AI

In an age of fragmented news, deepfakes present a real problem. YouTube is taking action to stop AI-generated videos being used to impersonate people.

The company has revealed details of its new Likeness Detection tool. For now, YouTube is targeting creators, giving them access to the tool – not only because creators are among those likely to be deepfaked, but also because the company will be hoping to be able to use their influence to hype up Likeness Detection.

Opera is expanding its recently launched AI browser with a new Deep Research Agent to perform more complex research and analysis directly in the software.

The new agent, called ODRA, joins Opera Neon’s growing lineup of built-in AI systems and is part of the Norwegian browser maker’s plan to make agentic browsing more practical for everyday use.

Not content with giving users new control over sponsored results in its search engine, Google has also started the rollout of its AI visual model – known as Nano Banana – into Search.

Accessible from Google Lens and AI Mode, Nano Banana provides easy access to artificial intelligence powered image editing and transformation. We are not talking about boring “remove the background from this photo” type stuff (although this is possible), but rather more creative ideas.

Google has introduced two AI-powered features to help users stay connected with new and trending content across the web. The updates, available in Google Search and Discover, focus on giving people quick ways to explore stories, sports updates, and links from a wide range of sources.

The first feature expands Discover’s ability to show timely and relevant topics. Users will now see short previews that summarize trending subjects related to their interests that can be expanded to reveal more information and links.

OpenAI’s text-to-video app Sora has reached over one million downloads in less than five days, according to Sora boss Bill Peebles on X.

Peebles said the milestone came faster than ChatGPT’s initial launch, despite Sora’s invite-only rollout and it currently only being available in North America.

Microsoft’s development of Copilot on Windows 11 continues, and the company has just released significant updates to Insiders which are likely to win it more fans. New connection cap abilities mean that it is possible to use Copilot in conjunction with various online services including Google Calendar and Outlook.

More than this, however, Microsoft has also added new document creation capabilities. Users are now able to quickly create a variety of documents from within their Copilot sessions, including Word, Excel, and PDF.

Two AI companion apps leaked millions of private conversations, more than 600,000 images and videos, and detailed usage data from over 400,000 users.

The exposed information included in-app transactions showing that some users spent thousands of dollars on their virtual partners, raising serious questions about data privacy in AI relationship platforms.

Invideo has become the first platform to offer unrestricted global access to Sora 2, OpenAI’s next-generation AI video model for generating cinematic, photorealistic footage from text prompts.

The partnership with OpenAI removes previous barriers such as invite codes, waitlists, VPNs, and 10-second limits, making next-generation generative video creation available to everyone. If you’ve ever wanted to see what your dog battling Godzilla at the end of the world might look like, now you can find out.

Navigation tools such as Waze and Google Maps not only help you find a route from A to B, but also provide information about road closure, vehicle breakdowns, police in the area, and hazards on the road. With this last item being reliant on reports from road users, Waze has been investigating ways to make do so easier.

When you spot a hazard on the road and want to warn others, you have had to wait until you are able to stop to do so (safely, at least). Now Waze is rolling out a feature called Conversational Reporting which lets you use your voice – and a dash of AI – to let other road users know about what you have spotted.

Thanks to what will seem like a somewhat unlikely pairing to many, it is now possible to access Spotify in ChatGPT. With the two services having partnered, you can now use tracks and podcasts to achieve things with the AI chat bot.

There are various possibilities here – from asking ChatGPT to create new playlists based on the tracks you like to receive recommendations about podcasts you may enjoy. While the ability to use Spotify in conjunction with ChatGPT is free, there are more options available to Spotify Premium subscribers.

Advertising is how Meta makes money, hence Facebook users being bombarded with ads and “recommended content”. Starting today you may receive a notification that things are about to change. Unsurprisingly, they are not changing for the better.

Meta says that it is going to “start personalizing content and ad recommendations on our platforms based on people’s interactions with our generative AI features”. What does this mean? Targeted ads, essentially.

Anyone who thought command line tools were in danger of being consigned to the history books, Google’s unveiling of Jules Tools put pay to that idea.

For anyone not familiar with Google’s offerings, Jules Tools is a command line interface for its Jules asynchronous coding agent. Google is hardly setting a trend here – there are command line interfaces available for other AIs – but with Jules itself only having launched in December, the speed is a little surprising.

Opera has announced plans to add expanded AI capabilities to its free browsers. The news comes just days after we wrote about Opera Neon, the company’s premium AI browser for power users.

Opera has been developing browsers for more than three decades and says it now serves hundreds of millions of active users every month. In recent years it has added a number of AI features to its products, starting in 2023 when it added its assistant Aria to Opera One, Opera GX, Opera Air (its "mindfulness" browser), Opera for Android and iOS, and Opera Mini.

Perplexity is the latest company to release an AI-powered web browser. Comet is available free of charge for Windows and macOS, and it is looking to compete with the likes of Opera’s Neon.

Comet is not brand new. It launches in July to a limited audience, but now its AI powers are being made available to everyone. But while there is much excitement from Perplexity about the launch, and excitement from users, there is also a warning from security experts.

Opera has begun rolling out Opera Neon, a subscription-based browser designed around agentic AI. The first wave of invitations is being sent to users in the Neon Founders program, with broader access set to follow.

Unlike the normal Opera browser, Opera Neon is intended for people who use AI as part of their everyday work. It combines standard browsing tools with a system of workspaces, cards, and agentic actions.