Artificial Intelligence

Since purchasing the social network more than a year ago, Elon Musk has been outlining his plans for X, previously known as Twitter, to become an “everything app,” including money processing, creative tools, commerce, and more. The business is now pledging a timeline. X announced today its plans for the …

“Know your customer” (KYC) refers to a procedure that banks, fintech companies, and other financial organizations use to confirm the identity of their clients. A typical method of verifying a person’s identity in a KYC authentication process is the use of “ID images,” which are essentially cross-checked selfies. A number …

Rite Aid was banned from using facial recognition software for five years by the FTC for its “reckless use of facial surveillance systems” that humiliated customers and put their “sensitive information at risk.” After Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, the FTC ordered Rite Aid to delete …

Google is making Imagen 2, its AI model that can create and edit images with a text prompt, more widely available to Google Cloud customers using Vertex AI who have been approved. The company isn’t disclosing which data it used to train the new model or offering creators who accidentally …

Last week, Google announced its family of Gemini models and added them to its Bard chatbot. Today, it’s launching a variety of new and updated services for developers. One of these services is AI Studio, formerly MakerSuite. AI Studio is a web-based tool for developers that opens up the Gemini …

Instagram is considering a new feature called “flipside” that lets users create a private side of their profile to post more candid and personal photos for a select group of friends. The feature productizes “finstas”—alternative Instagram accounts where people post their real-life photos instead of their polished public Instagrams. The …

Snapchat announced Tuesday that Snapchat+ subscribers will get some AI-powered features. Most importantly, subscribers can send text-prompted, AI-generated images. In addition to a new AI extend tool, subscribers can now share Dream selfies with friends. Subscribers can use the AI image generator by clicking “AI” on the right. After clicking …

We talk a lot about AI’s drawbacks, but what about its benefits, like feeding authors’ or historical figures’ writing into a large language model? James Lowry is unknown, but his story is part of black American history. Chicago-born Lowry was the first Black McKinsey consultant in 1968 after serving in …

Mistral AI reached its Series A funding goal in France. Bloomberg reports that the company raised €385 million, or $415 million at today’s exchange rate, worth $2 billion. Today, Mistral AI unveils its commercial platform. Google’s DeepMind and Meta alumni founded Mistral AI to create open-technology foundational models. It raised …

Sam Altman is back as OpenAI CEO after a rough week. OpenAI’s new board replaced most of the board that tried to oust Altman before Thanksgiving. Altman announced in a letter circulated internally at OpenAI and published on the OpenAI blog that Mira Murati, who was briefly appointed interim CEO …