FOLLOW THE THREAD · PUBLIC SOURCELatest stories from The Verge [ai]. Read, like, and join the conversation.
OpenAI is now valued at $1.25 trillion in a new round of funding that has raised another $11 billion, according to Bloomberg. That would make it one of the world's most valuable companies, not long after raising $122 billion from investors in March at a valuation of $852 billion. Echoing FT and Wall Street Journal …
China's intelligence agency recruited Megaspeed executive Alice Huang to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to The New York Times. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) enlisted her to glean information about American AI chips and "potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China." Megaspeed …
Massive new data centers are the physical foundation for tech companies’ hopes and dreams for AI. But the rush to expand warehouses full of energy-hungry servers has also kicked up fights across the world over their impact on power grids, utility bills, nearby communities, and the environment. Data centers were a major bipartisan issue ahead …
Meta will now allow you to build customized, app-like experiences within Muse. The new feature, called "spaces," allows its AI assistant to build things like a shopping hub, school dashboard, music tracker, trivia game, and more, which you can interact with directly in the Muse app. Meta says you can create a new space by …
When Irene moved to San Francisco last year, she started using dating apps as a way to meet new people, get to know her new city, and connect with others who care about the things she does. After the 25-year-old analyst downloaded Hinge and started swiping, she noticed a trend. "Hinge has a prompt where …
On Tuesday, millions of American voters went to the polls and voted overwhelmingly for Democrats and against AI. The fight against Big Tech is about to come roaring back, and the fight over data centers is looking even harder for the folks trying to build them. On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David …
inMusic, the parent company of Akai, Moog, Native Instruments, and more, has decided to embrace the modding community. In an interview with The Verge, inMusic CEO Jack O'Donnell said, "We're going to provide a toolbox to the community, we're going to provide the inner workings of, say, an MPC or Sample so that people can …
Amazon is adding a new feature to Alexa for Shopping that allows customers to purchase items by texting the AI shopping assistant. Users can describe the products they're looking to buy and/or provide a photograph of the item, and Alexa for Shopping will search for matching results in Amazon listings, text back with recommendations, and …
Protesters have broken into a construction site of a new Microsoft data center in Amsterdam this morning. Members of the Geef Tegengas group helped organize the protest against the construction of three 85-meter data center towers in the outskirts of Amsterdam. Reuters reports that around 100 people made it into the construction site, with some …
Following this week's midterms where voters resoundingly voiced their opposition to data center expansion, OpenAI today announced new commitments to communities where it is working on data center projects, including that it won't use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with public officials. Many data center projects have come under scrutiny for relying on NDAs to hide discussions …
Airbnb plans to roll out an AI agent in the first half of 2027 that will help users plan and book travel, the company said in its Q3 2026 earnings shareholder letter released today. "Today's AI agents are good at simple, routine tasks, like making a restaurant reservation or scheduling an appointment," Airbnb said. "But …
Perplexity is taking on OpenAI and Anthropic with its own work-focused AI agents. The startup's new always-on "Teammates" can take on multiple roles within a workspace, while pulling existing projects, skills, and memory from the Perplexity tools you already use. Teammates integrate with Perplexity Computer, an AI system that can deploy agents on your device …
Meta now lets you have voice conversations with your Muse AI agent in real time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today. The feature has been rolled out to me, and I gave it a spin on the iOS app while writing this article. As you chat with your Muse agent, the avatar at the top of …
Anthropic has a new pitch for managing your personal finances: let Claude do it instead, with a new Personal Finance feature that connects it to your bank and card accounts via the Plaid bank bridging platform. You can ask the chatbot "where did my money go this month," for example, and it'll create an overview …
On Tuesday night, Democrats made history as they took control of the House and the Senate, and a blue wave swept through traditionally red and swing states - with the nation's first Black woman governor elected in Georgia, the country's first Native American woman governor elected in New Mexico, and a Maine Senator ceding to …
OpenAI is launching GPT-6 Cyber, the latest version of its cybersecurity AI model, which it says is better at finding vulnerabilities and less likely to go rogue and hack other platforms in the process. OpenAI says that during testing, GPT-6 Cyber went out of bounds less than 1 percent of the time, down from around …
The AI-generated sci-fi film Gods Don't Give Gifts has added a bit of star power: Pop star Grimes is going to appear in the movie. Billed as "the first AI film to come to theatres," Gods Don't Give Gifts is a notable test case for the commercial potential of AI films, and it releases on …
After partnering with Moises earlier this year, SoundCloud is now adding integration with another AI music platform, ElevenLabs. Now, rather than having to export and download your outputs from ElevenLabs and then upload them to SoundCloud, you can publish them directly. As part of the partnership, SoundCloud Artist Pro subscribers are also getting three months …
Today, I’m talking with Willy Shih, an economist, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, and the author of the upcoming book, Where Does My Stuff Come From? The Powerful Economics Behind Global Supply Chains. Willy is one of my all-time favorite Decoder guests — his way of looking at the world through …
After four of the biggest competitors in the AI race held quarterly earnings calls late last month, two things are clear: Big Tech is not done spending record amounts on the AI data center buildout, and the AI data center buildout is not any closer to yielding its promised returns. A third thing is also …
