No one knows what the hell an AI agent is

Silicon Valley is bullish on AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will “join the workforce” this year. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that agents will replace certain knowledge work. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce’s goal is to be “the number

SoftBank buys $676M old Sharp plant for its OpenAI collab in Japan

SoftBank is marching ahead on its ambitions to build out a major AI operation in its home market of Japan, on its own steam and in strategic partnership with others like OpenAI. On Friday, the tech company confirmed it would pay $676 million for a factory previously used by Sharp to build LCD panel

Google calls for weakened copyright and export rules in AI policy proposal

Google, following on the heels of OpenAI, published a policy proposal in response to the Trump administration’s call for a national “AI Action Plan.” The tech giant endorsed weak copyright restrictions on AI training, as well as “balanced” export controls that “p

OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models

In a new policy proposal, OpenAI describes Chinese AI lab DeepSeek as “state-subsidized” and “state-controlled,” and recommends that the U.S. government consider banning models from the outfit and similar People’s Republic of China (PRC)-supported operations. The prop

Google wants Gemini to get to know you better

In the AI chatbot wars, Google thinks the key to retaining users is serving up content they can’t get elsewhere, like answers shaped by their internet habits. On Thursday, the company announced Gemini with personalization, a new “experimental capability” for its Gemini chatbot ap

Xbox debuts a new AI-powered gaming companion for mobile users

Ahead of the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Xbox revealed on Thursday that it's experimenting with an AI-powered gaming sidekick. “Copilot for Gaming,” powered by Microsoft's AI technology, is a voice-activated assistant designed to enhance the gaming experience and is desig

Browser Use, one of the tools powering Manus, is also going viral

Manus, the viral AI “agent” platform from Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, has had an unintended side effect: raising the profile of another AI tool called Browser Use. Browser Use, which aims to make websites more accessible for agentic applications that perform tasks on a user’

Snap introduces AI Video Lenses powered by its in-house generative model

Snapchat is introducing its first-ever video generative AI Lenses, the company told technewss exclusively. The Lenses are powered by Snap’s in-house-built generative video model. The three new AI Video Lenses are available to users on the app’s premium subscription tier, Snapchat Plat

IBM’s CEO doesn’t think AI will replace programmers anytime soon

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says that, despite the Trump administration’s attacks on globalism, global trade isn’t dead. In fact, he thinks that the U.S.’s key to growth will be embracing an international exchange of goods. “So, I actually am a firm believer — I think it goes

Flower Labs launches a new service that automatically switches from local to cloud AI

Flower Labs, a Y Combinator-backed startup, on Tuesday launched a preview of its distributed cloud platform for serving AI models, called Flower Intelligence. Mozilla is already using it to power the upcoming Assist summarization add-on for its Thunderbird email client. What makes Flower Intellige

In another chess move with Microsoft, OpenAI is pouring $12B into CoreWeave

In a grandmaster-level chess move, OpenAI has signed a five-year, $11.9 billion agreement with the GPU-heavy cloud service provider CoreWeave, which Reuters originally reported and CoreWeave confirmed in a press release. The deal involves OpenAI receiving $350 million worth of equity in CoreWeave,

AvatarOS snags $7M seed round from M13 to build an AI-powered virtual influencer platform

A few years ago, several startups with a specific focus on digital avatars appeared because of all the metaverse buzz. While that buzz died down, generative AI has given a new life to avatars as it is easier to spin up different virtual identities. Companies are trying out different use cases for a

Microsoft appears to be working on 3D gaming experiences for Copilot

Microsoft appears to be working on 3D gaming experiences for Copilot, its AI-powered chatbot platform, according to a new job listing. The listing, published this week, seeks a senior software engineer based in Beijing specializing in 3D rendering engines, particularly engines typically used to bu

Musk may still have a chance to thwart OpenAI’s for-profit conversion

Elon Musk lost the latest battle in his lawsuit against OpenAI this week, but a federal judge appears to have given Musk — and others who oppose OpenAI’s for-profit conversion — reasons to be hopeful. Musk’s suit against OpenAI, which also names Microsoft and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman