Julie Chang

And Dow is cutting 4,500 employees as part of a cost-saving program that will lean on AI.

The chemicals company said it's embarking on a program dubbed Transform to Outperform, which would employ AI and automation to reduce expenditure and capitalize growth and productivity.

It said the program will yield an additional $2 billion in operating earnings before interest, depreciation, and amortization.

These cuts come as Dow's quarterly loss widened due to increased costs and lower revenue, and they will lead to one-time charges between $1.1 and $1.5 billion.

And that's your TMB Tech Minute.

We'll be back this afternoon with more.

Custom content from WSJ is a unit of the Wall Street Journal Advertising Department.

The Wall Street Journal News Organization was not involved in the creation of this content.

Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, January 28th.

I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal.

Google will pay $135 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged the company programmed its Android operating system to illegally collect consumers' cellular data.

Under the proposed settlement filed in a federal court yesterday, class members will receive monetary payments.

The company would also be required to change its Google Play Terms of Service and the setup screens for new Android mobile devices in order to disclose its data practices and get users' consent to use their data.

Google said the case misrepresents industry practices.

Fidelity Investments has announced it will launch a stablecoin, becoming one of the nation's first mainstream investment companies to issue its own crypto dollar.

The company said today its Fidelity Digital Dollar will be available to both individual investors and institutions in the coming weeks.

Last summer, Congress passed legislation paving the way to bring stablecoins into the financial mainstream.

In earnings, Meta reported record sales in the fourth quarter and a massive increase in projected 2026 spending, a sign the company has no plans to slow down its ambitious AI expansion.

The company said capital spending would reach up to $135 billion this year, about 20% higher than Wall Street expectations.

Meanwhile, Microsoft posted revenue of over $81 billion for its second fiscal quarter and blew past net income expectations, making $38.5 billion.