AI News

The top of a Google search page is prime real estate, but it has primarily been the domain of AI Overviews for the past two years. Websites that spent years optimizing for Google search haven’t exactly loved being pushed down the page by a chatbot and may blame AI Overviews for recent traffic drops. Google is not admitting fault, but it is rolling out a number of changes that will place more links to websites inside AI answers. Google says many AI Overview

A curious case in Georgia serves as a warning for many parts of the US hastily approving data center developments without first updating their water systems to better monitor for severe upticks in usage. On Friday, Politico reported that one of the country’s biggest data center developments had guzzled nearly 30 million gallons of water without paying for it. Even worse, the water grab came at a time when nearby drought-stricken residents were warned to re

Google’s I/O conference is next week, and we expect to hear a lot about the company’s AI endeavors. The company says there’s so much to talk about that it’s spilling the Android beans a little early, and yes, a lot of AI is involved. In the coming months, Google will roll out more smartphone AI features under the Gemini Intelligence banner, bringing more automation and customization to your phone. App automation will be a major element of Android going for

Elon Musk and Sam Altman had very different experiences while testifying at a trial that will determine OpenAI’s future, including who runs it, where its research funding comes from, and who can profit from its boldest new technologies. Musk—who filed the lawsuit alleging that OpenAI under its current leadership has abandoned its nonprofit mission to build AI that benefits humanity and instead serves to enrich people like Altman—spent three grueling days o

Amazon is betting that many Ring customers will also want an AI-powered security drone and robot patrolling their homes or offices. But the company’s upcoming Ring Robotic products are also certain to intensify privacy concerns previously raised around a prior Amazon attempt to popularize a flying security camera. The Ring Rover Cam and Ring Drone Cam are expected to reach customers starting at the end of 2026 and in early 2027, respectively, according to

Elon Musk took too long to file his lawsuit that accused OpenAI of stealing a charity, a nine-person jury unanimously decided Monday. Musk sued OpenAI in 2024 for making a “fool” out of him after Musk donated $38 million to kick-start OpenAI as a nonprofit, only to later be blindsided when OpenAI created a for-profit arm that he felt gutted funding for the charity while enriching executives like Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. But the jury found that Musk wa

An attempt to pressure Meta into removing a critical post from a Chicago Facebook group called “Are We Dating the Same Guy” may end in sanctions for lawyers whose takedown arguments appeared to rely on fake AI citations to support doxing claims. The case had already been dismissed with prejudice by a district court, which ruled there was no way to amend the complaint to possibly save it. But Nikko D’Ambrosio—who accused more than two dozen women of defamin

In a few short years, we’ve gone from easily identifying AI content that featured superfluous fingers to images and videos that look shockingly realistic. How can we know what’s real in the age of AI? Google’s answer is SynthID, which it first demonstrated three years ago. The company says SynthID has since been used to label 100 billion images and videos, plus 60,000 years’ worth of audio. Those numbers are only going up now that SynthID is expanding beyo

Last year marked the beginning of Google’s explicit focus on AI search, and this year’s I/O solidified that shift. As Google’s search VP Liz Reid said during the keynote, “Google search is AI search.” This change is well underway, and the very reasonable objections to this path will not dissuade the company. All the metrics that matter to Google say this is the right move. But at the end of the day, Google can get whatever outcome it wants because it’s jus

President Donald Trump abruptly canceled an event on Thursday just hours before he was scheduled to sign an executive order granting the government the power to test frontier AI models before their public release. As The New York Times explained, Trump had been hoping that top executives from leading AI firms would attend the signing. He decided to pull the plug after learning that some CEOs couldn’t make the event. That made Trump unhappy, even though he’

The earliest arrests under the Take It Down Act (TIDA) suggest that cops don’t have to work too hard to identify people illegally posting and selling nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes of women online. Last week, the FBI arrested two men after visiting porn websites and clicking on hashtags like #AI #Deepfakes or video titles like “AI_tits” or “Ass_AI.” One suspect accused of violating TIDA was 20-year-old Arturo Hernandez. He allegedly posted 113 albums v

When YouTube first attempted to tackle the identification of AI videos in 2024, it was almost gratuitous. AI videos at the time nearly always outed themselves by looking bizarre or disjointed. In just a few years, AI models like Seedance, Runway, and Google’s own Veo have raised the bar for realism and consistency in AI video—the spaghetti is more accurate than ever. Recognizing that, YouTube is making the AI labels more prominent and automating part of th