We should get more details from Apple in due course. The public beta for iOS 26 is due to launch any day now – which means anyone can test out the software in advance – before it's finalized and pushed out later this year with the iPhone 17 series.

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• HPE patched CVE-2025-37103 and CVE-2025-37102
• The former is a case of hardcoded credentials for an admin account
• The latter allows the execution of arbitrary commands as an admin

HPE has patched a critical-severity vulnerability in its Aruba Instant On Access Points which could have allowed threat actors to access the devices as an admin, change settings, deploy malware, and wreak havoc as they see fit.

Aruba Instant On Access Points are Wi-Fi devices designed for small businesses. They are advertised as easy-to-deploy devices offering fast, secure, and reliable wireless connectivity.

In a security advisory, HPE said it found hardcoded credentials in the device’s firmware, “allowing anyone with knowledge of it to bypass normal device authentication.”

No workarounds

“Successful exploitation could allow a remote attacker to gain administrative access to the system,” the company added.

Now, the bug is tracked as CVE-2025-37103. It has a severity score of 9.8/10 (critical) and is apparently simple to find and exploit, especially for a skilled threat actor.

Unfortunately, hardcoded credentials are a common occurrence in modern software. Usually, during the production phase, software developers would add an admin account this way, for easy and convenient access.

However, these credentials should be removed before the product is shipped to the market, and when the DevSecOps team or the Application Security team fails, vulnerabilities like this one happen.

There are no workarounds to mitigate the problem, patching it is the only way to secure the access points, and thus the wider network, from attacks.

In the same advisory, HPE said it patched a second bug, an authenticated command injection vulnerability in instant on command line interface. This bug, tracked as CVE-2025-37102, allows remote threat actors with elevated privileges to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system as a highly privileged user. It was assigned a severity score of 7.2/10 (high).

For this vulnerability, too, there are no workarounds, and HPE advises users to apply the patch as soon as possible.

Via BleepingComputer

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Once the bargain alternative to pricey cable and satellite packages, the streaming landscape continues to grow in size – and cost. While some of the best streaming services continue to hike their prices, we’ve got your back, giving you the latest scoop on which service you can expect to pay more for in future.

Read below to find out which streamers are charging more in 2025 so far. And while it may seem like keeping up with your favorite shows is getting increasingly costly, you could always check out the best free streaming services out there, which will offer you a wealth of content for nada. Make sure to also check the best streaming deals in 2025 to save on your next subscription bill.

Is anyone else getting déjà vu? In July 2024, Peacock's second ever price increase took effect and just over a year later we're getting another. NBCUniversal's streaming service has announced that its biggest price hike ever will begin on July 23 for new and returning customers (meanwhile, existing subscribers can expect to see an increase in their bill from August 23 or their next billing date).

The price hike sees Peacock's 'Premium' (with ads) and 'Premium Plus' (limited ads) plans rise by $3 each to $10.99 and $16.99 per month, respectively. As some subscribers look to cancel their subscriptions ahead of the change, Peacock is looking to offer more affordable options by testing a new 'Select' tier that will cost the same as its ad-supported plan was priced before the most recent price hike.

We had almost gotten through March without seeing a streaming price hike announcement for video on-demand services until Plex decided to break that streak by raising its prices. This is the first price hike its made in a decade and will apply to each of its plans. That means that the monthly price for Plex Pass will go from $4.99 to $6.99, the annual price will rise from $39.99 to $69.99 and the Plex Lifetime Pass will more than double from $119.99 to an eye-watering $249.99.

The changes will take effect on April 29, 2025, which means that if you're already signed up to the Lifetime Pass you'll be able to stick to the old rate, which is prompting many users to consider signing up for it before the rise. In an even bigger blow, Plex is making the ability to stream your favorite streaming subscriptions between two separate networks no longer free. Instead, users will have to sign up to a Remote Watch Pass for $1.99 a month or $19.99 to have the remote streaming feature.

The live TV streamer has announced that all packages are set to creep up in price. Coming into effect for new subscribers on January 23, existing customers should look for the increase in their bill on, or after, February 10. Citing “rising costs from our production partners,” the service is adding $5 per month to all of its streaming plans. This will be particularly galling news for subscribers to the platform’s Essentials tier, which was only launched in September and replaced the bargain Starter option.

The new prices mean that both the Essential and Pro now cost $85.99 per month, while the Elite option is $94.99 ($104.99 w/ Sports Plus). Customers already using the Deluxe, Premier and Ultimate tiers are also looking at five bucks more, although these options are no longer available to new subscribers. There is good news for new customers though, as after a seven-day free trial, you get your first month $20 off. And if the price increase has you doubting your loyalty, you might want to look in to other live TV streaming services, such as Hulu or Sling.

The biggest streamer to announce things were getting pricier in 2025 was Netflix. The streaming giant announced on January 22 that it was raising prices, with the company stating: “As we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members, we will occasionally ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix.” It should be noted, at time of writing, the price increases only apply to subscribers in Argentina, Portugal and North America.

This means that in the US, the standard ad-supported plan will now cost subscribers $7.99, $1 more than it did previously. Standard without ads is up a buck and a half, now costing $17.99 while the premium tier is now $24.99, a $2 increase. If the price increase has you debating whether to keep the service, our list of the best Netflix movies and best Netflix shows might help your decision.

The other streamer already increasing its prices this year is Discovery Plus, with things set to get a little bit more expensive for US subscribers. The hike went into effect on January 7 for news subscribers, with Discovery saying it would renew at the new rates for existing customers “on your first billing date on or after February 7, 2025.”

Discovery Plus currently offers two tiers, both of which have increased by $1, with the ad-supported plan now $5.99, while it’s $9.99 to go ad-free. Of course, most of Discovery Plus’ content can also be accessed through Warner Bros. Discovery’s flagship streamer Max – which is due to receive a global rollout in 2025 – and with plenty of new content arriving on Max in February, consumers may begin wondering whether to keep the stand alone streamer at all.

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