In March 2025, says Lizzie Dearden in The i Paper, Norwegian teenager Johannes Natland received a message from a boy he’d met in a children’s care facility: “Jappning [murder] in England”, it read, along with the offer of £21,000 and a promise that “nothing can go wrong”. Within 10 minutes, Natland had indicated interest, and by the following day he’d obtained an emergency passport. Two days after the original message, which had arrived shortly after his 18th birthday, he boarded a flight to the UK where he was set to carry out an assassination on behalf of the Foxtrot network: a powerful Swedish crime group acting as a proxy for the Iranian state.

Border Force officers at Manchester Airport were wary of Natland’s claim that he was visiting gamer friends – with a one-way ticket and no hotel reservation – and refused him entry to the country. But he was released on bail until a flight could return him. His online handler, “Agent 47”, sent him straight to a hotel to collect cash, then handed over logistics to a British-based affiliate of the Foxtrot network. This affiliate, codenamed “1”, directed Natland to a Huddersfield housing estate, where a plastic bag containing two handguns and ammunition was hidden at the base of a tree. Back at the hotel that evening, Agent 47 messaged to say: “We have much to do tomorrow.” Thankfully, nothing came of it – after a tip-off from Norwegian police, armed officers burst into Natland’s room at 5:15am and arrested him. But it’s not the first time the Foxtrot network has sought to lure in vulnerable children, some as young as 15, with promises of large sums to carry out murder. And it won’t be the last.

While the threat of AI looms large over most industries, says Nicole Mowbray in The Telegraph, top executive PAs have nothing to fear. Dealing with their demanding bosses could never be replicated by a machine. One PA recalls being phoned by her Russian oligarch employer at 2am and told to call the front desk of the Caribbean hotel where he was staying to get the guests next door to quieten down. Other typical (analogue) jobs include walking dogs, getting clothes dry-cleaned, securing favourite tables at favourite restaurants when they’re fully booked, and, in one case, going to the boss’s 90-year-old mother’s home and giving her a bath.

Their strongest defence against the bots is their “personal touch”. The longtime executive assistant to a multimillionaire British businessman says she knows her boss so well that she can, with total confidence, choose his lunch, buy presents for him to give, order wine when his cellar runs low, and protect him from having to encounter people he doesn’t want to see at both social and work events. Plus, complete discretion – never a given with a chatbot – allows these top dogs to “bare all without anxiety”. The EA to a multimillionaire manufacturing tycoon does all his personal banking, attends confidential board meetings and knows the codes to the burglar alarms at his various properties. Another was trusted with purchasing two Cartier Love bangles on her boss’s behalf and having them dispatched to a woman who was not his wife. “It’s really none of my business to judge what he gets up to,” she says. “It is my job to be trustworthy.”