Catch up on this month’s round-up of the latest hosting and tech news. Here’s what we’ve uncovered since our last edition.
NVIDIA’s Driverless Car
NVIDIA, predominantly known for manufacturing GPUs, has introduced a self-driving car platform at the CES 2026 technology show in Las Vegas.
Developed through extensive work in robotics and physical AI systems, the Alpamayo platform is designed to boost reasoning skills in autonomous vehicles, helping them handle complex scenarios, make smarter driving decisions and operate more safely in unpredictable environments.
The company has also announced a partnership with Mercedes-Benz to create a driverless vehicle using the platform, with plans for an initial launch in the US before expanding to Europe and Asia. NVIDIA intends to make Alpamayo available as an open-source model, enabling researchers and developers to tweak and retrain it for different autonomous driving uses.
Phishing Kits Surge
The number of phishing-as-a-service platforms being detected has doubled over the past year, highlighting the growing scale and complexity of social engineering attacks on organisations. Research from Barracuda shows that most large phishing campaigns now use pre-made kits, making it simpler for less experienced attackers to carry out complex and stealthy operations.
In addition, established phishing kit groups are constantly improving their tools, enabling campaigns to target millions of victims quickly. Many of these platforms are designed to bypass multi-factor authentication, disguise harmful URLs and evade automated detection, making them harder to identify using standard email security filters.
Worryingly, even more sophisticated methods are also becoming common. Attackers are now employing QR codes, open redirects and human verification steps to make phishing messages appear credible. QR codes are sometimes split across multiple images or placed next to genuine content to avoid detection, while others use polymorphic payloads, where attachments or code change their signature with each new email sent, making it harder to detect them.
AI Growth Focus
According to a survey from Lloyds Bank, UK businesses are increasingly looking to AI and workforce development to drive growth. The survey showed that a third of companies plan to invest in AI tools in 2026, with a similar number intending to increase spending on team training. The main focus is on productivity, closely followed by improving staff skills and enhancing technology capabilities.
Previous findings indicate that AI investment helps most companies boost productivity, with many seeing increased profits. However, progress has been hampered by skill shortages, high technology costs and concerns over data privacy and energy use.
Research from Esendex shows that the ongoing demand for AI and automation roles puts pressure on employers to attract and retain specialised talent. As a result, salaries have been pushed significantly higher for AI and software roles.
Algorithmic HR
The European Parliament is pushing for tougher rules on algorithmic HR management systems in the workplace, with members wanting clearer and more detailed guidelines for using algorithms in hiring, performance assessments and staff management.
Recent studies show that over 40% of EU workers are already under algorithmic management, with the figure expected to rise significantly over the next five years. While regulations like the EU AI Act and GDPR offer workers basic protections, many members believe they don’t adequately address workplace-specific risks.
The new proposals recommend that all algorithm-influenced workplace decisions should be overseen by humans. Additionally, employees should understand how automated systems affect them and have the right to request reviews if they feel decisions are unfair or harmful.
The proposals also seek to limit the types of employee data that can be collected and processed, particularly sensitive information related to health, behaviour or activities outside of work.
AI Browser Warning
Leading tech advisory and research company, Gartner, has advised organisations to block AI-powered browsers for the foreseeable future. According to its analysts, agentic browsers have serious security and governance risks, often focusing on user convenience rather than security.
One concern was AI sidebars that send browsing data, page content and open tabs to cloud-based AI back ends. These could potentially lead to data exposure without tightly controlled, centrally managed settings.
A bigger risk is the browsers’ agentic features, which allow them to navigate websites and perform tasks autonomously within authenticated sessions. Gartner says that such operations can leave organisations open to prompt injection attacks, credential abuse, and erroneous actions due to flawed AI reasoning.
Analysts also noted the potential for misuse, such as employees automating mandatory training or allowing the agents to interact with internal systems. For most organisations, Gartner believes that at present, the burden of managing and monitoring AI browsers outweighs their advantages.
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