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Stephen King’s Carrie is one of those endlessly rebootable stories. Way back in 1974, King zeroed in on a near-perfect horror setup that explored being othered, the emotional and mental health consequences of bullying, and just how crappy being a teen girl can be in the modern world. Those themes—and the iconic visuals King conjured with his words—are evergreen, and resonate with audiences each time the story gets rebooted. Mike Flanagan has proved himself a master of horror and a clear successor to King’s legacy in the genre, and if you thought his Carrie reboot on Prime Video was terrific (and you’ve watched all the similar series out there), you should really watch Jennifer’s Body.

Why Jennifer’s Body is the movie to watch if you loved Carrie

Carrie and Jennifer’s Body share a lot of themes—the corrosive pressure of high school, the casual cruelty of adolescents, the explosive power of feminine anger. While Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) is superficially presented as having more power and control than Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) because she’s more self-possessed (and played by Megan Fox), underneath the hair and makeup, Jennifer is just as naive and confused as Carrie. Both girls endure horrific experiences that set them on a path to horrific violence—and those experiences are symbolic of what women everywhere have to deal with all the damn time.

Just as in Carrie, Jennifer’s Body tracks a teen girl’s descent into monstrousness—but where Carrie leans into the tragic nature of those themes, Jennifer’s Body offers a funnier, more sarcastic take buoyed by Diablo Cody’s sharp dialogue and laugh-out-loud moments. The series highlights Carrie’s suffocating home life that offers her no relief from the grinding hell of being a 16-year-old girl who doesn’t quite fit the expected physical or behavioral norms imposed on teen girls, tracing a slow boil of rage. Jennifer’s Body depicts a character who ultimately chooses the dark path, leaning into her newfound destructive power, and has more fun with it, making it the perfect complement to the series.

Although the stories take different paths to get there, they both wind up at a cathartic and bloody climax centered on a school dance, where a lot of people die and chaos reigns. The film is the perfect way to examine, from a different angle, the themes that Carrie explores. Stream Jennifer’s Body on Hulu or rent it on Prime Video.

More movies if you enjoyed Carrie

Looking for more stories about angry teen girls teaching society a terrifying lesson? Here are a few more films that make a perfect pairing with Carrie.

Carrie (1976)

It’s been 50 years since Brian De Palma adapted King’s novel for the first time, and it’s still worth watching today, especially if you enjoyed Flanagan’s modern take. What could have been a trashy horror movie designed to cash in on the book’s success is instead a well-crafted film that makes every character feel real and consequential, and Sissy Spacek’s performance as Carrie is screen-meltingly amazing. Few horror films have aged this well, and watching a different creator’s vision of the story will be well worth your time. Rent Carrie on Prime Video.

The Craft (1996)

If Carrie’s cathartic presentation of female rage and teen angst is what hooked you, the most relevant movie to jump to is The Craft. The story of four high school girls who harness dark powers to take revenge on, well, high school life itself is anchored by four feral performances from Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True. Like Jennifer’s Body, the teen protagonists enthusiastically embrace their power in a way that Carrie White doesn’t, but it transforms (and destroys them) just the same. Rent The Craft on Prime Video.

The Innocents (2021)

One reason Carrie is terrifying in all its forms? The very idea of a child with an imperfect grasp of ethics and an immature emotional state having thermonuclear-level psychic powers. After all, teenage girls without powers can be terrifying when triggered. The Innocents focuses on sisters Ida (Rakel Lenora Petersen Fløttum) and Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad), who meet Ben (Sam Ashraf) and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim), who both demonstrate powers including telekinesis and mind control. Their interaction soon reveals that Anna also has mental powers, and the four begin working to enhance their capabilities—but when one of them begins using their powers to hurt others and seek revenge, things take a dark turn that fans of Carrie will appreciate. Stream The Innocents on Kanopy or rent it on Prime Video.

Sissy (2022)

Anyone who was ever bullied in the teen years (so ... everyone) knows that those wounds never quite heal. That’s one aspect of Carrie’s power, and it’s also what makes Sissy an ideal movie to watch when you’ve finished the series. A mental health influencer, Cecilia (Aisha Dee)—once known as “Sissy”—runs into her old best friend, Emma (Hannah Barlow) and is unexpectedly invited to Emma’s bachelorette weekend—only to run into her childhood tormentor, Alex (Emily De Margheriti). The old trauma hits Cecilia like a bomb, shattering her fragile mental balance and leading to a surprisingly funny series of murders as Sissy works through her lingering anger issues. Stream Sissy on Hoopla or Tubi, or rent it on Prime Video.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

If you’re a Mike Flanagan and Stephen King superfan, the obvious movie choice is their other collab, Doctor Sleep. A sequel to one of the most famous horror stories of all time (The Shining), the story finds a middle-aged Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) struggling to control his psychic powers, and leading the fight against an ancient group of entities that feed off of people like him. If you want more of that Flanagan/King magic, this is the right move. Rent Doctor Sleep on Prime Video.


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Google Messages is Google's official texting app, and while it hasn't always been first to roll out useful features, it has caught up to what other messaging services offer and has a handful of hidden hacks to make communicating and coordinating with contacts easier and safer. Here are the best tips and tricks that every Google Messages user should know.

Use the Keep integration to coordinate group events directly in Google Messages

Google Messages recently got a Google Keep integration, which allows group chat participants to collaborate on notes and checklists directly in the message thread without having to click over to a separate app. This also centralizes ideas in one place rather than spread across a thread with dozens of separate text messages. Changes to Keep Notes sync automatically for all users. Tap the plus icon in the message compose bar in Google Messages, select Keep Notes, and either choose an existing note or tap to create a new one to be shared in the chat.

Turn on advanced scam detection to protect against security threats

Over the last few years, Google has rolled out a number of security features for identifying and defending against scams and fraud spread via calls and text messages. These work by detecting suspected spam and either preventing it from being delivered or hiding it in a separate folder, as well as flagging suspicious links. A newer opt-in enhanced protection mode for Google Messages uses AI to catch more complex threats and alert you if a conversation or unfamiliar link that looks legit might put you at risk. Standard protection is on by default, but you can turn on enhanced protection under Messages settings > Protection & Safety > Spam and scam protection.

Use scheduled send to draft texts while maintaining good boundaries

If you have an idea you want to write down but not send immediately—because it's outside of work hours or late at night—you can draft it in Google Messages and schedule it for later. "Send later" features in messaging and chat apps are useful for maintaining good boundaries without having to remember to type and send at a different time. Once you've entered your message in the text field, touch and hold Send, choose from the suggested actions, then tap Send again.

Customize swipe actions for Google Messages inbox triage

Swiping left or right on your conversations in Google Messages will either archive or delete them. You can customize which swipe maps onto which action for quick inbox triaging or disable one or both to prevent accidentally triggering an unwanted action. Tap your profile photo > Message settings > Swipe actions > Customize to select your preferences.

Star messages to save important data to an aggregated list

Google Messages has a pinning feature that will anchor conversations at the top of your message history, but you can also star important messages you want to save and return to later. Starring makes it easy to keep track of data like flight information, contacts, or dates that might otherwise get lost in a thread or be difficult to pull up in a basic search—starred messages have their own search filter. Simply tap and hold the message and tap Star at the top, then go to Search conversations > Starred > More options > Starred to see your list of saved messages.

Turn on temporary snooze to silence group chats during live events you're not watching

We've all been in the overactive group chat that we don't want to see notifications from in real time but also don't want to leave. You can snooze threads semi-permanently, but you can also turn on a temporary snooze that will lift so notifications restart after a short period of time. This can be useful for threads discussing live events or games you will be catching up on later or if you need silence during a focused work period. Touch and hold the conversation, tap Snooze, then select your duration and tap Snooze to confirm. You can choose from 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours, or always.

Use Mass Text to send BCC messages and receive individual replies

Google Messages has two group chat modes. Group MMS is your typical group text—it sends a single message to all recipients, and everyone receives replies in the thread. Mass Text, by contrast, is like BCC. This sends your message to each user individually, and replies come only to the original sender. Using this mode allows you to share information with a bunch of people at once without creating the dreaded reply-all thread. You can change your default group messaging settings via profile > Message settings > Advanced > Group messaging.

Enable real-time location sharing when you need someone to know you're safe

Google Messages finally launched integrated real-time location sharing earlier this year, which allows you to send your live whereabouts to trusted contacts directly in a message thread. Location sharing makes it easier to coordinate meeting up or let someone know where you are if there are any safety concerns. You can set a limited duration or leave location sharing on indefinitely for specific contacts. Open a conversation and tap Attachment > Real-time location

Use "Delete for Everyone" to remove messages you accidentally sent

You don't have to live with the embarrassment of sending a text in error with Google Messages—at least not if you catch the mistake quickly. Google Messages has a "Delete for everyone" function that can remove sent messages from the devices of users who are running the latest version of the app. Conversations must be using RCS for this to work, and you have only a limited window—anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes, according to support documentation—to use the feature before your messages are permanent. Long-press a message to pull up available delete options.

Log into the web interface to use Google Messages on your computer

If you want to stay on top of your text threads but get distracted by other things every time you pick up your phone, you can log into the Google Messages web interface on your browser. This also makes it easier to send photos and files from your computer via Google Messages without having to transfer them to your phone first.


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OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra, a model that operates desktop software, to all Plus, Pro, Enterprise, and Edu users in ChatGPT Work and Codex, and to developers through its API as gpt-6.1-terra. API prices are 50 percent below those of GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol: $1 per million input tokens, $0.05 per million cached input tokens, and $5 per million output tokens. Tokens are the chunks of text a model reads and writes.

GPT-6.1 Terra

OpenAI says Terra meets the Critical threshold in cybersecurity under its Preparedness Framework and keeps the protections built for GPT-6 Astra. The company’s own example of high-volume work for Terra is reading incoming invoices and entering the details into accounting software.

What Critical means

Critical is the higher of two cybersecurity thresholds in the version of the Preparedness Framework dated April 2025. A model reaches it if, with tools, it can find and build working exploits for unknown software flaws, known as zero-days, of all severity levels in many hardened real-world critical systems with no human involved, or if it can plan and run a new attack from start to finish against a hardened target given nothing more than a high-level goal.

OpenAI’s rules require safeguards during development, whatever the release plans, and call for halting further development until safeguards meeting a Critical standard are specified. On September 1, 2026, OpenAI designated Astra as its first model at this level.

Prompt injection

OpenAI says Terra held up well in its prompt injection tests, which used malicious instructions meant to pull the model off the user’s task. Terra is more likely than GPT-5.6 Terra to stay within scope and to disclose limitations and blockers honestly.

What OpenAI measured

OpenAI measured Terra on Agents’ Last Exam, a benchmark of professional tasks that includes turning architectural drawings into a 3D model. At medium reasoning effort, Terra scores 15 percentage points above GPT-5.6 Terra at about one-third the cost, and OpenAI says it performs on par with GPT-6 Astra at one-tenth the price per token.

At max effort, OpenAI puts Terra at more than three times the token efficiency of Claude Opus 5.5 and one-fourth its price per token, which works out to a cost per task roughly nine times lower. Terra also completes tasks over three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol.

On OpenAI’s internal benchmark of error-inducing prompts, Terra’s error rate at low reasoning effort fell from 53.6 percent with GPT-5.6 Terra to 16.7 percent, or one prompt in six. At maximum effort it fell 18 percentage points to 4.3 percent.

Hard coding tasks go elsewhere

On Terminal-Bench 4.0, which tests coding agents on command-line problems such as fixing a webpage whose layout shifts as it loads, Terra at maximum effort solves 50.3 percent of tasks. GPT-5.6 Terra’s published score is 21.5 percent. That leaves 49.7 percent of tasks unsolved, and OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra remain the better choice for the most complex coding tasks.

On Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1, which has agents use code for research tasks such as tracking cell divisions in a time-lapse video, Terra at max reasoning beats GPT-6.1 Sol at lower cost and comes within five points of Opus 5.5 at less than one-fifth the estimated cost.

Download: The IT and security field guide to AI adoption


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I’ve reviewed every type of fitness watch and thought I had seen it all, but my first glimpse of an Una watch had my jaw on the floor: There is a USB-C port on the side of the watch. Not a set of pins for a magnetic charger, or a socket that requires a proprietary cable—just a hole you can stick a regular old USB-C cable into. This is what watches have been missing.

The Una watch started popping up on my feed about two years ago, and finally started shipping this summer. I’ve been wearing a review unit for a few weeks. The Una watch is advertised as repairable and upgradable, with open source software. There are little screws that I can see around the watch face, and on the back panel. The Una website sells a replacement battery for $40 and a replacement screen for $50. They also sell the tiny screwdriver that you’ll need to make repairs, but if you’re the kind of person who gets excited about a repairable watch, you may already have your own. 

Overall, I like it. The Una watch has an MIP screen (an older tech that is a cult favorite) and an app that's simple but effective. Not everything lived up to my expectations in testing, but no features failed outright. This feels like a solid start to the concept of “one watch for life” and I’m excited to see how the hardware and software offerings evolve over time. 

The Una watch and its app are simple

Most wearables these days try to do as many jobs as possible, whether they’re the right tool for those jobs or not. I am honestly fine with a running watch measuring time, distance, and heart rate while I run, and not trying to score my sleep or pretend it can tell how fast I’m aging. 

The Una watch app shows my steps, activity, and floors climbed for the day, as well as my average and resting heart rates. When I go for a run, it tracks my pace, distance, and heart rate during the run and gives me a nice page of data afterward. It reliably uploads this data to Strava, and can make little bar graphs of how these numbers vary from day to day. 

Developers have lots to play with

Holding an Una watch in front of its box (which says "built to last") prominently showing the USB-C port on the side.
The USB-C port! Credit: Beth Skwarecki

There is a “store” (everything is free, as far as I can tell) where you can download extra watch faces and features. One I’m trying out is a habit tracker called HabitLab: It asks you every evening whether you had alcohol, cigarettes, a late meal, and so on. Every morning, it asks how you’re feeling. And then, even though the watch doesn’t normally track your sleep, the app takes note of your overnight HRV and resting heart rate. Over time, it will correlate the answers to those questions with the sleep data, to hopefully give results that are similar to Whoop’s journal analysis. (I haven’t been using it long enough to judge how well it works, but stay tuned.)

HabitLab appears in one area of the watch as a standalone app; another, called Gym Sets, gives me a strength training activity type, which the watch did not otherwise have. I just select Gym Sets instead of “Run” or “Workout,” and the app tracks my heart rate while also giving me a set timer.  

The store is small, and the apps are simple, without many of the features that you can find on the apps for Apple Watch or other more fully featured devices. But the Una watch has only been out for a few months, so it’s not surprising that users haven’t created a plethora of apps yet. The company’s software development kit, and even its circuit board designs, are free for people to download and develop from.

I’m not impressed with the Una watch’s accuracy

Una watch vs chest strap
Una watch in red, chest strap for reference in gray. Credit: Beth Skwarecki

I was worried that the emphasis on repairability, and the affordable price, meant that the Una watch would be made with components that maybe aren’t fully up to date. Heart rate sensors have been getting better over the years, so Una’s will have to be pretty good if it wants to even sit in the middle of the pack. Garmin, Apple, and now Fitbit have raised the bar quite a bit.

I will say the GPS track was reasonably good; on trail runs and road runs, it accurately followed the path I actually took. (It doesn’t seem to do quite as well as a new Garmin, but it’s still perfectly usable and its distance totals added up to reasonably accurate numbers.)

Heart rate accuracy disappointed me, though. When I first got the watch, the heart rate tracking was abysmal. I sent a few emails to my contact at Una, and almost had to publish this review with very bad news about the watch’s accuracy, but then a firmware update for the Una watch popped up on my phone. I installed it, and then tried another test run or two, and the heart rate accuracy is much better. If you get the watch, make sure it’s updated to at least 1.6.0. 

That said, the update brought the heart rate accuracy to a level where I’d say it’s adequate, but it’s not good (and definitely not great). Its graph follows the ups and downs of my heart rate as measured by a chest strap, but sometimes the Una will spike and show a reading that’s significantly higher than my heart is actually beating. In the graph below, note the spike to around 165 when the true value was 155, and then later in the workout the Una watch detects another spike around 160 when my heart rate was actually around 145 and decreasing. (I saw similar anomalies in multiple workouts.)

The Una watch is a good start, but it’s not ready for everyone

In my time with the Una watch, many things made me happy. I still love the USB-C charging, and it was a delight to just plug it in to the same nightstand cable I normally use with my phone, no need to go looking for an adapter or dongle. 

I like the MIP screen, which was brilliant in the sunlight and had a serviceable backlight for use indoors or in the dark. The small number of workout profiles and the small number of glances and apps is just fine if you’re not asking for much from a watch, and I wasn’t. It’s minimalist, low-distraction, and there isn’t a single AI-based feature anywhere. A true breath of fresh air. 

And at $199, you’re not paying extra for these privileges. The price is just a little more than the new Fitbit Edge ($179.99), but less than a Coros Pace 4 ($249) or a Garmin 70 (also $249). The Una watch doesn’t have as many features or activities as these watches, but perhaps those pluses I mentioned make up for it.

The Una watch would be a good pick for someone who is excited about developing apps, wants a repairable watch, always loses charging adapters, or appreciates a minimalist approach. But would I recommend it for the average person who just wants a basic fitness watch? I’m not so sure. 

The flaky heart rate sensor disqualifies it for a wearer who wants a more accurate, modern watch. The MIP screen is going to look old and weird to people who have gotten used to brighter, clearer AMOLED screens. The lack of sleep tracking or other convenience metrics may be hard to take when plenty of watches have these features. 

So I like this watch today, with reservations, and I have high hopes for the future. If Una lives up to its vision, it’s going to be great to see replaceable components become available—perhaps there will be an option for an AMOLED screen for those who want it, and maybe there’s room for heart rate accuracy improvement in future firmware updates. 

But a lot depends on the company itself. “One watch for life” implies that the company stays around long enough to make more than one model. I’m also hopeful that the future offerings will match what people want, and that the watch and app will stay uncluttered and subscription-free. But surely there will be competing interests that the company has to balance as they grow (if they grow), so time will tell whether the reality lives up to the vision. That said, I am liking the vision a lot. 


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I’ve been using the new Fitbit Edge for a little over a week, and am happy to report that it’s quite good at its job. It shipped with more features than I expected (Google Maps directions were there from the jump) and corrects the missteps that Google made with the Fitbit Charge 6. After running the Fitbit Edge through its paces, here’s my breakdown of what works well, what doesn’t, and what I think of the device overall.

The Edge is the device I expected the Charge 6 to be

When I reviewed it in May 2025, I liked a lot about the Charge 6, but found it had a few serious flaws. Tightening the strap messed up its GPS readings (weird but true), and some of its features required a subscription (like the music controls that only worked with YouTube Music). Its promised side button wasn’t really a button, and didn’t even always work.

I’m happy to report that all of my biggest gripes have been fixed in the Fitbit Edge. Or to put it another way: the Edge is what the Charge should have been in the first place. 

The Fitbit Edge's heart rate and GPS sensors are impressively accurate

Accuracy tests are always one of my top priorities in testing, but honestly I wasn’t expecting much from this device. A Fitbit can still be successful in my eyes even if its heart rate sensor is only “good enough.” Nobody should expect lab-level precision from a Fitbit. 

Fitbit Edge graph
Fitbit Edge in purple, chest strap for reference in gray. Credit: Beth Skwarecki

But I was pleasantly surprised by just how capable the Edge is in this regard. It sometimes takes a few minutes to lock on to a heart rate signal (as most optical devices do), but after it does, it is spot-on—I think it might be in the running alongside the Apple Watch and high-end Garmins as one of the better heart rate wearables on the market. The Edge’s accuracy is notably better than the Fitbit Air's, even though they seem to share the same sensor hardware. 

Location accuracy is also quite good, only deviating slightly from a Garmin I tested alongside the Edge. It may not be the best out there, but it’s miles ahead of what the Charge 6 was able to do. 

The Fitbit Edge's music controls actually work

Playing a spooky audiobook with controls on my Fitbit Edge
Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The Fitbit Edge has real music controls, unlike the Charge 6. I can play something in Spotify or in Castro (my favorite podcast app) on my phone, and then control the audio from my wrist—and you no longer need to use YouTube Music or have a subscription to get this feature. 

You can now swap Fitbits in the app

When the Fitbit Air and the Google Health app first launched, it was possible to pair both a Fitbit and a Pixel Watch to the same phone, but not two Fitbits. That has finally changed: I was able to connect the Edge to my phone without losing my connection to the Air. It also works to swap seamlessly between the two Fitbits. For example, one night the Edge was low on battery, so I slept with the Air on, and then swapped back in the morning once the Edge was charged. The app happily showed my sleep data from the Air and my activity data from the Edge without my having to do mess around in the app. 

As a nice bonus, the charger for the Fitbit Edge is the same as for the Fitbit Air. (The chargers for the Pixel Watch and for the Fitbit Charge 6 are not compatible with the Edge.)

The Fitbit Edge fits better and looks nicer than the Charge 6

Fitbit Edge, side view on table
Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The Fitbit Edge is a similar size as the old Charge 6, but with noticeably more screen real estate. The strap fits pretty much the same way as a Pixel watch band—that is to say, normally, not with the strange hang-off-the-wrist stiffness of the Charge 6. 

The Fitbit Edge also has a physical button—not a haptic nub like the Charge 6, but an actual, physical button. And it even works (to return you to the home screen) nearly every time I press it. The Charge 6’s nub was not as reliable.

The Fitbit Edge still has two major flaws

Three views of the Fitbit Edge showing data
Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Overall, I’m quite happy with the Fitbit Edge. It’s much better than the Charge 6, and adds accuracy and a screen to the things I already liked about the Fitbit Air. But there are a few things I don’t totally love. 

One is that there is no NFC chipset, which means no option to use Google Pay. I don’t mind using my phone or card at checkouts (and I always carry my phone), so this isn’t a big deal for me, but I know a lot of folks love a wrist-based payment, and that’s missing from the Fitbit Edge. (Google reportedly said most Fitbit users didn’t actually use Google Pay, so they removed the functionality—presumably to fit in the other components while keeping the device small.) 

The other downside is, I hate to say it, the Google Health app. It’s OK, but I still find myself arguing with the AI when it assigns me workouts I never asked for, and I have to agree with the redditors who are commiserating about the lack of a “yesterday” view. (On the bright side, Google recently added a feature that lets you turn off the AI insights, which helps a lot.)

The bottom line

Overall, the Fitbit Edge is a great fitness tracker. It measures heart rate and running/walking mileage accurately; it can control music in a sensible way; and it looks good, feels good to wear, and works smoothly. The price also tracks: It’s definitely worth the $20 premium over the Charge 6, and it’s not quite double the price of the Air, which I think is fair. For anyone who doesn’t want a smartwatch or a running watch and will be satisfied with just “a Fitbit,” this one is pretty much perfect.


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Criminals are exploiting established customer accounts and familiar brands to steal money and personal information, according to TransUnion’s Fraud in the Age of Continuous Trust report. Eighty-one percent of suspected digital fraud in its network during the first half of 2026 occurred during account logins and financial transactions, highlighting risks that persist throughout a customer relationship.

Verifying someone’s identity does not establish whether every subsequent interaction can be trusted. Scammers can manipulate legitimate customers into authorizing fraudulent activity, while fabricated identities that pass onboarding checks can be used across multiple services to obtain credit or facilitate further fraud.

synthetic identity fraud risks

Percentage of business leaders who said their organizations are least prepared to manage each fraud type (Source: TransUnion)

A familiar name on the phone

Impersonation scams often begin with a message or call that appears to come from a bank, insurer or healthcare provider. Criminals disguise the sender’s identity and exploit the organization’s reputation to encourage a response.

The request may sound like a routine security procedure: confirm personal details, share a one-time passcode or reset account credentials. Following those instructions can help an attacker take over an account. Fraudsters may also impersonate legitimate representatives to persuade customers to redirect payments.

These exchanges can take place through communication networks outside a business’s direct control. They can shape a customer’s behavior before fraud checks have an opportunity to intervene.

Scams and authorized fraud were the most commonly cited leading source of business fraud losses, selected by 29% of surveyed fraud and risk decision-makers at large consumer-facing organizations across eight markets. Such schemes can involve manipulating a victim into authorizing fraudulent activity, including a transfer of money.

Fake identities spread across services

Criminals use exposed personal information and AI to construct convincing synthetic identities and fabricated documents. Data breaches provide authentic identity details that can help these creations pass verification.

Once accepted, a synthetic identity can be used across several services. A single identity might be used to obtain a buy now, pay later loan, open a mobile phone account with a handset lease, secure a credit card and create an online betting account.

That activity creates risks beyond the initial application. A fabricated identity that slips past onboarding controls can remain undetected as criminals exploit accounts and business processes.

US lenders had an estimated $2.4 billion in exposure to synthetic identity fraud risk at the end of June 2026. Auto lending accounted for the largest portion, at $1.5 billion. These estimates measure potential lender losses, instead of losses already incurred.

AI reduces the work behind an attack

AI can help criminal groups generate documents, write impersonation messages, create identities and target victims. Automating these tasks reduces the effort required to prepare, repeat and adapt a scheme.

The same operation can draw on stolen credentials, fabricated records and recognizable branding to approach people through different services. Successful attacks can extract funds, credit, merchandise or digital goods. Criminal networks can then move the proceeds through synthetic or legitimate accounts, transfers and resale channels.

Forty-two percent of surveyed business leaders said the increasing scale or sophistication of fraud was placing significant or severe pressure on their organizations.

Account recovery and service requests are also targets. Attackers increasingly seek to exploit secondary authentication processes to gain access to accounts as businesses strengthen login controls.

Regional fraud patterns

In Canada, criminals use stolen credentials, phishing and social engineering to access existing accounts, with logins accounting for the largest share of suspected fraud. In Europe, 88% of suspected digital fraud recorded in the company’s regional network occurred after account creation. UK business leaders most often identified scams and authorized fraud as their leading source of losses, and respondents in Spain identified first-party and third-party fraud as their leading categories.

Across Latin America, expanding mobile commerce and instant payments give criminals more opportunities to target customers, with phone scams the most commonly reported approach experienced by consumers who had been targeted. Account access dominated activity recorded for African clients, accounting for 94.3% of suspected digital fraud.

In Asia, mobile services and instant payments support schemes involving account compromise and manipulated transfers. Business leaders in the Philippines and India identified scams and authorized fraud as their leading source of fraud losses.


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Google has open-sourced the Elephant-Goldfish Model plugin, an internal tool that makes an AI coding agent write and defend a design document before it touches any code. The plugin hands that document to fresh AI sessions that have never seen the design conversation and tells them to find what is wrong with it.

Elephant-Goldfish Model plugin

The EGM plugin in a nutshell (Source: Google)

“AI-powered velocity is transformative; however, it has silently introduced a potential reliability crisis by also increasing the velocity of “slop,” bugs, and session context collapse. Generative AI tools excel at increasing coding speed, but pure speed without structured guardrails means we are often auto-scaling our mistakes rather than simply writing code faster. We need a paradigm shift, aligning the human need for system comprehension with AI’s capacity for execution,” wrote the Elephant-Goldfish Model team.

Long memory, no memory

The Elephant is a long-running session that holds the whole project in view: the architecture, the intent, and the small decisions made along the way. It writes no code. Its job is to interview the developer, argue over choices, and keep the record.

Each Goldfish is stateless, meaning it starts with no memory of anything that came before. Google’s reasoning is that a reviewer who sat out the design conversation doesn’t carry its blind spots.

Three checks before any code

The plugin runs in three phases, each a command. In egm-brainstorm, the developer and the Elephant work under a no-code rule, debating options and testing assumptions. In egm-draft, they produce a Markdown design document covering the problem, the technical plan, the alternatives considered, and an implementation plan that names the specific files to change.

The Goldfish arrive in egm-review. One reads the full document and has to explain the design back to the Elephant. If it gets the plan wrong, the document counts as ambiguous and goes back for more drafting. Several more Goldfish then act as hostile reviewers hunting edge cases, hidden dependencies, and logical gaps, and their objections return to the Elephant to resolve. A last Goldfish makes a go/no-go call on whether file paths, data structures, and function signatures are all present and unambiguous.

Security flaws are not on the reviewers’ list by name. A team that wants a threat review of a design still has to set one up, though the rules and reviewer personas are customizable, so adding a security-minded Goldfish is within reach.

Thousands of daily users at Google

The repository ships with Markdown rules, defined subagent personas (the roles each AI reviewer plays), and review workflows. The plugin works inside the Antigravity development environment, and Google says support for other environments is coming.

Google says thousands of Googlers use the plugin every day to ship production code. It’s available for free on GitHub.

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