AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.
OpenAI just saw its biggest mobile revenue spike yet following the GPT-4o rollout. App intelligence data reveals the ChatGPT app generated $4.2M in net revenue across iOS and Android in just five days, nearly doubling its daily average. Because mobile users had to subscribe to the $19.99 monthly Plus tier to test the new model, mobile users rushed to upgrade.
Apple is reportedly teaming up with OpenAI to integrate the startup's chatbot technology into iOS 18, with a formal announcement planned for WWDC on June 10. While Apple plans to use homegrown models for on-device and cloud tasks to upgrade Siri, it lacks a true ChatGPT equivalent. Borrowing OpenAI's engine gives Apple an immediate answer to user demand while it races to catch up.
OpenAI just detailed the five-month casting process behind ChatGPT's voices while pausing the controversial Sky voice after comparisons to Scarlett Johansson. CEO Sam Altman insisted the voice belongs to a different actress and was never meant to mimic Johansson, despite reaching out to her twice. Why it matters: As voice AI gets eerily realistic, celebrity soundalikes are rapidly turning into a major legal and PR battlefield.
Slack just sparked massive community backlash after users discovered it automatically opts customer data into training global AI models—and forces them to send an email to opt out. Slack quickly clarified that its paid Slack AI add-on does not train on customer data, but the confusing terms and sneaky defaults have left users deeply frustrated.
Sony Music Group just fired off warning letters to over 700 AI companies and streaming platforms, outright banning unauthorized scraping of its recordings, lyrics, and metadata for AI training. The music giant demanded recipients either confirm they haven't used its catalog or disclose full details on what went into their models. Why it matters: The music industry is drawing a hard legal line before unlicensed AI training becomes the default.
OpenAI's Superalignment team leaders Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike have both resigned, sparking concerns about the company's commitment to AI safety. Several other safety researchers who didn't back Sam Altman during the boardroom coup have also exited. Why it matters: When the very people tasked with keeping superintelligence in check walk out, questions naturally mount over who is steering the guardrails.
Voice actors just slapped AI voice-cloning startup LOVO with a proposed class action lawsuit in federal court. The plaintiffs allege LOVO duped them on freelance platforms into recording voice samples under the guise of "academic research," only to repackage them as flagship paid AI voices. It marks a critical legal showdown over unauthorized training data and voice theft.
Hollywood creators from writers’ rooms to VFX departments are quietly embracing generative AI, but almost nobody dares to admit it publicly. Following fan backlashes against AI graphics in films like Late Night With the Devil and Civil War, industry veterans say using AI has become a massive PR issue rather than a technical hurdle. Basically, everyone needs the edge AI provides, but nobody wants to be boycotted.
Anthropic just hired Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger as its very first Chief Product Officer. Krieger will oversee product engineering, management, and design, tasked with taking Claude beyond the enterprise and deeper into the consumer market. With OpenAI and Google rolling out slicker interfaces by the day, Anthropic is bringing in a veteran builder to sharpen its product chops.
OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever just officially resigned, marking the end of a dramatic saga that began with last November's boardroom shakeup. Research director Jakub Pachocki is stepping into the chief scientist role, while superalignment co-lead Jan Leike is also leaving. Sutskever teased that he is shifting focus to an undisclosed project that is personally meaningful.
OpenAI just revealed it is exploring ways to "responsibly" allow NSFW and adult content in its generative AI products. The company argues that sexuality and nudity can serve legitimate artistic expression if kept within legal bounds. Why it matters: Current safety guardrails are already fragile, and opening the adult floodgates will test AI moderation like never before.
Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd just shared a wild vision for the future of online dating at the Bloomberg Technology Summit: personal AI concierges that interact with hundreds of other bots to find your top matches. Instead of making small talk with 600 people, your agent could scan the city and narrow it down to three candidates you should actually meet in real life.
Google just unveiled the Pixel 8a, packing its Tensor G3 chip and signature AI features into a $499 device. It brings onboard Gemini, Circle to Search, and camera tools like Best Take and Audio Magic Eraser. Why it matters: Google is democratizing its mobile AI suite without forcing buyers into pricey flagship territory.
OpenAI just inked a content licensing deal with Dotdash Meredith, the media giant behind People and InStyle. ChatGPT will now cite its articles and train on its content library, while the publisher will tap OpenAI's models to upgrade its cookieless ad-targeting tool, D/Cipher. It is OpenAI's latest push to lock down licensed data amid ongoing copyright lawsuits.
Apple just unveiled its next-generation M4 chip, debuting inside the redesigned iPad Pro. Built on second-generation 3nm technology, the processor features Apple's fastest Neural Engine yet, claiming to outpace the NPU of any AI PC today. Along with hardware-accelerated ray tracing and dynamic caching, Apple is positioning the tablet as an on-device AI powerhouse.
OpenAI just revealed it is developing Media Manager, a tool that will let creators identify their copyrighted works and choose whether to opt in or out of AI training. The system aims to cover text, images, audio, and video, with a planned launch by 2025. Why it matters: As copyright scrutiny intensifies, OpenAI is trying to establish an industry standard for data consent before regulators force one.
OpenAI and Stack Overflow just announced an API partnership to bridge technical knowledge with frontier LLMs. OpenAI will tap OverflowAPI to improve model performance and surface verified answers with attribution directly inside ChatGPT. In return, Stack Overflow will use OpenAI models to power its OverflowAI features, with the first integrations arriving in the first half of 2024.
Warren Buffett just warned Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that AI-powered fraud could become the biggest growth industry of all time. Speaking at the firm's annual meeting, he flagged the rising threat of deepfakes and voice cloning, likening AI's uncontrollable power to letting a nuclear genie out of the bottle.
Apple is reportedly preparing a suite of AI features for iOS 18 powered by its Ajax LLM, including text summarization in Messages and Safari. Simple tasks will run on-device with strict privacy warnings, while complex queries could tap server-side power from Google or OpenAI. Details are expected at WWDC on June 10th.
Microsoft just updated Azure OpenAI Service terms to explicitly bar U.S. police departments from using its AI models for facial recognition. The new rules also ban law enforcement globally from running real-time facial recognition on body cameras and dashcams, drawing a firm line on biometric surveillance.
