Cloudflare has joined forces with Mozilla, Google, Microsoft and Shopify to develop a new internet protocol designed to help websites distinguish genuine visitors from malicious bots without relying on CAPTCHAs, forced logins or invasive tracking, in what could become one of the biggest changes to how people prove their identity online in decades.

What Is PACT?

The initiative centres on a new technology called Private Access Control Tokens (PACT), which aims to solve a problem that is becoming increasingly urgent as artificial intelligence changes the nature of internet traffic.

According to Cloudflare, automated systems now generate more web traffic than humans. Cloudflare Radar data shows bots account for around 58 per cent of HTTP requests worldwide, driven in part by the rapid growth of AI assistants and autonomous software agents browsing the web on users’ behalf.

That creates a challenge for website operators. They need to distinguish legitimate visitors from malicious bots without creating frustrating barriers for genuine users or collecting excessive amounts of personal data.

How The System Works

Rather than asking users to complete CAPTCHAs, log in repeatedly or allowing websites to build detailed browser fingerprints, PACT introduces a different approach.

Trusted services that already have a genuine relationship with a user can issue an anonymous cryptographic token to that person’s browser. When the user later visits another participating website, the browser can present the token as evidence that a real person, or an authorised AI agent acting for one, is behind the request.

Importantly, the token is designed to prove legitimacy without revealing who the person is or allowing websites to reconstruct their browsing history.

Cloudflare says PACT allows websites to “verify that a visitor is a human or authorized agent while preserving privacy”, removing much of the friction associated with existing verification methods.

Why Existing Methods Are Becoming Less Effective

For years, websites have relied on CAPTCHAs, browser fingerprinting, account log-ins and behavioural analysis to defend themselves against automated abuse.

Those techniques are becoming increasingly problematic. CAPTCHAs interrupt the browsing experience, browser fingerprinting has attracted growing regulatory scrutiny because of its privacy implications, while AI systems are becoming increasingly capable of solving many traditional bot detection tests.

Cloudflare CTO Dane Knecht believes the internet is reaching a turning point. As he explained: “The way we interact with the Internet is facing a fundamental shift… As AI-powered traffic becomes widespread, existing tools to support its use are too generic and coarse.”

Rather than treating all automated traffic as malicious, PACT is intended to distinguish authorised AI agents from abusive bots.

Why The Browser Makers Are Involved

One of the most significant aspects of the announcement is the unusually broad industry collaboration behind it.

Mozilla, Google and Microsoft collectively develop the browsers used by most internet users, while Shopify brings the perspective of millions of online retailers, where every unnecessary security check can reduce sales.

Shopify Distinguished Engineer Ilya Grigorik said: “Every extra challenge, delay, or false positive can turn a purchase into an abandoned cart.” He added that PACT could help businesses distinguish legitimate shoppers and authorised AI agents “while preserving buyer privacy.”

Mozilla also sees wider benefits. Firefox CTO Bobby Holley warned that an “avalanche of automated traffic” is pushing websites towards increasingly intrusive measures simply to determine whether visitors are genuine.

What Happens Next?

It should be noted here that PACT is still at quite an early stage. The partners intend to submit the protocol for formal internet standardisation before browsers and websites begin adopting it more widely.

The technology also builds on earlier Privacy Pass standards already used in some online services, extending those ideas to support a much broader range of browsers and AI-driven web traffic.

If widely adopted, PACT could eventually become a common feature of everyday web browsing, allowing websites to authenticate visitors with far less friction while giving users greater control over their privacy.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For organisations, the announcement reflects a much bigger change than simply replacing CAPTCHAs. The internet is rapidly moving from a world dominated by human visitors to one where AI agents increasingly browse, search, purchase and interact with online services on behalf of people.

Businesses will therefore need new ways to identify legitimate traffic without damaging the customer experience or creating additional privacy risks. PACT represents one possible answer by allowing trust to be established without relying on invasive tracking or repeated identity checks.

Although widespread deployment is still quite some way off, the involvement of Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Shopify suggests this is more than simply another technical proposal. If the standard gains broad industry support, it could reshape how websites balance cyber security, privacy and usability as AI becomes a routine part of everyday internet activity.

In this Tech Insight, we examine why the semiconductor industry has become one of the world’s most strategically important sectors, as major technological breakthroughs, artificial intelligence and geopolitical competition reshape the future of computing.

Pushing Beyond The Limits Of Miniaturisation

One of the clearest signs of that change comes from IBM, which recently unveiled what it describes as the world’s first sub-1 nanometre semiconductor technology.

The company says its new 0.7 nanometre design can pack almost 100 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail while delivering up to 50 per cent higher performance or 70 per cent greater energy efficiency than its earlier 2 nanometre technology.

Not Just Because They’re Smaller

However, the real breakthrough lies not simply in making chips smaller. For decades, the semiconductor industry relied on Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years. As transistors have approached atomic dimensions, continuing that trend has become increasingly difficult.

It seems that IBM’s answer has been to rethink how chips are built. For example, instead of simply placing more transistors alongside each other, its new “NanoStack” architecture builds upwards, stacking multiple layers vertically to create far greater transistor density.

As Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research, explained: “With our new NanoStack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors, we’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency.”

AI Is Changing Everything

The timing is no coincidence, as AI has transformed semiconductors from a mature industry into one of the fastest-growing sectors in technology. Modern AI models require enormous computing power, creating unprecedented demand for processors, memory chips, networking hardware and specialised AI accelerators.

The challenge, therefore, is no longer simply producing faster chips. Manufacturers must now also improve energy efficiency because AI data centres consume vast amounts of electricity.

That is why many recent semiconductor announcements have focused as much on power consumption as raw performance. Every improvement in efficiency can reduce operating costs while helping to address the growing environmental impact of AI infrastructure.

At the same time, companies developing AI are increasingly designing their own silicon.

OpenAI’s Jalapeño

OpenAI recently unveiled Jalapeño, its first custom-designed inference processor, developed with Broadcom. Rather than attempting to replace Nvidia entirely, the company says the chip has been designed specifically for the workloads that power large language models.

According to OpenAI President Greg Brockman, “Jalapeño is part of our long-term full-stack infrastructure strategy to make compute more abundant, resulting in AI which is faster, more reliable, more affordable for people and businesses.”

That reflects a broader trend across the industry. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other technology giants are all investing heavily in custom chips designed specifically for their own AI platforms.

From Commercial Products To Strategic Assets

Perhaps the biggest change, however, is no longer technological but geopolitical. Semiconductors have become so important that governments increasingly view them as matters of national security rather than purely commercial products.

The latest example is Pax Silica, a US-led initiative intended to strengthen cooperation between allied nations on AI semiconductor supply chains, critical minerals and advanced manufacturing. Although the European Union has simultaneously been promoting greater technological sovereignty, it has now joined the initiative, recognising the practical difficulty of securing advanced semiconductor supply chains independently.

Announcing the decision, the European Commission said: “As AI reshapes our economies and societies, secure and resilient silicon supply chains are more important than ever.”

That statement reflects a growing international consensus. The countries that control semiconductor research, manufacturing capacity and supply chains are increasingly seen as holding significant economic and strategic advantages.

This is particularly important because producing advanced chips requires an extraordinarily complex global supply chain involving specialist equipment, materials and manufacturing expertise spread across multiple countries.

Why This Matters

The semiconductor industry is therefore changing in several ways simultaneously.

Manufacturers are developing entirely new chip architectures as traditional miniaturisation approaches its physical limits. Also, AI is driving unprecedented demand for computing power while making energy efficiency more important than ever. At the same time, governments are treating semiconductor capability as a strategic national resource alongside energy, telecommunications and defence infrastructure.

The result is an industry that is becoming more innovative, more competitive and more politically significant than at any point in its history.

For businesses and consumers, many of these changes will remain largely invisible. Yet they will shape everything from AI performance and cloud computing costs to supply chain resilience and the pace of future technological innovation.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For businesses, the semiconductor industry may seem remote, but its influence is becoming increasingly direct.

For example, every cloud service, AI platform, cyber security product and business application ultimately depends on the availability of increasingly powerful and efficient chips. As demand continues to accelerate, advances in semiconductor technology will increasingly determine how quickly AI capabilities improve, how much they cost to run and how widely they can be deployed.

The wider lesson is that semiconductors are no longer simply components hidden inside electronic devices. They have become foundational infrastructure for the digital economy. Businesses are unlikely to need to understand transistor physics, but they do need to recognise that developments in semiconductor technology will increasingly influence the cost, availability, performance and resilience of the digital services on which they depend.

The industry is also entering a period where technical innovation, commercial competition and international politics are becoming inseparable. The organisations that understand that broader picture will be better placed to anticipate how AI, cloud computing and digital infrastructure are likely to evolve over the coming decade.

Anthropic has unveiled Claude Tag, a new AI-powered assistant designed to work as a shared digital teammate inside Slack, marking a significant move beyond chatbots that simply answer questions towards AI systems that can collaborate with entire teams and complete work independently.

What Is Claude Tag?

Claude Tag is Anthropic’s latest workplace AI tool, built on its Opus 4.8 model and designed to operate directly within Slack, one of the world’s most widely used business collaboration platforms.

Rather than opening a separate AI chatbot or application, users simply tag “@Claude” within a Slack conversation and assign it a task. Claude then plans how to complete the work, carries it out using the tools and information it has been authorised to access, and posts the finished results back into the conversation.

Anthropic describes it as “the beginning of an evolution of Claude Code”, adding that “tagging @Claude is now one of the main ways we get things done at Anthropic.”

The company says around 65 per cent of its own product team’s code is now created using its internal version of Claude Tag.

How It Works

While using Claude Tag is designed to be simple, it introduces several capabilities that distinguish it from traditional AI assistants.

For example, instead of responding only to one individual, Claude exists as a shared participant within each Slack channel. This means that anyone in that channel can see what it is working on, ask follow-up questions or continue conversations started by colleagues.

Anthropic says this makes interacting with Claude “much more like interacting collaboratively with a teammate” than using a conventional chatbot.

The system is also designed to work asynchronously. In other words, rather than waiting while an AI generates a response, users can delegate work and continue with other tasks while Claude carries out the request, whether that takes minutes, hours or even days.

According to Anthropic, Claude can “schedule tasks for itself, pursuing a project autonomously over hours or days”, allowing teams to hand over longer-running work without constant supervision.

Learning As It Goes

One of Claude Tag’s most significant features seems to be its ability to build context over time.

For example, as it participates in authorised Slack channels, it gradually develops an understanding of projects, terminology and ongoing work. That means users don’t need to explain the same background information every time they ask for assistance.

Where administrators permit it, Claude can also learn from connected business systems and other authorised Slack channels, allowing it to combine information from multiple sources before responding.

Importantly, Anthropic says Claude does not access private Slack channels unless permission has been granted, and memories remain isolated between different business functions.

The company explains that administrators effectively create separate Claude identities for different departments, meaning “a model set up for sales work won’t pass on memories to one set up for engineering; nor will it give engineers access to any sales data or tools.”

Taking A More Active Role

Claude Tag also introduces what Anthropic describes as “ambient” behaviour.

Instead of waiting to be prompted, Claude can proactively notify users about developments it believes may be relevant, highlight unresolved issues, identify stalled discussions or follow up on tasks that have not been completed. Claude Tag is really an example of how AI is becoming more capable of working independently.

Until recently, most AI systems remained passive, responding only when someone asked a question. Increasingly, developers are building AI agents that monitor ongoing work, make decisions about priorities and carry out delegated tasks with much less human intervention.

For Anthropic, Slack is really just the first step. The company says it ultimately wants teams to be able to tag Claude “in the many other places they work”.

Security And Control

Given the amount of potentially sensitive business information involved, Anthropic has placed considerable emphasis on security.

System administrators decide exactly which channels, tools and data Claude can access, while organisations can also set spending limits for AI usage and review detailed logs showing every task the assistant has performed.

That level of oversight is likely to be particularly important as organisations become more comfortable allowing AI systems to work with confidential business information.

More Than Just A Productivity Feature

Claude Tag is more than another workplace productivity feature. Many organisations already use AI to generate text, write software, analyse documents or answer questions. Anthropic’s latest development seems to give us a look at the next stage of enterprise AI may involve organisations treating AI as an active participant in team workflows rather than simply another application employees open when they need assistance.

The distinction may seem subtle, but it has significant implications. Instead of individuals repeatedly consulting AI, teams may increasingly delegate routine work to AI colleagues that understand ongoing projects, remember previous discussions and continue working independently between conversations.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For businesses, Claude Tag provides another indication that enterprise AI is moving rapidly beyond standalone chatbots.

Many organisations are still experimenting with AI as a productivity tool. Anthropic’s vision points towards something more ambitious, where AI becomes embedded within everyday collaboration, capable of handling routine tasks, maintaining organisational knowledge and working alongside employees over extended periods.

That has the potential to improve productivity, reduce repetitive work and accelerate decision-making. However, it also raises important questions around governance, access controls, oversight and trust. Organisations will need clear policies governing what information AI can access, what decisions it can make and how its work should be reviewed.

Whether Claude Tag itself becomes widely adopted remains to be seen. However, the broader direction is becoming increasingly clear.

Actor and producer Cate Blanchett has helped launch a free online registry designed to give people a practical way to tell artificial intelligence systems whether they can use their name, face, voice and other personal characteristics, as concerns continue to grow over AI-generated content and digital identity.

What Is The Human Consent Registry?

The new Human Consent Registry has been developed by RSL Media, a non-profit organisation co-founded by Blanchett, and was officially launched at the European Parliament alongside Member of the European Parliament Eva Maydell.

The registry is built around the idea that people should be able to decide how AI systems use their identity, in much the same way they can decide how other forms of intellectual property are licensed.

Announcing the launch at the European Parliament in Brussels, Blanchett said: “Your identity is your IP in the age of AI, and every person deserves the right to decide how AI can or cannot use it.”

Initially, the registry covers identity rights, including a person’s name, image, likeness, voice, movement and other personal characteristics. RSL Media says future versions will also support creative works, fictional characters, brands and trademarks.

How Does It Work?

The system has been designed to be simple enough for anyone to use, regardless of their technical knowledge.

After registering and verifying their identity, users choose one of three permission settings. They can allow AI systems to use their identity, allow it subject to specified conditions, or prohibit its use altogether.

RSL Media compares the approach to a traffic light, where green means permitted, yellow means conditional use and red means prohibited.

Those choices are then converted into machine-readable signals that AI developers and online platforms can check automatically before using someone’s identity.

The aim is to make consent both discoverable and practical at internet scale rather than relying on individual legal agreements or manual permission requests.

Who Is It For?

Although Blanchett’s involvement has attracted considerable attention, the registry is not aimed solely at actors, musicians or other public figures.

Anyone can register free of charge on their own behalf. The system also supports people who work through agents, managers, licensing organisations or other authorised representatives, allowing AI companies to route permission requests through established professional channels.

RSL Media believes this approach could eventually become useful for anyone whose identity might be reproduced, cloned or imitated by AI systems, whether they are a celebrity, a business owner or a private individual.

Why Has It Been Launched Now?

The launch reflects growing concern about the speed at which generative AI is developing.

Advances in AI have made it increasingly easy to generate convincing images, videos and synthetic voices that resemble real people. At the same time, many creators have questioned whether AI developers should be allowed to train their systems using copyrighted material or personal identity without permission.

Blanchett has become one of a growing number of public figures calling for stronger safeguards around AI consent.

Speaking at the launch, she said the Human Consent Registry “gives everyone a voice and a way to take action on AI permissions, helping to preserve and protect trust across the evolving AI landscape.”

The launch at the European Parliament also carries some symbolic significance. For example, the Parliament was responsible for developing and approving the EU AI Act, which places a strong emphasis on transparency, accountability and responsible AI development.

Eva Maydell, a Member of the European Parliament and one of the lead negotiators on the EU AI Act, described the registry as “a tool that makes rights transparent, scales trust, and keeps human creativity at the centre of technological progress.”

What The Registry Cannot Do

The Human Consent Registry is intended to make consent easier to communicate, but it does not automatically prevent AI companies from using someone’s identity.

Its effectiveness ultimately depends on whether AI developers and platform providers choose, or are required, to check the registry before creating or training AI systems.

At present, the registry acts as a publicly available record of an individual’s preferences rather than a legally binding enforcement mechanism.

That said, supporters believe that creating a single, machine-readable source of consent could make it much easier for responsible AI developers to respect people’s wishes while providing policymakers with practical infrastructure that complements emerging AI regulation.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For organisations developing or using AI, the Human Consent Registry highlights how questions of consent are becoming increasingly important as AI systems become more capable of generating realistic digital content.

Many businesses already use AI to create marketing material, customer communications, training content and multimedia assets. As these tools improve, organisations will need greater confidence that the names, voices and images they use have been licensed appropriately.

The wider lesson here is that AI governance is expanding beyond data privacy and cyber security into areas such as digital identity, intellectual property and personal consent. Although the Human Consent Registry is still at an early stage, it provides a practical example of how those issues may increasingly be managed through shared technical standards rather than relying solely on legal contracts.

Whether the registry becomes widely adopted remains uncertain. However, the underlying principle is likely to become increasingly difficult to ignore. As AI becomes better at recreating people, the ability for individuals to control how their identity is used may become just as important as controlling how their personal data is collected and stored.

Italy’s competition authority has opened an investigation into Microsoft over the way it introduced a higher-priced Microsoft 365 subscription that includes its AI tools Copilot and Designer, raising wider questions about how software companies should bundle artificial intelligence into products that millions of people already use.

What’s Happened?

The Italian Competition Authority (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, or AGCM) announced on 26 June that it had launched an investigation into Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd. and Microsoft S.r.l.

It’s important to stress here that opening an investigation doesn’t mean Microsoft has done anything wrong. Rather, it allows the regulator to examine whether consumers received sufficient information before being moved to a more expensive Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Copilot and Designer. The price increase is due to take effect from 1 July 2026.

Why Is Italy Investigating?

The regulator’s concerns focus less on the price increase itself and more on how it was introduced.

According to the AGCM, Microsoft “appears to have failed to make it sufficiently clear that the subscription service had been integrated with the ‘Copilot’ and ‘Designer’ artificial intelligence services.”

The authority also alleges that customers were placed, by default, on a higher-priced subscription unless they actively exercised their right to withdraw, while receiving insufficient information to decide whether to renew their subscription.

In the regulator’s view, this may have prevented consumers from making a fully informed decision about whether they wanted the additional AI features or the higher-priced plan.

The AGCM also stated that the way the changes were communicated “may also constitute an aggressive practice, as it appears to have unduly restricted consumers’ freedom of choice.”

Default Choices

Although the investigation concerns Microsoft 365, it reflects a much broader issue that regulators are increasingly examining.

For example, many digital services now present customers with default choices that require them to actively opt out rather than opt in. In practice, a significant proportion of users simply accept the default option, either because they overlook the change or assume it is mandatory.

The Italian authority therefore appears to be examining whether consumers were actually given a genuine opportunity to understand the changes before being automatically moved onto a more expensive subscription.

The investigation is not questioning Microsoft’s right to charge more for software that includes new capabilities. Instead, it is asking whether customers were given enough information to make an informed decision about whether those additional AI features justified the extra cost.

Microsoft’s Response

Microsoft says it intends to cooperate fully with the investigation. In a statement, the company said: “Microsoft is committed to complying with Italian consumer law and will cooperate with the Italian Competition Authority in its preliminary investigation.”

The company will now have an opportunity to present its own evidence and arguments before the authority reaches any conclusions.

At this stage, there is no finding of wrongdoing and no indication of what the eventual outcome might be.

Part Of A Bigger AI Debate

The case also illustrates how AI is beginning to reshape long-established software business models. For example, rather than selling AI as an entirely separate product, many software providers are now integrating AI features directly into existing subscriptions. Microsoft has already embedded Copilot across much of its software portfolio, while other technology companies are following similar strategies.

That approach can make advanced AI capabilities available to many more users. However, it also raises questions about pricing, transparency, and whether customers who have little interest in AI should automatically pay for features they may never use.

As AI becomes more deeply integrated into mainstream software, regulators are likely to pay increasing attention to how those changes are communicated and whether consumers are given meaningful choices.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For organisations, the investigation highlights the importance of paying close attention whenever software vendors change subscription terms or introduce new product bundles.

AI is increasingly being incorporated into familiar business applications rather than being offered as a standalone service. While those new capabilities may bring genuine benefits, they can also alter pricing structures, licensing arrangements and the features included within existing subscriptions.

The wider lesson here is that software procurement is becoming more complex as AI becomes a standard component of mainstream business software. Organisations should ensure they understand exactly what has changed, whether additional AI features meet their operational needs, and what options exist before renewing subscription agreements.

Whatever the outcome of the Italian investigation, it is likely to influence how software companies introduce AI into existing products in the future. The issue is no longer simply whether organisations are willing to pay more for artificial intelligence, but whether customers are given clear information and genuine choice before those additional costs become part of the software they already depend upon.

The Five Eyes intelligence alliance has warned that powerful new AI models capable of accelerating cyber attacks could become publicly available within months.

In a rare joint statement, the cyber security agencies said: “Frontier AI models are anticipated to exceed current industry expectations… The timeline is not years, it is months.” They warned AI will make it much faster for attackers to find and exploit existing security weaknesses.

The alliance says the biggest risks remain familiar ones, including unpatched systems, weak identity controls and unnecessary internet exposure, but AI will dramatically increase the speed and scale of attacks.

Businesses should use the time available to strengthen cyber hygiene by applying updates promptly, tightening access controls, reducing internet-facing systems where possible and ensuring incident response plans are up to date.