Artificial Intelligence: News, Business, Science

AI in practice

Dec 16, 2025

OpenAI's new ChatGPT image model matches Google's Nano Banana Pro on complex prompts

AI research

Dec 13, 2025Dec 13, 2025

More AI agents isn't always better, new Google and MIT study finds

AI in practice

Dec 11, 2025Dec 11, 2025

GPT-5.2 lands to top Google's Gemini 3 in the AI benchmark game just four weeks after GPT-5.1

AI research AI and society AI in practice

AI and society

Dec 17, 2025Dec 17, 2025

OpenAI's GPT-5 router rollback shows why AI requires unlearning old habits

AI in practice

Dec 16, 2025Dec 16, 2025

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The experimental productivity assistant called CC comes from Google Labs and runs on Gemini. After signing up, CC connects to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and the internet to understand your daily routine. AI agents with access to private data like this raise familiar security concerns.

Every morning, CC sends an email summary called "Your Day Ahead." It pulls together your appointments, important tasks, and relevant updates, like upcoming bills or deadlines. The agent can also draft emails and create calendar entries when needed. Users control CC by replying to its emails, sharing preferences, or asking it to remember ideas and tasks.

CC is launching as an early test for users 18 and older in the US and Canada. You'll need a personal Google account plus a subscription to Google AI Ultra or another paid service. Those interested can sign up for the waitlist on the Google Labs website.

Google

AI in practice

Dec 16, 2025Dec 16, 2025

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Google has released an update for Gemini 2.5 Flash Native Audio that makes voice assistants more capable. The model now handles complex workflows better, follows user instructions more precisely, and conducts more natural conversations. Compliance with developer instructions jumped from 84 to 90 percent, and call quality in multi-step conversations has also improved.

According to Google, the updated audio model scores 71.5 percent accuracy on function calls in the ComplexFuncBench benchmark, putting it ahead of OpenAI's gpt-realtime at 66.5 percent. It's worth noting, though, that Google likely didn't test against the latest realtime version, which OpenAI released just yesterday.

The update is now available in Google AI Studio, Vertex AI, Gemini Live, and Search Live. Google Cloud customers are already using the technology, and developers can test the model through the Gemini API.

Google

AI in practice

Dec 16, 2025Dec 16, 2025

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OpenAI has updated its Realtime API with three new model snapshots designed to improve transcription, speech synthesis, and function calling. According to developers, the gpt-4o-mini-transcribe variant significantly reduces hallucinations. For text-to-speech tasks, gpt-4o-mini-tts cuts the word error rate by 35 percent. The gpt-realtime-mini model, which targets voice assistants, follows instructions 22 percent more accurately and improves function calling by 13 percent.

? New audio model snapshots are now live in the Realtime API with improvements to reliability, lower error rates, and fewer hallucinations:

- gpt-4o-mini-transcribe-2025-12-15: 89% reduction in hallucinations compared to whisper-1

- gpt-4o-mini-tts-2025-12-15: 35% fewer word... pic.twitter.com/E8clreR1R0

- OpenAI Developers (@OpenAIDevs) December 15, 2025

OpenAI also explicitly mentioned improvements for Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Hindi, Bengali, and Italian.

AI in practice

Dec 16, 2025Dec 16, 2025

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Nvidia is taking over software provider SchedMD to expand its presence in open-source technology. On Monday, the company confirmed it will continue to distribute SchedMD's "Slurm" software as an open-source product. The platform helps plan large-scale computing tasks in data centers, ensuring server capacity is used efficiently.

Nvidia views the technology as critical infrastructure for generative AI, noting that developers rely on it to train models. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in California in 2010, SchedMD employs around 40 people and serves clients like cloud provider CoreWeave and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.

Nvidia

AI in practice

Dec 16, 2025Dec 16, 2025

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Google is linking its NotebookLM research tool directly to the Gemini chatbot. This integration lets users select specific notebooks as context for their Gemini queries, effectively expanding the chatbot's knowledge base beyond its initial training data and standard web results. While NotebookLM already includes a built-in chat function powered by a Gemini model, it remains quite limited—it doesn't even save chat histories. The new feature addresses this by allowing users to leverage multiple notebooks simultaneously within the main Gemini interface. It also supports integration with "Gems," the personalized versions of the chatbot. The rollout appears to be gradual, starting with browser users, though app support will likely follow soon.

NotebookLM started as an experimental tool in 2023. It has since established itself as a software with exemplary AI integration, particularly in the education sector. The tool makes it easy to set up RAG environments and thus make large document collections analyzable and searchable. Google regularly adds new functions to NotebookLM, most recently including one for deep research.

via X

AI and society

Dec 16, 2025Dec 16, 2025

Nearly half of US workers now use AI on the job, but most aren't using it daily

AI research

Dec 15, 2025Dec 15, 2025

The case against predicting tokens to build AGI

AI in practice

Dec 15, 2025Dec 15, 2025

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Robot vacuum pioneer iRobot has filed for bankruptcy and plans to hand control to its main Chinese supplier, Shenzhen PICEA Robotics. According to Bloomberg, shares of the Roomba maker will be wiped out under the bankruptcy plan. While the company will be delisted, it intends to continue operations as a going concern.

To set up the deal, Shenzhen PICEA acquired $191 million of iRobot's debt from the Carlyle Group. iRobot attributed the filing to a post-pandemic sales slump, supply chain issues, and stiffer competition from cheaper rivals. The move comes after a planned acquisition by Amazon fell apart in 2022 following opposition from EU regulators.

The company listed assets and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million. In a statement, iRobot confirmed it would continue paying employees and suppliers throughout the court proceedings.

Bloomberg

AI and society

Dec 15, 2025Dec 15, 2025

Short

Trump attempts to block state AI laws by withholding broadband billions, but faces shaky legal ground.

"I think the administration has a 30 to 35% chance of this working legally," says Dean Ball, a former White House official who contributed to the administration's AI Action Plan.

The executive order directs the Commerce Department to block states with onerous AI regulations from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program (BEAD), reports Reuters in an analysis of the new order. However, experts doubt whether Congress intended to give the administration authority over state AI regulation when it authorized broadband funding. Furthermore, the move risks political blowback from within the party: Republican governors like Ron DeSantis have previously spoken against federal interference, and withholding funds would impact rural voters—a key demographic that supported Trump by wide margins.

Reuters

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