Apple has recently found itself embroiled in a federal lawsuit in San Jose, with plaintiffs alleging that the company falsely advertised its Apple Intelligence features. The suit claims that consumers who purchased Apple devices with promised transformative AI capabilities received only limited or no such functionality, especially notable being the delay of its Apple Intelligence-empowered Siri until presumedly 2027. This legal action comes amid reports that CEO Tim Cook has lost confidence in AI head John Giannandrea's ability to execute on product development.
Italian newspaper Il Foglio claims to have produced the world's first fully AI-generated newspaper edition as part of a month-long experiment. The conservative-liberal daily's four-page broadsheet, dubbed Il Foglio AI, is entirely crafted by artificial intelligence: the writing, the headlines, and even the sprinkled-in irony. In this edition of Il Foglio, Editor Claudio Cerasa stated that journalists' roles would be limited to merely "asking questions" and "reading the (AI-generated) answers" - reception towards this sort of publication still remains to be seen.
After nearly a year of delays, Meta is finally launching its Meta AI chatbot in Europe, rolling out a text-only version across WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger in 41 European countries and 21 overseas territories. However, despite finally clearing regulatory hurdles for a text-only version, Meta claims that the "unpredictable nature" of Europe's AI governance has halted any plans for a multimodal release for the foreseeable future. Users in Europe will, for the time being, be unable to make use of Meta AI's image generation or photo editing capabilities.
A recent report from the Financial Times states that OpenAI-rival Anthropic is working on voice capabilities for its Claude chatbot in the works. Anthropic's chief product officer, Mike Krieger, told the news agency that the company is looking for ways to create a more natural, spoken interface for desktop, claiming it has already gone through a prototype or two. He also says that Anthropic is exploring partnerships with major players like Amazon and voice tech startup ElevenLabs to speed up the launch of a voice experience.
Now renamed the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), the consortium backed by Microsoft, BlackRock, and MGX has recently expanded its roster in an announcement to add Nvidia and Elon Musk's xAI to the ranks. The group's goal is to heavily invest in data centers and energy facilities essential for powering AI applications and tools for power-hungry systems like ChatGPT, with initial plans to pour over $30 billion into AI-related projects.
Japanese investment holdings giant SoftBank Group recently announced that it will acquire Ampere Computing, a well-renowned semiconductor designer, for $6.5 billion in cash. Ampere, founded by former Intel executive Renee James, will become a fully-owned subsidiary of SoftBank, further enlarging its portfolio of investments in the AI landscape. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025 and sees lead investors Carlyle and Oracle selling their stakes. Currently, Ampere serves major cloud customers like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, Tencent, and more.
AI-based search engine Perplexity AI is, according to an article by CNBC, in early discussions to raise anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion in additional cashflow at a $18 billion valuation. If all goes well, the fundraiser would double the startup's previous valuation of $9 billion in December 2024 with an annualized recurring revenue of $100 million. Perplexity has put itself in a position to directly compete with the likes of Google and Microsoft, especially with the recent tease of its own web browser called Comet.