News

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Saturday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Saturday, July 25 (game #874).

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… All-knowing

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• BUGS
• CITY
• SPITE
• THING
• BRAIL
• HAVER

• Spangram has 8 letters

• First side: left, 4th row

• Last side: right, 4th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

The answers to today's Strands, game #875, are…

• GURU
• MAVEN
• PUNDIT
• EXPERT
• AUTHORITY
• SPECIALIST
• SPANGRAM: BIGBRAIN

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

This was one of those games that felt like it was going to be difficult but ended up being easy.

That said, it did take me a while to find my first word — but with GURU snagged, the rest all seemed to fall into place.

If I was being fussy, based on my recent World Cup viewing, I wouldn’t include PUNDIT on this list; although this is indeed someone who proffers their opinion, it is often loosely based on any actual fact. Although, that said, coming from a position where you consider yourself “all-knowing” or in possession of a BIGBRAIN seems to help anyone feel as if they are an EXPERT.

• GOWN
• TUNIC
• PINAFORE
• KIMONO
• DIRNDL
• MUUMUU
• SPANGRAM: YOUWEARITWELL

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Saturday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, July 25 (game #1140).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• SOLID FOOD
• PASTRY CRUST
• ROLLING OVER
• LIQUID SUNSHINE
• PLASMA TV
• SCOTCH MIST
• BLACKBERRY
• GAS STATION
• ROWING BOAT
• FIRST WORDS
• APRIL SHOWERS
• DISCMAN
• WET WEATHER
• CARAPACE
• DVD PLAYER
• CRAWLING

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: A little one’s achievements
• GREEN: Outdated electronics
• BLUE: Getting soaked
• PURPLE: Connected by a word that rhymes with “well”

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: BABY MILESTONES
• GREEN: OUTMODED CONSUMER TECH
• BLUE: EXPRESSIONS FOR RAIN
• PURPLE: WHAT "SHELL" MIGHT REFER TO

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

The answers to today's Connections, game #1141, are…

• YELLOW: BABY MILESTONES: CRAWLING, FIRST WORDS, ROLLING OVER, SOLID FOOD
• GREEN: OUTMODED CONSUMER TECH: BLACKBERRY, DISCMAN, DVD PLAYER, PLASMA TV
• BLUE: EXPRESSIONS FOR RAIN: APRIL SHOWERS, LIQUID SUNSHINE, SCOTCH MIST, WET WEATHER
• PURPLE: WHAT "SHELL" MIGHT REFER TO: CARAPACE, GAS STATION, PASTRY CRUST, ROWING BOAT

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

If you’re like me then tiles such as today’s — mostly made up of two words – make you feel confused and discombobulated.

However, once the brain has calmed these types of games tend to be far easier than the appear at first sight.

That said there were several tiles here that were new to me — LIQUID SUNSHINE seems like an odd way to describe a rainy day, although, my goodness there are plenty of them (I like mizzle, which is misty drizzle) and I thought CARAPACE was an Ecuadorian cyclist, but I now know it’s the word for a tortoise shell.

• YELLOW: SPANISH RELATIVES: ABUELA, HIJO, MADRE, PRIMO
• GREEN: START TO CRY, WITH "UP": CHOKE, MIST, TEAR, WELL
• BLUE: AFRICAN CURRENCIES: KWANZA, LEONE, NAIRA, RAND
• PURPLE: STRIP____: CLUB, MALL, POKER, STEAK

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

The Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband is a small gaming keyboard with a few surprises in store.

True to its name, it certainly doesn’t take up much room on your desk. It’s also pleasingly light, which means it’s easy to move around. Despite this and the plastic construction, the build quality seems high.

There are some unique features to the design of the K63W Pro. One is the prominent springiness of the gasket-mounted layout, which is a little strange at first, but ultimately it’s not an issue and the keys still feel just as solid as those in the best gaming keyboards.

Another is the arrow keys. Not only are they much larger than most, but each of the four directions has a second binding to include right control, right shift, menu, and Fn inputs. There’s a shortcut for toggling between the two sets of bindings, as well as activating both at the same time, with the input triggered determined by whether a key is pressed or held.

There’s also an option to select these modes in Cherry’s companion software. This software has other customizations, but not many. The remapping options are especially disappointing, thanks to their very awkward setup and limited options. There’s barely any performance tweaks here, either.

Thankfully, the K63W Pro is a capable performer as it is. The keys travel further than you might expect given their low profile, but they’re still just about snappy enough for fast gaming and typing. The ergonomic slant of the keycaps, as well as the generous spacing between them, make them easy to use, while the aforementioned thinness of the chassis makes for a comfortable experience, even without a wrist rest.

Cherry makes much of the K63W Pro’s Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless technology, which is designed to prevent potential interference. However, I can’t say I noticed an improvement over other wireless keyboards, and the tech isn’t worth the impracticality that comes with the incongruously large wireless puck. It’s also a shame there’s no Bluetooth support.

The K63W Pro is reasonably expensive for a compact keyboard, although the quality and interesting layout help its case in this regard. The performance is good and it's comfortable to use, but I’m not sure every gamer is going to get along with its unique features.

• $169.99 (about £150 / AU$240)
• Available now
• Expensive for a small board

The Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband costs $169.99 (about £150 / AU$240) and is available now. It comes with a USB cable and the UWB USB receiver.

This is a reasonably high price for a 70% keyboard, especially one that lacks Bluetooth support and input customizations. However, there are certainly more expensive mechanical boards out there, such as the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75. I loved the performance of that board when I reviewed it, and it has a much better selection of input customizations than the K63W Pro.

If you want something more budget-friendly, consider the Monsgeek FUN60 Ultra. This keyboard has analog switches with a heap of performance-related features and tweaks at their disposal. They also feel just as good as mechanical switches in my view.

• Value score: 3.5

Layout

70%

Switch

Mechanical (Cherry MX Low Profile 2.0)

Programmable keys

Yes

Dimensions

12.1 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches (307 x 135 x 30 mm)

RGB or backlighting

Yes (customizable)

• Thin and light
• Springboard-like
• Limited input customizations

There's nothing particularly exciting about the way the K63W Pro looks. It keeps things basic, although the rounded edges are a nice touch, helping to relieve its austerity a little.

True to its name, the K63W Pro is indeed compact. In addition to its truncated width, it’s also quite thin, making it comfortable to use even without a wrist rest — which is just as well, since it doesn’t come with one.

Despite its plastic construction, the K63W Pro feels sturdy and built to a high standard. Rather unique is the prominent flex of the keyboard plate. This can be pushed down quite a way when pressing a key, which is a little disconcerting at first, but it still feels perfectly stable and it rebounds fully. I wasn’t concerned about its durability, either.

The keycaps feel premium, too. They’re pleasingly textured and solid with little play. On top of this, the bright RGB backlighting shines through them very well, and the main legends are large and clear, although those for the Fn shortcuts on the function keys are a little too small.

You get more keys on the K63W Pro than you might think, including some navigation ones such as delete and insert. However, it’s odd there’s a blank key in the top-right corner; a missed opportunity to squeeze in another, perhaps, such as a Home key.

There are quite a few useful Fn shortcuts on the function row, including those for adjusting volume and one for opening your default browser, which are all welcome. However, a few remained a mystery to me. Two look like they adjust some sort of performance-related parameter, but I didn’t notice any action when I pressed them. There’s also one on F9 with Cherry’s logo on it that opens the Windows Run box and enters some kind of address, but again nothing happened when I pressed it. The text was too long and disappeared too quickly for me to read it, but my only guess is that it’s supposed to open some kind of Cherry software.

The most interesting aspect of the K63W Pro’s layout is the Mod Tap arrow keys. These are larger than your typical set since they have secondary bindings, with control, shift, menu, and Fn inputs mapped to each direction. Pressing Fn+M (there’s another Fn key mapped to the insert key) will cycle between three different modes: one enables the usual arrow key inputs, one enables the secondary bindings, and one enables both sets at the same time, with taps triggering arrow directions and holds triggering the secondary functions. The M key lights up a different color depending on which mode is active.

You can also switch between these modes using the Cherry Utility. This desktop app also features other customizations, although their dearth is disappointing. It has perhaps the worst rebinding mode I've ever seen in peripheral software, requiring you to click a ‘create’ button for every key you want to rebind, in order to bring up the option to rebind it. The layout graph doesn’t display your remapped bindings, which is another baffling oversight, and you can’t alter the Fn layer of shortcuts. There aren’t many performance-related settings here, either; you can adjust the polling rate for both wired and wireless modes, and there’s a SOCD mode with three basic settings, but that’s all you get.

Rather than your typical USB dongle, the K63W Pro comes with a block-shaped puck that requires a USB cable (also included) to connect to your device. This is what facilitates the UWB connectivity, which Cherry claims reduces interference compared to standard wireless connections. It looks sleek, but it’s quite large and takes up more space than I’m happy with, especially when you factor in the trailing cable.

• Design & features score: 3.5 / 5

• Relatively heavy keys
• Great space bar
• Unnecessary Ultra-Wideband connectivity

I mostly enjoyed my time using the K63W Pro. The keys feel well lubed and reasonably damped, although it still verges on the side of clicky than thocky, which, depending on your preferences, is either a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I liked the feedback they provided.

I was also fond of the low-profile keycaps, which seem to slant slightly towards the user. This helped me hit keys flush, making up for the somewhat limiting tilt angle of the board, even with the two-stage feet out. This was especially noticeable with the space bar, a key I often hit on its edge but not here. It also feels slightly more damped than the other keys, while still being easy to press, a combination that makes it very satisfying to hammer away at.

The switches themselves are also low profile (specifically, they’re Cherry’s MX Low Profile 2.0). However, they have surprisingly deep travel, which makes them more satisfying than they otherwise would be. Despite this, their actuation point is relatively shallow, which meant I could still type with a reasonably light touch. They strike just the right balance between being snappy and forgiving of minor mispresses.

Tying accuracy is also aided by the large size of the keycaps, as well as their wide spacing. While this made reaching certain keys a little difficult when touch typing, it made gaming in the WASD position quite comfortable and secure. I could also reach the peripheral keys easily from here, including the space bar, thanks to its aforementioned slant and low profile.

In my experience, the Mod Tap feature works reasonably well, achieving Cherry’s aim of reducing side bulk without sacrificing inputs. However, you have to hold an arrow key for a long time to activate its secondary binding. I found this particularly frustrating when typing, as I required quick and regular access to the right shift key, but I often didn’t hold the Up arrow key long enough to access it. It’s also disappointing that you can’t alter the hold time.

Although Cherry makes bold claims about the UWB wireless connectivity, I can't say I noticed any performance gains over other wireless keyboards I’ve tested. Such models have greatly improved in recent years, to the point where regular-sized USB dongles perform pretty much flawlessly. And if you are an elite player concerned about lags and dropouts, you’ll probably opt for a wired connection anyway. All this is to say that the UWB tech and the outsized puck are ultimately overkill for many. What’s more, the K63W Pro doesn’t have Bluetooth support, as lots of other premium wireless keyboards feature.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

Expensive for a compact board, but the quality and spec is there at least.

3.5 / 5

Design and features

Thin and light, with a solid build and a unique layout. The software is disappointing, though.

3.5 / 5

Performance

The K63W Pro is comfortable for gaming and typing for the most part, but the Mod Tap feature will take some getting used to.

4 / 5

Overall

The K63W Pro is a solid mechanical keyboard that does a few things differently, but not entirely successfully. Still, it’s a reliable and comfortable unit for most gamers.

3.5 / 5

You want a compact board
The K63W Pro cleverly includes keys usually omitted from such a small layout, although it does take some getting used to.

You want a comfortable board
The thin chassis and ergonomic keycaps makes the K63W Pro a board you can use all day long, although touch typing will test your dexterity at times.

You want the snappiest experience
Despite the low profile keycaps, they have a greater travel than you might expect, which might deter those after lighting-quick taps.

You want the best input customizations
The companion software’s rebinding functionality is quite woeful; there are barely any performance-related tweaks.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75
If it’s superb mechanical performance you’re after, you can’t do much better than the Razer BlackWidow. I love how tactile and satisfying key presses are, and the number of customizations on offer via Razer’s Synapse software is impressive for a mechanical keyboard, greatly eclipsing the K63W Pro on this front. However, the BlackWidow is an incredibly expensive board, so those wanting to save money should look elsewhere. Read our full Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75 review.

Monsgeek FUN60 Ultra
For something decidedly more budget-friendly, the FUN60 Ultra offers all the thrills of a great gaming keyboard without the expense. Its analog switches almost feel as good as mechanical ones, and there are plenty of adjustments you can make to alter their performance. Its construction is surprisingly solid for the price, too. Read our full Monsgeek FUN60 Ultra review.

• Tested for a few days
• Used for a variety of tasks
• Plentiful gaming keyboard experience

I used the K63W Pro for a few days, during which time I used it for working, general browsing, and of course, gaming. I used it in both wired and wireless modes.

I played games such as 007 First Light and Counter-Strike 2, which are good tests for the speed and accuracy of key inputs.

I’ve been PC gaming for over a decade, and have used numerous keyboards in that time. I’ve also reviewed a large number of them, ranging widely in their form factors, switches types, feature sets, and price points.

• First reviewed: July 2026
• Read more about how we test

• Nearly 400 4K Blu-ray users shared info about player problems
• There's a huge gap between the best and worst in the poll
• Panasonic will be happy; Sony not so much

One of the things I like best about Reddit is the way people share their experiences of particular products: whether it's a kitchen knife, a portable AC or a Gibson guitar I know I'll be able to find sage advice on what to buy and what to watch out for. And now the good people of r/hometheater have come together to talk about the best 4K Blu-ray players and their reliability.

The poll was carried out by r/hometheater poster "requieminadream" and generated nearly 400 responses — almost double the number of previous poll respondents — from r/4KBluray, r/Bluray, r/PhysicalMediaMatters, the AVS Forums, and the Blu-ray.com forums. And there are some very clear differences between different firms' Blu-ray devices.

Requieminadream very kindly summarized the results in a sentence: "The Sony UBP-X700 is still the problem child, the Panasonic DP-UB820 is still champ, and the pricey UB-9000 posted the cleanest numbers (small sample though)."

But there were some interesting discoveries in the detail too, so it's definitely worth looking at if you're considering a pre-owned 4K Blu-ray player purchase, or just which one seems to make people the happiest long-term.

One of the reasons I like Reddit wisdom is because with few exceptions, reviewers can't spend years with the products they test — so the reviews of my car don't know about the software issues that drive me wild and sometimes require a reboot at traffic lights, and the reviews of my router don't know about its tendency to misbehave every few weeks.

It's the same with Blu-ray players: even the most in-depth review won't be able to tell you if a player's likely to pack up in year two or three. (Though one exception is our Panasonic DP-UB820 review, written by our TV Hardware senior writer James Davidson, because he wrote us a fresh review based on combining using it in our test room and having used it daily for several years beforehand.)

But in general, polls like this are a brilliant resource.

By a large margin, the Panasonic DP-UB820 is the community's favored player: 43.4% of respondents have one, and its problem rate was around half that of the Sony UBP-X700. The rate of serious issues was very low, at just 8% — backing up what James had said, when he called it "the workhorse of the 4K Blu-ray player world".

The "problem child" that emerged from this latest poll is the Sony UBP-X700. Of the 103 Sony users, some 77.7% reported some issues over time; recurring and/or serious issues were 23%. The number one complaint is freezing during triple-layer transitions, which is something that has long been discussed on Blu-ray forums.

The poll shows another interesting pattern, which is problems over time. For the Sony, issues became more common over time — but for the Panasonic the pattern was of any failures showing up early, but better long-term reliability.

The other players in the survey came in between the two extremes, but some of the best results were from "other" players including games consoles and more niche Blu-ray products.

Satisfaction with those products was exceptionally high, with the PS5 getting a significantly higher rating than the Xbox. That's all the more striking given the Sony X700's performance: the PS5 is a more premium product and that seems to be reflected in its reliability — alas, we shouldn't expect any more PlayStations to arrive with a disc player.

I should make clear, as the original Redditor did, that in some cases the sample sizes for ownership in these polls is pretty low, so we should take the results with a pinch of salt. However, the Panasonic UB820 and the Sony X700 were the best-represented, and are the two most popular players, so their data is arguably the most useful anyway.

AI is everywhere, which is exciting for some and concerning for others — and nowhere is this dichotomy more prevalent than health. AI has the ability to enable huge leaps in healthcare, both at home on your phones and smartwatches, and in the medical industry advancing tools and research using vast corpuses of training data. However, given that AI relies on harvesting data to train the next generation of models, its use of sensitive personal information is under intense scrutiny.

Samsung, unsurprisingly, is all-in on AI. On 22 July during Samsung Galaxy Unpacked, we saw how AI was being used across Samsung's ecosystem, especially on the Samsung Health app and wearables like the Samsung Galaxy Watch. It's crunching the data you give it to help notify you of problems such as sleep apnea, irregular heart rhythms, and even common illnesses such as a cold.

It's not the only big tech company to dive head-first into AI health: Google's done it too with the revamp of its Google Health app, retooling its premium tier into a Chatbot called the Google Health Coach.

Some people don't trust AI with their health information, as our writer David Nield illustrates, and some AI companies' cavalier use of user data has clearly got users worried. Is the pivot to AI in health happening too quickly? Do we have appropriate safeguards in place yet? And is your data being mined without your consent?

It's all about user trust, it seems. Samsung made headlines earlier this month for the wrong reasons, as a claim hit the internet stating that Samsung Health will delete your data unless you allow the app to access your sensitive health information for AI training purposes. Samsung later clarified this was not the case in a statement to 9to5Google. While the rumor was apparently false, it does demonstrate how worried people are when it comes to AI harvesting their health data.

During Samsung Galaxy Unpacked, I got to conduct a one-on-one interview with Annika Bizon, VP of Product and Marketing for Mobile Experience at Samsung, and ask her about Samsung's strategy when it comes to AI and healthcare — including how it's intending to safeguard their user's valuable data.

"The user is in control, right?," she tells me, "you opt-in to decide what you want something to understand around your health. You're in control through your phone and through the Samsung health app. That's number one. AI is there to assist you and make your experience better."

Bizon and her team also clarified that all Samsung Health features are usable whether you choose to share your data or not. This attempt to reassure Samsung users about trust and privacy echoed all throughout the Unpacked conference: when I approached someone to talk about Samsung's new Intelligent Eyewear smart glasses, the first bit of sales spiel I got was centered on privacy and transparency features. Clearly, Samsung and its partners at Google are keen to avoid the growing backlash against smart specs.

This continued during a Health Forum attended by journalists. Speaking about medical advances powered by Samsung and AI, Rohit Ali, Head of the Technology Incubation Lab at Samsung R&D Institute UK, said during the panel, "as long as we ensure that data is private, trust can be viable. We at Samsung completely believe that data belongs to the user, and we are just custodians."

Bizon said Samsung's approach is "if it's got AI involved in it, you're in control," with the ability to toggle the data you share and the data you don't. However, she did then go on to say that when users start to use these features, that "you realize you don't want to 'not opt-in' because it's giving you better understanding of your health situation." Without opting in to using the AI features, you're not getting everything Samsung Health has to offer.

"Gone are the days of 10,000 steps and eight hours' sleep," said Bizon, telling me that old-fashioned blanket advice was never suitable for everyone. "We're in a space of 'your health, your way', and that's where AI and incredible sensor technology innovation brings those two together.

"We want to keep people away from doctors. We want to give people small nudges so they can make their lives better."

Bizon is talking about AI picking up on your body's trends and seeing things before they happen, with preventative health features ensuring people don't necessarily need doctors — and when they do, they're catching things like heart problems early.

The new Vitals feature is the key to this, which tracks five different metrics, many of them based on heart health, while you sleep with a Samsung watch or Galaxy Ring on. "Through things like understanding how your respiratory system is working, it might tell you that might be coming down with a cold," says Bizon, "and therefore, you can manage that. You might go, 'I need to have more vitamins' or 'I need to sleep a bit more', or 'I might not go to the gym tomorrow'.

"Little triggers and little nudges, right the way through to understanding your heart health in way more detail. Your ECG is taken while you're sleeping. And then that is, you know, even endorsed by the MHRA [the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency], which means that you can send that directly directly to your doctor."

An AI nutrition tracking feature will also be launching in beta on Samsung Health very soon, which allows you to take a photo of your plate and it'll log an estimation of your macros like Google Health and Garmin Connect does. These coupled with the Antioxidant Index on watches, which Bizon says help users "understand what you're putting in your body, so that you can manage your overall health in a better way", have the potential to become quite a powerful set of nutrition features across the Samsung ecosystem.

This preventative health design is part of Samsung's desire to keep people away from doctors, as Bizon puts it, and empower its users to lead healthier lives. It just might work, too — as long as that all-important trust and faith in Samsung's ability to keep its user's health data private is maintained.

During Samsung's Health Forum, Samsung's Head of Digital Health Dr Hon Pak said "whether it's data or the insights we derive, someone has to trust this is right for them. And then there's the issue of what we're doing to store and use that data appropriately, because once you lose trust, nothing else matters."

Samsung is being very careful and conscious with all its trust-first messaging, and it's paying attention to controversies involving other companies like Meta. The success of its plans for AI health all depend on this.

• It's still unclear whether employers should train workers, or if workers should train themselves
• Most organizations would still pay a premium to have employees who know a thing or two about AI
• AI is increasingly common in performance reviews and promotion decisions

New research has claimed, three in four (77%) UK organizations now expect AI proficient to become a baseline requirement across most non-technical roles within the next year.

But despite a clear demand for AI skills, whose responsibility it is to upskill workers is still very much hotly challenged, the report from HiBob says.

For example, a near-identical number of companies are investing in AI upskilling (82%) and have clear strategies for finding candidates who already have strong AI skills (80%).

When it comes to training workers, employers are using a mix of funding opportunities for employees (33%), providing dedicated time for workers to experiment (33%) and offering pre-built prompts and workflows (31%), indicating that there's not yet a single way forward.

While the report doesn't shift the responsibility onto either party, with more than three in five considering AI when making promotion decisions (63%) and including AI in regular performance reviews (61%), workers are clearly required to take at least some ownership over their upskilling.

"The winners in the AI era will be the organisations that can define a shared language of skills, identify where capability truly sits, and pivot talent to where it creates the most value," CEO Ronni Zehavi wrote.

Regardless, with nearly all (97%) employers prepared to offer at least a 10% salary premium for AI proficiency, demand for such skills isn't going anywhere and the workers who take initiative could be the ones to see the most success in the short term, as organizations battle getting to grips with how to support their workforces.