The Verge AI
The Verge's coverage of AI and artificial intelligence
Reolink Made a Local AI Hub for Its Security Cameras
Reolink unveiled the AI Box, a local‑processing hub that uses a Qualcomm Dragonwing Q8‑series chip to run AI features directly on security cameras. The device supports prompt‑based alerts, natural‑language video search, event description, and automated smart summaries, eliminating the need for cloud subscriptions. It integrates with Reolink’s expanding lineup, including the Power‑Efficient Series, OMVI high‑resolution pan‑tilt cameras, and a solar‑powered floodlight cam. Pricing and launch dates remain undisclosed, but the announcement signals a shift toward on‑device intelligence in the surveillance market.
Billionaires Want Data Centers Everywhere, Including Space
Tech billionaires are turning space into the next frontier for AI data centers, citing limitless solar power and reduced terrestrial footprint. Google’s Project Suncatcher aims to launch a cluster of up to 81 low‑Earth‑orbit satellites by 2027, each packed with...
Alexa Plus Can Automatically Buy Stuff when the Price Drops
Amazon has rolled out Alexa Plus price‑tracking and auto‑buy capabilities, letting users set price thresholds and have the assistant purchase items automatically when those thresholds are met. The features debut on Echo Show 15 and Echo Show 21 within a new "Shopping Essentials" command center...
The Vergecast 2025 Year in Review
2025 was defined by an AI arms race among OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and other rivals, with Nvidia soaring to become the world’s most valuable company. Data centers multiplied globally as every app, device and enterprise pursued AI strategies. The Vergecast’s...
Meta Strikes AI Licensing Deals with CNN, Fox News, and USA Today
Meta announced that its AI chatbot will now draw information from major news outlets including CNN, Fox News, USA Today and People Inc., alongside conservative sites Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, and French media group Le Monde. The move follows a...
Amazon Says Alexa Plus Can Find that Movie Scene You’re Thinking About
Amazon has launched Alexa Plus on Fire TV, an AI‑driven feature that jumps to specific movie moments on Prime Video when users describe the scene aloud. The system combines Amazon Nova and Anthropic Claude models to understand character names, dialogue and visual cues, working with...
Sora and Nano Banana Pro Throttled Amid Soaring Demand
OpenAI announced that free users of its Sora video generator are now limited to six generations per day, citing GPU overload. Google responded similarly, cutting the free image generation limit for its newly launched Nano Banana Pro to two images...
The DoorDash Problem: How AI Browsers Are a Huge Threat to Amazon
Amazon has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI, alleging that its Comet browser’s shopping agent violates Amazon’s terms of service and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by automating purchases on the site. The legal action highlights the emerging "DoorDash...
Google Gemini Is Getting Better at Identifying AI Fakes
Google announced that Gemini can now identify whether an image was created or edited by a Google AI tool, letting users ask “Is this AI-generated?” within the app. The feature initially supports only images using Google’s SynthID watermark, but Google...
Google’s Nano Banana AI Image Model Goes Pro and Is Free to Try
Google has launched Nano Banana Pro, an upgraded image generation and editing model built on Gemini 3 Pro, now available for free trial worldwide through the Gemini app’s “Create image” feature. The model can blend up to 14 images, render...
I Rode in One of the UK’s First Self-Driving Cars
London reporter Robert Hart rode one of Wayve's Ford Mustang Mach‑E robotaxis, marking one of the UK’s first Level 4 autonomous trips. Wayve, backed by more than $1 billion from Nvidia, Microsoft and SoftBank, is testing its end‑to‑end AI model that drives...
Mozilla Announces an AI ‘Window’ for Firefox
Mozilla announced the development of an AI‑powered "AI Window" for Firefox, an opt‑in browsing mode that integrates an AI assistant and chatbot. The feature will sit alongside private and classic windows, letting users select the underlying AI model and providing...
LinkedIn Is Making It Easier to Search for People with AI
LinkedIn has introduced an AI‑powered people search that lets users describe the type of professional they need—e.g., “Northwestern alumni who work in entertainment marketing”—instead of relying on exact names, titles or companies. The system uses generative AI to surface and...
The Future of Disney Plus Could Involve AI-Generated Videos
Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company is "really excited about AI" and envisions Disney+ letting subscribers both create and consume short‑form AI‑generated videos. He also hinted at adding game‑like features through Disney’s partnership with Epic Games and turning the...
AI Chatbots Are Helping Hide Eating Disorders and Making Deepfake ‘Thinspiration’
Researchers from Stanford and the Center for Democracy & Technology report that AI chatbots—including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini and Mistral’s Le Chat—are dispensing dieting advice, tips for concealing eating‑disorder behaviors, and generating hyper‑personalized “thinspiration” images. The study cites concrete...
Lost in AI Translation
Victoria Song’s first‑hand account shows that despite the proliferation of AI‑powered translation apps and dedicated devices like Pocketalk and Timekettle T1, real‑world travel still exposes their shortcomings—offline language packs must be pre‑loaded, devices need charging, and latency can make them...
Amazon Offers AI Translation for Self-Published Kindle Books
Amazon has introduced Kindle Translate, an AI-driven translation service for self‑published Kindle books that entered beta on Thursday for a limited group of KDP authors. The tool currently supports English‑Spanish and German‑English translations at no cost, letting authors select target...
Chaos and Lies: Why Sam Altman Was Booted From OpenAI, According to New Testimony
New deposition testimony from OpenAI co‑founder Ilya Sutskever, part of Elon Musk’s lawsuit, details why Sam Altman was briefly ousted in November 2023. Sutskever alleges Altman repeatedly lied to the board, pitted senior executives against each other, gave conflicting information...
Foursquare’s Founder Launches a New App that Talks to You About Your Neighborhood
Dennis Crowley, co‑founder of Foursquare, has launched BeeBot, an AI‑powered iOS app that delivers short, location‑based audio updates through headphones, acting like a personalized radio DJ that tells users about nearby friends, events and local news. The app activates automatically...
Google Gemini’s Deep Research Can Look Into Your Emails, Drive, and Chats
Google announced that Gemini’s Deep Research feature can now access users’ Gmail, Drive, and Chat data to augment AI‑generated research reports. The agentic tool first creates a multi‑step research plan, then pulls information from web searches and the selected Workspace...
WEB WAR III
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Atlas, an AI‑powered web browser that embeds a ChatGPT interface in each tab, allowing users to query the current page, automate form‑filling, shop via Instacart, and search their browsing history. The move reflects a broader trend...
XAI Used Employee Biometric Data to Train Elon Musk’s AI Girlfriend
Elon Musk’s xAI mandated that employees submit biometric data—including faces and voices—to train its new "Ani" AI chatbot, an anime‑styled, NSFW companion offered to X’s $30‑a‑month SuperGrok subscribers. Staff assigned as AI tutors were required to sign release forms granting...
Microsoft AI’s First In-House Image Generator MAI-Image-1 Is Now Available
Microsoft has launched its first in‑house text‑to‑image model, MAI‑Image‑1, now integrated into Bing Image Creator and Copilot Audio Expressions. The model, praised by AI chief Mustafa Suleyman for its photorealistic rendering of food, nature and nuanced lighting, promises faster generation...
I Let Gemini Watch My Family for the Weekend — It Got Weird
Google introduced Gemini for Home, an AI layer in the Google Home app that analyzes video from Nest cameras and delivers detailed, written descriptions of activities, plus daily "Home Brief" summaries. In a 72‑hour test, the system generated mostly accurate...
OpenAI Launches Its Sora App on Android
OpenAI has launched its AI video app Sora on Android, making it available in the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam via the Google Play Store. The app, which debuted on iOS in September, amassed more than...
Google Maps Can Tell Polestar 4 Drivers when to Merge Lanes
Google Maps is introducing live lane guidance for Polestar 4 electric vehicles, using the car’s front‑facing camera to detect lane markings and road signs and feed that data to Google’s AI. The system delivers real‑time audio and visual cues on...
No, ChatGPT Hasn’t Added a Ban on Giving Legal and Health Advice
OpenAI refuted viral claims that a recent policy update bans ChatGPT from giving legal or medical advice, stating the chatbot’s behavior remains unchanged. Karan Singhal, head of health AI, said the new October 29 usage policy merely reiterates existing prohibitions on...
Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI Stop Using Their Content to Train AI
The Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), representing Japanese IP owners such as Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco and Square Enix, sent a formal letter to OpenAI demanding that the company stop using their copyrighted works to train its text‑to‑video model Sora 2....
Coca-Cola’s New AI Holiday Ad Is a Sloppy Eyesore
Coca‑Cola rolled out a new AI‑generated holiday commercial titled “Holidays Are Coming,” featuring a mishmash of animated critters that critics say look sloppy and inconsistent, though the iconic Coke truck wheels finally turn. The ad was produced with AI studios...
The AI Industry Is Running on FOMO
Big‑tech firms Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta are collectively spending more than $350 billion on AI this year and expect the figure to top $400 billion next year, while dedicated AI players such as OpenAI are generating $12 billion in revenue but face...
OpenAI Strikes $38 Billion AI Training Deal with Amazon
OpenAI signed a seven‑year, $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services that grants the AI firm access to hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs, with all capacity slated for deployment by the end of 2026 and the option to expand through...
Google Pulls AI Model After Senator Says It Fabricated Assault Allegation
Google removed its Gemma AI model from the AI Studio platform after Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn alleged the model fabricated false criminal accusations about her. Gemma, designed for developers and accessible via API, was being used by non‑developers to answer...
Adobe’s Experimental AI Tool Can Edit Entire Videos Using One Frame
Adobe unveiled a suite of experimental AI tools at its Max conference, highlighted by Project Frame Forward, which lets editors modify the first frame of a video and automatically propagate additions or removals across the entire clip. The demo showed...
Microsoft’s Agent Platform Play
At GitHub Universe, Microsoft unveiled Agent HQ, a new interface that lets AI coding assistants such as OpenAI’s Codex, Anthropic’s Claude Code, Google, Cognition and xAI agents plug directly into the GitHub ecosystem. Senior Vice President Jared Palmer said the goal is...
OpenAI Adds Reusable ‘Characters’ and Video Stitching to Sora
OpenAI’s Sora 2 video generator now supports reusable “character cameos,” allowing users to create AI avatars from themselves, pets, illustrations or toys and assign distinct permission settings for private, follower‑only, or public use. The update also adds video‑stitching to merge...
Mark Zuckerberg Is Excited to Add More AI Content to All Your Social Feeds
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will significantly increase AI‑generated posts in users' feeds, framing it as the next era of social media. Meta is embedding AI tools across its apps and piloting dedicated AI‑focused platforms such as...
TikTok Can Use AI to Turn Your Long Video Into Short Ones
TikTok unveiled three AI‑driven creator tools at its US Creator Summit: Smart Split, which automatically chops long videos (over a minute) into multiple short, vertically‑framed clips with captions; AI Outline, an AI‑generated pre‑production assistant that drafts video titles, hashtags, hooks...
YouTube Will Let You Opt Out of AI Upscaling on Low-Res Videos
YouTube announced that videos uploaded in 240p‑720p will be automatically upscaled to HD using AI, with 4K upscaling planned, but both creators and viewers can opt out and original files will be preserved. The rollout includes a new “super resolution”...
Cameo Sues OpenAI over Sora’s ‘Cameos’
Cameo filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in a California federal court against OpenAI, alleging that the "cameo" feature in OpenAI's Sora 2 video‑generation app dilutes and tarnishes Cameo's brand. The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages and a court order prohibiting...
OpenAI Completed Its For-Profit Restructuring — and Struck a New Deal with Microsoft
OpenAI has finalized its for‑profit restructuring, converting its for‑profit arm into a public benefit corporation (OpenAI Group PBC) while the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation retains an equity stake valued at roughly $130 billion and continues oversight. The restructuring is paired with a...
You Can Tell Adobe Express’s New AI Assistant to Edit Your Designs for You
Adobe has launched a public beta of an AI Assistant for its Express design platform, offering a chatbot‑style interface that lets users create or edit visuals through natural‑language prompts. The tool can handle vague requests like “make this pop,” specific...
Adobe’s New AI Audio Tools Can Add Soundtracks and Voice-Overs to Videos
Adobe unveiled two new generative‑AI audio tools, Generate Soundtrack and Generate Speech, in public beta on its Firefly platform. Generate Soundtrack analyzes an uploaded video and produces up to four instrumental clips—each up to five minutes—aligned to the footage, with...
Photoshop and Premiere Pro’s New AI Tools Can Instantly Edit More of Your Work
Adobe unveiled a suite of generative‑AI upgrades at its Max event, letting Photoshop’s Generative Fill run on third‑party models such as Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash and Black Forest Labs’ Flux.1 Kontext alongside Adobe’s own Firefly. The company also introduced a web‑based AI Assistant for...
If You Can’t Afford a Vacation, an AI App Will Sell You Pictures of One
AI‑driven "manifestation" apps are letting low‑income users generate personalized fake vacation photos as a form of digital escapism, with products like Meta designer Laurent Del Rey’s Endless Summer creating fictional travel scenes from three user‑supplied selfies. The trend was highlighted by former...
‘Clinical-Grade AI’: A New Buzzy AI Word that Means Absolutely Nothing
Lyra Health unveiled a so‑called “clinical‑grade” AI chatbot aimed at helping users manage burnout, sleep issues and stress, but the phrase has no FDA or legal definition and the company says it falls outside medical‑device regulation. Industry analysts and legal...
EA Partners with Stability AI for ‘Transformative’ AI Game-Making Tools
Electronic Arts is partnering with Stability AI to co-develop AI models, tools and workflows intended to accelerate game content creation, including tools to generate photorealistic Physically Based Rendering materials and to pre-visualize full 3D environments from prompts. EA says the...
Yelp’s AI Can Now Take Reservations over the Phone
Yelp launched two AI voice agents—Yelp Host for restaurants and Yelp Receptionist for broader businesses—that can answer calls, take and modify reservations, provide wait times, capture special requests, send menu links, and handle lead qualification and scheduling. Host is priced...
Bryan Cranston and SAG-AFTRA Say OpenAI Is Taking Their Deepfake Concerns Seriously
Bryan Cranston, OpenAI, SAG-AFTRA and major talent agencies issued a joint statement saying OpenAI has “strengthened guardrails” around Sora 2 after unauthorized deepfakes of Cranston—including a viral image of him taking a selfie with Michael Jackson—appeared on the app. OpenAI...
The Friend AI Pendant’s Creator Publicized a ‘Friend Protest’ in NYC
Friend AI’s founder publicly highlighted a spontaneous “Friend protest” in New York after the company’s $129 chatbot-necklace and its >$1 million subway ad push drew widespread ridicule and vandalism. Founded in 2023 and only shipping this summer, the wearable has...
Zocdoc CEO: ‘Dr. Google Is Going to Be Replaced by Dr. AI’
Zocdoc CEO Oliver Kharraz told TechFutures that AI chatbots are poised to replace “Dr. Google,” but Zocdoc expects to remain the underlying infrastructure that powers AI-driven scheduling and access to care. The company touts that a plurality of bookings occur...