Author: Tor Fosheim

Warner Music Group and AI music app Suno drop lawsuits, start partnership

You can soon legally remix music on Suno, but you'll have to pay up.
WMG is dropping its Suno lawsuit and will instead opt them in through licensing deals. (Picture: Adobe)
Capping off a flurry of deals lately, one of the largest music publishers in the world is turning to cooperation instead of litigation.

The deal with Suno will allow «new fan experiences» for artists who have «opted in» and will see Suno making a lot of changes to receive licensing for the music.

Starting in 2026 with a new model, free users won’t be able to download their music from the site, and paid users can increase their downloads for more payment.

— AI becomes pro-artist when it adheres to our principles: committing to licensed models, reflecting the value of music on and off platform, and providing artists and songwriters with an opt-in for the use of their name, image, likeness, voice and compositions in new AI songs, said Robert Kyncl, CEO of WMG.

Read more: WMG’s press release, Suno’s community comment, writeups by The Verge and Music Business Worldwide.

Nvidia responds to report that Meta might use Google’s TPU chips

A deal between Meta and Google might see custom TPU chips installed on Meta's data centers, as the industry looks for Nvidia alternatives.
Talks between Meta and Google on custom chips has Nvidia slightly worried, but not much. (Picture: generated)
News on the talks was posted by The Information on tuesday, and caused Nvidia to drop 3% and Google to tease a $4 billion valuation in the markets.

Under the deal being discussed, Meta would start renting compute on Google’s Tensor Processing Units as early as next year, Reuters reports.

Continue reading “Nvidia responds to report that Meta might use Google’s TPU chips”

Jony Ive and Altman detail new device as something «to take a bite of»

OpenAIs hardware device is in prototype and is less than two years out, Altman says
Delectable, delickable, Ive is making the ultimate consumer device for OpenAI. (Picture: OpenAI, screenshot).
Ive and Altman teamed up to build a ChatGPT consumer device some six months ago and seem to have settled on a prototype.

They are looking to make a device that’s «simple and playful,» The Verge reports, and it is rumored to be screen-free and about the size of a smartphone, they say.

Continue reading “Jony Ive and Altman detail new device as something «to take a bite of»”

ChatGPT introduces «shopping research» to help you find products

ChatGPT's shopping assistant has near unlimited use during the holidays.
Tap the button in the interface, or just simply ask a complex question, and the bot kicks in. (Picture: OpenAI)
Starting today, ChatGPT got a whole lot better at helping with your shopping.

For simple shopping questions and when you already kind of know what you want, normal ChatGPT is excellent at finding it.

But when you are unsure and want more depth, the new ChatGPT shopping assistant clicks in with more granular depth from qthe uestions you may have, and presents you with rich visuals and comparisons.

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Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.5, with top scores in most benchmarks

Anthropic's new model is state of the art in most benchmarks.
Opus 4.5 beats every human candidate on Anthropic’s onboarding exam for engineers. (Picture: Anthropic)
Billing it as the «best model in the world for coding, agents, and computer use,» Opus 4.5 is indeed state-of-the-art in software engineering.

It scores 80.9% in SWE-bench Verified, the preferred benchmark for coding lately. Gemini 3 has 76.2% in this bench, and GPT-5.1-Codex-Max registers at 77.9%.

Continue reading “Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.5, with top scores in most benchmarks”

Cloud honcho at Google says they need to double capacity every six months

Google needs to reach 1000x capacity in the next 4-5 years, they say at an all hands meeting.
Google is not immune to the ever increasing demand on AI infrastructure. (Picture: generated)
The demand for AI infrastructure is «the most critical and also the most expensive part of the AI race,» said Vice President at Google Cloud, Amin Vahdat, at a recent all hands meeting, reported by CNBC.

This comes as almost every other Big Tech company is increasing data center spending and Google has set aside $93 billion in «capital expenditures» this year to do the same.

This will be followed by a «significant increase» in 2026, but likely not matching OpenAI’s enormous $1.4 trillion data center spending.

They are aiming to «spend a lot,» and hit «the next 1000x in 4-5 years,» Vahdat is reported to have said.

That’s one thousand times more «capability, compute and storage networking» that he aims to add for «essentially the same cost, power and energy spend.»

Read more: The scoop at CNBC, writeups at Ars Technica and Gizmodo.

OpenAI introduces GPT-5.1-Codex-Max, defeating Gemini 3 on some benches

Codex-Max reaches parity with Gemini 3, just a day after launch. (Picture: Screenshot, OpenAI)
OpenAI’s new coding model outperforms «state of the art» Gemini 3 from just yesterday, in some select benchmarks — and seems to be on par at SWE-Bench Verified.

— GPT‑5.1-Codex-Max is faster, more intelligent, and more token-efficient at every stage of the development cycle–and a new step towards becoming a reliable coding partner, says OpenAI in their launch post.

It has been observed by the AI lab to work independently on tasks for more than 24 hours, iterating on its implementations and delivering a «successful result.»

Codex-Max is also the first OpenAI model trained in a Windows environment, and will achieve better performance than the previous GPT-5.1-Codex using 30% fewer tokens — meaning it’s cheaper and more efficient.

Read more: The launch post, VentureBeat. Discussion on r/Singularity.

Anthropic partners with Nvidia, Microsoft in $30 billion Azure deal

Anthropic nets a Microsoft investment, and promises to use it all on Microsoft's Azure.
Nvidia and Anthropic will optimize for each other, and use Microsoft’s cloud. (Picture: generated)
The companies will invest some $15 billion in Anthropic, while the AI lab commits to $30B in spending on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud offering.

— We’re increasingly going to be customers of each other. We will use Anthropic models, they will use our infrastructure and we’ll go to market together, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, according to Reuters.

The agreement means Anthropic will optimize their software stack to better run on Nvidia’s hardware, while Nvidia will «optimize for Anthropic workloads.»

Continue reading “Anthropic partners with Nvidia, Microsoft in $30 billion Azure deal”

Google launches Gemini 3, blows out benchmarks and is less sycophantic

Picture: Google
Apart from blowing up the benchmarks, Gemini 3 takes pride in telling you «what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear.»

— Like the generations before it, Gemini 3 is once again advancing the state of the art, says CEO Sundar Pichai on their launch page, and adds: — In this new chapter, we’ll continue to push the frontiers of intelligence, agents, and personalization to make AI truly helpful for everyone.

Debuting in preview across all of Google’s services, including AI Mode on their front page, the new model is «another big step on the path toward AGI,» Google says.

Continue reading “Google launches Gemini 3, blows out benchmarks and is less sycophantic”

xAI launches Grok 4.1; faster and less likely to hallucinate

(Picture: generated)
In stealthily rolling out the latest Grok iteration, xAI found ~65% of users preferred the new bot, which also currently tops the leaderboard for Lmarena – text with about ten points.

— Our 4.1 model is exceptionally capable in creative, emotional, and collaborative interactions, xAI writes on their launch page, and adds:

— It is more perceptive to nuanced intent, compelling to speak with, and coherent in personality, while fully retaining the razor-sharp intelligence and reliability of its predecessors.

This is pursuant to the launch of GPT-5.1 last week; labs are working a lot more on personality for their bots, and want their chatbots to be good at actually chatting.

In addition, the new bot boasts of far lower hallucinations, dropping from 12% for Grok 4 to 4.22% for 4.1, and should also be a lot faster.

The Verge notes that the bot seems to carry on the laissez-faire rules of its predecessors, opening up to NSFW use cases, although it hasn’t gone full mecha-Hitler yet.

Read more: xAI’s launch page, note on The Verge.

Jeff Bezos enters the AI space with startup raising $6.2 billion

Project Prometheus will work on AI engineering for computers, cars and spacecraft.
Jeff Bezos funds his own AI startup to the tune of billions of dollars. (Picture: Daniel Oberhaus, 2019, CC BY 2.0)
The founder of Amazon and world’s third richest man is returning to managing a new company: Project Prometheus, where he will be co-CEO, writes The New York Times.

Although he hasn’t actually managed anything since 2021, he has invested heavily into the new startup, making it one of the best funded startups in the space, and netting it more cash than many raise over their lifetimes.

The company will focus on AI engineering for computer manufacturing, cars and spacecraft, the NYT says.

Joining Bezos in running the startup will be Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist also known for his work with Sergey Brin at Google’s X, their unit for experiments, and for running the health-tech company Verily, founded out of the unit.

The new company reportedly already has 100 employees, with many coming from established AI labs at Meta, DeepMind and OpenAI, the paper writes.

Read more: New York Times, Reuters, The Verge, Ars Technica

Google invests $40 billion in Texas data centers

Google will invest $40 billion on three data centers in Texas, along with an energy buildout of some 6 gigawatts and a new solar plant.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sundar Pichai announcing the news. (Picture: Google)
Google joins the big players in building out staggering AI capabilities, with a new data center in Armstrong and two in Haskell County, near Abilene, hooked up to a solar and battery plant.

— This investment will create thousands of jobs, provide skills training to college students and electrical apprentices, and accelerate energy affordability initiatives throughout Texas, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said, according to Reuters.

The investments will be made through 2027, but Google says nothing of when they will come online.

They will also bring new funding for the power grid to support 6 gigawatts of «new energy generation and capacity» and will support some 1,700 new electrical apprenticeships with Google support.

This makes Texas the second largest data center state in the USA, after Virginia, notes the Texas Tribune.

— They say that everything is bigger in Texas — and that certainly applies to the golden opportunity with AI, Pichai said.

Read more: Google’s blog, writeups on Reuters, Texas Tribune.

OpenAI says disabling em-dashes in ChatGPT finally possible

The em-dash (double-sized dash: —) was a notorious haunt and irritation for power users of ChatGPT, and even explicit instructions to not use it would often result in a reply using em-dashes.

It was also a good hint that the text might be produced by the AI chatbot.

So, while not an earth-shattering development, this little, cosmetic change will surely be welcomed by many.

Read more: Ars Technica and TechCrunch both wax poetic, sarcastically about the «new feature.» See also discussion on r/ChatGPT and r/Singularity.

Google brings its vast shopping data to AI Mode, complete with checkout

Will AI Mode revolutionize shopping for the AI age? Google is already making bets.
You can now find just the right product and comparison shop in AI Mode. (Picture: Google)
Google already has a massive database of some 50 billion product listings, that you might have tapped into when shopping for products using Google Search.

Now that data is being combined with AI Mode, giving you granular detail in natural language conversations to find just the right product.

People have been wondering about how to crack monetizable shopping features for a long time, and Google has been teasing ads in AI products for a while. This might be a first step.

A better way to shop?
The new feature will give you «rich visuals and the details you need,» and you can dig into the results or bring up products side by side for comparison.

Continue reading “Google brings its vast shopping data to AI Mode, complete with checkout”

Google DeepMind unveils SIMA 2 — a self-improving 3D navigator agent

The old SIMA was good at following instructions, but the second version now has access to Gemini models and can explore 3D worlds on its own, with zero advance training.

That’s great for video games, where it can think and perform complex reasoning around its goals.

Learning from concepts
It can also learn across games, taking cues from «mining» in one game and transferring it to «harvesting» in another, meaning it can iterate and get better over time.

Continue reading “Google DeepMind unveils SIMA 2 — a self-improving 3D navigator agent”