WordPress.com adds built-in AI assistant to its website editor

Automattic has added an AI assistant to WordPress.com that works directly inside the website editor. The feature is available to users on Business or Commerce plans at no additional cost and must be enabled manually in site settings. Once active, the assistant appears in the editor, the Media Library, and block notes. Users can issue …

Read more

The ChatGPT gold rush continues: OpenAI eyes $100 billion in fresh capital

OpenAI is nearing the close of a landmark funding round expected to exceed $100 billion, which would set a new record for startup financing. Bloomberg reports that the deal could push OpenAI’s total valuation beyond $850 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $830 billion. The company’s pre-money valuation stands at $730 billion. The first …

Read more

AI boosts productivity at European firms but benefits are uneven, study finds

AI adoption raises labour productivity at European firms by an average of 4%, but the gains are concentrated among larger companies. Iñaki Aldasoro and colleagues report for the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) based on data from more than 12,000 European firms. The researchers used a novel method to establish causation rather than mere …

Read more

Google releases Gemini 3.1 Pro with much improved reasoning

Google has released Gemini 3.1 Pro, an updated version of its Gemini 3 Pro AI model. The company describes it as a step forward in core reasoning, intended for complex tasks where straightforward answers fall short. The model is now available to consumers through the Gemini app and NotebookLM, though access on those platforms is …

Read more

Google Gemini seemingly loses chat history for many users

A bug in Google Gemini is causing chat histories to disappear from the sidebar for a large number of users. Entire conversation lists are going blank, with some users losing up to a year of stored chats. Reports have surfaced on Reddit, Google’s own support forums, and other platforms, affecting both free and paid subscribers …

Read more

Mistral’s revenue hits $400mn as European demand for sovereign AI grows

French AI company Mistral has reported a 20-fold increase in revenue over the past year, reaching an annualised run rate of more than $400 million. CEO Arthur Mensch attributed the growth in part to rising European demand for AI services that are independent from American technology providers. Mistral, founded in 2023 and valued at around …

Read more

MiniMax releases M2.5, a frontier AI model at a fraction of rival costs

Chinese AI startup MiniMax has released M2.5, a new large language model that the company says competes with top-tier models from Anthropic and Google while costing significantly less to run. MiniMax offers two versions through its API. M2.5-Lightning runs at 100 tokens per second and costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.40 per million …

Read more

Google brings music generation to the Gemini app

Google has added music generation to its Gemini app, allowing users to create 30-second tracks from text prompts or even images. Joël Yawili and Myriam Hamed Torres write in the Google Blog that the feature is powered by Lyria 3, Google DeepMind’s latest generative music model, and is currently available in beta. Users can describe …

Read more

Thousands of executives admit AI is not working, but economists have seen this before

A sweeping new survey of business leaders finds that artificial intelligence has delivered almost no measurable gains in productivity or employment so far. Sasha Rogelberg reports for Fortune. Among roughly 6,000 CEOs, CFOs, and other executives surveyed across the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Australia, nearly 90% said AI had no impact on their operations over …

Read more

The ghost in the machine that erases the soul of your words

A new term is emerging in the debate around artificial intelligence and writing: semantic ablation. Claudio Nastruzzi writes for The Register that AI tools do not just add errors to text. They also systematically destroy what makes writing distinctive in the first place. Semantic ablation describes how AI models erode high-value, precise, or unconventional language …

Read more