Daily AI Briefing
The latest breakthroughs in AI — aggregated from top sources and paired with original analysis.
Spotify co-CEO Alex Norström confirmed on this week's earnings call that the company is trying to catch Spotify Family plan users who don't actually live together with a new QR code verification method that requires scanning the plan manager's phone. TechCrunch reports that in response to a question about the "crackdown," he called it a "routine improvement" instead: This is not as much a crackdown as it is actually a routine improvement of our verification methods for our Family Plan. Family Pl
An Xbox Elite controller. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Fortune dropped a bombshell report on the future of gaming this week. According to the publication's Microsoft insiders, the next Xbox is projected to cost between $1,200 and $1,800 when it arrives in 2028. My first reaction: The next Xbox is dead on arrival. It's DOA. My second thought: Microsoft knows people won't pay that much. It couldn't possibly charge that much money if it wants next gen to be a success. "I would
Should OpenAI command an over $1 trillion valuation with this round, it would break records as the most highly valued private company ever.
Video generators predict every pixel. A new family of AI world models predicts only what matters, and it is learning physics… Continue reading on Towards AI »
Canva is diving even deeper into AI with the launch of an image generation model that competes directly with those from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. The model, called Canva Craft, uses a two-stage architecture that allows it to plan a design before generating an image, allowing for "greater precision, consistency and control," according to an announcement on Thursday. Canva Craft can generate images at up to 2K resolution and in more than 30 aspect ratios. In addition to generating social medi
Datacenter and chip costs fueled sharp decrease in AI sector although non-AI stocks still had a strong showing The latest shudder for stocks in the AI industry pulled markets lower worldwide on Thursday, while oil prices hit their highest levels since May on worries about the war with Iran. The S&P 500 fell 1.2% for its worst day since July, while the Nasdaq composite tumbled 2.6%. The weakness for tech stocks was so overwhelming that it masked strength for the rest of the US market, in which th
Demand for new PCs took a hit after months of price hikes, with Counterpoint Research reporting global PC shipments fell 21 percent year-over-year in Q3 2026. That's in line with earlier reports from IDC and Omdia. It's not just PCs, either - that same quarter, smartphone shipments also hit a 14-year low. Counterpoint linked the decline in PC shipments to higher component prices. Up until Q2 2026, PC shipments had been growing for over two years straight. But over the last several months, RAM, S
Every company is suddenly an AI company. Compute is an asset. Cars are flying. We’ve been promised robots — again. It’s time again to dig through earnings reports, listen to investor calls, and call out the latest wins and losses from around the tech sector and what it means for where the companies go next. Sure, let’s smoosh SpaceX and Tesla together, who cares Just because Tesla’s Optimus is in production doesn’t mean it’s actually ready In Meta’s version of the future, I’ll have my Muse
Meta has tweaked its business terms to remove language suggesting that it could freely train its AI models on news sites, like The Verge - but legal experts say these changes aren't enough to address their concerns. "This does nothing to restrict the 'associated with your products or services' [language] that would let Meta scrape entire sites," James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and information law at Cornell Law School, tells Nieman Lab. Initially, Meta's new terms for business accounts
Meta has re-enabled Muse sharing after security researchers had reported that public conversation links could be easy to find. The researchers said they had been able to find Muse pages like a marketing company's internal revenue review and a small business owner's loan application. Researchers at Claroc reported earlier this week that Muse the web addresses for shared conversations from Muse were named after a conversation's title and written into public DNS. Ars Technica said Tuesday that Meta
On October 13th, Brendan Carr's FCC gave itself a new power - it can block gadgets for containing any computer chip made by any company on its list of potential threats to national security. Today, it's exercising that power for the first time, blocking two gadgets because they contain "foreign surveillance chips," the FCC claims. The agency doesn't say which specific gadgets it blocked, and it didn't immediately respond to our request for comment, but it does name the "surveillance chip": it's
Mars not depicted. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Oh sure, SpaceX's credit risk is pretty high because it's about to borrow another $40 billion to spend on Nvidia chips, but who cares about that? SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss a merger! The degree to which you find this merger compelling likely has to do with the degree to which you believe Elon Musk about wanting to go to Mars, or "spread the light of consciousness," as he put it in this week's Sp
It looks exactly like what you’d expect a Teenage Engineering guitar amp to look like. | Image: Teenage Engineering Teenage Engineering is branching out into instrument amps with the previously leaked EP-35, a multi-input, multi-instrument, battery-powered amp with built-in effects. The back of the unit has a line-in port, as well as a 1/4-inch guitar input and an XLR input for mics, including mics that require phantom power. You can also stream audio to it via Bluetooth and connect multiple E
The new feature allows agents to log into a customer's personal accounts while still protecting the private credentials that secure those accounts.
Point Claude Code at an app and it pulls out how a feature works and writes its own version. Continue reading on Towards AI »
OpenAI is launching its decision model to the world. Can it compete with the original Jev?
Canva is making its new image model available to all users, promising better, more customizable performance at lower costs.
Microsoft’s new AI diagnostic system beat generalist doctors on hard cases, according to a study in Science. But most of the improvement seems to come from the AI models underneath, not from Microsoft’s system itself.
Harness² edits the prompts, memory, tools and guardrails around a model instead of retraining it. Here is how the loop works, where the… Continue reading on Towards AI »
The current US administration is an obstacle, but public demand for protection will ultimately prevail Organisations around the world scrambled on Thursday to fix critical flaws in PHP, the software that powers much of the web. The vulnerabilities could allow attackers to take control of affected servers. Some websites were taken offline as a precaution while fixes were installed. The paradox is that while AI helped researchers uncover the flaw, it also threatens to accelerate the ability to exp
Websites around the world have been taken offline as governments and businesses scramble to fix a flaw in the computer language PHP. There are fears that hackers could exploit the vulnerability to steal data, take control of web servers and disrupt services. Millions of attempts have already been made to attack websites since the issue with the programming language was revealed, cybersecurity companies have said. Michael Safi speaks to global technology reporter Aisha Down Continue reading...
Microsoft points the blame for ConnectWise's breach at a China-aligned hacker, which relied on AI agents to rapidly hack into thousands of its customers.
Websites around the world have been taken offline as governments and businesses scramble to fix a flaw in the computer language PHP. There are fears that hackers could exploit the vulnerability to steal data, take control of web servers and disrupt services. Millions of attempts have already been made to attack websites since the issue with the programming language was revealed, cybersecurity companies have said. Michael Safi speaks to global technology reporter Aisha Down – watch on YouTube Co
A seven-star benchmark measures how much code AI agents add. The results say your leaderboard is missing the column that costs you most. Continue reading on Towards AI »
The ride-share giant previously deployed a much smaller pilot for ChatGPT Work but is now taking the enterprise agent company-wide.
Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström explains why the rise of AI agents could be good news for the music service.
Equating to the loss of 5% of its 93,000 global staff, job cuts come as bank announces jump in quarterly profits Barclays is cutting 5,000 jobs as part of wider cost-saving plans that its bosses say are being driven by advances in AI. The job cuts will mean losing about 5% of the bank’s 93,000 global staff, with executives confirming they had already cut 1,000 workers since the start of the year. Continue reading...
I’ve been banging the drum about these vulnerabilities for years. It will take more than a handful of exhausted developers to keep us safe Parts of the internet are going dark. In the Netherlands, government websites, including its digital ID login service, have become unavailable. Finland has taken public services offline, and Wikimedia, the organisation behind Wikipedia, has switched off some of its systems too. This sounds like the results of a cyber-attack. In most instances, however, the pe
DeepSeek has reportedly raised $15 billion in one of China's largest funding rounds, just days after the U.S. ordered federal agencies to remove its technology over national security concerns.
The Audacity is a fearless satire taking on Silicon Valley’s ‘egomaniac weirdos’. Its creator and stars talk ayahuasca ceremonies, mining kids for data – and punching CEOs Showrunner Jonathan Glatzer wanted the tagline of his latest TV creation to be: “We’re so fucked.” He laughs. “Sadly it got rejected by the network. Hey, maybe I can use it for season two!” The show in question is The Audacity, his darkly comic drama about AI tech titans. Instead, it went with the more PG tagline “Move fast an
Datacenters, AI and distaste for the billionaires developing it has soured Americans on big tech How will Trump’s mass deportation agenda shape the US midterm elections? Our reporters answer your questions The campaign ad begins with a clear, idyllic stream that suddenly turns sludge-brown as two concrete datacenters slam on to its banks. Another facility thuds down on a peaceful suburban park, and two more crush-green pastures as an ominous soundtrack to a disaster movie blares. “They’re comi
Company ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push Behind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone. After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – all that
Exclusive: Nvidia, Microsoft and Cisco taskforce urges ministers to offer areas greater benefits from tech infrastructure amid fears of US-style opposition AI companies have told ministers they have 12 months to head off public opposition to datacentres in the UK or risk US-style protests that could threaten their construction. Successive dry summers and rising energy bills are increasing public scrutiny of plans for the huge computer warehouses that are used to train and run AI models, says a s
The director has turned Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel about an ailing adolescent and her glitchy robot friend into a thought-provoking film. What do the pair think this story says about tech, love and grief? In the wings of the London film festival, a group of young influencers are discussing their personal highlights. Klara and the Sun, says one, and her colleagues agree. It’s not just that the film is still so fresh in their memory, or that they have gathered today to meet its creators a
Author withdrawn from France’s Prix Goncourt last month has repeatedly denied using artificial intelligence to write novel The publisher of top-selling Haitian Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien, who was removed from France’s most prestigious literary prize list last month, has confirmed the author used artificial intelligence to help write his novel C’était ça ou mourir (It Was Either That or Die). Orélien has denied allegations that he used AI on his breakthrough novel and, last week, Canadian p
Uber is rolling out ChatGPT Work to more than 30,000 employees, helping teams research, analyze data, create presentations, and complete complex workflows.
On Tuesday, I published a story about how YouTube appeared to be testing hiding the dislike button on videos, with at least two users on X sharing screenshots of the dislike button moved into the three-dot menu. But a YouTube spokesperson, in a Wednesday statement to The Verge, confirmed that YouTube is "not testing hiding the dislike button on YouTube for users." However, YouTube is introducing a new UI for creators on their uploaded videos where the dislike button will be moved. Here's the ful
For years, Elon Musk has been making big promises to Tesla owners about unsupervised autonomous driving and the ability to add their own vehicles to the company's robotaxi fleet. During today's third-quarter earnings call, the company finally gave itself a deadline. According to Tesla VP for Autonomous Driving Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla owners will be able to add their own vehicles to the company's robotaxi fleet in the second quarter of 2027. Here's his exact quote (emphasis ours): Like I mentione
Your coding agent’s token bill is about to become rounding error. DeepSeek V4.1-Flash-1017, released on 17 October 2026, resolves a… Continue reading on Towards AI »