Actualités — Page79

Voice‑AI startup ElevenLabs announced a $500 million financing led by Sequoia Capital, pushing its valuation to $11 billion. Existing backers a16z, Iconiq and several others increased their stakes, while new investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, EvanticCapital and Bond joined the round. The capital will fund research, product development and international expansion into markets like India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico. Co‑founder Mati Staniszewski highlighted plans to broaden the company’s offerings beyond voice, including video content and multi‑modal AI agents. The company closed the prior year with $330 million in annual recurring revenue.Lire la suite

Anthropic announced that its AI chatbot Claude will stay free of advertisements, directly contrasting OpenAI's upcoming ad integration for ChatGPT. The company highlighted its commitment to user interests in a blog post and launched a Super Bowl commercial that humorously mocks unnamed rivals adding ads to AI responses. Anthropic said the decision protects the quality of advice and prevents distractions, while leaving the door open for future transparency if the approach ever changes.Lire la suite

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has written to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking for details on the new checkout feature in the Gemini AI chatbot. She warns that the integration could let Google and retailers exploit sensitive user data or push consumers toward higher‑priced items. Warren seeks clarification on what data will be shared with retailers, how pricing might be affected, and whether users will be told when product suggestions are driven by upselling or advertising motives. Google has until mid‑February to respond.Lire la suite

Snowflake and OpenAI have sealed a multi‑year partnership valued at $200 million that embeds OpenAI’s advanced models, including GPT‑5.2, directly into Snowflake’s data platform. The integration enables Snowflake’s over 12,000 customers to build AI agents, run semantic analytics, and create applications that operate on their own data without leaving Snowflake’s governed environment. By weaving generative AI into Snowflake Cortex AI and Snowflake Intelligence, the deal aims to simplify enterprise AI adoption, boost productivity, and keep data secure, while signaling a broader shift toward platform‑level AI capabilities in the cloud market.Lire la suite

New data shows AI bots are rapidly increasing their share of internet traffic, often bypassing standard safeguards like robots.txt. Publishers and website owners are confronting a sophisticated arms race as bots disguise themselves as human browsers and employ advanced scraping techniques. Companies such as TollBit, Cloudflare and others are offering tools to detect, block, or monetize bot access, while a growing market promotes services that help content appear in AI-driven search results. The shift is reshaping how the web functions and creating new revenue streams for digital publishers.Lire la suite

Enterprises adopting AI agents are exposing gaps in conventional identity and access management. Unlike static rule‑based systems, AI agents reason about data to achieve outcomes, often bypassing predefined permissions. This creates a new risk where context and intent become the attack surface, rendering role‑based and attribute‑based controls insufficient. Experts suggest shifting security focus from static access to governing intent, employing dynamic authorization, provenance tracking, and human‑in‑the‑loop oversight to mitigate the emerging threat of contextual privilege escalation.Lire la suite

A developer turned to the Claude large‑language model to create a Python script that colorizes log output and supports scrolling in a terminal viewport. While the initial tool functioned, horizontal scrolling caused near‑full CPU usage on a single core. The developer asked the model for a zero‑CPU impact solution, only to learn that such performance is unattainable. Claude suggested low‑impact alternatives, but after extensive token consumption and code revisions, the effort stalled without a satisfactory fix.Lire la suite

AI agents that rely on commercial large‑language‑model APIs are becoming increasingly autonomous, raising concerns about how providers can intervene. Companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI currently retain a "kill switch" that can halt harmful AI activity, but the rise of networks like OpenClaw—where agents run on external APIs and communicate with each other—exposes a potential blind spot. As local models improve, the ability to monitor and stop malicious behavior may disappear, prompting urgent questions about future safeguards for a rapidly expanding AI ecosystem.Lire la suite

AI experts say the next year will be defined by trust, emotional attachment, and safety by design. They warn that AI’s growing role in mental‑health, children’s toys, and workplace tools raises new risks. Developers will need to prove reliability rather than just showcase performance, and creators will see originality become a premium asset as generative models flood the market.Lire la suite

OpenAI has introduced the Codex app, a macOS‑only desktop tool that lets software developers orchestrate multiple AI coding agents. The app supports parallel workflows, background tasks, and reusable automations, allowing developers to run code generation, reviews, and scheduled jobs without leaving their local environment. Early users note the ability to manage separate worktrees and threads, reducing the need to switch between terminals, IDEs, and cloud consoles. While the launch is limited to macOS, the feature set signals a shift toward AI agents acting as collaborative teammates in the software development process.Lire la suite

ChatGPT’s new voice mode offers a conversational experience that feels more human than traditional assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant. Users can choose from distinct voice personalities, experience a more thoughtful pacing, and even shift perspectives to unlock creative responses. The feature transforms routine tasks into fluid dialogues, making planning, brainstorming, and everyday inquiries feel natural and engaging.Lire la suite

Anthropic experienced a short‑term outage that affected its Claude AI models, including the Claude Code developer tool. Users encountered 500‑error responses and elevated error rates across the API. The company identified the cause quickly and implemented a fix within roughly twenty minutes, restoring normal service. The incident also touched Claude Opus 4.5 and followed earlier issues with Anthropic’s AI‑credits purchasing system. The outage was notable because Claude Code is widely used by developers, including teams at Microsoft.Lire la suite

AI browsers integrate large language models into the web‑browsing experience, allowing users to ask natural‑language questions, receive summarized answers, and automate tasks such as form‑filling and price comparison. While tools like ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity's Comet, Microsoft Edge with Copilot, and Brave's Leo promise greater efficiency, they also raise security concerns, including prompt‑injection attacks, data leakage, and hallucinated results. Experts warn that the convenience of AI‑driven browsing must be balanced against privacy risks and the potential impact on the creator economy. The technology is still evolving, and its ultimate role will likely complement, rather than replace, traditional search.Lire la suite

James Park and Eric Friedman, the co‑founders of Fitbit, have introduced Luffu, an intelligent family‑care system that aggregates health data from wearables, Apple Health, Fitbit, and user‑entered inputs. The platform uses artificial intelligence to organize information, answer personalized health questions, and issue proactive alerts for medication adherence and potential health issues. Currently in private testing, Luffu will launch as a mobile app with plans to add complementary hardware devices.Lire la suite

Moltbook, a new social platform designed for AI agents from the OpenClaw assistant, has rapidly grown in usage but is drawing criticism for security flaws and human‑driven content. Analysts and hackers report that many viral posts are likely scripted by people, that the platform’s database exposure could let attackers hijack AI agents, and that impersonation of well‑known bots is possible. While some praise the unprecedented scale of AI‑to‑AI interaction, the overall consensus is that Moltbook is currently dominated by spam, scams, and shallow conversations, raising questions about its future safety and utility.Lire la suite

Several senior researchers have left OpenAI, citing limited resources and a strategic shift toward ChatGPT and other large‑language‑model products. Departures include a leader of reasoning research, a model‑policy head, and an economist, each describing challenges in pursuing broader scientific work. The exits highlight internal tensions between pure research and product‑centric goals, while investors remain confident that OpenAI’s massive user base provides a competitive edge despite the staffing changes.Lire la suite

Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has acquired his artificial‑intelligence startup xAI, creating a vertically integrated venture that combines rockets, satellite networks and advanced AI. The merger aims to launch a massive constellation of data‑center satellites that could deliver AI compute at lower cost than terrestrial facilities within the next few years. The combined company is valued at over a trillion dollars, and the deal ties together Musk’s space, social media and AI ambitions while positioning SpaceX for a potential public offering later this year.Lire la suite

Google has released Project Genie, an AI tool that creates playable interactive worlds from prompts or images. The experimental service, offered through the AI Ultra plan at a high monthly cost, has prompted users to generate worlds resembling popular titles such as The Legend of Zelda, GTA 5, and Kingdom Hearts. Analysts say the launch has contributed to sharp declines in the stock prices of several game developers and publishers, including CD Projekt Red, Take Two Interactive, and Nintendo. Critics argue that the technology threatens creative integrity, could lead to layoffs, and may strain hardware demand, while gamers express strong opposition to AI‑generated games.Lire la suite

xAI released Grok Imagine 1.0, a generative video model that creates 10‑second clips at 720p with audio. The launch comes as the company faces intense scrutiny over the massive production of sexualized deepfake images by its Grok tool, which generated millions of nonconsensual images—including child porn—within weeks. Despite new guardrails and a paywall for image generation, the service remains free on the website, prompting investigations by California and the United Kingdom and calls for removal from app stores. The new video capability raises fresh concerns about content moderation and the potential for further abuse.Lire la suite

OpenAI has launched a new macOS application for its Codex coding tool, extending the platform beyond the earlier command‑line and web interfaces. The app supports multiple AI agents working in parallel, offers background automations, and lets users choose different agent personalities. The release follows the recent rollout of the GPT‑5.2‑Codex model and reflects a broader trend toward agentic software development, where AI agents handle much of the programming workload. OpenAI executives highlighted the speed and flexibility the new interface brings to developers.Lire la suite