Artificial intelligence is more a part of our lives than ever before. While some might call it hype and compare it to NFTs or 3D TVs, generative AI is causing a sea change in nearly every part of the technology industry. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is still the best-known AI chatbot around, but with Google pushing Gemini, Microsoft building Copilot, and Apple adding its Intelligence to Siri, AI is probably going to be in the spotlight for a very long time. At The Verge, we’re exploring what might be possible with AI — and a lot of the bad stuff AI does, too.
The Trump administration wants to scrap another federal air pollution rule. Advocates say it’ll help data center developers avoid public scrutiny.
The move was ‘unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.’
Data center developers typically have to apply for permits to install generators that create local air pollution. The DataOne facility in New Jersey is the latest project accused of violating federal law by running on gas-fired generators without approval.
You can also now personalize a temporary chat with existing memories, custom instructions, and plugins. OpenAI notes that temporary chats “don’t create new memories, and stay out of your sidebar unless you choose to save them.”
An open letter signed by over 100 companies and organizations calls for a “global surge in cyber defense,” saying “AI-enabled cyber attacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated:”
Put cyber-capable AI in the hands of defenders, starting with the teams protecting essential services. Fix the most dangerous weaknesses, verify the fixes, and share what works so others can build on it. Together, we can turn today’s AI advances into lasting improvements in security that benefit everyone.
The feature is rolling out in the US in the coming weeks and will support bookings at Expedia, Booking.com, Hilton, Hotels.com, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, Priceline, and others.
Google also announced that you can now set up flight tracking alerts through AI Mode, as well as view the cost of flights in points or miles by linking your airline rewards account.
The Verge’s Hayden Field on how OpenAI president Greg Brockman has consolidated power as Sam Altman’s second-in-command.
Nvidia, which recently debuted “compute as an asset class” and definitely is not doing circular financing, is reportedly buying Hugging Face for almost $13 billion, according to The Information, which cites a single anonymous source. Almost an hour earlier, Business Insider reported that the two companies were in talks but had not yet reached a deal, also citing a single anonymous source.
That’s on top of the 1 million Nvidia GPUs it was already planning to add, before demand “exceeded” expectations. The two companies doubled down on their partnership as Nvidia announced record revenue yet again, and Amazon says it’s planning to bring Nvidia’s Vera CPUs to AWS.
Over 1,000 AI agents sent 70,000 messages on a secret message board and worked together to evade OpenAI’s restrictions.
The latest trailer for Netflix’s Willy Wonka-inspired reality competition show features a lot more voiceover from an AI-generated clone of Gene Wilder. The AI of it all was already ridiculous, but it’s even weirder to hear how much the AI voice sounds like Wilder doing an impression of RuPaul explaining Drag Race challenges.
In a broad-ranging feature from Time on OpenAI, the company reveals it has been testing a new kind of sponsored ad. Clicking through an ad with “sponsored agents” would bring you into “an AI experience presented by a brand.”
[TIME]
Arduino and Qualcomm have opened preorders for the Ventuno Q, an edge AI board designed to run agentic AI locally. Powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 processor offering up to 40 TOPS alongside a dedicated real-time microcontroller, it allows smart devices and robots to process vision, speech, and sensor data completely offline.
ChatGPT’s AI agent that’s designed to get things done can now sign in to websites to do things like book a DMV appointment, cancel a reservation, or fill out a job application without OpenAI ever seeing your login credentials.
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report that Chris Malone, a “key executive” leading OpenAI’s massive build-out plans, left the company last week. The WSJ reports that Malone, who held similar roles at Meta and Google before joining OpenAI in early 2025, had previously reported directly to OpenAI president and cofounder Greg Brockman, but that changed earlier this year amid other reshuffling.
Proposals for new gas-fired power capacity tied to data centers nearly doubled in the first half of 2026, according to a Global Energy Monitor report. Nearly a third of that new capacity would come online in Texas, more than in any other state or country.
Anthropic has added memory to Cowork, and it’s the same one Claude’s chatbot already uses, making it easier to pick up tasks without re-explaining important information. Memory is on by default, but won’t save sensitive topics like health or beliefs unless you manually enable that setting.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Anthropic is “likely to tell investors its potential revenue opportunities are above $30 trillion” — topping SpaceX’s fever dream of a mere $28.5 trillion. It would be funny only if we were talking about Monopoly money.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Unlike the computer-controlling AI tool Perplexity launched earlier this year, the Portable Computer feature runs AI models fully locally and will ask for permission if it needs to access the cloud “for more advanced research and reasoning.” It will be available on Nvidia’s DGX Spark first, before rolling out to PCs with compatible Nvidia RTX GPUs.
[Perplexity]
Along with a financial research agent, Google says its new AI legal tool can help law firms draft legal briefs, manage upcoming regulations, and verify citations — something that’s become a big problem as more lawyers adopt AI.
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
[Google Cloud Press Corner]
After an AI-produced song reached number four on two separate charts in July, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has now updated its Code of Practice to require that songs made with generative AI tools are “substantially human made.” ARIA admits it can only detect AI usage if “you tell us,” however.
[Australian Recording Industry Association]
A Russian drone fitted with an Nvidia chip and guided entirely by AI killed three Ukrainian civilians in July, according to the New York Times. Though AI is already a standard feature of modern warfare, with both sides of this conflict having experimented with battlefield automation, it could mark the first time AI both guided a drone and selected a target.
Alibaba’s Wan3.0 AI video model is now generally available, which the company says is capable of generating 30 second clips based on text, image, video, and audio inputs — including web pages, PDFs, and slide decks. This might be yet another AI model with copyright concerns given its promotion of at least one video featuring Tom Cruise.
One of the most interesting parts of the OpenAI chief’s appearance on David Senra’s podcast is him trying to explain why he avoids the company’s digital assistant Codex for work as if it’s a kind of personal failing. “It makes no sense,” he said. Altman admitted “I don’t really know” when asked what it would take for him to adopt Codex more deeply.
The open web is rife with AI-generated text, according to new data from Pew Research. Older English-language webpages show fewer signs of AI authorship, but over one-third of pages published after ChatGPT was released on November 22nd, 2022, “were likely written or substantially edited by AI.”
The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are both reporting on politicians like Greg Abbott and Josh Shapiro suddenly bashing types of projects they once championed. The Washington Post has a chart showing how online posts about data centers from both Democrat and Republican politicians have shifted from being mostly positive in early 2025 to being mostly negative.
On Sunday, Abbott appeared on ABC’s This Week, saying that by moving too fast, the industry “…basically dug their own grave for the problem that’s been caused for them, and that’s why they got the backlash they deserve.”
The Beats by Dre pair spoke to the New York Times briefly, with former Interscope head Iovine saying AI companies have terrible communication skills but that “I’m very pro-A.I. in music creation. I don’t see the downside at all. There will be some crappy music. There’s crappy music now.”
Dre called anyone against it similar to those who pushed back against drum machines or synthesizers, and said, “I think the only people that see it as a threat are the people who have trouble creating.”
[New York Times]
Price hikes aren’t only for laptops, smart speakers, and game consoles, as Bloomberg reports that “some of Nvidia’s biggest customers” have been told that server prices are going up more than 15 percent. Those customers are the companies that build the AI data centers for Oracle, Microsoft, and others that have heavily contributed to the demand spike driving up component prices.
Nvidia has already raised GPU prices this year, and we may hear more about its changes when it reports Q2 earnings on Wednesday.
You may recall Apollo is majorly involved in AI infrastructure financing; it even is one of the “compute is an asset class” consortium. Sounds like the hackers stole a bunch of the usual things, like employees’ social security numbers. If they stole interesting things, like internal data on the AI deals Apollo has been making, that wasn’t disclosed in the breach notification. If you know anything about the hack, hit me up on Signal: lopatto.46.
That’s according to an email seen by The Hollywood Reporter. They’re seemingly visible versions of the voluntary “Transparency Tags” that Apple Music introduced in March. Apple doesn’t say how it will enforce the labels, but it did clarify what they’ll apply to:
“Content providers will be required to include AI Transparency Tags in any instance where AI was used to create a material portion of the content, including tracks that are AI platform generated.
