News
Star Wars: Starfighter, the installment in the franchise due to be released on May 28, 2027 – that's a year after The Mandalorian & Grogu, if you're keeping up – has finally got its first look straight from the set (you can catch up with it below).
Ryan Gosling will be our next leading man and eponymous Starfighter, with Flynn Gray, Matt Smith and Mia Goth among those previously announced in the cast.
Annoyingly, we've got absolutely no idea what the new Star Wars movie is going to be about aside from some other-world fighting in the starry atmosphere, probably with new creatures and droids.
Day 1: A whole new adventure begins #Starfighterhttps://t.co/eI5xaROQAj pic.twitter.com/8AXiBN4x4BAugust 28, 2025
However, we do have some updates. Amy Adams and Aaron Pierre have also been announced as joining the cast, with Adams set to play Gray's mother (Pierre's role has not been rumored). But as much as I love seeing these two act, it's not the announcement that's got me, a Star Wars dunce, incredibly excited for its release.
It's not Jamael Westman or Daniel Ings, who are also in the ensemble. Oh no. It's Simon Bird, whose name might not mean anything to you if you're based in the US, or anywhere other than the UK. He's best known in Britain for playing Will MacKenzie in sitcom The Inbetweeners, and it's this role that makes his casting incredibly ironic.
Simon Bird's casting in Star Wars: Starfighter is hilarious, actuallyI have four words for you: feisty one, you are. If you've ever seen The Inbetweeners, which ran from 2008 to 2010 (not including the movies), you might remember the season 2 episode where Will and the gang head to Swanage for a school field trip, with Will's eye immediately swayed by new girl Lauren (Jayne Wisener).
While Simon (Joe Thomas) tries to take her for himself, Will dusts off his best flirting techniques over lunch, which just happens to be a Yoda impression. Lauren has no idea what's going on, claiming she was worried he had "a problem," and unsurprisingly, she chooses Simon over Will.
This is also the episode where the boys punch a fish in a dingy and set off a distress flare while they're still in the harbor, so Inbetweeners gold, in short. Will's Yoda line is something that's still regularly quoted almost 20 years later, and it took all of 0.5 seconds for fans to pick up on the link.
"From briefcase w**ker to Star Wars pilot, what a glow up," one fan replied to the announcement on X, with another attaching the Yoda clip and adding "This is clearly the reason why they cast him."
Another weighed in, "Star Wars casting weirdly perfect here, he’s gonna own it," with another fan agreeing, "Nah, he’s just gonna crash-land with a 'bumder!' and a Yoda impression!"
While fans are speculating that Bird will play a pilot, no official announcement of his exact role has been made.
With director Shawn Levy (Deadpool & Wolverine) steering the Star Wars: Starfighter ship, I hope that he at least subtly pays homage to a moment so famous, it's certainly made the UK sitcom Hall of Fame (well, it would if I were in charge).
In the meantime, you can watch the Star Wars back catalog on Disney+ in the US, UK and Australia.
You might also like- Anthropic's Threat Intelligence Report outlines the acceleration of AI attacks
- AI is now fueling all parts of the cyberattack process
- One such attack has been identified at 'vibe hacking'
One of the world’s largest AI companies, Anthropic, has warned that its chatbot has been ‘weaponised’ by threat actors to “to commit large-scale theft and extortion of personal data". Anthropic’s Threat Intelligence Report details ways in which the technology is being used to carry out sophisticated cyberattacks.
Weaponized AI is making hackers faster, more aggressive, and more successful - and the threat report outlines that ransomware attacks which previously would have required years of training can now be crafted with very few technical skills.
These cyberattacks are lucrative for hackers, with AI now being used for fraudulent activity like stealing credit card information and identity theft, with attackers even using AI to analyze stolen data.
“Vibe hacking”Defenders have long warned that AI is lowering the barriers to cybercrime, allowing low-skilled hackers to carry out complex attacks, but LLMs are now assisting criminals at every point along the attack process.
The report describes a particular threat it dubs ‘vibe-hacking’, which refers to a campaign in which Claude was used to scale and build a data extortion scheme. The name is a reference to the ‘vibe coding’ method of software development which heavily relies on AI to generate code and build applications.
Cluade’s code execution environment was used to; ‘automate reconnaissance, credential harvesting, and network penetration at scale, potentially affecting at least 17 distinct organizations in just the last month across government, healthcare, emergency services, and religious institutions.’
Anthropic’s investigations found cybercriminals targeted a range of sectors, focusing on data theft and extortion. These attacks resulted in ‘the compromise of personal records, including healthcare data, financial information, government credentials, and other sensitive information, with direct ransom demands occasionally exceeding $500,000.’
You might also likeIn today’s technology landscape, AI is a key catalyst driving innovation and new business models. What began as basic text and image generation has evolved into sophisticated agentic AI, autonomous systems enhanced by human oversight, delivering scalable, efficient solutions that give businesses a competitive edge.
If we look back over the decades, virtual assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri were primarily designed as single-skill tools. Their functionalities were often limited to specific commands, such as playing music, setting reminders, or providing basic information.
While groundbreaking at their inception, these virtual assistants operated within clearly defined parameters, lacking the ability to integrate information across different domains or perform complex reasoning. Their utility, though significant, was circumscribed by their specialized nature.
However, the current trajectory of AI development points towards a profound shift, the emergence of autonomous agents that are now being embedded into the enterprise fabric agents. These advanced AI systems are designed to process and synthesize information from various sources, allowing them to tackle more complex assignments and engage in nuanced interactions.
This transition is not merely an incremental improvement but a fundamental redefinition of AI's potential, enabling agents to understand context, anticipate needs, and even learn from interactions to enhance their performance over time. This leap in capability allows for a more fluid and intuitive user experience, bridging the gap between isolated functions and integrated problem-solving.
Consumer and enterprise AIThe broader world of AI can be broadly categorized into two principal domains, each with distinct applications and implications:
Consumer AI: Everyday AI, like ChatGPT, found in personal devices, boosts individual productivity and convenience. However, these are largely reactive tools that require user prompts.
Enterprise AI: Business-focused AI, optimizing operations, decision-making, and automation across industries. Examples include AI for healthcare diagnostics, financial fraud detection, or manufacturing predictive maintenance. It aims to create efficiencies and competitive advantages.
The distinction between consumer and enterprise AI, while useful for categorization, is becoming increasingly blurred as AI technologies mature and become more interoperable. The advancements in natural language processing and machine learning, initially driven by consumer demand, are now finding profound applications in enterprise settings, and vice-versa.
This synergistic development is accelerating the overall progress of AI, paving the way for even more sophisticated and integrated AI agents capable of navigating the complexities of both our personal and professional lives.
Agentic AI reframes the AI landscape by moving beyond traditional consumer and enterprise applications toward autonomous decision-making systems that act with purpose and context.
It's vital to recognize these distinct verticals and manage expectations accordingly. A common pitfall in enterprise AI is the assumption that business tools will function with the same seamlessness as consumer AI.
This “expectation gap” necessitates adjusting our approach to integrating these technologies into enterprise settings. Understanding this distinction is fundamental to defining a clear roadmap for agentic AI adoption in the business world.
Embracing the XDO blueprint for enterprise implementationFor effective agentic AI implementation in an enterprise context, the XDO Blueprint is highly recommended:
X (Experience): AI's primary purpose should be to enhance human experiences. This includes improving customer experience, employee experience, partner experience, and even machine-to-machine interactions within connected systems.
D (Data): Enterprises can only leverage AI effectively if they thoroughly understand and manage their data. A significant obstacle is that enterprise data is often siloed within applications. Organizations must prioritize separating data from applications, defining metadata, and structuring their data catalogues, marketplaces, and contracts efficiently.
O (Operations): This encompasses two broad areas: IT Operations: AI agents can significantly automate IT tasks, from problem detection and correction to fulfilling requests and deploying resources. They bridge the gap between humans and machine data, generating valuable insights.
Business Operations: Agentic AI can drive autonomous, intelligent operations, leading to unprecedented efficiency and agility. It can transform workflows, decision-making, and customer experiences, enabling proactive adaptation and strategic growth. Without this framework, agentic AI risks becoming merely another underutilized tool in the enterprise arsenal.
The importance of agentic orchestrationGiven the regulatory and governance frameworks under which businesses operate, orchestration is critical. Unlike deterministic business processes, agentic systems are inherently probabilistic.
Companies will soon contend with a growing number of AI agents from diverse vendors, built on various technologies. The challenge extends beyond mere deployment to orchestrating these agents across the entire enterprise.
While many SaaS companies are pushing AI agents and enterprises are developing their own on hyperscaler platforms, current AI orchestration solutions often focus on managing only their proprietary agents.
The real need is for enterprise-wide orchestration, connecting disparate subsystems and ensuring AI-driven processes function seamlessly across the entire business.
Companies that adopt the XDO approach, linking experience, data, and operations, are more likely to achieve effective agentic AI implementation.
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