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Meta is building a team of elite AI researchers to optimize the powerful algorithms that keep people’s eyeballs glued to Facebook and Instagram, according to job listings and LinkedIn posts. Loading audio narration… The team, MRS Research, is part of Meta Recommendation Systems, which runs the home feeds in Meta’s apps, and the unit has already drawn talent from TikTok and Amazon. MRS builds the algorithms that determine what kinds of content people see and works closely with the company’s Ads division.MRS Research formed as part of an October reorganization within MRS to bring relevant teams together, a Meta spokesperson…

Companies have spent billions to crack AI. Getting employees to use it is vital to seeing those investments pay off. Enter: Ramped up goals and performance reviews. Loading audio narration… In recent weeks, Business Insider has exclusively reported on the carrots and sticks companies from Big Tech to Wall Street are using to push workers to boost their productivity with AI.Meta set goals for engineers and formed AI “pods,” while Google managers can mandate the use of assistants and agents. At JPMorgan Chase, internal dashboards track usage of AI tools, labeling workers as light, heavy, or non-users.As Mark Zuckerberg told…

ChatGPT can code and tutor. Now, project documents obtained by Business Insider show how contractors working on an OpenAI project are helping the system to become ever more specialized in niche areas like animal husbandry, agriculture, music composition, and even commercial flying. Loading audio narration… Under Project Stagecraft, as it is internally known at data-labeling startup Handshake AI, freelancers are being paid at least $50 an hour to create materials that will be used by ChatGPT to understand various occupations, one contractor told Business Insider.Business Insider reviewed dozens of pages of documents for the project, including step-by-step instructions for contractors.…

Rival developers just gained insight into how Anthropic built its popular AI-powered coding assistant tool, Claude Code. Loading audio narration… The company accidentally leaked part of the internal source code for Claude Code during a release, a spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider on Tuesday.”Earlier today, a Claude Code release included some internal source code. No sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement. “This was a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach. We’re rolling out measures to prevent this from happening again.”An X post with a link…

Mercor, a popular AI recruiting startup, has confirmed a security incident linked to a supply chain attack involving the open-source project LiteLLM. The AI startup told TechCrunch on Tuesday that it was “one of thousands of companies” affected by a recent compromise of LiteLLM’s project, which was linked to a hacking group called TeamPCP. Confirmation of the incident comes as extortion hacking group Lapsus$ claimed it had targeted Mercor and gained access to its data. It’s not immediately clear how the Lapsus$ gang obtained the stolen data from Mercor as part of TeamPCP’s cyberattack. Founded in 2023, Mercor works with…

Anthropic has built its public identity around the winning idea that it’s the careful AI company. It publishes detailed work on AI risk, employs some of the best researchers in the field, and has been vocal about the responsibilities that come with building such powerful technology — so vocal, of course, that it’s right now battling it out with the Department of Defense. On Tuesday, alas, someone there forgot to check a box. It is, notably, the second time in a week. Last Thursday, Fortune reported that Anthropic had accidentally made nearly 3,000 internal files publicly available, including a draft…

Salesforce, the cloud software giant, has been remaking its business around AI, and at a small gathering in San Francisco on Tuesday, CEO Marc Benioff and his team unveiled the latest results of those efforts: an updated version of Slack, with a plethora of new AI features. The most significant of these is a serious glow-up for its AI agent, Slackbot. The 30 new features, which will be available in the coming months, follow a January update that gave Slackbot agentic capabilities—including the ability to draft emails, schedule meetings, and sift through your inbox for specific information. Perhaps the most…

OpenAI has closed a deal to raise $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation, its largest funding round to date as the company is expected to hit the public markets this year. The round will add to OpenAI’s war chest as it spends enormous amounts of money on AI chips, data center buildouts, and hiring top talent. SoftBank co-led the round alongside Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from Amazon, Nvidia, and Microsoft. About $3 billion came from individual investors via bank channels. OpenAI is also going to be included in several…

I’m the Senior Associate Editor of Streaming at Business Insider. A lifelong entertainment and media buff, I specialize in helping you find how to watch your favorite shows, movies, and sporting events.My areas of expertiseMy main expertise is in streaming services, television, and film. I’ve tested nearly every major streaming platform, many of which I’ve used for several years (and through several rounds of price hikes and rebrands). I evaluate the services for content, user-friendliness, cross-device compatibility, and other metrics to see how they hold up in an increasingly competitive market.In addition to my entertainment background, I also help support…

Sometimes an apparently good idea, a big raise from a big-name VC, and a sea of well-connected angel investors is not enough. Less than a year after launching, Yupp is closing its business, co-founders Pankaj Gupta and Gilad Mishne announced on Tuesday. Yupp offered a crowdsourced AI model-picking service. It allowed consumers to test and compare results from a supply of 800 AI models for free, including the state-of-the-art ones from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Yupp would return multiple replies from the prompt request, including information or images, and users would offer feedback on which models worked best for them…