Ina Fried

Wikimedia's CEO on the AI traffic armageddon

Wikipedia is starting to feel the effects of the AI-driven shift in how people find information, with page views falling 8 percent in the latest year, said new Wikimedia Foundation CEO Bernadette Meehan. Wikipedia is a crucial source of information for AI models, but those same models increasingly allow people to get Wikipedia-derived information without ever visiting the site—potentially threatening the ecosystem that keeps the online encyclopedia running. While the drop wasn't unexpected, "that doesn't mean that we're sort of starry-eyed about it and not concerned about it," Meehan said.

Meta needs you to believe it cares about privacy

Meta is seeking to make privacy protections a centerpiece of new products including its viral assistant Muse, marking a major shift for a company built on

Apple bets on "ambient AI" without the always-recording baggage

Apple debuted Apple Watch and iPhone features that could put its mark on the AI era. Apple is aiming to show it can be more private and useful, even as it plays catch-up to the state of the art in AI. In an era where plenty of tech companies are offering AI transcription gadgets that record entire conversations, Apple is making the case for a different approach. Rather than store recorded audio, Apple is transcribing what its microphones pick up, and providing certain highlights back to the user without attribution to specific speakers.

Meta debuts Muse, its long-planned personal AI agent

Meta announced Muse, a personal AI agent built on the latest generation of models developed under chief AI officer Alexandr Wang. Muse exists in a chat interface, similar to a text thread. It's designed to be more proactive and long-running than typical chatbots. Users can name their agent, create an avatar, and customize how it communicates. The Muse agent runs on a dedicated virtual machine in Meta's cloud, using a built-in browser that's visible to the user. Meta is offering a free tier of Muse, as well as two subscription options, at $20 per month and $100 per month.

What happens to the secrets you share with AI

Imagine a chatbot built to keep you talking a little longer. To change your mind about something. Or persuade you to buy something.

Americans say large tech companies have too much power

Seven in 10 Americans believe that Big Tech companies and their CEOs have too much power, according to results of a survey from the Little Tech Association. The findings, while clearly aligned with the group that commissioned the poll, highlight growing concern about the influence that a few companies have over society in the age of artificial intelligence. New on the scene, the Little Tech Association has about 200 tech company members, with Y Combinator, Proton, Replit and Yelp as the founding members and largest funders.

Google: AI adoption at work is broad, but automation remains limited

AI use has spread across a broad range of occupations, but it has yet to become the job-automating force many workers fear, according to a new Google study

Trump administration lifts restrictions on OpenAI's GPT 5.6

The Trump administration has given OpenAI the green light for a broad launch of its 

Anthropic says Claude has carved out its own space to ponder

Anthropic said that it has identified a small internal workspace Claude uses to hold and manipulate ideas without putting them into word