Spotify has struck a deal with Universal Music Group that allows subscribers to create AI-generated covers and remixes of songs from participating artists. Anna Nicolaou reports for the Financial Times. The agreement makes Spotify the first major streaming platform to launch a commercial AI music product with backing from a major record label. Spotify co-chief …
A new Gallup survey shows that opposition to data centers in the United States has reached a striking level. Seven out of ten Americans now oppose having a data center built near their home. Nearly half of those respondents say they strongly oppose such projects. Tim Craig reports for The Washington Post that more Americans …
Researchers have developed a lightweight memory module for AI agents that retains information across long interactions without expanding the context window or relying on external retrieval systems. Called delta-mem, the system adds just 0.12% of additional parameters to a base language model while outperforming much larger alternatives on memory-intensive tasks, Ben Dickson reports for VentureBeat. …
AI data centers consume roughly 0.04 percent of all freshwater used in the United States each year. That figure, including both water used inside data centers and water used by power plants to generate their electricity, comes from Andy Masley, writing for his own publication. He argues that fears about AI draining water supplies are …
Pope Leo XIV has released his first encyclical, calling for strict international regulation of artificial intelligence and warning that the technology risks concentrating power in the hands of a few, spreading disinformation, and fueling armed conflict. The 83-page document, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), was presented at the Vatican today and is addressed to the …
ElevenLabs, the AI voice company valued at $11 billion, is entering the audiobook streaming market in direct competition with Spotify and Audible. Ashley Carman reports for Bloomberg that the startup has licensed 200,000 human-voiced audiobooks from publishers including HarperCollins, Blackstone Publishing, and Vinci Books. The titles will be available through ElevenReader, the company’s existing app …
Runway, the AI video startup behind tools used in Hollywood productions, is betting that the future of artificial intelligence lies not in language but in video and so-called world models. Rebecca Bellan reports for TechCrunch that the company, now valued at $5.3 billion, is pushing into territory that puts it in direct competition with Google …
Alibaba has released Qwen3.7-Max, a proprietary AI model built specifically for autonomous, long-running tasks. The model is available exclusively through Alibaba Cloud’s paid API and is not open source, marking a significant shift from the company’s previous approach. The Qwen Team, Alibaba’s AI research group, says the model completed a continuous 35-hour engineering task entirely …
Spotify has announced two new AI-powered tools aimed at audio creation: a desktop app for generating personal podcasts and an audiobook creation tool built in partnership with voice AI company ElevenLabs. The new desktop app, called Studio by Spotify Labs, lets users generate podcasts based on personal data such as emails, calendar entries, and travel …
Google’s redesigned search experience is experiencing novel problems: users discovered that searching for the word “disregard” and similar terms can return a nearly empty AI-generated response. Russell Brandom reports for TechCrunch that the new interface buries traditional search results far below the fold, replacing them with AI summaries that, in this case, provide no useful …