The Morning Download: AI’s Lack of Structure

What's up: Companies are snapping up ‘AI native’ talent straight out of college; Whistleblower says DOGE put Social Security data at risk; KeyBank tech executive on voice AI in the call center.

Good morning. Cloud-storage company Box pointed toward a boost from AI as it raised its guidance for the year and second-quarter results topped earlier guidance. The numbers announced on Tuesday are just one data point shedding light on the efficacy of AI, but worth considering as businesses and investors assess the extent to which AI is going to live up to expectations.

At its core, Box says its growth story is about the application of AI to unstructured data, which has resisted automation in the past. That is a difficult feat, which depends upon building a secure data infrastructure. But to the extent that companies are able to capture significant value from AI, that’s one very important path.

Highlights from the WSJ: Chief Executive Aaron Levie said the company experienced strong momentum with Enterprise Advanced, which provides intelligent workflow automation, advanced AI, powerful AI agents and secure content management in one plan … For the full-year, Box now expects revenue to rise 8% to between $1.17 and $1.18 billion, up from its prior view for a 7% growth.

The 20-year-old company has been aggressively integrating AI into its cloud-based content management, collaboration and file-sharing platform. Levie said the value for Box and its customers lies in bringing automation to unstructured data, which is something new.

“One of the biggest drivers of the momentum we're seeing is the role of AI agents in the enterprise. It's clear that we're at the beginning stages of a new era of work,” Levie said on LinkedIn.

More highlights from Levie’s post:

For years, software has helped bring automation to processes that deal with our structured data -- data that goes into an ERP or HR system or a database. But the majority of the world's workflows largely deal with unstructured information -- our contracts, invoices, marketing assets, research files, engineering data, and more.

With AI agents, we're seeing for the first time ever that you can now bring automation to all the areas of work that revolve around this unstructured data, like reviewing and automating contract lifecycles in legal, doing analysis of large amounts of medical research, streamlining loan reviews, and so on.

Levie also makes the point that as Box applies AI to unstructured data, it is connecting to all of the other systems that its customers use. That connectivity is another important key to driving value from AI, given its need for secure broad access to data and tools across the enterprise and even beyond.

Box’s results are just one signal in an important earnings season for AI, but one worth attention. There will be more to come later today as AI powerhouse Nvidia releases its results.

Is AI contributing to growth at your company -- or not? Use the links at the end of this email and let us know.

Olack sat down with the Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute’s Isabelle Bousquette to talk about why it’s hard to embed more genAI in the call center without sacrificing user experience, and how he’s finding the balance.

WSJLI: You mentioned that you want to integrate genAI features into the phone experience at some point, but how do you make sure you’re not overindexing?

Olack: This is what we struggle with on a daily basis. It's a strange dilemma, because the perception is that ‘Oh, God, your IVR is touch tone, that's so old and antiquated.’ But it works, right?

And we have one of the industry leading containment rates in our IVR: 75-80% of all calls that come through our 800 number, don't ever leave that touch tone experience. So here we are thinking: hey, we want to now start to incorporate [generative AI] voice. How do we make sure we do that by not jeopardizing that really nice containment?

WSJLI: What’s your vision for how a generative AI voice assistant could help?

Olack: You'd start with the IVR just like it is today. And then somewhere in as you go through those flows, if we sense that you're not finding what you need on the menu, we're going to fill those gaps with the ability to let you say what it is you want to do [to a voice AI agent]. And then we can take that and figure out: Where do I put you? It can be right back in the IVR or the voice assistant solves it for you right there.

WSJLI: You said you have 1,200 agents today. How has that changed in the last few years? I understand you’ve also been making investments in your virtual chatbot which is handling more customer interactions.

Olack: We've seen around a 15% decrease in the total number of contact center agents [since 2022]. So it's roughly in line with the call volume, which is kind of to be expected.

Times can be tough for recent grads—unless you’re in artificial intelligence.

Databricks is one of a number of firms eager to hire young grads this year in part because of their familiarity with AI, WSJ reports.

“They’re going to come in, and they’re going to be all AI-native,” Ali Ghodsi, the company’s chief executive, tells the WSJ. “We can’t for the life of us get the more senior people to adopt it.”

At Scale AI, which recently underwent a reverse-acquihire deal with Meta Platforms, around 15% of employees are under the age of 25.

No experience necessary. Base salaries for nonmanagerial workers in AI with zero to three years experience grew by around 12% from 2024 to 2025, according to a new report by the AI staffing firm Burtch Works.

The report also found that people with AI experience are being promoted to management roles roughly twice as fast as their counterparts in other technology fields.

Meta announced its own super PAC to back those candidates for California state office who support a light-touch on AI regulation, Politico reports. All political parties are welcome. 

AI on the ballot. Meta's effort is the latest show of force by Silicon Valley when it comes to fighting against strict artificial-intelligence regulations. The WSJ reported earlier on a nationwide effort called Leading the Future, a new super-PAC network, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman. The new network hopes to emulate Fairshake, a cryptocurrency-focused super-PAC network that helped swing last year’s election results by working to defeat crypto skeptics.

And as it deepens its involvement with upcoming midterm elections, the tech industry has not been afraid to lean on old-fashioned patriotism when pushing for lighter regulation. The Atlantic asks if the current AI boom offers the industry “a way to conscript the American project to advance their techno-utopian dream, not the other way around."

The "techno-utopian dream" may have some issues.

The Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting, tech industry-peopled group is the target of a whistleblower complaint.

In the complaint, filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and members of Congress, the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer accused members of the Department of Government Efficiency of uploading an extensive Social Security database onto a cloud server.

The uploaded data included records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government, including full names, birth dates and other personal information.

Copied: Personal data on more than 300 million Americans. The complaint notes that Michael Russo, a DOGE-affiliated official who serves as SSA’s CIO, approved a request to allow the  data to be copied to an internal “DOGE specific cloud environment that lacked independent security controls.”

The approval came after the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in allowing DOGE to have access to the records.

Microsoft is weighing disciplinary measures for employees who occupied President Brad Smith