We’re gonna hear about AI a lot on Wednesday. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
Any way you look at it, Android is in the lead. Google has shipped actual AI features on phones. And I don't mean a silly AI image generator or a tool to rewrite your email like Shakespeare. I mean stuff that's actually useful: putting six different events from an email on my calendar in one fell swoop, or asking my AI to find something in my email. These things exist on Android, and Google's annual Pixel launch event on Wednesday, where it will unveil its new Pixel 10 phones, will no doubt underscore that fact.
But now comes the real question: does anybody care?
Google's early teaser ads for the Pixel 10 make it pretty clear how the comp …
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he can't remember the last time he looked for something on Google.
OpenAI said last month it'd use Google's cloud infrastructure for ChatGPT.
"Google it" is no longer in Sam Altman's vocabulary, or so he says.
The OpenAI CEO said in a recent dinner with reporters that it's been a while since he last looked something up on Google, one of his company's largest rivals in the AI race.
"I don't use Google anymore. I legitimately cannot tell you the last time I did a Google search," he said, as reported in The Verge's Command Line newsletter.
It's not hard to imagine Altman uses his company's own product, ChatGPT, instead of Google.
While the companies are rivals on the AI front, OpenAI has recently enlisted Google Cloud, alongside other suppliers like Microsoft and Oracle, to help provide computational power for ChatGPT.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said he was "very excited" about the partnership on the company's second-quarter earnings call last month.
"Google Cloud is an open platform, and we have a strong history of supporting great companies, startups, AI labs, etc.," he said. "So super excited about our partnership there on the cloud side, and we look forward to investing more in that relationship and growing that."
OpenAI recently debuted GPT-5, the latest model powering ChatGPT. Altman said it'd be free for everyone and that users would no longer need to toggle between previous models for different tasks.
He also called GPT-5 a "major upgrade" and "a significant step along the path of AGI," saying that after using it, going back to GPT-4 was "miserable." Backlash to the release, however, prompted OpenAI to make GPT-4o available again, showing just how dependent some users had become on it.
OpenAI and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As Gemini is increasingly woven into the fabric of Google, the way the chatbot accesses and interacts with your data is in a constant state of flux. Today, Google is announcing several big changes to how its AI adapts to you, giving it the ability to remember more details about your chats for improved answers. If that's a concern, Google also has a new temporary chat option that won't affect the way Gemini thinks about you.
You might recall several months back when Google added a "personalization" option to the Gemini model selector. This mode leaned on your Google search history to customize responses, a feature that did not seem to appeal to many Gemini users. Google later dropped that mode, but a new attempt at customization is now rolling out. Gemini is getting an option called Personal Context. When enabled, the chatbot will remember details about your past conversations, adapting its replies without being specifically prompted.
Google claims Personal Context will produce more relevant responses, particularly when you ask the chatbot to make recommendations. This is separate from the saved instructions feature, which allows you to provide explicit instructions for Gemini to be used in crafting outputs. This does have the potential to make Gemini feel more engaging, but that's not always a good thing. AI chatbots that get too friendly with the user can reinforce misconceptions and lead to delusional thinking, something we've seen distressingly often with AI models.
Now — great news! You can set us as a "preferred source" in Google, meaning stories from Business Insider (and any other publications you select!) will appear more frequently in your search results. It's a simple way to ensure you're regularly seeing stories from the places you know, love, and trust.
And it's really easy to do: Make sure you are logged into your Google account, click here, and check the box that appears next to Business Insider.
You can also add preferred sources directly through the results page in a Google search by clicking the icon to the right of Top Stories.
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Type in Business Insider, and any other publications you want to see more regularly in your search results.
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Hit refresh, and you'll start to see more stories from Business Insider and other preferred publications populate your Top Stories section and search results. You can add as many sources as you'd like to the list, and make changes over time.
We’re just one week away from Google’s Pixel 10 launch event, but the steady stream of leaks shows no sign of stopping. Now, new leaked images shared by Dutch outlet NieuweMobiel show what looks like Google’s rumored “Pixelsnap” cases with a ring in the center, hinting at support for the Qi2 wireless charging standard.
Bringing Qi2 magnetic charging to the Pixel 10 would be a pretty big deal. Among Android phones, only the HMD Skyline comes with the built-in magnets to fully support Qi2 magnetic charging, while “Qi2 Ready” phones like Samsung’s newest foldables rely on magnetic cases to make them Qi2-compatible.
This latest leak aligns with another leak we saw last month, which showed the Pixel 10 what appears to be a wireless charging puck. As shown by NieuweMobiel, the new Pixel 10 cases could come in blue, black, green, and light blue, while the Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL could have gray, green, and white options.
While users often tag companies and CEOs with online feedback and complaints, you know you've made it when the CEO not only replies to you, but also implements the change you've asked for.
In the wake of its big antitrust loss, Google could soon find itself forced to sell one of its crown jewels. Among the government's proposed remedies in the search case is a requirement that Google divest its market-leading Chrome browser, and Perplexity is already throwing its proverbial hat into the ring with a whopping $34.5 billion offer. The problem, however, is that Perplexity doesn't have nearly that much cash.
Perplexity has ridden the AI hype wave, with its AI-powered search appearing on smartphones and in the company's custom Comet browser. Like any company offering an AI product, investors have been happy to throw money at Perplexity, totaling around $1 billion so far. Investors value the company at about $14 billion right now. So how does Perplexity have more than twice that to buy Chrome? That's the neat part—it doesn't.
There is so much capital floating around in the artificial intelligence sphere currently that even a cash-poor firm like Perplexity can secure enough investment to splurge on Chrome. Reuters reports that the all-cash offer is funded by various venture funds, but Perplexity has not offered specifics.
After spending last week hyping Grok's spicy new features, Elon Musk kicked off this week by threatening to sue Apple for supposedly gaming the App Store rankings to favor ChatGPT over Grok.
"Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation," Musk wrote on X, without providing any evidence. "xAI will take immediate legal action."
In another post, Musk tagged Apple, asking, "Why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your 'Must Have' section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?"
Reddit is now blocking the Internet Archive (IA) from indexing popular Reddit threads after allegedly catching sneaky AI firms—restricted from scraping Reddit—instead simply scraping data from IA's archived content.
Where before IA's Wayback Machine dependably archived Reddit pages, profiles, and comments—as part of its mission to archive the Internet—moving forward, only screenshots of the Reddit homepage will be archived. As The Verge noted, this means the archive will only be useful as a snapshot of popular posts and news headlines each day, rather than providing a backup documenting deleted posts or a window into various Reddit subcultures or any given user's activity.
Reddit has not confirmed which AI firms were scraping its data from the Wayback Machine. The company's spokesperson, Tim Rathschmidt, would only confirm to Ars that Reddit has become "aware of instances where AI companies violate platform policies, including ours, and scrape data from the Wayback Machine."
You just want to search your archived photos, instead of interacting with an AI assistant.
Quick fix
Inside the app, tap the Google account button at top-right, then go to Photos settings > Preferences > Gemini features in Photos, and turn off either "Search with Ask Photos" or "Use Gemini in Photos".
The full story
When Google rolled out its new AI-powered 'Ask Photos' search tool, I gave it a go - but after finding it slower, less helpful, and more confusing than the classic search, I always wound up pressing Google's handy button labeled "Switch to classic search" or "Use classic search" instead. (Some people found you could g …
The startup also offered to buy TikTok earlier this year. Google hasn’t indicated that it would sell Chrome at any price, and so far, the court hasn’t ordered a sale.
Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer confirmed to The Verge that the WSJ’s reporting is accurate. The startup’s bid for Chrome stands in stark contrast to the startup’s valuation of about $18 billion.
Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s chief business officer, told Bloomberg that “multiple large investment funds have agreed to finance the transaction in full.” A spokesperson for the startup also told Bloomberg that Perplexity would invest more than $3 billion in Chrome and Chromium over the next two years if Google accepts the deal.
Perplexity tells TechCrunch the terms of the offer include a commitment to keep Chrome’s underlying engine, Chromium, open source and to invest $3 billion into it.
Epic Games has just secured a win in its crusade against Apple and Google's app store policies: The Federal Court of Australia on Tuesday ruled that Apple and Google engaged in anti-competitive conduct when it came to their respective app stores, ABC News reported.
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