Daily AI & Technology News
Edition No. 41
Wednesday, November 4, 2026

LEAD: Google gives schools an AI opt-out — and takes Search with it. Google announced Tuesday that Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search will all be switched off by default for K-12 student accounts until administrators explicitly turn them on — a reversal of its August push to turn Gemini on by default in Google Classroom. The catch: there is no version of Google Search with the AI stripped out. Chris Phillips, Google’s education chief, told the New York Times that “search and A.I. are deeply integrated,” so a school that wants AI completely off “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.” After a day of backlash, Google clarified on X that schools can toggle Gemini, Gemini Notebook, and Search on individually — but Search still ships with AI Overviews and AI Mode baked in. The company is pitching a new “guided learning” mode that walks students through problems step-by-step rather than handing over answers. Critics weren’t mollified: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who announced the city’s public-school AI ban this year, accused Google of trying to “force” AI into classrooms — “No corporation should have the power to dictate how we teach our children.”
Source: CNN

CrowdStrike ships an AI “kill switch” — and buys Fiddler AI and Dreadnode. At its Fal.Con Europe conference Tuesday, CrowdStrike released an AI Kill Switch inside its Falcon Guardian platform that lets an authorized administrator terminate a misbehaving AI agent, block it from relaunching, and cut its enterprise network access — with every action logged. The capability is live now, though termination currently happens at the gateway, with endpoint termination described as coming soon. Alongside it, CrowdStrike signed definitive agreements to acquire Fiddler AI, which tracks and explains what agents do (to become Falcon Observe), and Dreadnode, which stress-tests models and agents against more than 100 known attack strategies before they go live. CrowdStrike disclosed no prices; the Wall Street Journal reported roughly $400 million for Fiddler and $95 million for Dreadnode, about $495 million combined. Both deals are expected to close in CrowdStrike’s fiscal fourth quarter (ending January), subject to customary closing conditions.
Source: WebProNews

AMD posts a record quarter as data-center revenue nearly doubles. AMD reported third-quarter revenue of $13.4 billion, up 45% from a year earlier and ahead of the $13.09 billion Wall Street consensus, with adjusted earnings of $2.09 a share against a $1.95 estimate. The data-center business did the heavy lifting: revenue rose 97% to $8.5 billion — 64% of total revenue, up from 47% a year ago — on demand for EPYC processors and the Instinct MI450 series. CEO Lisa Su said growth would “accelerate further” in the fourth quarter, and guided Q4 revenue to about $17 billion, above the roughly $16.3 billion consensus. On the earnings call she also projected revenue growth above 80% in 2027, saying data-center AI demand is outpacing even AMD’s view from three months ago. The PC and gaming side went the other way, with revenue down 8% to $3.7 billion.
Source: Seoul Economic Daily

Election Day in Ohio: voters say no to the data-center boom. At least 14 Ohio municipalities passed bans or new restrictions on data centers on Tuesday, with 18 municipalities voting on data-center measures — the most of any state. Ten towns passed outright construction bans, including Trenton, where nearly 80% of voters approved Issue 17 banning data centers drawing more than 25 megawatts; in Ashville, almost 82% voted to reverse the village council’s agreement with EdgeConneX to build two data centers. Perry voters (87%+) backed rules requiring developers seeking tax breaks to post financial guarantees; Grove City’s charter amendment forces a public vote on future large developments using over 20 megawatts or 500,000 gallons of water; and about 80% of Wilmington voters rejected four rezonings meant to clear room for a project. Nationally, the Washington Post counted at least 29 jurisdictions that passed bans or restrictions — one more sign the AI buildout has become a voting issue.
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer

Goldman Sachs takes Claude Code and GitHub away from its bankers. Per Bloomberg’s November 2 reporting on internal guidance updated in October, Goldman is now limiting Anthropic’s Claude Code and Microsoft’s GitHub coding tools to engineers only, after months in which traders and bankers used them to track client trading flows, model market moves, and draft client materials. The bank’s roughly 12,000 engineers keep access; hybrid “strats” are exempt. Spokesperson Nick Carcaterra said the firm ran the tools as an experiment, then put them “in the hands of those who are best suited to leverage them for the long term,” after weighing productivity and risk management. The retreat is a sharp reversal from July, when CIO Marco Argenti was publicly praising “vibe coding” by non-technical staff. Notably, Goldman is also a lead underwriter on Anthropic’s IPO — so it’s selling the company’s stock while restricting its software.
Source: PYMNTS

NICE cuts 500 jobs even as its AI revenue jumps 46%. The customer-service software company reported third-quarter AI annual recurring revenue of $392 million, up 46% year over year — and announced plans to cut about 5% of its global workforce, roughly 500 people, to streamline operations and “use AI to improve efficiency.” The results show the tension: overall Q3 revenue rose 8% to $790.7 million, but GAAP operating income fell 25% to $120.6 million, net income dropped 34% to $95.1 million, and gross margin contracted to 62.4% from 66.8%. The company expects $15–20 million in restructuring charges in the fourth quarter. CEO Scott Russell’s framing: personal AI agents will multiply customer interactions “at an unprecedented scale,” requiring platforms that orchestrate both human and AI experiences.
Source: CTech

Apple opens Siri AI to all developers. In a developer announcement tied to the iOS/iPadOS 27.3, macOS 27.3, and visionOS 27.3 betas, Apple says any developer can now integrate their app with Siri AI through App Intents — previously open only to a small set of supported schemas — and combine actions into new “skills”; Siri AI can also surface any entity in the Spotlight semantic index. Apple says App Store submissions for Siri AI experiences open in spring, with the customer rollout “in a few months” — and cautions the terms and usage policies for Siri AI are still unpublished. Company-reported limitations: Siri AI remains unavailable in the EU on iOS/iPadOS/watchOS, and is not available to users under 13.
Source: Apple Developer

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