Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
As AI video models become more powerful, YouTube is no longer solely relying on creators to label their AI videos — it will now automatically label videos on their behalf. The company announced on Wednesday that its internal systems will apply labels when it detects that “significant photorealistic AI” has been used. YouTube will also be making its AI labels more prominent, so they’re easier to spot across both long-form videos and YouTube Shorts. AI labels on the video platform have been in use for over two years, after YouTube updated its AI policies and rolled out a tool in…
As the tech industry rallies around AI agents, some companies are building capabilities to enable AI agents to make payments and trade stocks on users’ behalf. Stock trading app Robinhood is also moving in that direction: The company on Wednesday said it is launching support for AI agentic trading, as well as a new agentic credit card. Robinhood said users on its platform can now create a separate account for their AI agents and connect them to a dedicated wallet. While these agents would be able to read and analyze users’ portfolios to come up with trading strategies and suggest…
There is a certain wildness in the tech industry these days that both mimics previous eras of large changes, like cloud computing (runaway costs in the early days), and is like nothing we’ve ever seen before (record revenues accompanied by mass layoffs). One possible explanation: Tech executives, especially CEOs, are collectively suffering from delusions of AI grandeur. And at least one tech CEO has said as much out loud: Box founder Aaron Levie. “CEOs are uniquely prone to AI psychosis because they’re sufficiently distant from the last mile of work that still has to happen to generate most value with…
How do you solve a branding problem like AI?Marketers have some ideas, like borrowing from P&G’s marketing playbook or creating a think tank.It’s no secret that AI is getting a bad rap. Boos at college graduation speeches. AI-related layoffs. Pope Leo XIV has even gotten in the ring, calling for AI to be “disarmed.””It brings back memories of Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma,” David Aaker, vice chairman of the consulting firm Prophet, told me.Ad veteran Rishad Tobaccowala told me the AI industry’s leading spokespeople — Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei — “need to tone down” their public statements…
The adlanders in my WhatsApp chats have been digesting the slew of Google search and ads announcements last week.Which ones actually mattered to CMOs? It’s all about those agents.First up, Google has a collection of new agents, including one that takes actions in the background on a user’s behalf, from planning parties to alerting them when their favorite sneaker brand drops a new collab.Elsewhere, the agents are coming for travel booking and restaurant reservations, and there’s a new “Universal Cart” that works across many of Google’s products.”The purchase journey for an entire set of categories may now bypass your website…
AI startups need testers and trainers. At this company, that work is X-rated.Joi AI, an AI companion startup that markets itself as providing “AI-lationships that satisfy you emotionally, intellectually, and intimately,” is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants.” The position lasts for four weeks and requires participants who are 18 or older to write about their intimate experience trying the company’s NSFW audio feature.When Joi AI posted the job listing on social media, its Cyprus-based brand head, Julie Levin, expected some online reaction. She didn’t expect thousands of applications and a flooded inbox.Levin told Business Insider that the company received over 100,000…
Sam Schwartz expected Waymo’s cars to go the extra mile — or, at least, three-tenths of one.That is roughly how far Schwartz said he was from his hotel in downtown San Francisco when the Waymo taxi he and his wife were riding in suddenly stopped and refused to move. The couple visited the city earlier this month.As Schwartz tried to figure out what was going on in a conversation with Waymo support, the employee on the phone said that there was a “huge blockage” preventing the car from reaching his hotel. Then, the employee told Schwartz: “You can request another…
OpenAI’s move into advertising is starting to look like the foundation of a massive new revenue engine, one that could challenge Google’s search empire in significant ways.That’s according to new data from Similarweb executive Heral Amir, who’s been studying early ChatGPT ads bought by hundreds of companies, including HubSpot, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Nordstrom, Cursor, and Indeed.He says the reason is simple: ChatGPT ads aren’t built around keywords. They’re built around conversations, and what Amir calls “conversational intent.””When search was dominant, advertisers bought intent through keywords,” Amir said. “Conversational AI changes that completely. The user’s intent evolves during the conversation itself.”That…
Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman says the AI industry has done a poor job of selling data centers to the public. He has a different message in mind, modeled after Microsoft President Brad Smith.”These can be clean, they can make jobs, they can be good for communities,” Feldman said during a recent episode of Harry Stebbing’s “20VC” podcast. “We can do this thoughtfully.”Feldman, fresh off the chipmaker’s blockbuster IPO, said AI companies need to be better neighbors when approaching communities where they plan to build massive facilities to house the thousands of advanced chips needed to power AI models.”There’s no reason…
When Chad Kliewer worked as the head of information security at a hospital system, the job became so stressful, his hair didn’t just turn gray, it started to fall out, he says. During his career, he experienced what he now recognizes as work-induced panic attacks from the pressure. The job came with phone calls any hour of the day, fielding IT outages or HIPAA compliance issues, and left him messaging colleagues while out of office and on vacation.He remembers waking at 3 a.m. to a doctor calling from the rural hospital where the internet had gone out. The doctor couldn’t…