Intel Bracing for Seismic Layoffs Amid Plans to Secure $10B in Savings by 2025

Story by Shane Snider

Key Points:

• Silicon titan 英特尔 on Thursday said it will cut 15,000 jobs by the end of the year -- 15% of its global workforce -- in a move CEO Pat Gelsinger called “painful to share.” In a letter to employees, Gelsinger said the quick layoffs and aggressive cost-cutting measures will mark “some of the most consequential changes in our company’s history.”
• The company announced second quarter results that showed revenue down 1% year-over-year at $12.8 billion. But the company also said its net income was down 85% to $100 million and earnings per share were also down 85%.
• Intel was late to cash in on the AI boom, as competitors like 英伟达 and AMD have shown growth. At the same time, Intel is continuing its ambitious push to retake its position as a global leader in chip manufacturing.
• “Our revenues have not grown as expected -- and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI. Our costs are too high, our margins are too low. We need bolder actions to address both -- particularly given our financial results and outlook for the second half of 2024, which is tougher than previously expected,” Gelsinger said.
• Gelsinger said the company needed to simplify its operations as it moves ahead with its foundry goals.
• While layoffs are never pleasant, Scott Constable , alliance director at data center infrastructure specialists Vesper Technologies, sees a brighter future at Intel. “Despite how Intel’s Q2 earnings may appear, industry observers are far more buoyant about its next few quarters,” he wrote in an email statement. This story is developing, and InformationWeek will update.

Welcome to InformationWeek 's Big Picture!

You already know that every day at InformationWeek brings expert insights and advice to help today’s IT leaders identify the best strategies and tools to drive their organizations forward.

That means original reporting from our team of journalists and unique commentary you won’t see anywhere else! But in case you missed them, here are some of our other must-read favorites from this week:

Who Bears the Burden in the Aftermath of the CrowdStrike Outage?

Story by Joao-Pierre Ruth

Key Points:

• The finger-pointing over the operational losses from the CrowdStrike outage took a legal turn with at least one class action lawsuit filed by shareholders against the cybersecurity company and the potential for more litigation, this time from Delta Air Lines , possibly waiting in the wings.
• The operational and financial damage from the massive IT outage that brought down 8.5 million Microsoft Windows machines in mid-July is being measured in the billions of dollars . Rather than an intrusion by a bad actor, a bad update from CrowdStrike got the blame.
• Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC the disruption cost his airline $500 million. Delta Air Lines reportedly retained attorney David Boies , chair and founding partner of law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP , to potentially seek damages from CrowdStrike and 微软 for the outage.
• “There’s a big focus coming out of DHS-CISA at the moment on what’s now called?SBOM, or the Software Bill of Materials ,” says Nicholas Carroll , cyber incident response manager with Nightwing , in an interview with InformationWeek .
• Carroll notes, and CrowdStrike showed, that an issue with one vendor can quickly affect thousands of customer companies. Efforts to issue regulations or compliance frameworks for oversight on this front can take time, he says.

Check Out These Sizzling Opportunities in AI

Story by Lisa Morgan, CeM, J.D.

Key Points:

• According to the market researchers at Gartner , spending on AI software is growing 19.1%? per year and will likely hit $297.9 billion by 2027. Statista takes an even rosier view, predicting that the market will climb from $184.04 billion in 2024 to $415.61 billion in 2027 and a whopping $826.73 billion in 2030.?
• According to Forrester , generative AI is growing even faster than AI as a whole -- 36% per year. By 2030, more than half (55%) of the AI market will be related to GenAI. In fact, that prediction might even be low, given that more than 90% of decision makers already have plans to deploy GenAI.??
• “GenAI isn’t a fleeting trend. Its capacity to generate entirely new content, across various mediums, such as images, videos, code, and marketing materials, promises substantial efficiency gains and paves the way for innovative creative opportunities, granting a competitive advantage,” says IDC's Vinayaka Venkatesh.
• In the story and slideshow above, these slides highlight 10 roles with plenty of jobs available and high salaries. If you have AI expertise (or are thinking about taking some courses to beef up your resume), roles like these represent some of the best opportunities available today.?

Unleash the Power of Data in Your Business

Story by Nathan Eddy

Key Points:

• A data-driven culture is essential for improving performance and fostering continuous learning, with the goal being company-wide proficiency in leveraging data effectively to make informed decisions.?
• There is often a lack of understanding of how to utilize data, difficulties in aligning organizational culture with data-driven practices, and challenges in implementing these strategies effectively.?
• Data-driven decisions are supported by facts, which helps create organizational buy-in: It's much easier to explain and justify a decision when people understand the why behind it.?This is one of the reasons AI is so exciting for the analytics field: It excels at this kind of iterative improvement which calibrates and then optimizes the new tools that are designed to manage big data sets.??
• “A data-driven culture demystifies success for businesses,” says Krishna Subramanian , co-founder and COO of Komprise . “It enables them to track how decisions impacted metrics and then replicate that success.”?This is doubly important as markets change and adapt, as what works today won’t work tomorrow.?
• The first step organizations must take to assess their current data practices is to truly understand the data.?In the story above, we'll reveal steps to establish a data-driven culture.

Exploring KnowBe4's New Hire

Story by Carrie Pallardy

Key Points:

• Cybersecurity company KnowBe4 hired a person for its internal IT AI team only to later discover that person was part of a common scam employed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).??
• “The guy knew his resume inside and out,” Brian J. , CISO and data protection officer of KnowBe4, tells InformationWeek . “He showed examples of things that he'd done at previous companies.”?In addition to a solid work history, the candidate’s Social Security number and criminal background check were validated via the E-Verify system. The new hire was given a start date.?
• The IT worker requested their equipment be sent to a different location than where he told KnowBe4 he would work from. This kind of request is not unheard of, according to Jack.?The IT worker received the equipment. The day before his start date, he began to load malware. The infostealer malware was likely seeking credentials for privilege escalation.??
• How does this scam work? The individual KnowBe4 hired was using a stolen identity of a US citizen. The image on the ID provided to the company was changed to one of the threat actor.?AI had a role to play in this particular incident as well. What can we learn from their experience, and how could it be prevented from happening at other companies???

Latest Major Tech Layoff Announcements

Original Story by Jessica C. Davis , Updated by Brandon Taylor

Key Points:

• As COVID drove everyone online, tech companies hired like crazy. Now, we are hitting the COVID tech bust as tech giants shed jobs by the thousands.
• Updated August 2, 2024 with layoff announcements from Intel Corporation , Bungie , Match Group , and NerdWallet .
• Check back regularly for updates to our IT job layoffs tracker.

Commentary of the Week

Story by Maxime Vermeir

Key Points:

• Despite some controversial pros and cons of artificial intelligence in the workplace, the notorious technology is set to profoundly change the experiences of viewers and athletes alike at this year’s Summer Olympics.?
• From enhanced streaming to predictive analytics or even accelerated footage sorting, AI augmentation will be a staple at this year’s games in Paris.?AI can upscale video and images to a staggering 8k resolution, delivering crisp detail on every tensed muscle, bead of sweat, and emotional victory shown on your screen.
• While managing the camera calls and sorting footage of the events typically involves a small army of cameras and producers, AI can identify the best angles and clips in mere seconds, resulting in a streamlined and promptly delivered viewing experience.?
• Organizations like the top-tier Arsenal Women Football Club have formed AI partnerships and use the technology to inform training programs, analyze performance, and keep players fresh both on and off the field.??
• While AI isn’t eligible to win any medals or stand on the podium, we can expect it to be a fascinating and integral player in this grandiose celebration of human achievement.?

Podcast of the Week

Podcast and Story by Joao-Pierre Ruth

Key Points:

• Was the cloud the perfect safe haven away from the massive IT outage attributed to CrowdStrike’s mishandled update to Microsoft Windows machines?
• The answer is complex and this episode of DOS Won’t Hunt speaks to some of the considerations organizations might make about their cloud strategies in the fallout of the outage that knocked out some 8.5 million devices more than one week ago.
• The nature of the cloud, and the options available through many providers, can offer some resources that enterprises want for continuity of operations and IT disaster recovery.
• Before organizations that stayed on-prem and held out on migration rush to the cloud, John Raven, managing director of 微软 Cloud transformation with TEKsystems , and Octavian Tanase , chief product officer with Hitachi Vantara , share insights on cloud strategy in this post-outage phase.

WATCH ON-DEMAND!

“Your Enterprise Cyber Risk Assessment”

An archived LIVE webinar from July 17:

Presented by InformationWeek and LogicGate

The interconnectedness of vulnerabilities, risks, and threats in cybersecurity cannot be understated to ensure a holistic and effective risk assessment within an enterprise.

In this archived panel discussion, Ron Guerrier , CTO of Save the Children US ; Riya Sanjay , senior professional services manager of LogicGate ; and Nicholas Kathmann , CISO of LogicGate , share ways to develop a custom-fitted cyber risk assessment strategy for your enterprise.

Watch the archived “Your Enterprise Cyber Risk Assessment” live webinar on-demand today .

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