Artificial Intelligence

Feb 19, 2026

Meta is investing $65 million to influence state-level elections across the US, backing politicians friendly to AI. It's the company's largest political spending push to date, the New York Times reports.

To do this, Meta has set up four Super PACs: two new groups - "Forge the Future Project" targeting Republicans and "Making Our Tomorrow" targeting Democrats - alongside two that already existed. Spending kicks off this week in Texas and Illinois. In Texas, where Meta is building three AI data centers, the money will go toward boosting Republican candidates. In Illinois, it's flowing into at least four races for seats in the state legislature.

The push appears driven by Meta's concern over a patchwork of state-level AI regulations. State races are relatively cheap to influence, which means $65 million can go a long way.

Comment Source: NYT

Matthias Bastian

Feb 19, 2026

AI research

Deepmind veteran David Silver raises $1B seed round to build superintelligence without LLMs

Long-time DeepMind researcher David Silver is raising one billion dollars for his London-based AI start-up Ineffable Intelligence, the largest seed round in European start-up history. Instead of training on internet text like today’s LLMs, Silver is betting on reinforcement learning in simulated environments to build an “endlessly learning superintelligence.”

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Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 19, 2026

AI and society

Accenture ties promotions to AI tool usage while some employees call the tools "broken slop generators"

Matthias Bastian

Feb 18, 2026

AI in practice

Google brings AI music generation to Gemini with Deepmind's Lyria 3

Matthias Bastian

Feb 18, 2026

Short News

World Labs, the AI startup founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has raised one billion dollars in a new funding round. Backers include Autodesk, Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and AMD, according to a blog post from the company. World Labs builds so-called world models - AI systems designed to understand the three-dimensional world and make decisions within it. According to Bloomberg, Autodesk alone contributed 200 million dollars.

We are focused on accelerating our mission to advance spatial intelligence by building world models that revolutionize storytelling, creativity, robotics, scientific discovery, and beyond.

Late last year, World Labs launched its first product "Marble," which generates 3D worlds from images or text. The startup says it will use the new funding to expand into robotics and science applications. World Labs didn't disclose its valuation, but Bloomberg previously reported talks at around 5 billion dollars. Li is known for her work on the ImageNet project, which played a major role in advancing modern image recognition.

Comment Source: Worldlabs | Bloomberg

Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 18, 2026

Short News

Apple is pushing ahead with three wearable AI devices: smart glasses, a pendant, and AirPods with a camera, according to Bloomberg. While these product categories had been rumored for a while, new details are now emerging.

The smart glasses (codenamed N50) appear to be further along than previously known. Bloomberg reports that Apple is already distributing wider prototypes internally, developing custom frames, and targeting production to start in December 2026. The glasses will reportedly feature two cameras - one for high-resolution photos and another for computer vision similar to the Vision Pro.

The pendant is said to be roughly the size of an AirTag, worn via a clip or chain, with processing power comparable to AirPods. Apple is still debating internally whether to include a speaker. According to the report, the camera-equipped AirPods could ship as early as this year, while the pendant wouldn't arrive until 2027 at the earliest. All three devices are built around Siri and designed as iPhone accessories. The Vision Pro team is now working on the glasses and pendant as well.

Comment Source: Bloomberg

Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 18, 2026

Short News

AI startup Perplexity says it has dropped advertising from its search platform because it could undermine user trust. Perplexity was one of the first generative AI companies to test ads back in 2024. By late last year, though, the company started pulling them.

A Perplexity executive told the Financial Times that ads made users start questioning every answer they received. The company sees itself in the "accuracy business" and is betting on subscription plans ranging from 20 to 200 dollars a month instead. Perplexity says it has over 100 million users and is valued at 18 billion dollars.

The move puts Perplexity at odds with some major competitors. OpenAI just started running ads in ChatGPT, and Google shows ads in its AI mode as well. Anthropic has also committed to keeping its chatbot Claude ad-free, even running a Super Bowl spot to make the point. The timing of Perplexity's announcement is also a bit of a marketing play - something the company has done before, like when it offered to buy TikTok and Chrome.

Comment Source: FT

Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 18, 2026

AI in practice

Nvidia lands massive Meta deal and pushes into CPU market to fend off growing competition

Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 18, 2026

Short News

Nvidia is rapidly expanding its partnerships in India. According to CNBC, the chipmaker is working with major venture capital firms to find and fund Indian AI startups. More than 4,000 AI startups in India are already part of Nvidia's global startup program.

At the same time, Indian cloud provider Yotta has invested roughly two billion dollars in Nvidia chips, the Economic Times reports. Nvidia is also partnering with Indian cloud providers to build out data center infrastructure.

The Indian government expects up to 200 billion dollars in data center investments over the coming years. Adani alone is planning to spend 100 billion dollars on AI-capable data centers. These efforts are all part of India's "IndiaAI Mission," a government initiative aimed at turning the country into a global technology powerhouse.

Comment Source: CNBC | Economic Times

Maximilian Schreiner

Feb 18, 2026

Short News

Warner Bros. accuses ByteDance of copyright infringement with its new AI video service Seedance 2.0. The studio sent a letter on Tuesday to ByteDance's chief legal officer John Rogovin, who previously worked at Warner Bros. himself.

Users had been using Seedance to create AI videos featuring Superman, Batman, "Game of Thrones," "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings," and other Warner characters. Warner Bros. stresses that the users aren't the problem - Seedance came preloaded with the studio's copyrighted characters, which the company says was a deliberate choice by ByteDance.

Disney and Paramount had already sent cease-and-desist letters before Warner's move. ByteDance responded by announcing additional safeguards. Warner Bros. argues, however, that these easily implementable protections should have been in place from the start. This has become a familiar pattern - OpenAI keeps discovering copyright issues only after shipping its models, too.

Comment Source: Variety