Just what an embattled chancellor needs on the eve of a tax-raising budget: a leading retailer upping its profits forecast and singing about the joys of the UK economy.
Unfortunately, only the first bit is true. Kingfisher, owner of B&Q and Screwfix (and similar businesses in France and Poland), raised its profit expectations for its current financial year from £480m-£540m to £540m-£570m.
But it definitely didn’t ooze confidence in the UK outlook. Rather, Kingfisher noted “softening market conditions” and added: “We continue to be mindful of inflation, uncertainty ahead of the autumn budget and the softening labour market.”
In other words, the group is saying its improvement in the profits department is a self-help job, which is fair. Like-for-like sales in the UK in the last quarter were up 3%. It is winning market share in the UK (where it helps that Homebase went into administration a year ago), grabbing a bigger slice of the professional “trade” market and improving its e-commerce game. The slick Screwfix operation continues to be streets ahead of its direct rivals. Meanwhile, the recently troubled French operation (Castorama and Brico Dépôt) is being restructured, which helped slightly to off-set local “weak consumer sentiment” that sounds several degrees worse than in the UK.
Take a step back and Kingfisher’s progress can be regarded as a parable of the retail scene in two ways. First, it is proof that a basically well managed operator in a strong competitive position can prosper even under subdued economic conditions. For other examples, think Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Next. All have been great shares to own in the 12 months since Rachel Reeves’s last budget, never mind the increase in employers’ national insurance and the rest of it.
The other aspect is more nuanced. On one hand, the ridiculously long and chaotic build-up to the budget has plainly sapped consumer confidence – a CBI distributive trades survey on Tuesday confirmed what we already knew. On the other hand, there still remains a basic level of resilience if Kingfisher is a guide. “Softening” is not the same as outright soft. For that, give thanks for four cuts in interest rates since last October’s budget. Lower mortgage costs matter particularly in DIY businesses for big-ticket items such as kitchens and bathrooms.
So one can – just about – sketch out an optimistic scenario for consuming-facing companies in which Reeves avoids inflation-raising howlers such as last year’s NICs rises and clears the way for the Bank of England to cut interest rates faster. The gilts market has half-bought that story in recent weeks as yields have fallen from their scary September highs.
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The alternative, though, is not good from businesses’ point of view. The prospect of rate cuts is virtually the only big-picture factor running in their favour as they contemplate pressure on wages and fixed costs. Remove lower borrowing costs and there’s little to stop softening conditions turning soggy very quickly. Kingfisher, to repeat, can handle most outcomes. But consumer sentiment across the retail landscape looks fragile.
Agentic AI trained on the judgement of elite security analysts automates high-impact workflows to keep public sector defenders ahead of AI-accelerated threats
AUSTIN, Texas – November 25, 2025 – CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today announced that CrowdStrike® Charlotte AI has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) High Authorization. With this designation, CrowdStrike is transforming public sector defense for the AI era, automating the time-consuming tasks better suited for machines. Trained on the judgement of elite security analysts, Charlotte AI is now available to federal, state, and local agencies through the Falcon® platform in GovCloud, elevating defenders from alert handlers to orchestrators of the agentic SOC.
“Government agencies face some of the most advanced cyber threats in the world and demand the highest level of protection,” said Michael Sentonas, president of CrowdStrike. “By bringing Charlotte AI to GovCloud, security teams can automate high-impact workflows with the expertise of the industry’s best SOC operators, stopping sophisticated threats at the speed of AI with precision and control.”
The public sector is under relentless attack, with adversaries weaponizing AI to accelerate every stage of the threat chain and collapse the defender’s window to act. Trained on years of real-world decisions from Falcon® Complete and incident response engagements, Charlotte AI thinks, reasons, and acts like an elite analyst at machine speed, always under defender control. This flips time in defenders’ favor, eliminating high-friction tasks and enabling analysts to focus on the strategic decisions that strengthen security.
Delivered through the FedRAMP-authorized Falcon platform, the first Charlotte AI capabilities available in GovCloud include:
The FedRAMP High Authorization validates that Charlotte AI meets FedRAMP’s most rigorous security and compliance standards, providing data confidentiality, integrity, and availability across mission-critical U.S. government operations.
To learn more about Charlotte AI, visit here. To learn more about CrowdStrike’s ongoing commitment to meeting the highest independent and government-led cybersecurity and information management standards, visit the CrowdStrike Compliance and Certification Page.
About CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.
Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.
Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.
CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.
Learn more: https://www.crowdstrike.com/
Follow us: Blog | X | LinkedIn | Instagram
Start a free trial today: https://www.crowdstrike.com/trial
© 2025 CrowdStrike, Inc. All rights reserved. CrowdStrike and CrowdStrike Falcon are marks owned by CrowdStrike, Inc. and are registered in the United States and other countries. CrowdStrike owns other trademarks and service marks and may use the brands of third parties to identify their products and services.
Media Contact
Jake Schuster
CrowdStrike Corporate Communications
press@crowdstrike.com
1Accuracy rating is a measure of Charlotte AI triage decisions that match the expert decisions from the CrowdStrike Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR team.
2Calculated by multiplying the average number of alerts triaged by Charlotte AI by a 5-minute triage time per alert as estimated by the Falcon Complete team. Individual results may vary based on factors such as total alert volume.
Valeo Group | 25 Nov, 2025
| 2 min
Built on a strong, two-year partnership with Google Cloud, this recognition confirms Valeo’s pioneering position as it advances into the AI era.
November 25, 2025 — Paris, France — At the Adopt AI Summit held by Artefact, Valeo CEO Christophe Périllat has been honored by the “CEO of the Year” Award by Google Cloud in France. This title serves as a powerful recognition of Périllat’s bold, systematic strategy to embed artificial intelligence across the entire global mobility technology leader. The award celebrates a forward-looking vision pivotal in shaping the future of mobility, demonstrating how Valeo is translating the vast opportunities of AI into concrete, industry-leading solutions.
Christophe Périllat, CEO of Valeo, said: “We see AI as the ultimate productivity game-changer, particularly for complex R&D cycles. The companies that deploy it with precision will pull ahead. Our teams have fully embraced this strategy, building on more than two decades of AI experience. We are not just experimenting — we are leveraging a profound historical advantage to deliver cutting-edge, effective solutions that others are only now beginning to explore.”
At Valeo, the application of AI is a long-term strategy that started more than 20 years ago. Over the course of years, Valeo developed neural networks and deep learning to understand the vehicle’s environment and develop solutions for safer and more automated mobility. Today, the Group leverages AI at every stage, from research and development, factories to product design with more than 9,000 software and system engineers, and 200 AI experts.
Through a long-term partnership with Google Cloud, the Group deploys its coding assistant and trains key users for them to coach and support local teams. By the end of 2024, all software engineers were trained and equipped with Generative AI tools, and today more than 25% of Valeo’s certified automotive code is AI-generated, marking a massive increase from 0% just 16 months ago. The company also deployed Generative AI to greatly simplify the analysis of technical specifications. Through other partnerships, Valeo is also working on the automatic design of mechanical parts and of PCBs.
This significant acceleration is further bolstered by internal initiatives focused on hands-on innovation. At the beginning of its internal transformation, in 2024, Valeo organized its first hackathon focusing on generative AI through a joint partnership with Google Cloud and Artefact. During this hackathon, 16 teams participated in the training sessions with data scientists from Artefact and experts from Google Cloud, and more than 120 Valeo employees leveraged generative AI to advance innovative ideas into the creation of minimum viable products (MVP). Most of these ideas are now being implemented, as the hackathon was the foundation of Valeo’s AI4all program, which has led to the deployment of 84 AI agents to boost productivity within the company.
Valeo’s long-term AI commitment is driven by Valeo.AI, the first global AI research center dedicated specifically to automotive applications, founded in 2017. Connected with the academic world, the center pioneers research in assisted and autonomous driving. Its mission: to overcome key challenges like enhancing Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) reliability in complex scenarios (e.g., adverse weather or abnormal road conditions). Valeo.AI focuses on sensor fusion, data-efficient learning, and developing dependable, explainable AI models to ensure safer, more efficient, and robust autonomous travel worldwide.
Christophe Périllat receives the “CEO of the Year” award from Isabelle Fraine, Managing Director of Google Cloud France.
November 25, 2025
Just in time for Cyber Monday 2025, Gap Inc. customers will see something new when they shop online — experiences powered by artificial intelligence that make it easier to discover styles they love, find the right fit, and shop seamlessly across our family of brands.
At Gap Inc., we’re embracing AI to reimagine what’s possible in retail — from how our teams design products to how customers experience them. And starting this holiday shopping season, we’re using new AI-powered tools to make the shopping experience more seamless, more personalized, and more fun for our customers.
Whether online or in stores, AI is helping us remove friction, spark creativity, and inspire confidence in every interaction. By combining our deep retail expertise with the latest AI tools, we’re able to better understand what our customers want, anticipate their needs, and deliver experiences that feel uniquely tailored to them.
A More Personal Way to Shop
Across our brand sites, customers will find new AI-powered features that make shopping faster, smarter, and more inspiring:
Behind The Scenes
These retail experiences are powered by the same AI-driven workflows that are transforming how our teams create:
These innovations are being built on a unified, AI-powered platform developed in collaboration with Google Cloud and other technology partners. This flexible infrastructure allows teams to test, learn, and scale new ideas across design, commerce, and customer experience.
From product creation to customer care, our approach to AI is bringing more personalization, more creativity, and more connection to every shopping experience.
– Sven Gerjets
About Gap Inc.
Gap Inc., a purpose-driven house of iconic brands, is the largest specialty apparel company in America. Its Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta brands offer clothing, accessories, and lifestyle products for men, women and children available worldwide through company-operated and franchise stores, and e-commerce sites. Since 1969, Gap Inc. has created products and experiences that shape culture, while doing right by employees, communities and the planet through its commitment to bridge gaps to create a better world. For more information, please visit www.gapinc.com.
Don’t miss out on the latest Gap Inc. news! Sign-up to get email alerts about news on Gap Inc. and our brands.
Apex Logistics signed an agreement to acquire the majority of shares of Andes Integración Logística. The transaction will enhance Apex Logistics’ offering in Latin America and support its strategic development goals.
Andes Integración Logística, established in 2008, offers a comprehensive range of logistics services, including international air and sea freight, land transportation, warehousing, and distribution. Over the past 17 years, the company has experienced significant growth and today provides services in Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, the USA, and China.
As one of the leading logistics providers in South America, Andes Integración Logística handles over 90,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) of ocean shipping containers and 40,000 tons of airfreight annually. The company has a proven track record and extensive experience in the perishables sector, shipping various seasonal fresh products, including salmon, cherries, berries, and mangoes, to Asia and across the world. Additionally, they serve key industries, including automotive, high-tech, industrial, fashion, and retail.
Once the acquisition will be finalised, the two companies will greatly improve their complementary joint value proposition in the Americas. Apex’ established charter and commercial flight networks between Asia and North America, combined with Andes’ local talent and expertise, are designed to create strong logistics solutions maximizing the strategic potential within Latin America.
Mr. Tony Song, CEO of Apex Logistics Group, says: “This acquisition significantly enhances our presence in the region as part of our growth strategy in Latin America. Andes Integración Logística’s expertise in fresh and cold chain logistics supplements Apex’s investments in similar areas in North America very well. We will have a dedicated perishables team of over 100 professionals and expand our cold-chain warehousing capacity, which will include temperature-controlled facilities exceeding 60,000 square feet, across LAX and SFO. A fleet of more than 10 refrigerated trucks supports this expansion.”
Ms. Elsie Qian, CEO of Apex Logistics Americas, says: “With our strong customer proximity, relationship, and extensive operational experience in North America, the transaction and partnership with Andes Integración Logística will enable us to complement our customer’s service coverage into South America, broadening our regional network and unlocking exciting new growth opportunities.”
Andes Integración Logística will continue to be managed by its experienced leadership team while maintaining its independent operational capabilities. The global network, resources, and solutions of the Apex Logistics Group will support this.
As part of a joint branding initiative, it is foreseen that Andes Integración Logística will become Andes by Apex. This change will reflect the shared commitment of both companies to grow together as strategic partners.
The transaction is still subject to customary closing conditions and approval by the competent authorities.
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Can your technology triumph in the ocean?
Ask SEA-Stack.
True to its name, this one-of-a-kind, free, open-source tool combines (or stacks) multiple wave energy modeling capabilities into one user-friendly package.
With SEA-Stack, wave energy companies—or any developers working on water-based tech, like ships, underwater drones, or even space shuttle crew modules—will be able to quickly vet new technology designs and potentially save significant time and money. Those savings could help accelerate technology development and enable wave energy devices to fulfill their promise: to deliver reliable energy to populated coastal cities, rural and remote communities, or even offshore data centers and military bases.
“Wave energy has a lot of great prospects right now,” said Salman Husain, a mechanical engineer at NREL who is helping develop the next-generation SEA-Stack tool. “Computers are getting smaller. Advanced manufacturing has become a lot more affordable. You can do wireless communication to monitor devices that have been deployed.”
And, Husain added, “with these rapid tools, we just might crack it.” (“It” being wave energy.)
SEA-Stack is rapid—thanks to high-performance computing, it is about 10 to 100 times faster than its predecessors. The tool is also flexible, capable of running everything from simple but fast simulations (essential to quickly assess new design ideas) to complex analyses that account for tricky physics. With help from machine learning, it can also ingest the latest wave energy data—or data from nearly any floating tech.
In short, SEA-Stack will be a Swiss Army knife for wave energy developers (and beyond).
Wave energy devices—which produce electricity from the consistent, predictable energy flowing in ocean waves—could help the United States build an even more secure and resilient power system. But these early-stage energy technologies are not yet affordable or competitive enough to achieve commercial success, in large part because they come with complex engineering challenges. Devices must survive decades in a turbulent, powerful environment: the ocean.
And the ocean is not a cooperative research partner.
If developers toss an unvetted prototype into potentially destructive waves, they risk losing significant time and money (plus investors) if their device quickly fails, breaks, or does not produce as much energy as expected. Instead, companies need a virtual testing platform that can accurately replicate the ocean, so they can assess different device designs with far less risk, time, or cost. Although such tools exist, they all have major limitations.
SEA-Stack is designed to overcome those limitations.
“SEA-Stack enables researchers to design and optimize technologies while considering all relevant physics,” said Michael Lawson, who leads the NREL marine energy team. “That’s just not possible using the existing tools.”
Existing tools cannot simulate certain features, like flexible device shells, collisions, or autonomous control systems, which allow a device to react automatically to its changing environment. Developers also cannot mix and match different codes to explore broader design possibilities. The SEA-Stack team is building in both capabilities.
Plus, existing coding tools are typically siloed. A developer could use one to subject a design idea to a simplified ocean. Such low-fidelity models are handy because they are fast. But once the developer has a winning design, they often cannot use the same tool to put it through a high-fidelity model—one that is not as fast but accounts for the complex physics that affect how waves of different sizes and speeds interact with various wave energy devices.
“In reality, waves are more like poly-pyramids moving all over the place,” Husain said.
SEA-Stack has the poly-pyramids. And it has simplified waves, thanks to its predecessor and partner, WEC-Sim.
“Historically, NREL has played a leading role in developing these simulation tools,” said David Ogden, a research engineer who helped develop the SEA-Stack code.
That was true with WEC-Sim, the Wave Energy Converter SIMulator, another wave simulation tool, which won a prestigious R&D 100 Award in 2022. Researchers at NASA and Lockheed Martin depended on WEC-Sim to help a spaceflight crew land their module safely in the ocean.
Husain, who specializes in numerical modeling, is learning from WEC-Sim’s successes and limitations to build SEA-Stack. WEC-Sim “has a lot of tools inside of it, but the moment you step outside of that ecosystem, you’re out in the open on your own,” Husain said.
WEC-Sim also mostly operates in a two-dimensional space, which cannot fully replicate all wave dynamics.
SEA-Stack does not jettison WEC-Sim’s bounty; instead, it simply expands its reach, stacking WEC-Sim with three additional code layers:
“We want to have as much data as possible before ‘getting the metal wet,’ as they say,” Ogden said. That includes data on numerous design iterations and fluid simulation methods, which help “build up that confidence that the thing is going to perform well and survive or ‘survive and thrive.’”
With SEA-Stack, a developer can rapidly test their initial design ideas and then easily transition to more rigorous testing. As a bonus, the higher-fidelity models double-check the lower-fidelity results. If the low-fidelity model erred, it can learn and refine itself. With help from machine learning, the entire SEA-Stack package can learn from broader ocean-based industries and their expertise.
“We’re part of the larger community of marine systems, such as floating platforms, ships, and marine robots, like autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs,” Husain said. “This would help us innovate and design novel applications, like wave-powered AUVs.”
That means wave energy developers benefit and so do companies that build any kind of floating technology.
With SEA-Stack, Ogden said, “we’ll be able to do much more innovative design exploration and make sure the devices that are being built have the best possible chance of performing well.”
Learn more about NREL’s research in marine energy and SEA-Stack. Then subscribe to The Current, NREL’s water power newsletter, to stay up to date on the latest research.
Tietoevry Corporation STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE 25 November 2025, 6:00 p.m. EET
Tietoevry Corporation (Tieto1)) has received an announcement pursuant to the Securities Market Act regarding a change in its shareholding. Silchester International Investors LLP has announced that its holding has decreased to 17 754 841 shares, representing 14,97% of the total number of shares.
Silchester acts as investment manager for certain commingled funds (“Clients”). In acting for its Clients, Silchester is given full discretion over their investments and is empowered to vote on their behalf. One of the Clients, the Silchester International Investors International Value Equity Trust, holds 6.3% of the shares.
Target company: Tietoevry Corporation, Business Identity Code: 0101138-5
Date on which threshold was crossed or reached: 24 November 2025
The registered number of shares of the company is 118 640 150, which entitle to a total of 118 640 150 votes.
1) Tietoevry has adopted the new brand name Tieto as from November 2025. The change of the Parent company’s name, Tietoevry Corporation, is subject to the decision of the Annual General meeting.
For further information, please contact
Tommi Järvenpää, Head of Investor Relations, tel. +358 40 576 0288, tommi.jarvenpaa (at) tietoevry.com
TIETOEVRY CORPORATION
DISTRIBUTION
NASDAQ Helsinki
NASDAQ Stockholm
Oslo Børs
Principal Media
Tieto is a leading software and digital engineering services company with global market reach and capabilities. We provide customers across different industries with mission-critical solutions through our specialized software businesses Tieto Caretech, Tieto Banktech and Tieto Indtech as well as TietoTech Consulting business. Our around 15 000 talented vertical software, design, cloud and AI experts are dedicated to empowering our customers to succeed and innovate with latest technology.
Tieto’s annual revenue is approximately EUR 2 billion. The company’s shares are listed on the NASDAQ exchange in Helsinki and Stockholm, as well as on Oslo Børs. www.tietoevry.com