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SPD-BEEHIIV:6bfb3ab7-d4a5-48f1-a5bc-880b636337d6:R18:bb6936e65558c22348f63a74AI roles pay more than twice as much on average as other roles, but women remain concentrated in lower-paying work.
| Daily issue / The Radar | Monday, October 5, 2026 |
| | Our toolsSuperpower ChatGPT/WFH.team/Snipman | Today's briefing What matters todayAI’s rewards and access are uneven: women remain underrepresented in new hires, while Google is narrowing Gemini’s lower tiers. Today’s lineup also brings a qualified accounting win for AI, deeper Claude Code customization, and contrasting fortunes for chip stocks. | Inside today's briefing | | 01 | Women accounted for about a quarter of new AI hires, versus half outside AI, as AI roles paid more than twice as much on average. | | 02 | Mercor’s models aced four simplified accounting scenarios, but the study left out client conversations and company knowledge. | | 03 | Claude Code’s new extensions can rewrite prompts and replace built-in features, but inherit the coding tool’s machine access. | | 04 | Google will start limiting free Gemini users to Flash-Lite on October 9; Plus subscribers will lose Pro later in the month. |
|  | Lead story / culture LinkedIn finds women account for about a quarter of new AI hiresWomen accounted for about a quarter of new AI hires over the past year, compared with half of hires outside AI, according to LinkedIn research cited by The Guardian. The imbalance comes as AI job postings have doubled since 2023 and roles involving AI paid more than twice as much on average as those without it. That pay premium is not being shared evenly. LinkedIn’s Sarah Steinberg said women in AI are disproportionately concentrated in lower-paying jobs, including data annotation. Across AI occupations, men’s median pay was $45,000 higher than women’s. The Guardian attributes part of that difference to the types of jobs each group holds—not simply unequal pay for identical work. The reporting points to barriers in both recruitment and retention. AnitaB.org president Brenda Darden Wilkerson said fast-growing companies still recruit through familiar networks, referrals and filters that have not given women equal exposure to opportunities. Turing AI engineering lead Jayeeta Putatunda described scarce mentorship, being the only female engineer on a team, and a culture of 12-hour workdays. Putatunda’s return from four months of maternity leave illustrates the support required to keep pace: frameworks and models had changed, and catching up felt overwhelming. Supportive colleagues and a husband who shared childcare made her return possible, she said. In her account, women leave AI not because they lack interest or ability, but because they lack the support that makes staying current possible. Read full story ↗ |
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How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads
For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.
LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.
The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.
Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.
The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.
 | benchmark Mercor finds AI beats accountants on four simplified month-end tasksMercor says frontier models scored perfectly on four simplified month-end accounting scenarios, outperforming 12 licensed accountants on speed and accuracy. Cost per grading criterion met was more than ten times lower. The test excluded client conversations, coworker help and accumulated company knowledge, and could not measure gains from pairing accountants with AI. On the broader 160-task benchmark, almost 60% of tasks had not been fully solved by any model, according to The Decoder. Continue reading ↗ |
|  | A tool for your workflowSnipman | | Save your best replies once, then insert complete answers wherever you work. | |
|  | government action Slovenia’s .si domain registrations surge alongside Trump’s AI rebrandSeptember registrations surged, but the totals conflict: Register.si told the BBC 44,000, while TechRadar cited 46,066. The suffix matches Trump’s preferred “SI” abbreviation, and the BBC identified speculative buying as a possible explanation. The registry cautioned against attributing the whole increase to his comments. His order changes US federal agencies’ wording, not the wider industry’s, leaving private adoption an open question. Continue reading ↗ |
|  | launch Anthropic lets developers rewrite Claude Code’s behavior with extensionsAnthropic’s new Mods let developers rewrite prompts, alter tool calls and replace built-in Claude Code features. The company has moved /diff into the extension system and plans to move more features over time. Mods inherit Claude Code’s machine access rather than running in a sandbox, so Anthropic advises using trusted sources. Organization marketplace controls still apply, and managed installations load a protective sec-default mod first. Continue reading ↗ |
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| Beyond the feed / Tech Week  | San Francisco / Mon, Oct 5 · 8:30 AM PT |
Three short technical talks plus open building time give this a concrete focus: what to assemble, control and ship in a media pipeline. See the event → Explore the city guide | Daily tool drop 6 AI tools worth knowing today | |
| | | The Internet Had a Point | LinkedIn Premium Still Leaves You Wondering |  |
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| Your daily challenge Gather / Moderate / At your pace Seven letters. One must-use tile. How much can you gather? Take the challenge →Explore all games | | AI PULSE / YOUR PERSPECTIVE Should creators’ permission be required before public work is used to train AI? Take part → | Reader check-in Help shape tomorrow's briefingOne click tells us what to keep, improve, or tighten. | |
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