AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.
Midjourney just announced it is officially getting into hardware, setting up a specialized team in San Francisco. The bootstrapped image generator previously hired former Neuralink staffer and Apple Vision Pro engineer Ahmad Abbas. With new video and 3D models already in the works, Midjourney might be crafting dedicated physical gear for creative AI.
Nvidia just reported a massive 122% jump in Q2 revenue to $30.04 billion, driven by explosive 154% growth in its data center division. However, its gross margin dipped slightly to 75.1% due to Blackwell chip design tweaks, sending shares down over 7% after hours as sky-high investor expectations proved tough to beat.
California lawmakers just passed SB 1047, sending the contentious AI safety bill to the governor's desk for signature. The legislation mandates that creators of massive AI models build and document safeguards against catastrophic harms. While Elon Musk surprisingly backed the bill, OpenAI remains firmly opposed.
Elon Musk just endorsed California’s controversial SB 1047 bill, which requires developers of massive AI models to implement strict safety guardrails. Calling it a “tough call” that will upset people, Musk sided with regulation even though it would legally bind his own startup, xAI. The move puts him squarely at odds with rival OpenAI, which recently came out against the legislation.
Apple just announced its next big hardware event for September 9th with the tagline "It's Glowtime." While the iPhone 16 lineup brings design tweaks and new capture buttons, the real spotlight is on Apple Intelligence, which is expected to expand across the entire flagship lineup instead of staying Pro-exclusive.
Inflection just announced plans to cap free usage on its AI chatbot Pi to relieve GPU strain, months after Microsoft hired away its founders. After nearly shutting down the chatbot two weeks ago, the downsized startup decided to keep Pi running for consumers and allow chat exports, while shifting focus toward enterprise licensing.
OpenAI, Adobe, and Microsoft just threw their support behind California's AB 3211 bill, which requires invisible watermarks in AI-generated media and visible labels on platforms like Instagram and X. Why it matters: Big Tech previously lobbied against the measure as overly burdensome, but recent amendments have brought the industry's heaviest hitters on board ahead of the final vote.
Arizona State University is aggressively expanding ChatGPT Edu across campus, activating over 200 projects from more than 400 faculty and student proposals. Applications range from simulated patient conversations for healthcare students to scholarly writing assistants, showcasing how universities are moving from banning AI to safely embracing enterprise-grade tools.
Meta just scrapped plans for its high-end mixed reality headset, codenamed La Jolla, which was slated to challenge the Apple Vision Pro in 2027. High MicroOLED display costs made keeping the price under $1,000 unrealistic, alongside sluggish demand across the ultra-premium headset market.
Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify's Daniel Ek just published a joint op-ed warning that Europe's disjointed and risk-averse regulations are crushing open-source AI innovation. Due to regulatory gridlock, Meta won't be able to release its upcoming multimodal Llama models in the EU. Why it matters: The tech leaders argue that without simpler and more consistent rules, Europe risks falling permanently behind America and Asia.
Google just appointed former Character.AI CEO Noam Shazeer as co-technical lead for Gemini, joining heavyweights Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals. Shazeer recently returned to Google following a massive $2.7 billion licensing and talent deal to turbocharge its fight against OpenAI.
Nearly 200 Google DeepMind employees just signed an internal letter demanding leadership terminate contracts with military organizations and cut off defense access to its AI. The staff cite Google's original 2014 acquisition pledge to never use DeepMind tech for warfare, underscoring growing friction with cloud initiatives like Project Nimbus. Google has yet to provide a meaningful response.
a16z just released the third edition of its Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps, revealing that nearly 30% of companies on the list are newcomers. Video and music generators saw massive surges, with Suno jumping from #36 to #5, while Perplexity and Claude cemented top-five spots on web. ByteDance quietly dominated with six apps across web and mobile rankings.
Anthropic just sent a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom stating that the heavily amended SB 1047 AI safety bill's benefits likely outweigh its costs. Following legislative revisions that narrowed its scope, the bill now focuses strict safety protocol requirements on deep-pocketed frontier labs while largely sparing smaller startups.
OpenAI just sent a letter to California lawmakers opposing the controversial SB 1047 bill, arguing it would stifle innovation and drive top tech talent out of the state. The company is pushing for federal regulations instead of a state patchwork, while the bill's author quickly fired back that the critique makes no sense.
Qualcomm just unveiled the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, a processor designed to bring generative AI features like on-device translation to $500 to $600 smartphones. Xiaomi will debut the chip next month, trickling down features previously reserved for $800+ flagships.
A group of authors just filed a class-action lawsuit against Anthropic, accusing the AI startup of training its Claude models on the infamous Books3 dataset of pirated ebooks. The writers claim Anthropic built a multibillion-dollar business on stolen works and are seeking damages. Anthropic had previously confirmed using The Pile dataset for training.
OpenAI just partnered with Condé Nast to bring content from Vogue, The New Yorker, and Wired into ChatGPT and the SearchGPT prototype. Users will see direct attribution links to original stories, expanding OpenAI's media licensing lineup as it builds out its search product.
xMEMS Labs just unveiled the XMC-2400 µCooling chip, an all-silicon active micro-fan that measures just 1mm thin and weighs under 150mg. Designed to stop phones and tablets from throttling during heavy on-device AI workloads, it moves 39 cubic centimeters of air per second. Samples are slated for early 2025.
Donald Trump just shared a series of AI-generated images on social media, including a fake endorsement from pop star Taylor Swift alongside the caption "I accept". Legal experts note that current election deepfake laws struggle to police such exaggerated posts, though Swift herself could potentially pursue a right-of-publicity claim.
