Artificial intelligence is more a part of our lives than ever before. While some might call it hype and compare it to NFTs or 3D TVs, generative AI is causing a sea change in nearly every part of the technology industry. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is still the best-known AI chatbot around, but with Google pushing Gemini, Microsoft building Copilot, and Apple adding its Intelligence to Siri, AI is probably going to be in the spotlight for a very long time. At The Verge, we’re exploring what might be possible with AI — and a lot of the bad stuff AI does, too.
Previous versions used a custom license that has been criticized as too restrictive. With Gemma 4, Google is moving to the Apache 2.0 license, which is much more permissive and widely used by developers, including for other Google products like Android. The new model also offers performance improvements, as detailed in the video below.
In addition to adding support for Veo 3.1 and Lyria 3 models, Google Vids now allows you to direct and customize the AI-generated avatars you can put in your videos. You can also record your screen with a new Google Vids extension in Chrome, as well as upload videos directly to YouTube.
It’s no secret that musicians are generally not huge fans of AI. So obviously, a magazine for musicians “brought to you by ChatGPT and Suno” wouldn’t go over well. But Bass Magazine wants to assuage any fears, saying:
“We would never compromise our vision or our mission of bringing you the best bass content in the world for some high dollar sponsor to populate our issues in exchange for cash. That is simply unthinkable.”
The post then ends with that most timeless of internet pranks, the Rickroll.
Though Netflix insisted that it bought Ben Affleck’s AI company InterPositive to help filmmakers, Deadline reports that one of the startups big selling points listed in its 2024 patent application is its ability to bring production costs down by millions of dollars.
The publisher filed a lawsuit in Munich last week, accusing OpenAI of violating copyright laws after ChatGPT allegedly copied a popular German book series, according to The Guardian:
In response to the prompt “Can you write a children’s book in which Coconut the Dragon is on Mars”, the chatbot generated text and images the publishing group said were “virtually indistinguishable from the original”.
As well as generating the text of a story, the AI-powered chatbot created a cover featuring Siegner’s orange dragon and two sidekicks, as well as a blurb for the back cover and instructions for how to submit the manuscript to a self-publishing platform.
If you’re the type that pays Google $249.99/mo for its AI Ultra plan in the US then you’ve earned yourself early access to Gmail’s new semi-useful-perhaps-someday-in-the-future AI Inbox. It’s still in beta, so take care.
OpenAI gave up on Sora last week, but in a post about Google’s new “cost efficient” Veo 3.1 Lite AI video model, DeepMind staffer Logan Kilpatrick says that “video’s here to stay.” And in a blog post about the model, the authors discuss Google’s “commitment to making video generation more available to developers.”
Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to try to limit states from regulating AI, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Monday with the new guardrails.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says Nothing plans on launching AI smart glasses during the first half of 2027. The upcoming glasses will reportedly come with built-in cameras, microphones, and speakers, while offloading AI processing to a user’s smartphone and the cloud.
OpenAI’s latest round of private investment has closed, with participation from Amazon, Nvidia, Softbank, and Microsoft, as well as $3 billion from individual investors, as it prepares for a potential IPO. This comes after it announced the end of its video generator Sora, and the announcement says it will focus on building a “unified superapp” with ChatGPT, Codex, browsing, and other agents all built in.
ChatGPT has 6x the monthly web visits and mobile sessions than the next largest AI app, while total AI time spent is 4x the next largest AI app and 4x all others combined. Search usage has nearly tripled in a year, and our ads pilot reached more than $100 million in ARR in under six weeks.
The cloud giant has started notifying workers of the cuts, which are in the “thousands,” sources tell CNBC. Oracle reported employing 162,000 people as of May 2025, and has plans to raise between $45 and $50 billion this year for its AI infrastructure buildout.
Institutions are teaching creatives to utilize AI, even if some students and faculty hate the technology.
After users in China reported seeing Apple Intelligence on their iPhones, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said these AI-powered features launched in “error” and that Apple has since taken them offline. The Chinese government currently requires Apple to partner with local companies, like Alibaba, to power AI features in the country.
They’re hyping up next-generation reactors as a way to meet data center energy demand. Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has lost more than 400 people, largely those working on safety.
“The regulator is no longer an independent regulator — we do not know whose interests it is serving,” former NRC chair Allison Macfarlane tells ProPublica.
Why Todd McKinnon thinks it’s ‘naive’ not to prepare for the SaaSpocalypse
In addition to bringing Claude integration to Copilot for “long-running, multi-step tasks,” Microsoft is also launching an improved Researcher agent for information gathering and a new Critique feature, which essentially tasks GPT with drafting research and then has Claude give it an edit pass for accuracy.
[Microsoft 365 Blog]
We knew Apple would let people hook Siri into the chatbot of their choice. But the latest installment of Mark Gurman’s Power On hints at something bigger. The company is “opening Siri and Apple Intelligence to third-party services.” Extensions will have a dedicated App Store section, making it hard to believe Apple will stop at just a couple of chatbots.
A cornerstone of this strategy is the upcoming iOS 27 Extensions feature, which will let users install third-party AI chatbots beyond ChatGPT and run them inside Siri. This feature will have its own dedicated App Store section, effectively creating an AI App Store. It will be a marketplace of sorts for third-party AI integrations.
It’s not just the country music scene that’s quietly embraced AI, artists across genres are using it to experiment with arrangements, demo new songs, and create sample material. But, songwriter Michelle Lewis told Rolling Stone, nobody wants to admit it. And producer Young Guru believes it’s more widespread than anyone realizes:
…it’s become common for hip-hop producers to make funk and soul samples out of AI, rather than license original music or hire musicians. Guru guesses that “more than half” of sample-based hip-hop is being made this way now.
[Rolling Stone]
In a class action lawsuit, an unnamed plaintiff who says she’s a survivor of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein says the Trump administration and Google have wrongfully disclosed survivors’ personal data. “Google has failed and refuses to remove, de-index, or block access to the offending materials,“ the complaint says.
