You’re probably already letting AI autocomplete your sentences or choose what you watch next on Netflix… but would you lean on a chatbot to give you life advice? 

Driving the news: Per The New York Times, Google is testing new tools that could turn generative AI—the technology that powers chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s own Bard—into a life coach that advises on everything from your dating life to your career. 

Nothing quite says romance in the year 2023 like sending sweet nothings to an AI chatbot.

Driving the news: A slew of new dating apps are adopting AI-powered avatars and chatbots that simulate intimate relationships, pitching their platforms as a way to practice dating in a risk-free environment. 

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas… unless it's at this weekend’s AI hacking competition in the City of Sin.

Driving the news: A hacking competition supported by big tech companies including Meta, OpenAI, and Google—as well as the US government—will play host to thousands of hackers tasked with finding vulnerabilities in the biggest AI-powered chatbots on the market. 

If you’ve ever wanted to hear Iron Maiden sing Taylor Swift’s “Shake it off,” you may soon be in luck.

Driving the news: Google is in talks with Universal Music and Warner Brothers to license artists' voices and music for a tool that would allow fans to use AI to create songs. 

“Four-score and seven years ago, I snagged a great deal on Marketplace!” 

That’s our best guess at what Meta’s new AI Abraham Lincoln chatbot will say as we peruse for online deals. The company is rolling out a new suite of AI chatbots as soon as next month to retain, assist, and collect data on the ~3.9 billion users across its platforms. 

Have you heard the news? Maybe not, since Meta is making good on its promise to pull access to the news in Canada. 

What happened: Meta has started the process of ending news availability in Canada in response to the Online News Act, a law requiring digital platforms to pay local news outlets.

AI chatbots have generated a lot of talk, but are they generating revenue??

Driving the news: Alphabet and Microsoft dropped their earnings reports for the first full quarter since going all in on AI. Both companies are at the forefront of commercializing generative AI and recently released search engine chatbots.

Google is taking a break from its fight with Canadian publishers to showcase its brand-new toy for journalists: An AI helper.

Driving the news: Google is pitching major news publishers like The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal on a new generative AI tool called Genesis that it says can produce news articles.

It may have initially led to anger, disgust, and even cries of hypocrisy, but Netflix’s move to crack down on password sharing is (literally) paying off.  

What happened: Netflix gained 5.9 million subscribers last quarter (three times what analysts expected) as friends, family members, and exes around the world were bounced from accounts they had been sneakily logged into, forcing them to set up their own.

Tired of being an afterthought in the AI race, Meta just took a big swing to get ahead. 

What happened: Meta is granting open-source access to LLaMA 2, the large language model that powers its AI technology, making it freely available to copy, change, and be used for research and commercial purposes.