Artificial Intelligence: News, Business, Science

Jan 8, 2026

In a glorious AI future, you'll order pizza directly from Excel. Microsoft and Stripe are teaming up to bring shopping to the AI assistant Copilot. US users will soon be able to buy products directly in the chat without ever leaving the app. At launch, the feature includes Etsy retailers and brands like Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie.

Called "Copilot Checkout," the feature runs on Stripe and uses the "Agentic Commerce Protocol," an open standard for AI-powered commerce that Stripe helped develop. ChatGPT already uses the same protocol with Stripe Checkout.

Meanwhile, Google is developing its own open protocol called "Agent Payments Protocol" (AP2), backed by more than 60 companies, including Mastercard, PayPal, Coinbase, and Adobe. Both OpenAI and Google have also announced partnerships with PayPal to enable payments directly in AI chats.

There's real money at stake here. If purchases happen through chatbots, the providers can take a cut of every transaction. OpenAI recently launched its own product research agent to position chatbots as a shopping channel. Copilot in Edge already offers AI-powered shopping tools in the US.

Comment Source: Stripe

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 8, 2026

AI and society

The European Commission has ordered Elon Musk's platform X to preserve all internal documents and data related to the AI chatbot Grok through the end of 2026. A Commission spokesperson confirmed the order to Reuters on Thursday. The directive expands on a preservation requirement sent to X last year that focused on algorithms and the spread of illegal content.

The order stems from the Commission's concerns about regulatory compliance. However, the measure does not mean a new formal investigation under the Digital Services Act (DSA) has been opened.

Earlier this week, the Commission condemned images generated by Grok and spread on X showing unclothed women and children as illegal.

Comment Source: Reuters

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 8, 2026

AI in practice

Google brings Gemini AI to Gmail with summaries, smart replies, and inbox prioritization

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 8, 2026

AI in practice

Arm Holdings has restructured its business and created a unit called "Physical AI" to enter the robotics market. The British company, which licenses chip technology for smartphones and other devices, will operate three main business units in future: Cloud and AI, Edge (mobile devices and PCs) and Physical AI, which combines automotive and robotics.

Drew Henry will head the new unit. Arm plans to increase staff for robotics. According to marketing chief Ami Badani, the merger of automotive and robotics is due to similar customer requirements in terms of power consumption, safety and reliability. Robotics dominated CES 2026 with dozens of exhibitors of humanoid robots.

Comment Source: Reuters

Matthias Bastian

Jan 8, 2026

Update

AI in practice

China expected to approve Nvidia H200 imports this quarter after initial hesitation

The AI race between the US and China enters a new phase: Washington loosens Nvidia export rules, but Beijing reportedly halts purchases. China wants to shield its chip industry and may require buyers to also purchase domestic chips.

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Matthias Bastian

Jan 8, 2026

AI in practice

Tailwind's shattered business model is a grim warning for every business relying on site visits in the AI era

Tailwind CSS is one of the most successful open-source projects in web development. But while the framework is booming, revenue at the company behind it has dropped 80 percent. Founder Adam Wathan blames AI assistants. His story is a warning sign for large parts of the web.

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Matthias Bastian

Jan 8, 2026

AI in practice

Dr. ChatGPT is now officially in, as OpenAI launches dedicated health section for its chatbot

Matthias Bastian

Jan 7, 2026

Short News

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, is raising $10 billion at a valuation of $350 billion - nearly double its $183 billion valuation from just four months ago. Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Coatue Management are leading the round, which is expected to close in the coming weeks. The final numbers could still shift, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This new capital comes on top of the up to $15 billion that Nvidia and Microsoft plan to invest in the company. As part of that arrangement, Anthropic will purchase $30 billion worth of computing capacity from Microsoft Azure running Nvidia systems. The company expects to break even for the first time in 2028.

Anthropic's raise follows xAI's recent announcement of a $20 billion funding round at a valuation exceeding $230 billion. OpenAI is also reportedly planning its next round of up to $100 billion at a $750 billion valuation. Based on these numbers, the AI investment boom isn't cooling off anytime soon in 2026.

Comment Source: Wall Street Journal

Matthias Bastian

Jan 7, 2026

Short News

Google's "Nano Banana" is currently the most powerful image model on the market, but the name is undeniably strange. According to the Wall Street Journal, the moniker was a 2:30 a.m. accident. When project manager Naina Raisinghani needed a name to upload the model to the benchmark platform LM Arena, no one was around to consult. She simply mashed up two of her own nicknames: Nano and Banana. Within days, the tool shot to the top of the performance rankings and became a social media trend. Compared to this late-night improvisation, the name "Gemini" has a slightly more deliberate origin story.

Another interesting detail from the WSJ report: An OpenAI researcher, of all people, apparently helped push Google co-founder Sergey Brin out of retirement and back into the company's AI efforts. Daniel Selsam asked him at a party why he wasn't working full-time on AI given the rise of ChatGPT. That question helped drive Brin back to Google to accelerate the company's AI ambitions.

Comment Source: Wall Street Journal

Maximilian Schreiner

Jan 7, 2026

AI and society

Elon Musk's platform X has emerged as the primary distribution hub for AI-generated images that digitally undress people without their consent.

Within just 24 hours, the chatbot generated roughly 6,700 images per hour that were flagged as sexually suggestive or explicit, according to Genevieve Oh, a researcher specializing in social media and deepfakes, who spoke with Bloomberg.

Oh's analysis reveals the staggering scale of abuse involving Elon Musk's AI model Grok on the X platform. While specialized websites for this type of content averaged only 79 new images per hour, Grok's output dwarfed that figure many times over. Users are deliberately using the chatbot to digitally undress uploaded photos of people - including children - through simple text commands. Despite xAI's promises to add safety measures after the fact, the case highlights an alarming normalization of sexualized violence enabled by generative AI.

Comment Source: Bloomberg