Google announced in July 2026 an update to Google Vids that allows users to create a custom digital avatar modeled on their own appearance and voice. By uploading a selfie and a voice recording,…
Google announced in 2026 that it is renaming its AI-powered research tool NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, continuing the company’s pattern of folding its AI products under the Gemini brand. The change…
Anthropic and a group of private equity firms including Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs launched Ode in May 2026 — a $1.5 billion joint venture designed to embed AI engineers…
San Francisco-based voice AI startup Rime announced in July 2026 that it has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round led by M13 Ventures, with participation from Twilio Ventures, Corazon…
LAPD allowed its 3-year Flock Safety contract to expire July 12, 2026, citing “serious concerns” over civil liberties, privacy, and camera data collection from Flock’s 80,000+ U.S. license-plate readers. CIO Dean Gialamas said LAPD could revisit after data/privacy/security and sharing concerns are addressed; Flock called it a “surprise.”
A Florida man who worked as a ransomware negotiator for a U.S. cybersecurity company has been sentenced to more than five years in prison after being convicted of conspiring with hackers to deploy…
Microsoft’s carbon emissions increased 25 percent in 2025, reaching 34 million metric tons “without select interventions,” according to the company’s 2026 sustainability report published in July…
Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s No. 2 executive, will shift from full-time to part-time advisory work after her medical leave proved longer than expected, the WSJ reported July 9, 2026. She joined in May 2025 as CEO of Applications reporting to Sam Altman, disclosed an April relapse of a neuroimmune condition, led Instacart as CEO from 2021, and joined OpenAI’s board in 2024.
Announced in 2026, Meta’s Muse Spark 1.1 improves complex bug detection and fixing and adds multimodal perception for images, videos, and documents. The Meta Model API goes public preview today for US developers, plus $20 free credits per new account.
Prime Intellect, a startup that provides computing infrastructure and software tools for building AI agents, raised $130 million in a Series A round announced in July 2026, valuing the company at $1…
Microsoft is moving some Excel and Word prompts from OpenAI/Anthropic to its in-house MAI models, Bloomberg reported July 7, 2026, citing rising AI service costs. At last month’s Build, Microsoft unveiled seven new MAI models, including an agentic coder and text-to-image generator, while Amazon, Uber, Meta, and Accenture cut AI spend too.
Google Search Console will add “platform properties” so creators can track which Google Search terms lead people to their Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube content and view audience interaction. Announced in 2026, it rolls out gradually over the coming weeks, building on June 2026’s claimed Search profiles and pinned videos.
