Robert Hart is a London-based reporter at The Verge covering all things AI. His work explores the social and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence, applications in health and science and the evolving policy landscape, as well as safety threats and frontier labs like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic. Rob’s work is currently supported by a Senior Fellowship from the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. (Tarbell and other grants do not influence The Verge’s editorial independence. Read more in our ethics policy here.) Prior to joining The Verge, Rob was a senior reporter at Forbes leading breaking news coverage of science, tech, and health and a features writer on the privacy beat for Lexology, with his byline appearing in publications including Wired, Time, and The Guardian. When not pondering emerging technologies, Rob can be found attempting CrossFit or trying to find a good cup of coffee. Contact him on Signal for tips: @robhart.01
The AI assistant, which launched in September, is only the 12th app to have reached this milestone within 40 days, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Part of its success is likely down to what Sensor Tower describes as a sizable “advertising push by Meta.”
Wired reports that Character filing for bankruptcy and agreeing to sell assets to Disney last week was the second of “two interrelated and integrated” transactions. The first, which took place in September, involved Disney hiring a “majority” of the chatbot startup’s employees, a familiar move from the “acquihire” playbook.
Beijing is reportedly considering adding 23 AI technologies to its export-control list, including chip designs, agents, model weights, and source code. China has been steadily gaining on the US with recent releases like Kimi K3, and has been the target of Western AI-related export controls amid growing competition to maintain control over the strategic technology.
[Bloomberg.com]
In a noncommittal X post, Elon Musk said SpaceX will “probably” follow in Anthropic’s footsteps and allow external evaluators access to its AI systems. The tentative pledge comes amid growing concerns about the risks of frontier AI models and criticism that voluntary measures leave companies largely policing themselves.
The drills were confirmed by Japan’s finance minister on Thursday. States and organizations have grown increasingly worried about AI’s ability to supercharge hacking, particularly after months of impressive releases and rogue agent attacks. Experts, including the heads of the Bank of England and International Monetary Fund, have stressed the need to guard financial institutions.
The funding is part of a $15 million initiative led by the Simons Foundation, with Anthropic also contributing. It follows months of upheaval in the field as AI companies race to solve longstanding problems and comes just over a week after OpenAI dumped hundreds of preprints on the research community.
Former Boston Dynamics CTO Aaron Saunders, who joined Google in 2025, announced the project on LinkedIn. “We’re creating a first-class lab to house this team and take robotics to the next level,” he said. It comes as Google pushes deeper into robotics, including with Gemini Robotics AI models and absorbing Alphabet robotics moonshot Intrinsic.
