AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.
Apple just announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC25) will run online from June 9 to 13. The conference will be completely free for all developers and spotlight the next generation of Apple software, with a limited in-person event kicking off at Apple Park on opening day.
OpenAI just expanded roles for three key executives to better bridge frontier research and mass-market products. Longtime researcher Mark Chen stepped in as Chief Research Officer to tie lab breakthroughs directly to product development, while COO Brad Lightcap broadened his operational oversight and Julia Villagra took on Chief People Officer.
Perplexity just proposed an ambitious bid to acquire TikTok, promising to rebuild its recommendation system from scratch in US data centers and make the code open-source. The plan also includes adding AI search and video citations. Why it matters: With TikTok valued at up to $50B, the pitch faces massive financial hurdles and may simply be another wild PR stunt.
OpenAI is facing a fresh GDPR privacy complaint after ChatGPT told a Norwegian man that he was a convicted murderer serving 21 years for killing his own children. Privacy group Noyb filed the complaint with Norway's data watchdog, arguing that hallucinating defamatory claims alongside real personal data violates European privacy law, and a tiny disclaimer is not enough.
Apple is replacing its AI and Siri lead John Giannandrea with Vision Pro head Mike Rockwell. The shakeup comes after Apple delayed generative AI Siri upgrades to next year, with CEO Tim Cook reportedly losing confidence in the AI team's execution. Hardware lead Paul Meade will take over the Vision Pro group.
Tesla just secured a commercial ride-hailing permit in California, clearing the path to compete head-on with Uber and Lyft. The catch is that human drivers are still mandatory—the permit doesn't cover autonomous vehicles. Tesla plans to have employees drive other staff first before rolling the app-based service out to the public.
Nvidia and Elon Musk's xAI just officially joined the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), a coalition led by Microsoft, BlackRock, GIP, and Abu Dhabi's MGX. The alliance aims to mobilize $30 billion in private capital to build massive data centers and energy infrastructure, primarily in the US. Why it matters: Surging compute and power demands are pushing fierce tech rivals into unprecedented infrastructure alliances.
Robert Legato, the VFX innovator behind Titanic and Avatar, has joined Stability AI as chief pipeline architect. The move reunites him with board member James Cameron to bridge generative AI tools with visual effects pipelines. Legato says he wants to champion an artist-first approach that empowers filmmakers rather than replaces them.
Authors just moved for summary judgment against Meta in a California federal court, alleging the company torrented terabytes of pirated books to train its AI models and uploaded data back to the P2P network while leeching. The plaintiffs mocked Meta's justification as a "Bob Dylan defense"—stealing a little lands you in jail, while stealing a lot makes you king.
Rivian just rolled out an update for its second-generation vehicles, bringing hands-free highway driving to 135,000 miles of roads across the US and Canada. The system monitors driver gaze via an infrared rearview mirror camera, with plans to expand road coverage and add eyes-off capabilities in 2026.
Niantic just announced a massive restructuring, selling its gaming division—including Pokémon GO and Pikmin Bloom—to mobile giant Scopely in a deal valued at around $3.85 billion. The company is parting ways with game operations to focus entirely on spatial computing and AI through Niantic Spatial.
Nvidia's biggest event of the year is underway, with CEO Jensen Huang scheduled to deliver his keynote on Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT. Viewers can stream the presentation for free on Nvidia's website or YouTube without registering, with updates expected on Blackwell Ultra and the next-gen Rubin architecture.
Cartesia just raised a $64M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins to build out its real-time voice AI platform. Alongside the funding, the startup officially launched Sonic 2.0, its next-gen voice model aimed at cutting latency and powering the next wave of interactive voice apps.
Manus AI just partnered with Alibaba's Qwen team to integrate its viral general AI agent with Qwen's open-source models and domestic computing infrastructure. After facing massive hype and severe site crashes following its launch last week, Manus is leaning on Alibaba's resources to manage traffic surges and scale beyond its current invite-only rollout.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that AI will write 90% of software code within three to six months and practically all of it in a year. The bold forecast suggests software engineering will pivot from writing code to reviewing and orchestrating AI-generated logic.
Apple is reportedly developing next-gen AirPods equipped with tiny external cameras and AI to see the world around you. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the earbuds would essentially act like screenless smart glasses, pairing with Siri to offer real-time contextual awareness—likely targeting a 2027 debut on AirPods Pro 4.
A federal judge just allowed an AI copyright lawsuit against Meta to move forward, ruling that authors including Sarah Silverman adequately alleged Meta intentionally stripped copyright management information to hide that Llama was trained on their books. While the judge dismissed a computer fraud claim, Meta still faces key infringement claims.
Meta just kicked off small-scale testing of its first custom AI training silicon, aiming to rein in its gargantuan infrastructure spending and ease its reliance on Nvidia. The MTIA chip is designed to be more power-efficient than general-purpose GPUs, and Meta hopes to deploy it for production training by 2026.
OpenAI just inked a massive five-year deal worth $11.9 billion with CoreWeave for AI data centers and infrastructure services. As part of the agreement, OpenAI will also receive around $350 million in equity tied to CoreWeave's upcoming IPO. The commitment secures vast GPU capacity for OpenAI while supercharging its partner's public debut.
Apple is reportedly planning a dramatic interface overhaul across iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and macOS 16 ahead of WWDC in June. The new look borrows heavily from visionOS with translucent panels and 3D depth to unify icons, menus, and navigation. Why it matters: It marks Apple's most sweeping visual revamp since iOS 7, arriving as the company navigates sluggish device upgrades and recent Siri AI delays.
