• I sailed on one of the largest cruise ships in the world, Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas.
• I brought a carry-on suitcase and a backpack for the seven-night Caribbean cruise.
• I was glad I packed light, but had some regrets. I longed for earplugs and warmer clothing.

My first cruise was a huge learning experience — especially when it came to packing.

Back in April 2022, I spent seven nights on Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas — one of the world's largest cruise ships — and brought just a carry-on suitcase and a backpack.

While packing light made the trip easier, I did forget a few critical items. Here's everything I was thankful I had during my voyage — and the items I longed for and will remember to pack next time.

One of the best things I packed was a magnet.

The stateroom decks comprised long hallways lined with identical blue doors, so my magnet made it easier to find my cabin.

But I wish I'd downloaded some movies and shows to watch on my phone in my room.

The cruise ship's WiFi wasn't strong enough for me to stream videos.

I was glad I packed sunscreen for long days in the sun.

I enjoyed a few beach days during my cruise, so sunscreen was essential. And I was sure to pack a reef safe brand since I was visiting multiple beaches.

But I should have remembered to bring some aloe vera gel for the day I forgot to lather up.

Aloe vera typically soothes and cools my burns, so next time, I'll pack some in case I forget to apply sunscreen.

I was glad I brought a rash guard to wear while swimming in the ocean.

An excursion guide at one of the ports informed me that some beaches in the Caribbean, like Tulum, Mexico, don't allow sunscreen in the ocean to protect wildlife.

But the water was so clear that I wished I had a waterproof case for my phone to take pictures.

As other cruisers snorkeled with phones in hand, I realized I was missing an opportunity to capture ocean life.

This sun hat also came in handy to block the sun.

I don't typically wear my sun hat — especially not in my home city, New York — so the cruise was the perfect occasion to pull it out of my closet.

I wish I'd also brought an adjustable cap for windy days on the top decks when my sun hat wouldn't stay on my head.

Mornings and evenings on the ship's top decks were so windy that I had to leave my hat in my room to avoid chasing it around.

Even though the weather was hot during the day, this sweater was handy for cool, windy nights and mornings.

I ended up wearing my sweater every day during the Caribbean cruise.

But I only packed one pair of pants and had to wear them every night.

In hindsight, I should have packed a couple more pairs of pants. Sweatpants would have been especially useful at night on the outdoor decks.

I should have brought a windbreaker, too, to keep me warmer on the top decks in the morning and at night.

I was often chilly at night in my sweater alone.

I wish I'd brought a bar of detergent to wash my clothes since I packed light, and laundry services on the ship cost extra.

On my cruise, Royal Caribbean's laundry service charged for each article of clothing — $4 a shirt, $9 a dress, and $2 per pair of underwear.

But at least I packed the right shoes.

I packed two pairs of shoes: sneakers for walking and waterproof sandals for the beach and pools.

Thankfully, I also remembered to bring a waist pack to carry a few things when I didn't feel like lugging my backpack around.

A small pack was handy during port stops and while exploring the ship.

I was also glad I brought a digital watch to keep on ship time.

Ship time is the time zone that cruise ships adhere to even when docked at ports in different time zones.

However, I wish I had downloaded guidebooks for the ports I visited to get a better idea of what to do.

My ship stopped in Roatan, Honduras; Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico; and Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas, CocoCay.

I wanted to try my best to avoid illness and was glad I packed vitamins …

I packed vitamins to support my immune system since I was coming in contact with many people.

… and medicine to combat motion sickness, which I experienced frequently.

I always pack Dramamine on my trips to avoid motion sickness.

More than anything, I wish I had earplugs to help me sleep during rough nights at sea, which sounded like thunder in my stateroom.

It was especially loud since I was at the front of the ship, where seasoned cruisers said movement on ships feels the strongest.

Next time, I'll come prepared.

• Eikona is training AI models to help companies retain their customers.
• It helps produce engaging "lifecycle marketing" content across email, SMS, and push notifications.
• Eikona just raised a $5 million seed funding round, led by StageOne Ventures.

A whole host of AI startups are emerging to help marketers create ads to acquire new customers. Tel Aviv-based Eikona is using AI to help marketers retain those customers, an area often referred to as "lifecycle marketing."

On Thursday, Eikona announced a $5 million seed investment round, led by StageOne Ventures. Crecendo Venture Partners, Wix Ventures, and Clarim Ventures also participated.

Eikona adds a generative AI layer to the practice of A/B testing, which is when marketers compare different versions of an email, SMS, or app push notification to figure out which one yields the best results.

Eikona has developed its own AI models that generate content from scratch and create different variations based on their performance. It built its own models on top of various existing popular AI models. Marketers can plug in their brand guidelines and past performance data to help Eikona fine-tune its models to personalize content to different users.

Nir Weingarten, Eikona's cofounder and CEO, told Business Insider that A/B testing can often be hard to scale. And while some marketers are beginning to use AI to help create their marketing content and ads, the prompts they use can sometimes be limited and grounded in their own human biases.

"It's hard to understand what worked — is it because the background was red, or was it a composition of things? This is something AI is good at: combining features," Weingarten said.

Eikona integrates into marketers' existing automation platforms. Asked what could stop a platform like Klaviyo, Braze, or Iterable from producing Eikona-like features themselves, Weingarten said his company's advantage as a startup is that it can move quickly.

"This is the classic innovator's dilemma," Weingarten said."Hopefully, we can get to distribution before the giants get to the innovation."

Weingarten said the company plans to invest the fresh funds in further product development.

"We spent our first two to three years devoted to finding product-market fit," Weingarten said. "We have the notion, we've validated, we understand the ability to create a lot of profit for users, and now we need to make this a product that people like to use."

In five years, Weingarten hopes Eikona will become a market leader in a new category he describes as "adaptive marketing."

"We want it to be a standard in the world, starting in lifecycle marketing, where every message that reaches a client is adapted in a certain way to be much more intimate, more personal, much more warm, and much better performing," Weingarten said.

Check out the pitch deck Eikona used to secure its $5 million seed investment, shared exclusively with Business Insider. Some of the slides have been omitted or redacted.

Eikona's mission is to "end generic marketing."

Its cofounders come from AI research backgrounds, rather than marketing.

Eikona quotes OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Eureka Labs founder Andrej Karpathy to explain how top thinkers in the space believe AI excels at persuasion and reinforcement learning.

Weingarten said that an age-old problem in digital marketing is determining which creative assets are working and why.

A/B testing is challenging to scale, and AI prompting can be susceptible to biases introduced by the person inputting the prompts, Eikona says.

Eikona blends AI with A/B testing, but replaces prompts with reinforcement learning — allowing the model to pursue the best results it can achieve.

Eikona employs a method called "reinforcement learning from human feedback," which means the process is automated but still involves a human in the loop to set guardrails and approve the final marketing materials.

Eikona is initially tackling the "lifecycle marketing" space, where companies use methods such as email and SMS to keep customers engaged at each stage of their interactions with a brand.

Lifecycle marketing represents a multibillion-dollar total addressable market, per Eikona.

Eikona has six clients and lining up plans to work with a further five in the coming quarter.

This slide illustrates how a large online travel agent implemented Eikona's algorithm in its promotional emails, resulting in a 20% increase in bookings versus the baseline.

• Uber's market penetration in the US is around 15%, CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah said Wednesday.
• The statistic shows how much room Uber has to grow in its home market, Mahendra-Rajah said.
• Uber sees suburbs and grocery delivery among its growth areas, he said.

Uber might seem ubiquitous in the US, but its CFO says the company has lots of room to grow.

Across the 10 largest countries where Uber operates, about 15% of adults use either Uber for ride-hailing or delivery, Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah said during a presentation at UBS' Global Technology and AI Conference on Wednesday. Uber and other consumer-focused companies often refer to this metric as "market penetration."

Uber's market penetration in the US "is right in line with that 15% average," Mahendra-Rajah said. That means that Uber has yet to reach many customers in the country where it was founded, he said.

To Uber investors, that number might seem small given how prevalent Uber has become in many parts of the country, Mahendra-Rajah said at the conference.

Indeed, for many people who live in large US cities and turn to the app for rides to the airport or meal delivery, using Uber — or a rival app, such as Lyft or DoorDash — has become a habit.

But not everyone in the US uses Uber so frequently — or at all, Mahendra-Rajah said.

Among Uber investors, "it's often a view of: 'There is no way I could use Uber anymore than I am, and there's no way my children can order Uber Eats more than they already do,'" he said.

"But you are really a unique case compared to the US average," he said. "That's why we remain very optimistic."

Uber has already built big businesses in ride-hailing and delivery. Still, there are multiple areas where it's trying to grow.

While many urbanites already use the app, Uber is also trying to get more users in the suburbs to turn to the app for rides to dinner or deliveries from Costco. Ride-hailing trips from suburbs — or "sparser markets," as Uber executives have called them — make up about 20% of Uber's total trips, Mahendra-Rajah said earlier this year.

Rural areas, where ride-hailing trips and delivery distances tend to be longer, have also been relatively recent focuses for the apps.

Uber Eats is also adding more supermarket chains and other retailers as partners to expand its delivery business, Mahendra-Rajah said on Wednesday.

Uber is also getting into the AI training business. Its AI Solutions arm has headhunted some white-collar workers with PhDs for gigs, such as its Project Sandbox — though it ended contracts for that project early, Business Insider reported last month.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on Uber's November earnings call that the company's expansion into AI training is part of its aim to become a broader "platform for work."

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at abitter@businessinsider.com or encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Jensen Huang appeared in a new episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" on Wednesday.
• The Nvidia CEO said that AI will create whole new job industries, particularly around making robots.
• You're gonna have a whole apparel industry for robots," he told Rogan.

Jensen Huang, the head of the world's most successful AI company, says the tech won't take your job, but it might create some strange new ones.

Many, including Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called "godfather of AI," have warned that AI's rapid evolution could trigger mass unemployment and deepen inequality.

In an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" published on Wednesday, Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, took a more optimistic view, saying he thinks jobs that are greater than the sum of their tasks will survive.

"The question is, what is the job?" Huang said. "Your job has to be more than the task."

He pointed to radiologists as an example of a job that won't be superseded by AI.

AI can now scan images more efficiently than humans, yet the number of radiologists isn't shrinking, he said. The reason for that, according to Huang, is that the purpose of radiologists is to diagnose disease, not to study an image.

"The image studying is simply a task in service of diagnosing the disease," he said.

Huang acknowledged that purely task-based jobs will likely be replaced by automation, adding that it "could be a lot of people."

"If your job is just to chop vegetables, Cuisinart's [the kitchen gadget company] gonna replace you," he told Rogan.

However, the Nvidia CEO also predicted that entirely new industries and jobs will emerge as AI continues to develop, raising one of his big obsessions: robots.

When robots enter the mainstream, society will need "a whole new industry of technicians and people who have to manufacture the robots," Huang said, including one particularly unusual new job role.

"You're gonna have robot apparel … because I want my robot to look different than your robot, so you're gonna have a whole apparel industry for robots," Huang told Rogan while laughing.

When pressed by Rogan if he thought such jobs would be done by other robots, Huang added: "Eventually."

Huang's comments echo those of other CEOs who have said that the robot revolution will create whole new jobs previously unthought of.

In November, David Risher, CEO of ride-hailing firm Lyft, said that the rise of robotaxis could lead to the rise of the "car-tender."

"I think there will be fun things that people are going to be doing in the cars that are not just driving. It's making drinks, it's telling stories, it's being the local guy," Risher said on a podcast.

No one knows the ultimate goal of AI

In another segment of the podcast, Huang acknowledged that he doesn't know where the new technology he's racing to help develop will end up, or what AI's ultimate goal is.

"I don't think anybody really knows," Huang said. "I think it's probably going to be much more gradual than we think. It won't be a moment. It won't be as if somebody arrived and nobody else has."

Huang said that he was optimistic about where AI is headed. Historically, he said, society has always been wary of new technology, but those concerns tend to fuel progress rather than hinder it. In AI's case, he said, that caution is actively shaping safer, more reliable systems.

"If history is a guide, it is the case that all of this concern is channeled into making the technology safer," Huang said.

AI has developed to the point where it conducts research before answering, reflects on its responses, and utilizes tools to provide a better solution — all of which has helped reduce hallucinations, the Nvidia CEO said.

"If you look at what we're going to do with the next thousand times of performance in AI, a lot of it is going to be channeled toward more reflection, more research, thinking about the answer more deeply."

• 2025 has seen over 1.1 million job cuts in the US so far, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
• The firm said it was just the sixth time since 1993 that the figure had passed 1.1 million.
• It's also the most layoffs in a year since 2020, when the COVID pandemic upended the labor market.

This year has seen the most layoffs in the US since the pandemic, according to the consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Employers have announced 1.17 million job cuts through November, a report published on Thursday showed.

It's just the sixth time since 1993 that this figure has exceeded 1.1 million.

2025 has seen the fifth-highest number of job cuts. The most were seen in 2020, when the labor market was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 marks the only time there were more than 2 million job cuts through November.

After 2020 and 2025, the worst years for job cuts in the past three decades were 2001, 2002, and 2009, when the financial crisis led to mass layoffs.

The report found US employers announced 71,321 job cuts in November — up 24% from the same period last year.

"Job cuts in November have risen above 70,000 only twice since 2008: in 2022 and in 2008," said Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The firm said that telecommunications companies cut the most jobs last month, at over 15,000, followed by some 12,000 layoffs in tech.

• On an overnight layover in Bangkok, I booked a $50 stay at the airport's Avagard Capsule Hotel.
• I slept surprisingly well in my 7-by-3 pod, although walking to the bathroom felt awkward.
• I wouldn't sleep there again if I were traveling with others, but I'll book it on future solo trips.

I was flying from Phuket, Thailand, to Bhutan with an awkward, eight-hour, overnight layover in Bangkok.

My flight landed at 9:30 p.m., and my connection left at 5:30 a.m. It was too long to suffer in uncomfortable airport chairs, but too short to splurge on even a basic hotel, which would've cost me around $100.

Then, I discovered Avagard Capsule Hotel, a collection of $50 sleeping pods in the Bangkok airport's international terminal.

I booked one a couple of weeks before my trip, curious if I'd get any sleep.

The capsule was nicer than I expected

Capsule hotels are sleeping accommodations made up of small pods ("capsules"). The concept originated in Japan, but has since spread to airports around the world. I'd seen them when flying through Dubai and Frankfurt, but this would be my first time staying in one.

After landing, I found my "hotel" in a corner of a busy walkway. There were eight capsules stacked two high, somewhat like bunk beds.

Expecting limited service, I was surprised to find an employee present to check me in. They quickly showed me how to set codes for my capsule door and luggage locker, then gestured for me to climb inside.

The space was roughly 7 feet long and 3 feet wide. At 5'9", I was immediately comfortable, but a taller person might have felt cramped.

Closing the door felt like shutting out the world. In an instant, I went from the chaos of a busy airport to a dark, cozy cocoon.

Inside, I found amenities including bottled water, tissues, earplugs, and multiple USB ports to charge my devices. Even slippers were provided, since I wasn't allowed to wear shoes inside.

Falling asleep with hundreds of people walking past my head was weird

With the lights off, the capsule was dark, and the bed surprisingly comfortable.

As a light sleeper, though, I struggled at first to block out the noise. There was a constant procession of people walking past, and I could hear their conversations.

One couple walked past, commenting, "Oh, look, that's a hotel! I wonder who stays there?" I briefly considered popping the door open and announcing "Me!" but decided sleep was more important than comedy.

The airport announcements continued, too, but they started to sound more distant as I got settled. Eventually, jetlag set in, and I drifted off.

Around midnight, nature called. With no guest toilets, I had to walk five minutes to the nearest public ones. In my haze, I went barefoot, which wasn't the best idea — I needed to go back and get my slippers.

I almost felt like I was doing the walk of shame with messy bed hair, an old T-shirt and track pants, and cheap disposable slippers.

At least at that hour, there were few people around to witness my disheveled state, but it's something to consider when staying in an airport capsule hotel.

The convenience was worth every cent

My alarm went off at 4 a.m., just in time to check in for my next flight and head to the gate, which was conveniently located just down the hall. Despite getting only a few hours of sleep, I felt recharged and unstressed.

Because I was traveling with carry-ons, there was no need to recheck bags or go through security again. After retrieving my bag from the locker, I headed back to the public toilets to brush my teeth and freshen up — this time remembering footwear.

Without a shower, I wasn't completely refreshed, but I felt good enough. The fact that I was at my gate within 10 minutes of waking up, though, made this a worthwhile investment.

This option probably wouldn't work if I were traveling with my family, but I'd definitely do it again if I were by myself and had another awkward layover.

I've stayed in hundreds of hotels throughout my travels, many of them five-star, luxury accommodations.

Staying in a 7-by-3 pod in an airport terminal, however, was one of the coolest experiences I've had. Even my midnight bathroom adventure provided a story.

• The US will review H-1B applicants' social media, a State Dept official told Business Insider.
• Applicants must make all social media profiles public so that consular officers can review them.
• Trump imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B applications in September.

The US will soon require H-1B visa applicants to make their social-media profiles public so consular officers can review their online activity, a State Department spokesperson told Business Insider.

Beginning December 15, consular officers worldwide will conduct "online presence reviews" for all applicants in the H-1B specialty-occupation category, along with their H-4 dependents, the spokesperson said.

The policy, which the department described as part of the Trump administration's focus on "protecting our nation and our citizens," marks one of the broadest expansions of digital vetting ever applied to foreign workers.

Applicants will be instructed to adjust their privacy settings to "public" across all social-media platforms, ensuring officers can access posts, networks, employment information, and other digital activity.

The agency already conducts similar reviews for foreign students and exchange visitors in certain categories.

However, the new directive extends this practice to one of the most widely used visa pathways in the US labor market.

"A US visa is a privilege, not a right," the spokesperson said. "In every visa case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States."

The spokesperson declined to comment on reports of an internal State Department cable outlining additional vetting criteria, but confirmed that the new policy will apply globally to applicants "of all nationalities."

Crackdown on the H-1B program

The move deepens a broader overhaul of the H-1B system under President Donald Trump.

Trump signed an executive order in September imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications, a move that sent Silicon Valley scrambling and left employers warning foreign workers not to travel.

That policy — aimed at curbing what the administration called "abuses" of the system — has been met with confusion, fierce criticism, and an ongoing legal challenge, saying the president lacks authority to impose such fees.

The program allows US employers to hire highly skilled foreign workers in fields such as engineering, software development, biotech, and finance — industries where companies often rely heavily on international talent.

Major firms, including Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Intel, and Nvidia, collectively sponsor tens of thousands of H-1B roles each year.

Do you have information about the State Department cable referenced in this story? Email tspirlet@insider.com.

• Business Insider spoke with stylists about which shoe trends are in and out this season.
• The pros said boat shoes, low-profile sneakers, and chunky boots will be popular this winter.
• However, logo-heavy styles, distressed sneakers, and pointy toes are on their way out.

Shoes might be the last thing you put on before leaving the house, but they often determine whether an outfit feels dated or modern. So, as trends in texture, shape, and overall vibe shift, it's worth taking a closer look at what's currently on your shelves and in your closet.

Business Insider spoke with two professional stylists to share which footwear trends are gaining traction right now and which are starting to fade. Here's what they said.

Boat shoes are back in a big way.

According to Kendra Sharpe, stylist and founder of Kendra Sharpe Styling and Creative, boat shoes are having a full revival right now. She said these shoes are nostalgic, thriftable, and easy to wear worn-in.

In addition to the classic style, designers and fast-fashion retailers are also updating this look with modern shapes and colors.

Low-profile sneakers are taking over.

Patrick Kenger, the lead personal stylist and founder of image-consulting company Pivot, said slimmer, retro-inspired runners are becoming the dominant sneaker shape right now.

In line with the broader minimalist shift, these sneakers are simple in design, often featuring thin soles, low profiles, and clean uppers that create a more streamlined look.

Kenger recommends sticking to neutral shades like black, gray, or white because they work seamlessly with a wide range of outfits without competing for attention.

Lug-sole boots are still going strong.

According to Kenger, chunky Chelsea boots and similar lug-sole styles will remain popular this season, especially as the colder months approach.

He told BI that these heavier soles also work particularly well with wide or straight-leg pants because the structured base helps visually fill out the hem and balance today's more loose shapes.

Slip-on mules and clogs are becoming everyday staples.

Both stylists said they're seeing mules and clogs everywhere right now.

From backless loafers to soft suede clogs, Sharpe said these slip-ons work across genders and are easy to style with everything from jeans to trousers.

Kenger told BI that many of the updated versions also come in neutral colors, which pair well with casual pants.

Hiking sneakers are moving from the trail to the sidewalk.

According to Sharpe, hiking sneakers are gaining popularity off the trail this season. She said this is due to people gravitating toward practical shoes with bungee laces, tech-focused materials, and an overall outdoor look.

"They read less like performance gear and more like casual streetwear now, so they're easy to pair with leggings, trousers, or even dresses," Sharpe told BI.

On the other hand, shiny leather finishes are being swapped for softer textures.

Kenger said he's seeing many people move away from stiff, glossy finishes and toward softer materials in neutral tones.

"Loafers in suede are really big right now, especially in soft grays, tans, and taupe," the stylist told BI.

As minimal styles take over, he said these muted neutrals are becoming the go-to for an understated, modern look.

Distressed shoes are becoming less popular.

According to both stylists, dramatic distressing is falling out of favor.

Kenger said that even retro-inspired sneakers are leaning more polished and streamlined, stepping away from the overly dirty, beat-up aesthetic.

Sharpe told BI that trends now favor softer textures and subtle wear, rather than anything intentionally scuffed or heavily worn.

Pointy and sharp-toed shoes can feel too formal for today's more casual trends.

Kenger said that sleek, narrow, sharply pointed styles, especially in flats and loafers, don't align with the softer, more relaxed direction footwear is heading.

"We're swapping the sharp, pointy, shiny stuff for rounded toes and softer fabrics," Kenger told BI.

Instead, the stylist suggests trying rounded-toe options and more organic shapes.

Logo-heavy shoes have seen their day.

Loud, heavily branded footwear, once a status symbol, is losing momentum as fashion shifts toward quiet luxury, according to Kenger.

"We had these really logo-driven, metallic sneakers, and all of that is trending out," the stylist told BI. "People are going for quiet luxury now."

Instead of metallic finishes or oversize logos, he recommends opting for cleaner, more understated designs.

• Azoma raised $4 million to boost brands' visibility in AI search and chatbot results.
• The London startup simulates how brands appear in chatbot replies and creates content optimized for AI.
• Business Insider got an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used to secure the funding.

A startup that helps brands show up in AI search results and chatbot conversations has raised $4 million in funding.

London-based Azoma aims to capitalize on the rise of generative engine optimization (GEO), a strategy to make content more visible in AI overviews and chatbots like ChatGPT.

"We're helping the world's most recognizable brands to stay relevant in the era of AI search," Max Sinclair, the CEO and cofounder of Azoma, told Business Insider.

Azoma, founded in 2022, has developed two patented technologies. One is what it calls a "digital twin" to simulate how brands appear in AI chatbot responses. Most conversations with chatbots are private, so Azoma creates profiles of people matching a client's target customer demographic, then uses those to submit a "very large volume" of prompts to see what the chatbot says about a brand.

For example, Azoma could send 100,000 prompts asking for the best coffee shop in a city from the profile of a man in his 30s, Sinclair said. Azoma would then assess how its client ranks in those chatbot answers versus its competitors.

Azoma's second solution is generating content, such as product listings, that it says is optimized to appear in AI search results and chatbot answers.

Sinclair said Azoma is a software-as-a-service platform that charges brands on a per-use basis and retailers by product categories. Its clients include the likes of Mars, Colgate, Zappos, and P&G. Azoma achieved profitability earlier this year, Sinclair said.

The GEO and answer engine optimization market is a young and competitive space where the rules are still being written.

Search engine optimization experts from companies like Google and Microsoft previously told Business Insider that some SEO principles still apply to GEO, such as creating relevant content. Sinclair, a former Amazon executive, said he agrees with the top-level principles, but large language models have changed the game.

"The way these LLMs work is totally, totally different. It's a totally new technology," Sinclair said. He explained that this is because the number of keywords is much greater in AI search versus traditional search, and because AI has significantly more context about the user.

Investors in the pre-Series A funding round included Ignite Ventures, Rank Ventures, eBay Ventures x Techstars, Twinpath, MaRS ISF, plus angel investors.

Azoma, which was also cofounded by Timur Luguev, who has a Ph.D. in computer science, plans to use the fresh capital to invest in R&D and expand its commercial operations by hiring for sales and customer success roles.

Here's an exclusive look at the 19-page pitch deck Azoma used to raise its $4 million pre-Series AI round.

• AI pioneer Stuart Russell warns leaders are "staring 80% unemployment in the face."
• Russell says AI may replace surgeons, coders, and even CEOs as firms chase efficiency.
• He fears a future where machines do all work, leaving humans struggling to find purpose.

After more than 40 years of studying AI, UC Berkeley professor Stuart Russell hasn't mellowed.

The man who co-authored "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach," the world's most authoritative textbook on AI, now spends up to 100 hours a week trying to avert what he sees as a historic crisis — one that could leave almost the entire global population without work.

Russell, one of the world's most influential AI researchers and a recipient of the OBE — a royal honor awarded by the UK — for his contributions to computer science, told British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett on the "Diary of a CEO" podcast posted on Thursday that the economic shock ahead is far bigger than governments realize.

'80% unemployment' is no longer a sci-fi scenario

Russell said political leaders are "suddenly staring 80% unemployment in the face" as AI systems accelerate toward replacing abilities once reserved for the highest-skilled humans.

"AI systems are doing pretty much everything we currently call work," he said. That includes fields once believed to be safe from automation.

"Anything you might aspire to — you want to become a surgeon — it takes the robot seven seconds to learn how to be a surgeon that's better than any human being," he added.

He suggested that sectors once considered safe — from driving and logistics to accounting, software engineering, and even medicine — are likely to be swept up in the coming wave of automation.

Russell joins a growing chorus of AI experts and tech leaders in forecasting historic levels of job displacement.

While Andrew Yang has warned AI could wipe out 40 million US jobs in the next decade, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has predicted up to half of entry-level white-collar roles could disappear within five years.

Others, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Yann LeCun, Meta's outgoing chief AI scientist, believe AI will transform work rather than erase it.

Why CEOs could be replaced, too

The disruption won't stop at the top. Russell said even senior executives won't be spared.

"Pity the poor CEO whose board says, 'Unless you turn over your decision-making power to the AI system, we're going to have to fire you because all our competitors are using an AI-powered CEO and they're doing much better.'"

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have both echoed these thoughts in recent interviews.

"I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things for an AI to do one day," Pichai told the BBC last month.

Companies are already cutting jobs because of AI.

HP, IBM, Salesforce, and Klarna have also cited AI as a factor in sweeping layoffs or workforce reductions announced over the past year.

"Even the giant AI companies will have few human employees in the long run," Russell said.

A world where work disappears — and meaning must be reinvented

Russell believes that even if AI advances safely, the bigger challenge may be psychological. Humans derive purpose from striving, problem-solving, and contributing to others, he said.

A society where machines handle all productive tasks could drift toward a future in which humans become passive, sedentary consumers living for entertainment — a scenario he describes as "not conducive to human flourishing."

"We need to figure out what is the next phase going to be like," he said, and "how in this world do we have the incentives to become fully human, which I think means at least a level of education that people have now and probably more."

So far, he added, nobody — not AI researchers, not economists, not science fiction writers, not futurists — has convincingly described that world.