Just prior to the start of the weekend, Elon Musk announced that his artificial intelligence company xAI is acquiring his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) “in an all-stock transaction,” valuing xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion less $12 billion in debt). The merger has the potential to create a powerful GenAI-powered content platform. The billionaire purchased Twitter in late 2022 for $44 billion, following months of legal skirmishes. According to Musk, X currently touts more than 600 million active users, while “xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale.” Continue reading Elon Musk Announces xAI Corporation Will Purchase X Social

OpenAI has activated the multimodal image generation capabilities of GPT-4o, making it available to ChatGPT users on the Plus, Pro, Team and Free tiers. It replaces DALL-E 3 as the default image generator for the popular chatbot. GPT-4o’s accuracy with text, understanding of symbols and precision with prompts combined with well multimodal capabilities that allow the model to take cues from visual material have transformed its image capabilities from largely unpredictable to “consistent and context-aware,” resulting in “a practical tool with precision and power,” claims OpenAI. Continue reading OpenAI Delivers Native GPT-4o Image Generator to ChatGPT

Google has added a Canvas feature to its Gemini AI chatbot that provides users with a real-time collaborative space where writing and coding projects can be refined and other ideas iterated and shared. “Canvas is designed for seamless collaboration with Gemini,” according to Gemini Product Director Dave Citron, who notes that Canvas makes it “an even more effective collaborator” in helping bring ideas to life. The move marks a trend whereby AI companies are trying to turn chatbot platforms into turnkey productivity suites. Google is launching a limited release of Gemini Live Video in addition to bringing its Audio Overview feature of NotebookLM to Gemini. Continue reading Canvas and Live Video Add Productivity Features to Gemini AI

Anthropic’s Claude can now search the Internet in real time, allowing it to provide timely and relevant responses that are also more accurate than what the chatbot previously offered, according to the company. Claude incorporates direct citations for its Web-retrieved material, so users can fact-check its sources. “Instead of finding search results yourself, Claude processes and delivers relevant sources in a conversational format.” While this is not exactly groundbreaking — ChatGPT, Grok 3, Copilot, Perplexity and Gemini all have real-time Web retrieval and most include citations — Claude takes a slightly different approach. Continue reading Real-Time Web Access Informs Claude 3.7 Sonnet Responses

OpenAI has debuted three new models for transcription and voice generation — gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe and gpt-4o-mini-tts. The text-to-speech and speech-to-text AI models are designed to help developers create AI agents with highly customizable voices. OpenAI claims these models will power natural and responsive voice agents, moving AI out of the text-based communications stage and into intuitive spoken conversations. The suite outperforms existing solutions in accuracy and reliability, OpenAI says, especially with “accents, noisy environments, and varying speech speeds,” making them well-suited for customer call centers and meeting notes. Continue reading OpenAI Pushes Conversational Agents with Three New Models

Chat interfaces powered by generative AI are impacting online shopping, according to an Adobe Analytics study that found that AI-influenced visits to U.S. retail website increased by 1,200 percent from July 2024 to February 2025. Adobe says this “significant surge” demonstrates an emerging retail AI economy. GenAI chat interfaces are “becoming a helpful assistant for compiling research before making a purchase,” influencing how consumers behave online, according to Adobe. While paid search and email continue to be the dominant traffic drivers, the past year’s growth in AI-aided shopping signals a shift. Continue reading Adobe Analytics: AI-Powered Online Shopping Surges in U.S.

Baidu has launched two new AI systems, the native multimodal foundation model Ernie 4.5 and deep-thinking reasoning model Ernie X1. The latter supports features like generative imaging, advanced search and webpage content comprehension. Baidu is touting Ernie X1 as of comparable performance to another Chinese model, DeepSeek-R1, but says it is half the price. Both Baidu models are available to the public, including individual users, through the Ernie website. Baidu, the dominant search engine in China, says its new models mark a milestone in both reasoning and multimodal AI, “offering advanced capabilities at a more accessible price point.” Continue reading Baidu Releases New LLMs that Undercut Competition’s Price

Alibaba Group has revamped its Quark search engine as an AI “super assistant” powered by its flagship Qwen reasoning model. Quark had previously relied on a model called QuarkLLM. The new iteration features a chatbot, deep thinking and agentic capability, Alibaba says. The company also debuted R1-Omni, a model it says has emotional intelligence. Included in the flurry of Alibaba news: a strategic partnership with Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, the company behind the new AI agent Manus. The moves are part of a surge of Chinese AI tech coming to market as the country asserts itself in the space. Continue reading Alibaba Updates Quark, Debuts R1-Omni, Secures Manus Pact

Sesame, an AI startup from Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, has created a conversational voice model that many feel has achieved uncanny levels of authenticity. Drawing comparisons to the charismatic vocal centerpiece of the 2013 Warner Bros. film “Her,” Sesame seems to have achieved a new level of engagement among AI voice assistants. While some are describing the tech as “amazing.” others have expressed concern over its capabilities. “Our goal is to achieve ‘voice presence’ — the magical quality that makes spoken interactions feel real, understood and valued,” explains a blog post by Iribe and others. Continue reading AI Startup Sesame Develops Next Stage of Voice Generation

A standalone Meta AI app is in the works for Q2, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. The move is aligned with Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s stated intent to propel his company to the forefront of artificial intelligence by year’s end, vaulting ahead of competitors such as OpenAI, Alphabet, Anthropic and xAI. “This is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than 1 billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant,” Zuckerberg said in January during a Q4 earnings call with analysts. Continue reading Meta Plans Its Own Standalone AI App to Take On ChatGPT

OpenAI is releasing a research preview of what it calls its “largest and best” chat model to date, GPT‑4.5, which scales unsupervised learning in pre-training and post-training. As a result, the new chat model has the ability to recognize patterns, draw connections, and generate creative insights without having to draw on time and energy consuming “reasoning.” GPT‑4.5 is currently available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers ($200 per month) and developers subscribing to OpenAI’s API tier. ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Team customers are expected to gain access this week. Continue reading OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 Model Sees Patterns and Thinks Creatively

Anthropic has released a new frontier model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, described as the industry’s first “hybrid AI reasoning model.” The new Claude is different in that it can both respond to questions in real time or, alternatively, “think” about a problem for a prolonged period of time — basically as long as a user would like. Users can choose between “near-instant responses or extended, step-by-step thinking that is made visible to the user” by selecting the appropriate “reasoning” capability for Claude, Anthropic says. Along with the new model, Anthropic is also debuting a command line tool for agentic coding, Claude Code. Continue reading Anthropic Introduces a New Claude Hybrid Reasoning Model

Amazon has pulled the plug on Inspire, its TikTok-type, short-form video and photo mobile feed designed to help customers explore and discover new products by browsing various categories. Like TikTok, Inspire used a vertical feed and opportunities to purchase products used by influencers and other customers. The shopping giant is instead referring customers to its shopping chatbot Rufus. Amazon has since November 2023 partnered with Instagram to promote shopping within the app, and also has a deal with Snap, so it still has ties to social shopping. Inspire was launched in December 2022 and expanded to national availability in May of 2023. Continue reading Amazon Replaces Social Shopping Feed with Rufus Chatbot

Google announced last week that its Gemini AI chatbot now offers the ability to provide responses based on earlier conversations. It can also summarize a previous chat and recall information the user has shared in other threads. “Whether you’re asking a question about something you’ve already discussed, or asking Gemini to summarize a previous conversation, Gemini now uses information from relevant chats to craft a response,” according to Google. The new feature is rolling out via Google’s $20-per-month One AI Premium Plan to start and will be available to Google Workspace Business and Enterprise customers in the coming weeks. Continue reading Gemini Recalls Previous Chats to Provide Helpful Responses

Anthropic is launching an AI Economic Index aimed at understanding the technology’s effects on labor markets and the economy over time. The Anthropic Economic Index kicks off with a report that indicates the most concentrated uses of AI today are in software development and technical writing tasks. The information was culled by analyzing data from millions of anonymized conversations on Claude.ai with the goal of revealing how AI is being incorporated into real-world tasks across global markets. It also found that AI usage trends more toward augmenting human capabilities (57 percent), compared to using it for automation (43 percent). Continue reading Anthropic Launches Economic Index to Track the AI Economy