This week we feature articles from Jessica A. Reif, Richard P. Larrick, & Jack B. Soll, and James O’Donnell & Casey Crownhart.
Additional reading comes from Ksenia Se, Pavel Samsonov, and Cobus Greyling.
News comes from Perplexity & PayPal, Foxit, Databricks & Neon, and Box.
Our next issue arrives June 4.
All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index
Opinion / Analysis
Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using AI
“Through four experiments with over 4,400 participants, we reveal a social penalty for AI use: Individuals who use AI tools face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from others. These judgments manifest as both anticipated and actual social penalties, creating a paradox where productivity-enhancing AI tools can simultaneously improve performance and damage one’s professional reputation.”
Surprise – not surprise, but now we have good data thanks to Jessica A. Reif, Richard P. Larrick, & Jack B. Soll. (28 min)
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2426766122
We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.
“… new analysis by MIT Technology Review provides an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses—down to a single query—to trace where its carbon footprint stands now, and where it’s headed, as AI barrels towards billions of daily users.”
This deep dive by James O’Donnell & Casey Crownhart is likely the most thorough and current you will find. (23 min)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech
More Reading
- AI chatbots discourage error checking via Nielsen Norman Group
- Web Browsing AI Agent with a Web-UI: A seamless browser interface via Cobus Greyling
- 8 things you need to know about Agentic Web — Microsoft strategy unveiled via Turing Post
- Everything new at Microsoft Build Book of News via Microsoft
- Everything happening at Google I/O via Google
Content technology news
Perplexity and PayPal partner
Consumers can check out instantly with PayPal or Venmo when they ask Perplexity to find products, book travel, or buy tickets.
https://www.perplexity.ai/shopping ■ https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2025-05-14-Perplexity-Selects-PayPal-to-Power-Agentic-Commerce
Foxit launches enterprise Smart Redact Server
Enhances redaction technology with batch document processing, scheduled compliance scans, multi-cloud integration, and team collaboration tools.
https://foxit.com/en/
Databricks to acquire Neon
Databricks and Neon will remove the traditional limitations of databases that require compute and storage to scale in tandem.
https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-agrees-acquire-neon-help-developers-deliver-ai-systems ■ https://neon.tech
Box announces AI Platform to bring AI agents to enterprise content
Customers will be able to leverage AI agents for Search, Deep Research, and enhanced data extraction to get more value from content in Box.
https://blog.box.com/content-ai-virtual-summit-may-2025
The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, data, web, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.
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