This week in the 802
1. Colchester: Vermont Information Processing is laying off 66 people. Its statement doesn't mention AI.
VIP, the Colchester company that makes software for beverage distributors, told staff about the cuts in company meetings Tuesday, Oct. 20. It filed the legally required notice with the state Department of Labor, and the department's database showed the number Wednesday morning: 66. The company had about 600 employees in Vermont.
Here's the timeline. Private equity firm Warburg Pincus bought VIP last year in a deal Reuters reported at $1 billion, which paid out big checks to employee-owners. In April, the company held an "AI Week" to train staff in AI software and prompting, with cash prizes. Last month it bought Encompass Technologies, a Colorado beverage software firm, and pitched the deal as a way to "accelerate AI innovation."
One employee told Seven Days there's been "a big push company-wide in the last couple months to at all times try to teach different AI tools how to do your job." Another said she was told in a meeting of about 10 minutes that she was laid off immediately, that she'd stay paid with health benefits through December, and that her login was revoked minutes later.
What VIP has said: the cuts follow "a review of our organizational structure and business priorities" as part of a move to a "Product-Led Organization." What it hasn't said: that AI caused the cuts. A Norwich University computer science professor told WCAX, "It's hard to know the interplay of the acquisition versus AI, because both are disruptive."
What we still don't know: which jobs, and whether there's added severance. The laid-off employee expected severance details later this month.
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/uncategorized/a-colchester-tech-firm-has-been-leaning-into-ai-on-tuesday-it-announced-layoffs/
https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2026-10-21/more-than-60-lose-jobs-colchester-software-firm-ai-push
https://www.wcax.com/2026/10/22/vip-layoffs-raise-questions-about-ais-role-changing-vermont-workforce/
2. Your doctor's office: the state is putting $5.2 million toward AI note-takers.
Out of Vermont's first-year federal Rural Health Transformation money, $5.2 million is set aside for grants to help providers buy or lease AI transcription and scribe tools. These listen to the visit and draft the clinical notes. The line showed up in a program update to the Legislature's Health Reform Oversight Committee on Oct. 22.
The state's funding notice says the tools automate "an average of over two hours of daily administrative work" and that Vermont providers and patients report "high satisfaction" where they're already in use. Those are the state's claims, not a study we've seen. Grants run Aug. 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2027.
If your clinician starts the visit by asking whether it's OK to record, this is probably why. It's fair to ask where the recording goes and who keeps it.
http://www.ljfo.vermont.gov/assets/Meetings/Health-Reform-Oversight-Committee/2026-10-22/HROC-10.22.26_RHT.pdf
https://www.vermontbusinessregistry.com/bidAttachments/73728/AI_Scribe_RHT_001_Final.pdf
3. Montpelier: an economist says the AI fight is labor versus capital.
About 100 people came to St. Augustine Catholic Church on Oct. 16 for a panel on AI and Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on the subject. UVM economist Jon Erickson put it plainly: "If AI increases productivity while the gains flow disproportionately between the people who own the technology, the intellectual property, and the financial assets, then AI may make an economy richer while simultaneously making the distribution of that wealth more unequal."
St. Michael's computer science director Greta Pangborn had a practical one. She made her students read the terms of service for these tools, and said Google Gemini's make it "absolutely clear" it isn't promising the answers are correct.
A Dartmouth labor economist made the same point as Erickson to WCAX this week, about VIP: "More productivity is more growth... But the question is, how does that pie get sliced?"
https://thebridgevt.org/2026/10/ai-struggle-about-labor-vs-capital-says-economist-during-ai-discussion/
If it lands here
Google says Gemini is getting tools aimed at small business owners, rolling out "in the coming days" to all Gemini app users (announced Oct. 20). There's a business landing page, a way to save your brand style so images stay on-brand, and help turning messy spreadsheets and receipts into charts. It can also connect to apps like Shopify, Wix, Canva, Xero, Zoho, and Dropbox, plus Google Business Profile and Google Ads.
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/new-tools-small-business-owners/
The number
$5.2 million. That's the first-year federal money Vermont set aside for AI scribe tools at health care providers, out of roughly $195 million in year-one Rural Health Transformation funds.
http://www.ljfo.vermont.gov/assets/Meetings/Health-Reform-Oversight-Committee/2026-10-22/HROC-10.22.26_RHT.pdf
Try this: before you connect an AI tool to your bookkeeping, store, or website, write two lists. What it can see, and what it can't. Then connect only what's on the first list.
Skip this: announcing big changes to staff without the basics. VIP's meetings didn't give a headcount. The state database did, the next morning.
Also in the pile
Vermont Tech Jam: Saturday, Oct. 24, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Hula in Burlington. Free. Dartmouth's Hany Farid talks deepfakes at 1 p.m.
https://techjamvt.com/
Seven Days profiled Farid this week, including why finding no sign of a fake isn't proof that something is real. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/tech/dartmouths-hany-farid-confronts-the-rise-of-ai-generated-fakes/
Statehouse: the Legislature's IT oversight committee, which posted the state's Anthropic agreement, meets next on Oct. 29. https://legislature.vermont.gov/committee/document/2026/345/Date/10-7-2026
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From Wallingford. Drafted with tools, edited here. If a fact is wrong, hello@aiinthe802.com.
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