AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.
A federal judge just ruled that an AI copyright lawsuit against Meta can proceed, rejecting the company's bid to dismiss the case. Authors allege Meta trained its Llama models on their books and removed copyright information to hide the infringement. The judge tossed a computer fraud claim, but Meta must now defend its fair-use arguments in court.
US lawmakers have already introduced 781 AI-related bills just over two months into 2025, according to tracking data from MultiState. That figure officially exceeds the 743 total bills proposed across all of 2024. With Congress still stalled on a federal AI framework, individual states are rushing to fill the regulatory void.
Microsoft AI head Mustafa Suleyman is pushing to reduce the company's heavy dependence on OpenAI, actively testing in-house models like Phi-4 inside Copilot. Microsoft wants to trim sky-high Azure compute bills and reclaim its strategic roadmap, but untangling a deeply integrated $13 billion partnership is proving far easier said than done.
ElevenLabs just launched its voice AI models on Google Cloud Marketplace. Enterprises can now easily pair ElevenLabs' lifelike speech generation with Google's fast Gemini 2.0 Flash model to build real-time conversational agents, localized dubbing, and marketing voiceovers within their existing cloud setup.
xAI just purchased a 1-million-square-foot property in Southwest Memphis to expand its massive Colossus supercomputer cluster. The facility complements an existing site that features an $80 million wastewater recycling plant and the world's largest Tesla Megapack deployment to reduce strain on local grids. Why it matters: Elon Musk's race for raw computing scale isn't slowing down, and xAI is locking down the physical footprint needed to power next-gen frontier models.
Apple just confirmed that its most anticipated Siri upgrades—the ones with personal context and cross-app actions—are delayed until "the coming year." Getting an AI assistant to dig through private emails and reliably execute real-world tasks proved harder than planned. Basically, that truly smart Siri likely won't arrive until iOS 19.
U.S. Air Force and Space Force officials just outlined how they want to integrate AI into America's nuclear command, control, and communications architecture. The plan is to use AI to speed up data processing and pick the most secure communication routes, while strictly keeping humans—specifically the president—in full control of any strike decisions.
Google co-founder Larry Page is quietly building Dynatomics, a stealth startup focused on applying AI to physical manufacturing. Led by former Kittyhawk CTO Chris Anderson, the team is developing AI that creates optimized object designs for direct factory fabrication. Why it matters: One of tech's richest minds is now betting AI can reshape physical industrial design.
The U.S. Department of Labor is investigating $13.8B data-labeling giant Scale AI for potential violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, TechCrunch reported. The probe, active since at least August 2024, centers on whether the startup misclassified workers as independent contractors to bypass overtime and benefits. Scale AI denied wrongdoing, saying its platform provides flexible earning opportunities.
Andreessen Horowitz just dropped its fourth Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps report, showing massive market shifts. ChatGPT doubled its weekly active users to 400 million in under six months, propelled by GPT-4o and o1, while newcomer DeepSeek stormed the web traffic ranks to claim #2 globally within days of launch. Vibe coding tools and AI video are also rapidly cementing their place in daily consumer habits.
McDonald's is rolling out a sweeping AI overhaul across its 43,000 restaurants worldwide. Powered by edge computing from Google Cloud, the system uses connected sensors for predictive kitchen maintenance—including its notoriously broken McFlurry machines—and smart drive-thrus to ease crew stress.
Stability AI just scored a strategic investment and partnership with advertising titan WPP. The deal will plug Stability’s multimodal models for image, video, 3D, and audio directly into WPP’s AI operating system, WPP Open. Why it matters: It gives Stability a massive enterprise testing ground and validates its commercial push under new leadership.
OpenAI is reportedly preparing to launch specialized AI agents with monthly subscriptions ranging from $2,000 to $20,000 for tasks up to PhD-level research. The rollout features three tiers covering business, development, and research, with SoftBank committing $3 billion. OpenAI is betting enterprises will pay senior executive wages for automated expertise.
Reinforcement learning creators Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton just won the Turing Award and immediately used the moment to slam AI safety practices. Speaking to the FT, they warned that commercial hype is pushing unvetted models onto millions of users, likening current releases to building a bridge and testing it with real traffic.
Apple just unveiled the new MacBook Air powered by the M4 chip, now starting at $999 with 16GB of unified memory by default. The upgraded Neural Engine accelerates on-device AI tasks up to 3x faster than the M1 model, built specifically to power Apple Intelligence. Pre-orders are live today, with shipments arriving March 12.
Apple just introduced the updated Mac Studio powered by M4 Max and the new M3 Ultra chips. The compact desktop supports up to 512GB of unified memory and Thunderbolt 5, allowing developers to run LLMs with over 600 billion parameters entirely in memory. It basically turns a desktop Mac into a serious local AI powerhouse.
A federal judge just shot down Elon Musk's request for a preliminary injunction to block OpenAI's shift into a for-profit company, ruling the plaintiffs failed to meet the bar for extraordinary relief. The decision keeps OpenAI's restructuring on track for now, though Musk's broader legal claims against the startup and Microsoft will still head to trial.
The Los Angeles Times is now deploying AI to flag opinionated pieces with a "Voices" tag and auto-generate bulleted "Insights" offering alternative viewpoints at the bottom of articles. The unvetted automated summaries are already sparking backlash from its journalists' union and producing clumsy, awkward takes.
Apple just refreshed the iPad Air with its M3 chip, making the midrange tablet fully ready for Apple Intelligence. It packs a 60% faster Neural Engine over the M1 model to speed up on-device AI tasks, landing in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes at the same $599 starting price alongside a cheaper Magic Keyboard.
Infinity Sim Wings just launched the first AI-enabled Airbus A320 simulator at its training facility near Gatwick Airport. The setup adds uninterrupted AI air traffic control coverage alongside automated ground and cabin crew interactions. The goal is to expose pilots to real-world operational workloads and evaluate cockpit resource management without leaving the safety of a flight sim.
