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- OpenAI Jobs Platform, Anthropic’s $13B Raise, Google Powers Siri – Week of Sep 1–7, 2025
OpenAI Jobs Platform, Anthropic’s $13B Raise, Google Powers Siri – Week of Sep 1–7, 2025
Cyrus Shirazian
September 07, 2025
AI Headlines of the Past Week
1) OpenAI enters hiring & training: Jobs Platform + AI fluency certifications (target: 10M Americans by 2030)
What happened: OpenAI’s Applications team announced plans for an OpenAI Jobs Platform to match AI‑skilled workers with employers, plus new AI fluency certifications (built with partners like Walmart) delivered inside ChatGPT, with dedicated tracks for small businesses and local governments. The push aligns with White House AI literacy efforts.
Why it matters to SMBs
Faster hiring: A centralized pipeline of pre‑vetted, AI‑literate candidates shortens time‑to‑fill for ops, marketing, finance, and IT roles.
Standardized skills signal: Certifications give a common baseline to assess “AI fluency” beyond self‑reported experience.
Affordable upskilling: Built‑in training lowers the cost of raising AI capability across frontline and back‑office teams.
Recommended next steps
Define “AI‑ready” job profiles (role, tools, data access, guardrails) and map to certification levels you’ll require or sponsor.
Pilot internal credentialing: Reimburse one team per function (Sales Ops, FP&A, HR) to complete the certification; set OKRs tied to time saved or error reduction.
Revise job postings and scorecards to accept recognized AI credentials as substitutes for traditional years‑of‑experience requirements.
2) Search & discovery are shifting to AI answers: court remedies + Apple–Google testing
What happened: A federal ruling spared Google from a forced Chrome/Android divestiture but banned exclusive distribution deals and required more data sharing—while allowing paid (non‑exclusive) defaults. Separately, Apple is testing Google’s Gemini to power richer Siri web answers on Apple’s private cloud (“World Knowledge Answers”), aiming for a substantial Siri upgrade by 2026.
Why it matters to SMBs
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): AI answers (Siri, ChatGPT‑style, etc.) will increasingly sit between your customers and your website.
Channel mix volatility: Non‑exclusive defaults and new voice/OS surfaces may shuffle traffic among Google, Apple, and AI assistants.
Local & product data stakes rise: Structured data quality (hours, inventory, pricing, FAQs) directly affects whether you’re cited in AI answers.
Recommended next steps
Harden structured data: Implement schema.org for products, FAQs, how‑tos, and local listings; keep Apple Business Connect and Google Business Profiles pristine.
Ship “answer‑friendly” content: Create concise explainer pages and FAQs that AI can quote; add canonical sources (PDF one‑pagers, help docs).
Diversify demand capture: Test spend and presence across assistant surfaces (voice, chat widgets, and OS‑level search) to reduce dependency on classic SEO/SEM.
3) Frontier AI consolidation accelerates: $13B into Anthropic; OpenAI acquires Statsig
What happened: Anthropic raised $13B (valuation $183B) on enterprise growth (including Claude Code), while OpenAI acquired Statsig (~$1.1B all‑stock), bringing its founder in to lead Applications engineering; OAI also reshuffled product leadership and launched an “AI for Science” initiative.
Why it matters to SMBs
Vendor stability & velocity: Well‑funded labs will ship faster and bundle more capability into subscriptions you already use.
Experimentation becomes table stakes: Statsig inside OAI signals that A/B testing, flags, and telemetry are moving into default product workflows.
Pricing & lock‑in dynamics: Bigger bundles can lower unit costs—but raise switching costs.
Recommended next steps
Negotiate for experimentation features (flags, holdouts, metrics) in AI tool renewals; insist on data export and model‑agnostic logs.
Adopt a dual‑vendor strategy for critical workloads (e.g., one frontier model + one open‑source/on‑device option) to preserve leverage.
Stand up product telemetry (clean events, KPIs, guardrails) now—so you can exploit built‑in testing the moment it’s shipped