Kickstart Monday #3: First dismissal on an AI's recommendation.

The Andon Market in San Francisco has been run by AI software since April. Last week it recommended letting an employee go for the first time, after a colleague had to remind it of its own rules. Also: OpenAI puts a date on its stock market debut, Bosch will build robots in Bühl. And in Beijing a machine ran the 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt.

Daniel Klantke · 24 August 2026 · 4 min read

Highlighted words explain themselves when you tap them.

01 · What is new

AI store manager recommends its first dismissal

At the Andon Market in San Francisco, software has been running the shop since April. It is called Luna, works on a model from Anthropic and opened the store itself, picked the range and hired staff. Last week it recommended letting an employee go. He had turned up late for 17 of 23 shifts, cancelled others, thrown away goods and taken a company credit card home with him.

Luna had written the attendance rules months earlier and then lost them from its . A colleague at the operator, Andon Labs, had to prompt it to look in its own handbook. Only then did it reassess the case. The dismissal was reviewed and delivered by people. Andon Labs calls it the first known case of its kind. California is already debating rules for bosses made of software.

Read onSF StandardSFistThe Next Web

OpenAI aims for the stock market in 2027

Chief financial officer Sarah Friar told an all-hands meeting on 19 August that OpenAI will be a public company in 2027, sooner if business keeps picking up. She called the listing no finish line but another round of fundraising. In March the company raised 122 billion dollars.

Friar also showed staff the figures. Revenue in the current quarter is 35 percent above the previous one, business with corporate customers 50 percent. The coding product has 20 million users a week. OpenAI filed its listing papers with the securities regulator back in June, confidentially.

Read onCNBCThe Next WebPYMNTS

US agencies warn of attacks written by AI

The NSA, CISA, the FBI, the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency warned jointly on 19 August: attackers are having AI write the scripts they use to take over Siemens . The systems affected are those hanging off the internet, in waterworks, at energy suppliers, in manufacturing, chemicals and food production.

The programs pose as monitoring software and can read and write the controller's memory. The holes themselves have in part been known for years. What has changed is the effort involved: a working attack no longer takes specialist knowledge. The agencies advise operators to list every controller, install updates, block access from the internet and harden the login.

Read onBleepingComputerThe Hacker NewsHelp Net Security

Bosch to build humanoid robots in Bühl from 2027

Bosch plans to start series production of humanoid robots at its Bühl plant in Baden in the summer of 2027. They will be built under contract for the British manufacturer Humanoid, and the model is called HMND 01. A few hundred units are planned to begin with.

A prototype worked in the Bühl logistics operation in March, loading boxes of different sizes from conveyor belts onto trolleys. Bosch is looking at supplying its own parts, drives, motors and sensors. The supplier Schaeffler is among the first customers. Both companies also hold stakes in Humanoid.

Read onheise onlineHandelsblattBadische Zeitung

02 · What changes

Apple Music requires AI music to be labelled

On 20 August Apple told labels and distributors by email that they must state in the when a material part of a track was made by an AI. That covers recordings, compositions, videos and artwork. Until now the declaration was voluntary; Apple introduced it in March.

Listeners will see it later in the year, as a Made With AI label. Behind it stands Article 50 of the European , which since 2 August has required machine-readable marking.

Read onheise onlineVarietyMacRumors

German government sees no job cuts caused by AI

Answering a parliamentary question, the German government writes that AI rarely replaces whole occupations and instead shifts tasks around. Routine work falls away; checking the results matters more. Swiss market studies reporting a collapse in junior positions are, it says, methodologically weak.

The answer still cites a survey by the ifo Institute: just under 20 percent of companies consider it conceivable to replace graduates with less qualified staff using AI. A Stanford study concludes that AI is not causing mass unemployment but is making it harder to start a career. The further-training rate is to reach 65 percent by 2030.

Read onheise onlineBundestag, printed paper 21/7620

Deadlines at a glance

  • until Google shuts down Assistant
  • until older AI tools have to label their output in machine-readable form
  • until companies above 800,000 euros in prior-year turnover have to issue invoices to other companies electronically

Recalculated on every visit.

03 · The number of the week

9.39 seconds

That is how fast a humanoid robot built by the Beijing manufacturer X-Humanoid ran the 100 metres on 22 August. Usain Bolt's world record from 2009 stands at 9.58 seconds.

The race took place at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. A second robot, Lightning from the phone maker Honor, clocked 9.47 seconds in the final and 9.32 in a test run. Last year the winning time was still 21.50 seconds.

Read onBloombergNBC NewsAl Jazeera

Poll

Can a program decide anything at your company without a person agreeing to it?

One answer per device, anonymous, no cookie. The result will appear in a later issue.

Share

Daniel Klantke · Kickstart Monday #3 · klantke.com/en/blog/kickstart-monday-03