AI news, distilled.

Helping small businesses put AI to work

OpenAI is partnering with America’s SBDC to expand hands-on AI training and local support for small businesses, alongside a new report on how small teams are using AI.

Sam Altman says OpenAI won’t go public until its models are safe

For months, people have wondered when OpenAI will go public. CEO Sam Altman says it won't happen until the company can make better promises about model safety, with no firm timeline in sight. "We intend to continue with AI progress … but as the models have had this surge forward in capability, and we see […]

Open TTS Leaderboard: Scalable Evaluation for Multilingual Text-to-Speech and Voice Cloning

America.gov gets really weird when you ask it about Minecraft, but it’s not a glitch

For the sake of national security, it's a relief to learn that America.gov is not hallucinating to the point that it's penning lengthy poetry.

Trump orders US government to call AI ‘Super Intelligence’

The US executive branch is no longer acknowledging the existence of "artificial intelligence." Going forward, official policy websites, policy documents, and press releases will refer only to "Super Intelligence," thanks to a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump. "The word super is the best word of all, and it's the simplest," Trump said […]

The internet is convinced Elon Musk’s xAI trolled OpenAI’s ‘Dots’ launch

Before OpenAI launched its new AI agent, Dots, on Tuesday, Elon Musk's xAI had already acquired the domain name "dot.com," which now redirects to the Grok chatbot download page.

Elon Musk’s AI-powered Grokipedia is updating again

Grokipedia, the AI-powered online encyclopedia from SpaceXAI, appears to be updating articles once again after a months-long pause. In August, Lawfare reported that articles on Grokipedia hadn't reviewed edits since April, but the platform's live updates site is now showing various recent changes to pages - though as I write this, many are just a […]

OpenAI’s latest features take direct aim at the app store model

OpenAI is building out the pieces of an alternative to the traditional app store model, turning ChatGPT into a place where software can be discovered and used by people and AI agents alike.

OpenAI reportedly in talks to raise $30B round at $1.4T valuation

The new round is anticipated to be the company's last before its delayed 2027 public debut.

Here’s why OpenAI is absent from Nvidia’s industry-wide effort to end rogue AI agents

OpenAI isn't a public supporter of Nvidia's Open Agent Safety Platform, but it is privately working with Nvidia, TechCrunch has learned.

OpenAI takes on Microsoft with the launch of what feels a whole lot like ChatGPT’s own office suite

OpenAI's newly announced suite of office features puts it into more direct competition with more traditional software companies.

AI researchers put out videos saying superintelligence is ‘exactly as dangerous as it sounds’

"The chance of human extinction is about a coin flip, in my view," Geoffrey Irving, a former OpenAI and Google DeepMind employee, said in a new interview. It's one of a dozen interviews with AI researchers, including current and former employees at OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Palisade Research, which says it's a nonprofit studying AIs' […]

AI-powered app maker Wabi pivots to a messaging experience

Wabi is repositioning its prompt-based app builder as a personal AI agent that can create interfaces on demand, combining chat, apps, and ongoing tasks.

OpenAI launches Dots, its bubbly agentic avatar

Dots are meant to operate independent of any specific hardware or interface, pursuing user-defined goals continuously in the background with minimal oversight.

OpenAI launches Dots, its Muse competitor

OpenAI is responding to Meta's buzzy Muse AI with agentic helpers of its own: Dots. During its DevDay keynote on Tuesday, OpenAI announced that Dots will serve as always-on AI assistants that can "do nearly anything" across connected apps in the background while learning your preferences over time. The company's capable GPT-6 Astra model powers […]

OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Sol, says it nearly matches GPT-6 Astra and costs less

OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Sol delivers significant improvements over GPT-6 Sol across complex professional tasks, including code writing and debugging, document understanding, and executing multistep business workflows.

OpenAI expands ChatGPT’s plug-ins with app-like interfaces and automations

OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT plug-ins with dedicated sidebar homes, interactive panels, file viewers, improved discovery, and support for automations.

OpenAI gives Codex reusable cloud environments that work across devices

OpenAI is expanding Codex with reusable cloud development environments, a revamped CLI with voice controls, new code review tools, and a security-focused product for scanning repositories and preparing fixes.

Protesters gather at OpenAI’s DevDay

On Tuesday, OpenAI's annual DevDay event began with protests, flyers, and chants. "Sam Altman, get off it, put people over profit," said a group of protesters marching in a circle in front of a series of signs that spelled out "PEOPLE OVER PROFIT." More than a dozen organizations came together to sponsor a rally outside […]

Can a chatbot fix the government maze? The White House is about to find out

America.gov is intended to simplify the process of navigating government bureaucracy, but large language models are imperfect and remain prone to hallucinations, which could cause new issues.