Businesses set to ‘abandon’ AI

Companies invested heavily in artificial intelligence expecting the technology would boost productivity, increase profitability or help it expand into new businesses. But a new report from analytics firm Gartner predicts more than 30% of generative AI projects “will be abandoned” by the end of next year because of “poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating costs or unclear business value.”

Some companies are feeling buyer’s remorse and may pull the plug on AI projects as they realize the substantial investments are not paying off, Gartner analysts say.

Gartner says many executives who were caught up in “last year’s hype” are increasingly dismayed by “the financial burden of developing and deploying” AI models they hoped would transform their business.

Tesla halts orders on $61G Cybertruck

Elon Musk’s plan to sell 250,000 Cybertrucks may have hit a roadblock. Reuters says Tesla no longer accepts orders for the cheapest model, which costs $61,000 and wasn’t set for delivery until next year, perhaps with the aim of moving existing inventory of Cybertrucks costing more than $100,000. An industry expert told Reuters demand for the trucks may be “a lot less” than Tesla thought.

Going for Baroque

For Classical music lovers, Bach is back. Apple Classical, the stand-alone iOS app dedicated to Classical music, has launched the Classical Music 100 chart ranking the world’s most popular Classical albums. At the top of the initial list is Bach: Keyboard Concertos by Chinese pianist Tianqi Du. Apple says it derives the chart from several data sources including streaming, downloads and sales.

AT&T outage blocked 911 calls

The February AT&T outage that knocked out service for all of the company’s wireless users also meant at least 25,000 calls to 911 and other emergency services were blocked, according to results of a federal investigation. Overall, the outage blocked more than 92 million calls as voice calling and mobile data services were disrupted for 125 million devices for several hours. — THE WASHINGTON POST