Dan DeFrancesco

What the software stock sell-off says about your job security

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Everyone’s freaking out about AI again, which means it’s time to rethink how secure your career is.

BI’s Ana Altchek has a piece about how to future-proof your job since the only certainty in the job market appears to be more uncertainty.

A market meltdown in software stocks has people on edge this time. The characters might have changed, but the plot is still the same.

A new tool (an AI plugin from Anthropic) launched to automate work (tracking compliance and reviewing legal docs) leads to a sell-off among leaders in the space (legal-software stocks).

We can debate whether the reaction was warranted (more on that below), but this narrative isn’t going away. AI companies will keep automating different types of work, leaving the companies in that space scrambling and their employees nervous.

Ana spoke to experts about different ways to get ahead, from auditing your job to the skills you can lean into to build more career immunity. Overall, the idea is not to get caught flat-footed.

For more on the inner workings and culture of the business world, check out Ana’s weekly series “This Week at Work,” and subscribe to our workplace roundup newsletter, Work Shift. (You’re still required to read this every day, though. No excuses.)

One group has felt particularly safe amid the AI chaos.

Trade workers have been sitting pretty as panic rises among the white-collar workforce. A recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll found 75% of Americans agree that “hands-on skills and practical experience matter more than formal degrees when it comes to career success.”

And even more (78%) agreed “the stigma around trade or blue-collar work is declining” because hands-on skills are becoming so valuable.

The leaders of the AI revolution, from Elon Musk to Jensen Huang, have also praised tradework as a much more resilient career path.

That is likely the case in the short term. But down the road, all bets are off. Tesla is aggressively pushing into humanoid robots. OpenAI is also quietly scaling its robotics project.

There’s a long way to go, with most robots being more flop than pop. But the potential and interest in developing the space is there, as was evident at this year’s Davos. And some see the eventual economic impact of physical AI being far greater than that of software.

Because eventually, AI will come for all of us if we’re not willing to adapt.




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AI is creating a security problem most companies aren’t staffed to handle, says an AI researcher

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Companies may have cybersecurity teams in place, but many still aren’t prepared for how AI systems actually fail, says an AI security researcher.

Sander Schulhoff, who wrote one of the earliest prompt engineering guides and focuses on AI system vulnerabilities, said on an episode of “Lenny’s Podcast” published Sunday that many organizations lack the talent needed to understand and fix AI security risks.

Traditional cybersecurity teams are trained to patch bugs and address known vulnerabilities, but AI doesn’t behave that way.

“You can patch a bug, but you can’t patch a brain,” Schulhoff said, describing what he sees as a mismatch between how security teams think and how large language models fail.

“There’s this disconnect about how AI works compared to classical cybersecurity,” he added.

That gap shows up in real-world deployments. Cybersecurity professionals may review an AI system for technical flaws without asking: “What if someone tricks the AI into doing something it shouldn’t?” said Schulhoff, who runs a prompt engineering platform and an AI red-teaming hackathon.

Unlike traditional software, AI systems can be manipulated through language and indirect instructions, he added.

Schulhoff said people with experience in both AI security and cybersecurity would know what to do if an AI model is tricked into generating malicious code. For example, they would run the code in a container and ensure the AI’s output doesn’t affect the rest of the system.

The intersection of AI security and traditional cybersecurity is where “the security jobs of the future are,” he added.

The rise of AI security startups

Schulhoff also said that many AI security startups are pitching guardrails that don’t offer real protection. Because AI systems can be manipulated in countless ways, claims that these tools can “catch everything” are misleading.

“That’s a complete lie,” he said, adding that there would be a market correction in which “the revenue just completely dries up for these guardrails and automated red-teaming companies.”

AI security startups have been riding the wave of investor interest. Big Tech and venture capital firms have poured money into the space as companies rush to secure AI systems.

In March, Google bought cybersecurity startup Wiz for $32 billion, a deal aimed at strengthening its cloud security business.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said AI was introducing “new risks” at a time when multi-cloud and hybrid setups are becoming more common.

“Against this backdrop, organizations are looking for cybersecurity solutions that improve cloud security and span multiple clouds,” he added.

Business Insider reported last year that growing security concerns around AI models have helped fuel a wave of startups pitching tools to monitor, test, and secure AI systems.




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Prepare to pay $45 at airport security if you don’t have a REAL ID

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  • The TSA announced a $45 fee for travelers without acceptable ID at airport security checkpoints.
  • The alternative identity verification system, TSA Confirm.ID is set to be implemented on February 1.
  • It’s unclear how TSA Confirm.ID will work, but it’s intended as an option for flyers without a REAL ID.

The Transportation Security Administration has taken a page from the budget airline playbook.

The agency said Monday it is implementing a new alternative identity verification system, TSA Confirm.ID, that would charge travelers $45 at security checkpoints if they show up without a REAL ID or another acceptable government-issued ID, such as a passport or permanent resident card.

The new fee option is set to begin on February 1. The TSA said the fee would cover a 10-day travel period. Details about how the fee and identity verification would work were not yet available. The TSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“TSA urges all travelers who do not have a REAL ID to pay the fee online before traveling,” according to a press release about TSA Confirm.ID and the new fee. “For passengers who arrive at the airport without paying the fee, information about how to pay for the TSA Confirm.ID option will be available at marked locations at or near the checkpoint in most airports. Travelers who undergo TSA Confirm.ID processing at an airport should expect delays.”

The TSA had previously proposed an $18 fee that would cover the costs for a biometric kiosk system designed to verify a traveler’s identity more quickly than the current manual process.

Under that proposal, the TSA said the new technology would be less time and resource-intensive than the current process when a flyer lacks these IDs, which involves providing personal information or answering detailed questions to match flyers to government databases.

“This notice serves as a next step in the process in REAL ID compliance, which was signed into law more than 20 years ago,” a TSA spokesperson previously told Business Insider about the $18 fee proposal.

Congress passed the REAL ID Act of 2005 in response to the 9/11 attacks, but it just rolled out in 2025.

In May, the TSA began requiring travelers to present a REAL ID or another government-approved identification to pass through airport security checkpoints.

The TSA says 94% of flyers already use REAL ID or another acceptable form of identification.

The agency is encouraging travelers who do not have a REAL ID to schedule an appointment with their local DMV to update their ID as soon as possible. A REAL ID card shows a star inside a circle in the upper right corner.




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