Perplexity AI just submitted an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer to buy Google’s Chrome browser, backed by unnamed venture capital funds. Dubbed "Project Solomon," the bid attempts to pounce on Google's antitrust troubles as courts weigh forcing a browser spinoff. Perplexity itself is valued at only $18B, making it an audacious power play.
Reddit is cutting off the Internet Archive from crawling post pages, comments, and user profiles, limiting the Wayback Machine to just its homepage. Reddit says AI companies have been using the digital archive as a backdoor to scrape training data without paying, prompting the platform to clamp down on crawler access.
Google is testing a new, AI-powered version of Google Finance that lets users research complex financial queries in one go with web-backed insights. The update adds advanced charting tools like candlestick displays and moving average envelopes, alongside expanded real-time data for commodities and crypto. U.S. users can now opt in through Search Labs.
Google just officially launched Jules out of beta, making its asynchronous coding agent publicly available. The tool uses Gemini 2.5 Pro to draft coding plans, integrates with GitHub issues, and supports multimodal inputs. It is rolling out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers with higher usage limits, alongside a free year for eligible college students.
Google just launched Gemini CLI GitHub Actions in beta, giving developers a free AI teammate inside their code repositories. Triggered by repository events, it handles issue triage and PR code reviews, and can write tests or fix bugs when @-mentioned. Why it matters: It embeds autonomous, full-context agent workflows directly into everyday developer collaboration.
Google's Kaggle and DeepMind just kicked off their inaugural AI chess tournament, where general LLMs square off without dedicated chess engines. Grok 4, Gemini 2.5 Pro, o4-mini, and o3 all swept their matches 4-0 to reach the semifinals, with Elon Musk claiming xAI spent almost zero effort on chess. Why it matters: Unlike traditional engines, LLMs still hallucinate illegal moves once off-book, making board tracking a telling proxy for spatial reasoning.
Google just launched a personalized storybook creator inside the Gemini app. Users can describe a premise or upload personal photos and kids' doodles, and Gemini will generate a unique 10-page book with custom artwork and read-aloud narration. It supports over 45 languages and diverse styles like claymation or pixel art, available globally on web and mobile.
Apple is quietly working on a "ChatGPT-like search experience" to generate instant answers from the web, according to Bloomberg. Spearheaded by its internal AKI team, the answer engine could eventually power Siri, Safari, and Spotlight, or even launch as a standalone app. Why it matters: With its massive Google search deal facing antitrust pressure, Apple is preparing to take search into its own hands.
Google's Kaggle just launched Game Arena, a benchmarking platform designed to test model reasoning through strategic gameplay. From Aug. 5-7, eight flagship models—including OpenAI's o3, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and DeepSeek-R1—will compete in a live chess tournament with zero access to external chess engines like Stockfish. Why it matters: Unlike easily saturated static benchmarks, game theory provides a dynamic test of planning, memory, and logic under incomplete prompt conditions.
Google just expanded NotebookLM to younger users, allowing teens aged 13+ and all Workspace for Education students to turn notes into interactive mind maps and a podcast-like Audio Overview. Google added stricter safety filters for minors and pledged never to train AI models on their notes or chats.
Google just launched Deep Think in the Gemini app for Google AI Ultra subscribers, introducing parallel thinking techniques that let the model explore multiple hypotheses simultaneously. Built to tackle complex coding and research problems, it hits Bronze-medal performance on internal 2025 IMO benchmarks while remaining fast enough for daily use. Subscribers get access via a toggle, though it comes with a fixed daily prompt limit.
Google DeepMind just launched AlphaEarth Foundations, a virtual satellite AI that merges optical, radar, and climate data into unified embeddings. Available in Google Earth Engine, it reduces storage needs by 16x and cuts error rates by 24% to help researchers track environmental changes.
Google just agreed to sign the European Union’s General Purpose AI Code of Practice alongside other major model builders. While arguing safe AI deployment could lift Europe’s economy by €1.4 trillion, Google cautioned that bureaucratic approvals and forced trade secret disclosures could ultimately throttle Europe's competitiveness.
YouTube just announced plans to roll out AI-powered age estimation in the US starting August 13th to identify users under 18. The system analyzes account age and activity to automatically apply guardrails, including blocking age-restricted videos and disabling personalized ads. Flagged accounts that get caught by mistake will have to verify adulthood with an ID, selfie, or credit card.
Google just added Video Overviews to NotebookLM, turning your source docs into narrated, AI-generated slide presentations with relevant charts and quotes. The updated Studio panel also lets you generate and store multiple versions of audio, video, or mind maps in a single notebook while multitasking across them.
Google just expanded AI Mode in Search with desktop support for images and incoming PDF uploads that cross-reference the web. The update also brings a dynamic Canvas side panel for building study plans and rolls out Search Live, bringing real-time video queries from Project Astra directly into Lens. Most features are currently available to enrolled Labs users in the U.S.
Google just launched AI Mode for Search in the UK, designed to tackle messy, multi-part queries that usually take multiple searches. Powered by a custom Gemini 2.5 model, it breaks down your prompt into subtopics and fires off multiple searches simultaneously using query fan-out. It works with text, voice, and camera inputs, showing up as a dedicated tab on web and mobile.
Google just launched Web Guide in Search Labs, an experimental interface powered by a custom Gemini model that groups search results by specific topic angles. It uses concurrent queries behind the scenes to dig up deeper web pages for complex, open-ended questions. Currently rolling out to opt-in users inside the Web tab.
Google Labs just launched Opal, an experimental tool that lets you build and share functional AI mini-apps using plain English and visual editing. It chains prompts, models, and tools into multi-step workflows without writing a single line of code. It is currently rolling out in a US-only public beta.
Google just added new creation tools to Google Photos, letting users animate static gallery pictures into six-second video clips with a single tap. The update also introduces Remix to transform photos into anime or 3D animation styles, with SynthID digital watermarks applied to all outputs. Why it matters: It turns your personal camera roll from a passive archive into an interactive creative canvas.
