For years, executives have joked-not-joked about wanting to clone their best employees.

Now, a new generation of “digital twins” could make those cloning dreams a reality…sorta. With workforces transitioning to a mix of employees and their virtual twins, there’s more pressure than ever to ensure that everyone inside the organization—both human and digital—remains on task.

Can you use it in a sentence? So, what exactly is a digital twin of an employee? It depends on who you ask. In an April report, Gartner defined it as “a model that enterprises build to understand how real employees will respond or behave in a given context.”

“The [digital twin of employees] is an emerging way to use data, models, and simulations in support of productivity, performance, experience, and well-being goals,” Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Helen Poitevin wrote.

Hear more about how organizations should deploy a digital twin.—BM

It’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and you know what that means—time to click on precisely one phishing link and call the IT department.

For IT professionals, on the other hand, the month is a good time to get up to speed on security in 2025. Users are increasingly aware of the threat landscape, which is leading to concerns over privacy.

Almost eight in 10 (78%) US consumers who responded to a recent Mastercard survey conducted with the Harris Poll say they think about cybersecurity more than two years ago, a heartening statistic. When security is a topic of conversation at the dinner table, it’s clearly a growing concern.

Get talking. One way to address the threat is better communication. That’s what Avi Greenfield, business process automation firm Quadient’s VP of digital enterprise products, says can lessen worries and lead to a better overall security posture and outcomes.

How IT pros can keep user awareness high throughout October.—EH

The AMD deal was made public on October 6. OpenAI will control 10% of the chipmaker if it hits certain milestones, a move aimed squarely at AMD’s competitor Nvidia that the latter’s CEO Jensen Huang called “clever.” Just to make things even more tangled, Nvidia has pledged to invest $100 billion in OpenAI over the next 10 years.

A new horizon. We’re in an AI revolution, Shishir Shrivastava told IT Brew. Shrivastava, practice director for tech services and consulting firm TEKsystems Global Services, sees the industry evolving, and IT pros will continue to have nearly every element of their daily experience impacted by what companies like OpenAI are doing in the AI space. Change is the constant.

“For workers, some of the things which are very critical for them are going to go away,” Shrivastava said. “They have to focus on the new trends, or upskilling—with the revolution a lot of things are going to go away, and new things are going to come in the market.”

Learn more about how IT pros can see the future with this deal.—EH

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