The Future of Work, Decoded. Recruiting, lead gen & HR software, AI like Claude & Grok Bot, + robotics news. ➡️ Submit a tool: workinsiders.com/submit
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That old Android phone in your drawer can now walk.
UCLA's RoMeLa lab built PhoneBot, a 48 cm humanoid that uses a smartphone as its brain, camera and balance sensor.
The lab's parts list comes to about $443, not counting the phone.
They ran it on a 2017 Honor 9 and three prepaid phones that cost about $50 to $80.
The paper lists comparable small research humanoids at $3,500 to $13,800.
It has no arms. It was trained to walk on flat ground only.
The CAD files and parts list are free for noncommercial use.
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Video and research: UCLA Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa), Ruochen Hou, Quanyou Wang, Daniel Koh and Dennis Hong.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2610.08737
Build files and parts list: phonebot.dev
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25% of recruiting, lead generation and HR tools with AI charge extra for some of it.
We reviewed 1,169 recruiting, lead generation and HR tools. 57% document at least one AI feature.
Of those 662 tools, 78 keep AI on a higher plan than the cheapest one. Another 87 sell it as a paid add-on.
The starting price won't show you that. Tools that gate AI on a higher plan list a median starting price of $55 a month. Tools that include AI on every plan list $59.
ATS is worse than average. 21% of ATS platforms with AI sell some of it as an add-on. Across the directory it's 13%.
The add-ons aren't cheap. Analysis cited by L.E.K. Consulting puts AI add-ons at 30% to 110% above the base price.
So before you ask about price, ask which plan each AI feature sits on.
workinsiders.com/recruiting-…
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Fathom vs Granola. Two AI note takers. One joins your call. One doesn't.
Fathom sends a bot into Zoom, Meet or Teams. Bot-free capture is in beta, Mac only.
Granola never joins the call. It listens to your device audio on desktop, iOS and Android.
Fathom Free keeps unlimited recordings. Granola Basic is free too, but shows only 30 days of notes.
Granola deletes audio after transcribing. Fathom keeps recordings and clips to share.
The cheapest paid plan is Granola Business at $14/user/mo, billed monthly. Fathom Team is $15/user/mo annually, with a 2-seat minimum.
Need recordings and CRM field sync? Pick Fathom.
Want no bot in the room? Pick Granola.
workinsiders.com/compare/fat…
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A former Boston Dynamics engineer just put a price on a home robot.
Voxel, from Tuesday Labs, costs about $20,000.
It tidies rooms, finds lost items, fetches things and waters plants.
A $200 refundable deposit holds one. US deliveries are expected in 2028.
Here's the catch. Tuesday Labs calls today's unit a prototype. It says the robot will be substantially redesigned before it ships.
Would you put $200 down?
tuesdaylabs.com/reserve
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Gong has been named a Leader in Gartner's 2026 Magic Quadrant for Revenue Action Orchestration, for the second year running.
Gartner evaluated 13 vendors and named 4 Leaders. Gong says it placed highest on Ability to Execute and furthest on Completeness of Vision.
Gong also cites customer results shared at its own conference. It says Cisco teams saw roughly 26% higher win rates, AT&T Business saw 54% more rep productivity, and Experian saw 25% higher win rates.
Those are Gong's numbers, not Gartner's.
An MQ placement helps you build a shortlist. It doesn't tell you what you'll pay.
Gong publishes no seat price. Pricing is quote-based, with a per-user license plus a platform fee that grows with your user count.
Get the full quote before you compare.
Gong pricing and alternatives: workinsiders.com/tools/gong/
Source: Gong
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Accenture sells AI to the world. For its own staff, it now funds $29 a month of Claude per person.
Anything above that has to be billed to a project or team budget. That's per an internal memo reported by 404 Media.
Some employees said they were spending $500 to $1,000 a month, mostly on Claude Code.
Accenture told Forbes it isn't a firm limit on access.
Claude Enterprise lists at $20 a seat, plus usage at API rates. The seat isn't the real bill. Usage is.
What Claude actually costs: workinsiders.com/tools/claud…
Source: 404 Media
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Robot security dogs are now patrolling apartment complexes in Atlanta.
Undaunted, an Atlanta company, builds them. A night patrol clip of them pulled over 2 million impressions on X this week.
The price is public. $3,333 a month gets you two robot guards, two charging stations and monitoring 8 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The founders say the robots are not AI. A human drives them remotely.
The CEO told Urbanize Atlanta they're close to 90 robots deployed.
Pricing: getundaunted.com/pricing
Video: @mattvanswol
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xAI's own recruiting team runs Grok Bot with four bots and one rule.
Preppy drops one Slack note right before an interview. It pulls the candidate's context from Notion, LinkedIn and the ATS.
Pulse drafts the scorecard from the interview transcript. It asks you follow-up questions, then submits it to the ATS.
Scout learns from hundreds of past hired and rejected candidates. It sources new ones overnight and drafts the outreach sequences.
eVal finds where candidates fail in the interview loop. It turns that into questions for the recruiter screen.
The rule is simple. A human approves the send.
The Recruiting Coordinator template on the marketplace works the same way. It "never emails a candidate without you."
Source: Holly Dyche's Grok Bot for Recruiting guide, Sep 24.
x.ai/bot/guides/grok-bot-for…
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Greenhouse says AI made hiring worse. Now it's pitching a fix.
Here is what Greenhouse cites. 4 in 5 job seekers use AI. 86% of U.S. recruiters say at least half of applications are AI-written. Fewer than 7% of applicants ever get an interview.
The new Orchestrated Hiring Ecosystem puts sourcing, Voice AI first interviews, scheduling, fraud checks and the ATS in one system.
Sourcing is still in closed beta.
Suite vs. best-of-breed just got a lot more interesting.
greenhouse.com/newsroom/gree…
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Metaview just pushed its AI recruiting agents deeper into Workday.
The Application Review Agent now reviews and ranks inbound applicants. Then it syncs advance and reject decisions straight into Workday.
Interview notes auto-fill Workday scorecards using your existing templates.
Workday approvals, rejection emails, dispositions and audit trails keep running. Workday stays the system of record.
If you're on Workday, you no longer have to rip out the ATS to get agents.
metaview.ai/resources/blog/m…
Made with AI
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Tau Robotics is running what it calls the world's only humanoid cleaning service, in San Francisco.
The robots dust, wipe surfaces, clean toilets, vacuum and mop. A visit usually means two humanoids, dropped off with a supervisor.
They are not fully autonomous. Human operators steer them remotely and decide when the AI takes over, and one person stays on site.
Every cleaning is recorded, and Tau keeps the footage to train its models.
So this is not a cleaning job going away. It is turning into robot operation, supervision and data work.
Access is invite-only for now.
tau-robotics.com/
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Attio just rebuilt its CRM so AI agents can query it in SQL, the same way your analysts do.
CEO Nicolas Sharp (@nicolasosharp) calls it a hybrid architecture built for people and agents in equal measure.
The SQL Engine lets agents query millions of records and relationships in one go. SQL also runs inside Workflows to trigger actions.
Data Connectors give Hex, Looker, Metabase, dbt and more a live, read-only, Postgres-compatible endpoint. No exports.
Agent Scale is built for hundreds of millions of records, with the same permissions as the rest of Attio.
Activities, in beta, turns support chats, social DMs and product events into structured data.
SQL questions in Ask Attio are on all plans. SQL in the API, MCP and Workflows, plus Data Connectors, is Enterprise.
More on Attio: workinsiders.com/tools/attio…
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Recruiting, HR and sales tool makers: your MCP server can now be a Grok Bot plugin.
xAI opened a submission page for its Grok Bot marketplace.
You can submit a plugin or an MCP server.
Approved listings reach Grok Bot and Cursor users. Grok itself is marked "coming soon."
The form is short. It asks for an org handle, your website, a square logo and where you want to be listed.
Every submission gets reviewed before it hits the marketplace.
If your ATS, sourcing or sales tool already ships an MCP, this is a new place to get listed.
x.ai/bot/marketplace/submit-…
Made with AI
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Workday just put an always-on recruiting agent and a reusable candidate profile on stage at Rising.
Talent Acquisition Agent watches open roles and flags the ones at risk of missing their fill date.
It works across Workday Recruiting, HiredScore, Paradox, native Workday skills and connected sourcing providers.
Recruiters get qualified candidates and their potential gaps. Outreach still needs recruiter approval before anything is sent.
Early adopters can use its autopilot capabilities today. General availability is planned for early 2027.
Workday Candidate Profile lets job seekers save their information once and reuse it across Workday-hosted career sites.
Roughly 80% of standard fields come prefilled, and candidates can apply from their phone with an email and a one-time code.
Workday says Candidate Profile does not rank, recommend or reject anyone. It is expected to be generally available to Workday Recruiting customers in early 2027.
Source: Workday.
More on Workday: workinsiders.com/tools/workd…
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Recruiters building with Grok Bot now have their own group chat on X.
Grok Bot launched curated X Communities. You apply to join role-based group chats, then share what you're working on and learn from others using Grok Bot.
There's a Recruiting chat. The others are GTM, Product, Marketing, Engineering and Design.
Apply here: x.ai/bot/community
h/t @poteto, who works on Grok Bot at SpaceXSI, for sharing it.
Need setups to bring to the chat? We list 56 Grok bots for recruiting: workinsiders.com/ai-agents-f…
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Tracker just relaunched its brand and put TrackerAI agents on the agency desk.
TrackerAI pairs EVA, an AI assistant for routine check-ins, with five agents: Alignment Scorer, AI Screener, Resume Scrubber, Format Template and Resume Summary.
The agents take on the work between a resume arriving and a recruiter picking up the phone.
Tracker says it will add new agents regularly. It also has plugins and plain-language report requests.
Sourcing, placements, compliance, timesheets and billing all sit on one record.
"AI is only as useful as the data underneath it," said CTO Mark Hodgkinson.
"Recruitment is still won by people," said CEO and founder Andy Jones.
It's on show at Staffing World in Denver, Oct 12 to 14, booth 817.
Source: Tracker, via Business Wire.
More on Tracker: workinsiders.com/tools/track…
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SAP just put recruiting AI agents inside SmartRecruiters for SuccessFactors.
The 2H 2026 release went to preview today. Production is set for Nov 13 to 14.
Winston Screen narrows big applicant pools to a shortlist, using screening rules the customer configures.
Winston Match results are now reportable, so recruiters can see the reasoning behind how the AI ranked candidates.
Winston Companion watches pipelines and books interviews on its own.
Winston Interview runs an AI-led screening conversation.
Then an Interview Summary Agent posts a structured summary straight to the candidate's profile.
The agents cover screening, scheduling and interview notes. Recruiters set the rules.
Source: SAP, via Rebecca Carr, president of HCM Products at SAP SuccessFactors and CEO of SmartRecruiters.
More on SmartRecruiters: workinsiders.com/tools/smart…
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Your Grok Bot now has its own email address.
It can use it to sign up for services, contact businesses for you, or schedule time with someone.
For recruiters, that could mean candidate outreach and interview booking from the bot's inbox.
For sales, it could mean prospect follow-ups sent from the bot's inbox instead of yours.
See what Grok Bot can do: workinsiders.com/tools/grok-…
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