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AI news about company strategy, partnerships, earnings and leadership.

12 stories in the last 24 hours

Today

9 stories
  1. Worth knowing Wired

    Google Is Forcing AI Overviews in Classrooms. Schools Are Searching for a Way Out

    Google's refusal to separate AI summaries from traditional search highlights how deeply tech giants are bundling generative AI into core infrastructure, forcing institutions like schools to either adapt to AI-first interfaces or abandon legacy tools.

    Google announced that it will not allow schools to disable AI Overviews and AI Mode in its search engine, requiring administrators to block Google Search entirely to prevent students from seeing AI-generated summaries. The decision has drawn backlash from educators and parents concerned about foundational learning and accuracy, prompting districts to seek technical workarounds or alternative search engines.

    2 sources
  2. Worth knowing Interconnects

    How big is the open model economy today?

    Measuring token volumes across inference providers offers empirical insight into how rapidly open-weights models are being adopted in production relative to proprietary frontier labs.

    Interconnects examines the scale of the open model inference market by tracking public token volume disclosures from startups like Baseten, Fireworks, and Together AI alongside OpenRouter API metrics. The available data indicates near-exponential growth in usage, including Fireworks serving over 40 trillion tokens daily for customized models alone, which the author compares against Google's reported platform token volumes.

    1 source
  3. Worth knowing The Verge

    Uber only fulfilled 4 rides from AI agents last quarter

    This disclosure provides a rare, concrete data point showing that real-world consumer adoption of third-party AI agents for routine tasks like booking rides and ordering food remains extremely low.

    Uber executives revealed during a third-quarter earnings call that third-party AI agents arranged only four rides on its platform last quarter. While AI agents placed slightly more Uber Eats orders—around 500 during the week of Halloween—the volume remains minuscule compared to the 320 million total rides and deliveries.

    1 source
  4. Worth knowing Wired

    UK Officials Said AI Would Add £400 Billion to the Economy. That Figure Mainly Came From Google

    The discrepancy highlights how governments often rely on optimistic, industry-funded economic projections to justify AI policies and public spending.

    UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan acknowledged that the government's frequently cited claim that AI would add £400 billion to the economy came from a 2023 report commissioned by Google. The government's own central projection estimates the economic boost by 2030 at £120 billion, less than a third of the industry-funded figure.

    1 source
  5. Worth knowing The Verge

    Google hasn’t figured out how to make AI pay like its search engine

    It highlights the ongoing financial challenge tech giants face in monetizing AI features enough to justify massive capital expenditures on AI infrastructure.

    Alphabet's third-quarter earnings showed Google Search revenue growth slowing to 12 percent and paid click growth dropping to 8 percent, even as search queries rose at their fastest rate in five years. Following the report, Alphabet shares fell about 14 percent amid investor concern over the company's plans to spend roughly $200 billion on AI-focused infrastructure this year.

    1 source

Yesterday

3 stories
  1. Worth knowing TechCrunch

    Data centers are turning to old jet engines as the wait for power grows

    This highlights the severe energy bottleneck slowing the AI infrastructure buildout and the unconventional, polluting workarounds companies are adopting to stay competitive.

    Facing multi-year delays for grid connections and new turbines, AI data center operators are turning to retired aircraft engines rebuilt to burn natural gas to generate electricity quickly. Companies including xAI, OpenAI, and Crusoe are deploying these converted jet engines to bring facilities online within two years, despite their lower efficiency and higher emissions.

    1 source