Five Major AI Developments This Week
From Google and Amazon to Adobe and Zoho, companies are building more intelligent tools to harness AI's full potential
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From workforce transformations at Amazon to AI-powered cyclone prediction models by Google, the rapid rollout of generative AI (GenAI) and agentic systems is not only altering how work is done but also redefining where innovation needs to focus next. In India, institutions like IIT Roorkee are stepping in with structured upskilling efforts, while companies such as Adobe and Zoho are building more intelligent tools to harness AI's full potential. Here's a roundup of five key developments shaping the AI ecosystem globally and in India.
Amazon's AI Drive to Cut Jobs but Create New Roles
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has confirmed what many in the tech world had anticipated. The company's total corporate workforce will shrink over the coming years, driven by generative AI (GenAI) and intelligent agents automating routine processes.
"As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs," Jassy wrote in a note to employees.
The sentiment echoes a broader transformation underway across industries, where AI is rapidly enhancing productivity but reducing the need for certain job roles particularly those that are repetitive or clerical.
Notably, while Amazon saw a 2.03 per cent employee growth in 2024 (with a total headcount of 1.56 million), the automation wave signals a likely reversal of this trend.
Still, the company remains bullish on India, where it claims to have created 1.4 million direct and indirect jobs in the past four years and aims to generate another 600,000 by 2025. Internally, Amazon is already deploying AI to upgrade its fulfillment forecasting, customer service chatbots, and product detail pages.
Adobe Takes Firefly Mobile with Partnered AI Models
AI image generation is no longer just a web phenomenon, Adobe has officially taken it to mobile phones. On Tuesday, the company launched a dedicated smartphone app for Firefly, its AI-powered image generation tool, now embedded with models from partner firms such as Ideogram, Luma AI, Pika, and Runway.
Firefly's mobile expansion aligns with the social media-driven explosion of AI visuals, with OpenAI's anime-style images already attracting massive online traffic. The app allows unlimited basic generation for Adobe subscribers, with additional charges for premium models consistent with its web pricing, starting at USD10 per month.
"Even for many of our individual customers, that promise of the commercial safety and the story about how Firefly is trained continues to be a really important differentiator," said Ely Greenfield, Adobe's Chief Technology Officer for Digital Media.
Google's AI Models Take on Cyclones with Forecasting Website
In a direct move to enhance climate resilience using AI, Google DeepMind and Google Research have launched a new website, 'Weather Lab' dedicated to showcasing experimental AI models that predict tropical cyclones. These models can simulate 50 storm scenarios up to 15 days in advance, potentially outpacing traditional meteorological tools.
In its recently released research paper (not yet peer-reviewed), Google claims the five-day track predictions for cyclones in the North Atlantic and East Pacific were 87 miles closer to actual tracks compared to the industry-leading ECMWF models in 2023 and 2024.
Google's latest system is trained on Europe's ERA5 dataset and is already being tested in collaboration with the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC), although the tool remains strictly research-focused for now.
IIT Roorkee and Futurense Launch India's First AIOps Certification
Recognising the critical need to bridge the AI development-deployment gap, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, in partnership with Futurense, has announced the launch of India's first Advanced Certification in AI Engineering and AIOps. Scheduled to begin in August 2025, this nine-month programme is designed to build full-stack AI capabilities among working professionals.
The course uniquely focuses on deploying GenAI at scale, enabling participants to work across AWS, Azure, and GCP, and train in tools such as LangChain, Hugging Face, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Docker, and Kubernetes. From multi-agent workflows to cloud-native orchestration, the curriculum addresses the pressing issue of GenAI pilots failing to convert into enterprise-level solutions.
With a fee of INR 1.25 lakh (plus GST), the programme is open to STEM graduates with at least 50 per cent marks and a preference for professionals with one year of experience. All applicants must clear a pre-screening test to qualify.
Zoho Unveils Zia Hubs for Deeper AI Integration in WorkDrive
Zoho, the global SaaS provider headquartered in India, has introduced Zia Hubs, a next-generation capability within Zoho WorkDrive aimed at unlocking intelligence from unstructured business data. With this launch, Zoho takes a significant leap in embedding agentic AI across its product ecosystem.
According to Zoho CEO Mani Vembu, Zia Hubs addresses the challenge that 80 per cent of enterprise data is unstructured and often hidden within emails, documents, or transcripts.
"Zia Hubs bring a common model to company data, exposing unused information to powerful capabilities and services, including agentic AI, comprehensive analysis and accurate unified search," Vembu said in a statement.
Currently available in early access, Zia Hubs enables users to create focused spaces (or "hubs") within WorkDrive where AI can act contextually on the stored content. A full rollout is expected by Q3 FY25.
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