From the Editor’s Desk: The Future is Now (Premium)

The personal technology market is perhaps best defined by a steady churn of change. But there are so many examples of tech products, software, and services that have remained largely unchanged for a long time. And yet here, in 2025, these things are starting to change. And it's worth evaluating how these changes might impact us and how we get work done daily.

Of course, everyone's job is different, as are the skills and perspectives that each individual brings to the table. So rather than speculate on how others might get work done, I can more accurately explain how my own workflows are being impacted by these changes. And maybe some of this will resonate with you as well.
? Baby steps with AI
I've written and spoken about my curiously slow move to using AI for work. But there are some exceptions, and I expect to keep evolving my use of AI.

The most obvious exception is one that will be familiar to anyone who reads Thurrott.com: I use AI, almost always Microsoft Designer, to create the hero images for articles when I want something unique. These are often of a certain style, of course, but the benefits are obvious enough: I get a unique image, which is not the case when I use stock photography. And AI gives me multiple choices, which I can fine-tune when needed.

But here's another example that is less obvious. I often quote from executives or presenters at the companies we cover, and that's easy enough if the information arrives via a traditional press release (which is less common with each passing year) or blog post. But a lot of information is delivered via video, too. This can be something canned, or it can be a recording of a live event.

In the before times, I routinely underwent a tedious process by which I would have to start and stop the video I was trying to decipher. And it was tedious. I'd cue up the video to as close as possible to the point the quote I needed started, which YouTube in particular offers no help with. Tap Space to start the video playing. Listen to it. Tap Space again after a short while. Switch over to whatever writing app I was using. Write what I thought I heard. Switch back to YouTube (or whatever). Tap Space again. Rinse, wash, repeat, yes, but I would also have to go back a few seconds if I misheard or mistyped something. Which, again, YouTube in particular is unhelpful with.

YouTube added AI-based transcripts to most videos. And that helps a lot, though I still need to listen to the video at the point I'm quoting because those transcripts are sometimes a bit off. But it's still a nice time saver. (I used this most recently in my weekend story about the new Commodore which, for now, doesn't have a blog or press site.) My wife uses audio transcription capabilities in Word and other tools to create transcripts of the audio recordings she makes of interviews. And in both cases--the videos I'm using or her interview transcripts--AI is very useful for generating summaries. She does this more...