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By Stephen Nellis and Deborah Mary Sophia (Reuters) -Microsoft and OpenAI reached a deal to allow the ChatGPT maker to restructure itself into a public benefit corporation, valuing OpenAI at $500 billion and giving it more freedom in its business operations. The deal removes a major constraint on raising capital for OpenAI that has existed since 2019, when it signed a deal with Microsoft that gave the tech giant rights over much of OpenAI's work in exchange for costly cloud computing services needed to carry it out. As its ChatGPT service exploded in popularity, those limitations became a notable source of tension between the two companies. Microsoft will still hold a stake of about $135 billion, or 27%, in OpenAI Group PBC, which will be controlled by the OpenAI Foundation, a nonprofit, the companies said.  The Redmond, Washington-based firm has invested $13.8 billion in OpenAI, with Tuesday's deal implying that Microsoft had generated a return of nearly ten times its investment. Microsoft shares rose 2.5%, sending its market value above $4 trillion again.   The deal keeps the two firms intertwined until at least 2032 with a massive cloud computing contract and with Microsoft retaining some rights to OpenAI products and AI models until then even if OpenAI reaches artificial general intelligence (AGI), the point at which AI systems can match a well-educated human adult. With more than 700 million weekly users as of September, ChatGPT has exploded in popularity to become the face of AI for many consumers after OpenAI's founding as a nonprofit AI safety group. As the company grew, the Microsoft deal constrained OpenAI's ability to raise funds from outside investors and secure computing contracts as the crush of ChatGPT users and its research into new models caused its computing needs to skyrocket.  "OpenAI has completed its recapitalization, simplifying its corporate structure," Bret Taylor, the OpenAI Foundation's board chair, said in a blog post. "The nonprofit remains in control of the for-profit, and now has a direct path to major resources before AGI arrives." Microsoft's previous 2019 agreement had many provisions that rested on when OpenAI reached that point, and the new deal requires an independent panel to verify OpenAI's claims it has reached AGI. "OpenAI still faces ongoing scrutiny around transparency, data usage, and safety oversight. But overall, this structure should provide a clearer path forward for innovation and accountability," said Adam Sarhan, CEO of 50 Park Investments. Gil Luria, head of technology research at DA Davidson, said the deal "resolves the longstanding issue of OpenAI being organized as a not-for-profit (organization) and settles the ownership rights of the technology vis-à-vis Microsoft. The new structure should provide more clarity on OpenAI's investment path, thus facilitating further fundraising." Microsoft also said that it has secured a deal with OpenAI where the ChatGPT maker will purchase $250 billion of Azure cloud computing services. In exchange, Microsoft will no longer have a right of first refusal to provide computing services to OpenAI. Microsoft also said that it will not have any rights to hardware produced by OpenAI. In March, OpenAI bought longtime Apple design chief Jony Ive's startup io Products in a $6.5 billion deal. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in Washington; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Franklin Paul)

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By Jaspreet Singh (Reuters) -Palo Alto Networks is expanding its artificial intelligence-powered cybersecurity offerings, as clients seek to secure their business operations from rising hacking incidents. Palo Alto's AI tools, combined with its planned acquisition of Israeli peer CyberArk Software, are deepening its security offerings amid a wave of high-profile cyberattacks that has hit global companies, including F5 and UnitedHealth Group. Chief Executive Nikesh Arora said some recent breaches underscore how back-end infrastructure compromises can expose thousands of customers by revealing vulnerabilities in shared source code. Palo Alto launched new versions of its cloud security platform, Cortex Cloud, and AI application security platform Prisma AIRS on Tuesday. The company said Prisma AIRS 2.0 integrates technology from its recently acquired Seattle-based startup Protect AI, creating a combined platform to secure AI applications from development to deployment. It also uses AI systems to automatically find loopholes in other such systems. The Cortex Cloud 2.0 now incorporates agentic platform Cortex AgentiX and a cloud command center, its unified view of cloud assets to showcase risks and threats across cloud services of multiple providers. Customers will have the ability to tailor those agents for specific user roles, Arora said, adding the pricing of the new agentic AI offerings would be consistent with the company's existing Cortex XSOAR platform that unifies and automates incident response across all security tools. "We're not going to take actions where the customers can't reverse them, or the customers can't have that a human in the middle type of activity. So most of our agents will have humans in the middle," he added. The agents are trained on 1.2 billion real-world security incident responses. Palo Alto's standalone AgentiX platform is expected to launch early next year, the company said. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Europe's biggest telecommunications companies urged the head of the European Commission on Tuesday to loosen EU merger rules, a move they said would boost much-needed investments in digital infrastructure and help them compete with U.S. and Asian peers. The call by the chief executives of Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, TIM, Vodafone, Nokia and Ericsson comes as the Commission is set to announce a legislative proposal to revamp the sector. The Digital Networks Act, currently scheduled to be unveiled in November, aims to take a more comprehensive approach to help ramp up digital infrastructure across Europe. It hit a stumbling block last week, however, when an internal Commission body issued a negative opinion on the legislation, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. "The Digital Networks Act is a crucial opportunity," the CEOs wrote in a joint letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. "Unless the Commission takes bold action with a clearly stated intent to address the need for scale, European industries will continue to lack the strength to invest at the same pace as their competitors in the United States, Asia and other markets," they wrote. The telecoms industry has voiced concern the DNA will ignore their calls to ease the path for large mergers, particularly those which reduce the number of players in a market from four to three. Antitrust regulators have long viewed that level of consolidation as a precursor to price hikes considered harmful to consumers. "The Commission must act boldly to recognise the link between scale and investment, and a much simplified regulatory framework that increases investment capacities," the executives said. Other signatories to the letter included BT Group, CK Hutchison Group Telecom, KPN, Liberty Global, FiberCop, Swisscom and Telenor. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Joe Bavier)

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By Stephen Nellis and Deborah Mary Sophia (Reuters) -Microsoft said on Tuesday it has reached a deal with OpenAI to allow the ChatGPT maker to restructure itself into a public benefit corporation, following which Microsoft would hold a stake of about $135 billion – or 27% – in the AI startup. Microsoft shares jumped 4% on the deal, which could clear the way for OpenAI to become publicly traded in the future. Microsoft also said that it has secured a deal with OpenAI where the ChatGPT maker will purchase $250 billion of Azure cloud computing services. In exchange, Microsoft will no longer have a right of first refusal to provide computing services to OpenAI. Microsoft's earlier agreement with OpenAI gave it intellectual property rights to OpenAI's products and models until 2030, or until OpenAI achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI). Microsoft said that its product and model rights now extend to 2032 and that those rights will continue until then even if a panel of independent experts verifies a declaration by OpenAI that it has achieved AGI. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in Washington; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Franklin Paul)

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(Reuters) -Apple topped $4 trillion in market value for the first time on Tuesday, the third Big Tech company to hit the milestone, as robust demand for its latest iPhone models allayed fears over its slow progress in the AI race. Apple's shares have gained about 13% since the new launches on September 9, in a remarkable turnaround that pushed the stock into positive territory for the first time this year.  "The iPhone accounts for over half of Apple's profit and revenue and the more phones they can get into the hands of people, the more they can drive people into their ecosystem," said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management, ahead of the milestone. Apple shares had struggled earlier this year on concerns over tough competition in China and uncertainties around how the company would navigate high U.S. tariffs on Asian economies such as China and India, its major manufacturing hubs.  The latest smartphones, including the iPhone 17 line-up and the iPhone Air, wooed back customers from Beijing to Moscow within the first few weeks of launch, while the company has swallowed the high costs from the tariffs. Analysts said the iPhone Air's slim design could help fend off rivals such as Samsung Electronics, while early sales of the iPhone 17 outperformed its predecessor by 14% in the U.S. and China, data from research firm Counterpoint showed. Brokerage Evercore ISI expects the strong demand for Apple's latest iPhones to help it surpass market expectations for the three-month period ending in September and issue upbeat forecasts for the quarter ending in December. Apple is the third company to hit the $4 trillion mark after Nvidia and Microsoft. Nvidia currently tops the table with a market value of more than $4.5 trillion. Apple's cautious approach to AI had fueled concerns it could lose out on what could be the industry's biggest growth catalyst in decades. Recent reports also indicate that the company is losing a number of its senior artificial intelligence executives to Meta. The company was slow to roll out its Apple Intelligence suite, including a ChatGPT integration, while an AI upgrade to its voice assistant Siri has been delayed until next year. Apple has explored several tie-ups with Alphabet's Gemini AI, Anthropic and OpenAI, according to reports. "The lack of a well-understood artificial intelligence strategy is clearly one of the things that is an overhang for the stock. If they could figure out how to incorporate artificial intelligence in a way that would excite consumers and the market, you'd see a whole different company," Zaccarelli said. Apple reported its strongest quarterly results in years during the April-June period, with double-digit growth across key segments and its forecasts were better than analysts' expectations. The company is expected to announce its fourth-quarter results on October 30. The iPhone maker's shares trade at 33.2 times its earnings projected for the next 12 months, higher than the 27.42 for Nasdaq 100, according to data compiled by LSEG. Apple shares have gained more than 7% this year, widely underperforming the tech-heavy Nasdaq's about 22% gain. (Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

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By Stephen Nellis and Deborah Mary Sophia (Reuters) -Microsoft said on Tuesday it has reached a deal with OpenAI to allow the ChatGPT maker to restructure itself into a public benefit corporation, following which Microsoft would hold a stake of about $135 billion – or 27% – in the AI startup. Microsoft shares jumped 4% on the deal, which could clear the way for OpenAI to become publicly traded in the future. Microsoft also said that it has secured a deal with OpenAI where the ChatGPT maker will purchase $250 billion of Azure cloud computing services. In exchange, Microsoft will no longer have a right of first refusal to provide computing services to OpenAI. Microsoft's earlier agreement with OpenAI gave it intellectual property rights to OpenAI's products and models until 2030, or until OpenAI achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI). Microsoft said that its product and model rights now extend to 2032 and that those rights will continue until then even if a panel of independent experts verifies a declaration by OpenAI that it has achieved AGI. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in Washington; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Franklin Paul)

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(Reuters) -OpenAI will offer its ChatGPT Go subscription free to users in India for one year starting November 4, the Microsoft- backed startup said on Tuesday, as it seeks to boost adoption in its second-largest market. The plan, which was first launched in India in August, is OpenAI's most affordable offering and is currently priced at 399 rupees ($4.54) per month. The move comes amid sweeping new rules proposed by the Indian government earlier this month to regulate artificial intelligence, proposing that AI and social media firms clearly label AI-generated content to tackle the spread of deepfake and misinformation. India is OpenAI's second-largest market by user base after the United States and may soon become its biggest, CEO Sam Altman said earlier this year. Rival Perplexity is offering a year of free access to its premium plan to Indian users through a tie-up with mobile carrier Bharti Airtel, while Google has made its Gemini AI Pro free for students for the same period. ($1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Aleef Jahan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

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Adolescent mental health expert Dr Margot Sunderland says empathy and not being defensive are key to good parent-teen relations. London (PA Media/dpa) – Being a modern teenager can be tough, with today’s young people probably facing more pressures than ever before. And dealing with academic demands, social media pressures and body image issues on top of the raging emotions of puberty can be even harder for teens who are in constant conflict with their parents. “Growing up in today’s world can be incredibly tough for young people,” says Stevie Goulding, interim head of services at YoungMinds. “Many teenagers face a constant mix of pressures, from school and academic expectations to the impact of social media, worries about the future, and wider challenges like financial stress at home. It’s no wonder so many young people feel overwhelmed at times.” She says it’s important for parents to recognise that what may look like moodiness or withdrawal can often be signs of deeper emotional strain, and stresses: “Rather than responding with frustration or shouting, which can easily shut down communication, approaching your child with patience, calm, and understanding can help strengthen your relationship and create a safe space for them to open up.” She suggests finding quiet moments to connect through everyday activities you both enjoy, and listening without judgment, adding: “Just being there, showing empathy, and reminding them it’s OK to feel what they’re feeling can be hugely reassuring.” And adolescent mental health expert Dr Margot Sunderland, director of Trauma Informed Schools UK, which helps schools respond effectively to children and teenagers’ mental health problems, suggests that if parents try to understand what their teen is going through, and adopt a stress-reducing approach instead of a stress-inducing one, the parent-child relationship could be improved substantially. “In teenagers, the stress response system in the brain is hyperactive – there are massive changes in the brain,” she explains. “It’s like having new roadworks in the brain, because it’s being refigured, and there are huge hormonal forces. So parents just need to give teenagers some slack, and be as they would with a toddler, which is to be empathic and not rise to the bait. “Realise they’re being unreasonable, but be able to stay empathic.” Here, Sunderland, a child psychotherapist and author of more than 20 books, explains the best ways for parents to react when teens are defiant, unreasonable or just plain angry. Be empathic If a teenager gets cross, instead of getting angry themselves, Sunderland says parents should try to be empathic and let the teenager know they understand where their feelings are coming from. “Say ‘This is really hard for you right now’, or ‘You’re really cross with me’, just like you would with a toddler,” she advises. “The power of empathy and understanding will bring stress levels down. So just saying it’s really hard for them has the power of healing parent-child interactions. “But so many parents have never been empathised with themselves, so it needs to be taught in schools. Don’t get defensive If your teen says they hate you, rather than saying ‘Don’t talk to me like that’, which can cause “attachment ruptures”, Sunderland advises parents to say ‘You really hate it that I put down that boundary – I get it that you’re furious with me’. “Try to not be defensive,” she says, “but to just accept the feeling.” Don’t try to fix the problem Sunderland says parents need to actively listen to what their teenagers have to say, rather than just trying to fix the problem without truly listening to the teen’s take on it. “Active listening brings stress levels down dramatically,” she explains. “Parents will try and fix the problem, they’ll go ‘It’s not that bad, you can do this or that’. “But teenagers don’t want to be fixed. They want to be understood and listened to, and that’s difficult, because you feel the pain of the teenager, but can you stay with the pain rather than try and fix it?” Try to stay stable under stress Stress-inducing parenting, like parents shouting back when a teenager shouts at them, can add to mental health problems, warns Sunderland. “So how do you stay stable under stress?” she asks. “Go into another room and scream, but not in front of your teenager. Then respond in a very calm voice.” Parents might also offload to a partner or friend, “But not on the teenager,” stresses Sunderland. Use ‘until’ statements instead of threats Respond to your teen as you would to a toddler, advises Sunderland. “So you’ll say, for example, ‘I’m afraid you can’t go out until you’ve done x’. Work in a very calm voice, but be clear about consequences, just like with toddlers. “And rather than threatening to take their iPhone away, say ‘We can’t do x until you’ve done y. “Taking phones and things away is really not a great thing. Use something else they need, like if they want pocket money, or they want to buy something. Using ‘until’ is far better.” Try not to shout at your teenager It’s easier said than done, but it’s not good to shout at your adolescent kids. Sunderland explains that shouting at teenagers damages the verbal processing part of their brain, “but that’s not taught in schools,” she says. “Stress-reducing parenting will bring resilient children. So a parent might think ‘Me just shouting at my teenager is OK’. Well, it’s not.” Be curious Teenagers may accuse their parents of not understanding them, and Sunderland says the way to deal with this is to be curious. “Say ‘I really want to understand, would you help me? I’m here to listen’. Be curious.” Summarise As well as empathising and being curious, Sunderland says a good practical tool is to summarise what your teen has said or how they’re feeling. “The tone of voice has to be right,” she says, “but curiosity is key. Say ‘Will you help me understand?’ and then summarise what they said, for example: “So what you’re saying is, you feel totally overwhelmed by school work. I get it.’” Be a ‘talkable to’ parent Sunderland says if you keep trying to fix your teen or telling them to get out of their mood, you’re not ‘talkable-to’ – and if that’s the case, teens are likely to try to solve their problems by getting often incorrect information off social media. “Are you ‘talkable-to’ parents?” she asks. “You know you’re doing so well as a parent if a teenager tells you something painful that’s happening in their life. You need a trophy, because they actually want to talk to you – that’s a wonderful thing.” Be patient Sunderland explains parents may see turmoil and hormonal forces even when their child is no longer a teenager, as the brain is still developing into the late 20s. By 19-22 years they’re becoming “more reasonable”, she explains, but before that, and certainly between 13-16 years, “You’ll need skills to emotionally regulate yourself, to be curious, to be empathic, and to not rise to the bait. “There will be mood swings, and you will lose your teenager, then you’ll get them back, and you’ll lose them, and then you’ll get them back. Don’t worry about that. “It’s a bit like a parent needing to be like a therapist until they get through those years. And then you get your child back when they’re about 22.” The following information is not intended for publication dpa pa arw

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By Greg Bensinger and Deborah Mary Sophia (Reuters) -Amazon said on Tuesday it will reduce its global corporate workforce by about 14,000 people, with more cuts expected next year, in a major shakeup driven in part by adoption of artificial intelligence at the tech giant. The online retailer began laying off employees across multiple divisions as part of a plan, first reported on Monday by Reuters, to cut as many as 30,000 employees. Amazon is working to compensate for over-hiring during the peak demand of the pandemic and limit costs. The layoffs offer an early look at the broad effects that AI could have on workforces. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy flagged the possibility of such losses in June, saying increased use of AI tools and agents would lead to more corporate job cuts, particularly through automating routine tasks. Amazon had about 1.56 million full-time and part-time employees at the end of last year. Its corporate workforce includes roughly 350,000 employees. Workers told Reuters they learned their jobs were eliminated from letters sent to their personal email addresses early Tuesday morning. "You are no longer required to perform work on Amazon's behalf," reads the email from Beth Galetti, senior vice president of People Experience and Technology, that was sent to impacted employees and seen by Reuters. She said those workers would be given the option to meet with a human resources employee over video call. "Unfortunately, your role is being eliminated and your employment will end after a non-working period." Amazon will offer most affected workers 90 days to look for a new role internally and said its recruiting teams would prioritize those candidates. Departments affected by the job cuts include devices, advertising, Prime Video, HR and Amazon's cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services (AWS), employees told Reuters. The full scope of departments affected could not be learned and when contacted for clarification, Amazon redirected Reuters to the post on its website. It was not immediately clear over what period the full target of 30,000 job cuts will take place, but Galetti said in the note Amazon would continue hiring in certain areas and reducing headcount in other divisions heading into 2026. Over the past two years, the company has been carrying out piecemeal job cuts across divisions including books, devices and its Wondery podcast business. The layoffs so far have already helped teams move faster, Galetti said. Shares of the Seattle-based company were up marginally in premarket trading. The stock has risen about 3.5% this year, making it the worst performer among the "Magnificent 7" group of megacap tech stocks. AI EFFORTS Galetti's note reiterated CEO Jassy's push to reduce management layers and lean more on AI. Corporations are increasingly using the technology to write code for their software and adopting AI agents to automate routine tasks, as they look to save costs and cut reliance on people. "This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the Internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before," Galetti said. Amazon is expected to shell out roughly $118 billion in capital expenditures for the year, with much of it going towards building AI and cloud infrastructure. The company will report its third-quarter earnings on Thursday. Separately, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to account for what he said were hundreds of thousands of potential lost jobs due to automation. Sanders was referring to a New York Times article published earlier this month that reported Amazon executives believe 500,000 jobs could be cut over time by replacing warehouse workers with robots. Two U.S. senators have also asked Amazon to explain why it is the nation's largest employer of foreign workers using H-1B visas while also cutting jobs. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

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(Reuters) -American Tower on Tuesday beat Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue, helped by strong data center demand and robust spending from telecom companies on network coverage. Telecom firms are increasing investments in 5G rollout and mobile network infrastructure to meet the growing demand for internet services. "Leasing activity across our U.S. and international towers remains robust as carriers invest in network coverage and capacity," CEO Steven Vondran said. The company owns, operates, and develops wireless and broadcast communications infrastructure, leasing space on its communication sites to wireless service providers, radio, and television broadcasters. American Tower's major customers include telecom giants AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, which together contributed a significant portion of its property segment revenue in the U.S. and Canada last year. AT&T and T-Mobile topped Wall Street expectations for third-quarter wireless subscriber additions helped by customers switching from rivals. Revenue from American Tower's property segment, which comprises of its site leasing business, rose about 6% to $2.62 billion in the third quarter. The wireless infrastructure provider reported total revenue of $2.72 billion in the reported quarter, above estimates of $2.65 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG. American Tower expects full year 2025 total property revenue between $10.21 billion and $10.29 billion, up from its prior forecast of $10.14 billion to $10.29 billion. (Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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