We’re doing another trivia question to start the day.

Today’s question: What’s the name of the official measure of inflation in Australia?

Answer is in the titbit!

Two major tech firms announced sweeping redundancies last week, in a sign the long-speculated AI-driven job losses have begun.

Payments giant Block and Australia’s WiseTech announced they were cutting thousands of jobs in a pivot to AI-powered productivity.

Block is the company behind major payment platforms Afterpay, Square, and CashApp. Chaired by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Block has long been at the forefront of the tech industry.

On Thursday, it announced it was cutting 40% of its roughly 10,000-strong workforce in a pivot to AI.

WiseTech, an Australian logistics software company, similarly announced last week it was cutting 2,000 jobs, or roughly a third of its total workforce.

Block said its job cuts were due to seeing internally that smaller teams using AI can “do more and do it better,” and that AI capabilities are compounding faster every week.

“I don't think we're early to this realisation,” Dorsey said in the letter to shareholders.

“I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes,” Dorsey said.

Like Block, WiseTech found further use of AI increased productivity, saying it planned to integrate the tech into its customer software and internal operations.

Demonstrating an aggressive approach to AI integration, the company’s U.S. cloud computing arm E2open, which it acquired in August for $US2.1 billion ($AU3 billion), may see staff cuts of up to 50%.

“The era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over,” WiseTech CEO Zubin Appoo said.

After both companies announced the cuts, their share prices jumped – Block’s by 20% in pre-market trading on Friday, and WiseTech by 10% on Wednesday.

These job cuts aren’t limited to Block and WiseTech.

Customer software company Salesforce was one of the first major tech firms to reduce headcount due to AI.

It cut 4,000 jobs last year as CEO Mark Benioff said the technology meant “I need less heads.”

U.S. banking giant Goldman Sachs warned last month that the country is losing an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 jobs each month to AI automation.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the Commonwealth Bank slashed 300 jobs on Tuesday – the same day it launched a $90 million scheme to upskill workers in AI.

While the bank told The Sydney Morning Herald these cuts were directly due to AI, in an interview with the Australian Financial Review, CEO Matt Comyn warned of a “disruptive” shift towards AI in the workplace over the next five years.

While AI continues to fuel job losses, the industry underpinning it continues to boom.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, recently completed a record-breaking $US110 billion funding round, valuing the company at $US730 billion.

OpenAI was already the world’s most valuable unicorn (a private company with a $US1 billion valuation), and this funding round only cements that position.

The company is expected to begin publicly trading its shares later this year.

It’s racing fellow AI unicorn Anthropic, the company behind AI chatbot Claude, to market. Both have the potential to launch one of the biggest ever Initial Public Offerings (IPO).

Reporting by Lachlan Keller.

The U.S. and Israel launched a joint strike on Iran over the weekend, killing the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In the days since, there’s been an escalating exchange of retaliatory strikes across the Middle East.

Experts are now warning that global oil prices could surge.

Today, we’ll unpack what a war thousands of kilometres away means for economies across the world, including Australia.

In a video statement, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed a “major combat operation” in Iran to “defend the American people”.

The strikes came after indirect nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran ended last week without a clear deal.

Khamenei had ruled Iran since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, holding almost all decision-making power in the country.

Iran soon launched retaliatory strikes across the Middle East, striking Israel within hours.

The strikes follow similar U.S. and Israeli attacks last June targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In response, Iran has closed access to the Strait of Hormuz, a 33-kilometre-wide shipping lane on Iran's southern border.

Roughly 20 to 25% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (which is used to heat homes and generate electricity) is shipped through it every single day.

At least three oil tankers have reportedly already been struck near the Strait, as hundreds more anchor just outside.

Major shipping companies have announced they'll stop using the Strait of Hormuz and reroute ships around the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost point of Africa. This decision will add thousands of kilometres to each shipment’s journey.

Oil is bought and sold all over the world, which means prices are set globally. A disruption in one part of the world can affect prices everywhere.

In general, oil becomes more expensive either when there is more demand for it or when there is less supply.

Trade route disruptions typically send oil prices soaring, as we saw when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Before the U.S-Iran conflict, oil was sitting at around $US67 a barrel. By Monday, global oil prices jumped 12% to around $US80 a barrel, the highest point since the U.S. struck Iran in June 2025.

Some oil-producing nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, have agreed to increase oil supply by 206,000 barrels a day to help ease global supply.

Many Australians will feel the effects of the U.S-Iran conflict at the bowser.

A widely accepted rule of thumb is that every $US10 increase in the price of a barrel adds roughly 10 cents to the cost of fuel at the pump here in Australia.

Economists believe the price could reach $US100 a barrel over the coming days. After that point, Australians can expect to pay upwards of $2 a litre.

However, the price hike may take some time to be felt. Responding to concerns during Question Time on Monday, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said Australia had a 36-day petrol supply, and “34 days in relation to diesel, [and] 32 days in relation to jet fuel”.

Bowen said oil stocks are “the highest they have been for any time in 15 years.”

There are concerns that panic-buying could drive up petrol prices prematurely.

NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury urged drivers, “Please do not panic," in a press conference this week.

He also warned retailers not to use this time “as an excuse to jack up your prices and charge Australians more than they should be paying.”

Reporting by Lachlan Keller.

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In case you missed it, Warner Brothers agreed to be bought by Paramount on Friday morning for US$110 billion, ending a months-long bidding war with Netflix.

You might remember that at first it looked like Netflix had secured a deal to buy Warner Brothers in December.

However, Paramount responded with a hostile takeover bid by appealing directly to Warner Brothers shareholders, undercutting the company’s board.

While it wasn’t initially taken up, Paramount increased their offer to US$31 per share and agreed to pay the US$2.8 billion breakup fee owed to Netflix for breaking the first deal.

If the deal passes regulatory anti-trust scrutiny in the U.S., it will create one of the biggest media companies in the world.

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Titbit answer: CPI (Consumer Price Index).