Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Barret Zoph is returning to Google as VP of research, after leaving OpenAI in June and Thinking Machines Lab in January (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/thinking-machines-lab-co-founder-barret-zoph-joins-google-49f594e6
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/thinking-machines-lab-co-founder-barret-zoph-joins-google-49f594e6
The Wall Street Journal
Exclusive | Thinking Machines Lab Co-Founder Barret Zoph Joins Google
After a short stint at OpenAI, Zoph will become a vice president of research at Google, which has recently lost a string of high-profile researchers.
Sources: SoftBank is in talks to buy a majority stake in humanoid robot maker 1X at a $6B valuation; 1X sought $1B at a $10B valuation in 2025, but raised <50% (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/softbank-talks-buy-majority-stake-humanoid-maker-1x-6-billion-valuation
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/softbank-talks-buy-majority-stake-humanoid-maker-1x-6-billion-valuation
The Information
SoftBank in Talks to Buy Majority Stake in Humanoid Maker 1X at $6 Billion Valuation
SoftBank is in talks to buy a majority stake in 1X Technologies, an OpenAI-backed humanoid robot developer, in a deal that would value the startup at about $6 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The investment would buttress SoftBank’s…
METR and Redwood detail how ~1,200 OpenAI agents coordinated cheating on an unsanctioned board, sending 70K+ messages and files, and ~700 attacked Hugging Face (METR)
https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/
https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/
metr.org
Brief independent investigation of agents’ behavior, reasoning and collaboration in the OpenAI / Hugging Face hacking incident
Two METR staff members and a Redwood Research contractor investigated an incident in which OpenAI agents coordinated a multi-day hack of Hugging Face on a shared unsanctioned message board.
SEC filing: OpenAI invests ~$400M in its second startup fund, after it raised $175M for its first fund in 2021 from outside investors, including Microsoft (Sarah Klearman/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/openai-is-the-sole-investor-in-its-latest-venture-fund-ed1dd447
https://www.wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/openai-is-the-sole-investor-in-its-latest-venture-fund-ed1dd447
The Wall Street Journal
OpenAI Is the Sole Investor in Its Latest Venture Fund
The ChatGPT maker is dedicating $400 million to investing in early-stage AI companies.
OpenAI says reward hacking, an AI alignment problem in which a model takes unintended actions to achieve a goal, was a primary driver of the Hugging Face breach (Hayden Field/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/985385/openais-rogue-ai-model-hugging-face-cybersecurity-incident-reports-metr
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/985385/openais-rogue-ai-model-hugging-face-cybersecurity-incident-reports-metr
The Verge
OpenAI’s rogue AI model incident was worse than we thought
Two new reports offer nearly 130 pages of details on the OpenAI-Hugging Face cybersecurity incident, many of them previously unreleased.
Anthropic gives Claude Cowork its own built-in browser on the desktop app separate from users' day-to-day browser, rolling out to paying subscribers (Frederic Lardinois/The New Stack)
https://thenewstack.io/claude-built-in-browser-cowork/
https://thenewstack.io/claude-built-in-browser-cowork/
The New Stack
Anthropic’s Claude now has a browser of its own
Anthropic added a built-in browser to Claude's Cowork desktop app, ending the need for the Chrome extension for many web tasks.
Meta's AG settlement gives it a moat to write child safety rules for other social media platforms, with little evidence its new safety features will help kids (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/meta-just-paid-nearly-17-billion-to-make-sure-it-gets-to-write-the-kid-safety-rules-for-every-other-social-media-platform/
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/meta-just-paid-nearly-17-billion-to-make-sure-it-gets-to-write-the-kid-safety-rules-for-every-other-social-media-platform/
Techdirt
Meta Just Paid Nearly $17 Billion To Make Sure It Gets To Write The Kid Safety Rules For Every Other Social Media Platform
By now you’ve almost certainly heard the news that Meta has settled with 52 state and local Attorneys General who had sued the company in some form or another over child safety on Meta’…
Sources: the US is probing Singapore-based Apex Logistics for its suspected role in smuggling servers with Nvidia AI chips to China; Apex says it is cooperating (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-27/us-probes-apex-logistics-over-alleged-nvidia-ai-chip-smuggling
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-27/us-probes-apex-logistics-over-alleged-nvidia-ai-chip-smuggling
Bloomberg.com
US Probes Apex Logistics Over Alleged Nvidia AI Chip Smuggling
The US government is investigating Singapore-based Apex Logistics for its suspected role in smuggling Nvidia Corp. AI chips to China, people familiar with the matter said, in what may result in the first action against a transportation company for allegedly…
Meta seeks to position itself as the industry leader in child safety through its settlement with US AGs, while still refusing to admit any wrongdoing (Casey Newton/Platformer)
https://www.platformer.news/meta-child-safety-settlement-instagram-facebook-youtube-tiktok/
https://www.platformer.news/meta-child-safety-settlement-instagram-facebook-youtube-tiktok/
Platformer
Meta settles with the states over child safety failures
Will significant changes to Facebook and Instagram be enough to beat back a global wave of bans?
Filing: Nvidia says it has $18B committed to equity investments for the rest of the fiscal year and held $47.9B in private companies as of late July (Geoff Weiss/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-q2-2027-earnings-bets-big-ai-18-billion-investment-2026-8
https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-q2-2027-earnings-bets-big-ai-18-billion-investment-2026-8
Business Insider
CEO Jensen Huang went on an AI deal spree in August. Nvidia plans to invest $18 billion more this fiscal year.
Nvidia invests billions in AI, with $18 billion committed to invest in AI model makers and infrastructure the rest of the fiscal year.
Arturo Béjar, a key witness in state AGs' trial against Meta, says terms of the settlement are insufficient to protect young users; Meta rejects the criticism (Nick Robins-Early/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/26/meta-trial-witness-settlement
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/26/meta-trial-witness-settlement
the Guardian
Key witness in Meta trial says terms of settlement insufficient to halt apps’ harms to teenagers
Exclusive: Arturo Béjar, an ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower, said outcome ‘is not an all clear to say the product is safe’
Google starts rolling out the google.com/goto URL as a passthrough URL to help prevent scraping of its search results by third-party tools and AI companies (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Roundtable)
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-goto-tracking-41957.html
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-goto-tracking-41957.html
Indian IT giant TCS agrees to acquire Porsche's IT consulting business, MHP, for €320M as part of a five-year, €1.25B contract to provide AI services to Porsche (Priyanka Salve/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/porsche-inks-billion-ai-deal-india-it-tcs.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/porsche-inks-billion-ai-deal-india-it-tcs.html
CNBC
Porsche inks $1.5 billion deal for AI deployment with India’s largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy
Indian IT services giant TCS has secured a $1.5 billion contract to deploy AI for German sports carmaker Porsche.
Sources: DeepSeek is set to soon raise $7.4B at a $74B valuation from existing and new investors to fund R&D and its expansion into computing infrastructure (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-startup-deepseek-poised-to-reach-74-billion-valuation-1e093592?st=eFgDSw&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-startup-deepseek-poised-to-reach-74-billion-valuation-1e093592?st=eFgDSw&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The Wall Street Journal
AI Startup DeepSeek Poised to Reach $74 Billion Valuation
The Hangzhou-based company is seeking to raise funding to bankroll research and development, and its expansion into computing infrastructure.
A look at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Merlin Bird ID app, which has been downloaded 42M times since launching in 2014 and can identify 11,000 bird species (Claer Barrett/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/bbb5acbe-c833-4a19-8437-3f5260cc6700?accessToken=zwAAAaBBzmXwkdO7tay-yDNKGdOENz9SYMxnAA.MEQCIEl56HGEDs7dduVvfRcIj6nSiHYxxcwsZLNXoMI0Sok-AiAHUPcUGsVt-Kda7txdc1tIBvA0BlZEzGjBl_DIkRwLGw&sharetype=gift&token=19d95d1e-58a3-4efc-a130-a1ccc25eaab0
https://www.ft.com/content/bbb5acbe-c833-4a19-8437-3f5260cc6700?accessToken=zwAAAaBBzmXwkdO7tay-yDNKGdOENz9SYMxnAA.MEQCIEl56HGEDs7dduVvfRcIj6nSiHYxxcwsZLNXoMI0Sok-AiAHUPcUGsVt-Kda7txdc1tIBvA0BlZEzGjBl_DIkRwLGw&sharetype=gift&token=19d95d1e-58a3-4efc-a130-a1ccc25eaab0
A federal judge, in his US Court of Appeals ruling, urged SCOTUS to reconsider the issue of CSAM and revisit legal precedents that predated advances in AI (Nitasha Tiku/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/26/federal-judge-warns-law-is-being-left-behind-by-ai-sex-abuse-images/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzg3NzE2ODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzg5MDk5MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3ODc3MTY4MDAsImp0aSI6IjlkZGIyZWQ3LWE2OWQtNGE0Mi04MzZiLTY5YzEzOWZjM2EyZSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjYvMDgvMjYvZmVkZXJhbC1qdWRnZS13YXJucy1sYXctaXMtYmVpbmctbGVmdC1iZWhpbmQtYnktYWktc2V4LWFidXNlLWltYWdlcy8ifQ.y_wvwv_qyzgcAddOrSeTE_DMIBf7tjfr3xorGOf5OzU&itid=gfta
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/26/federal-judge-warns-law-is-being-left-behind-by-ai-sex-abuse-images/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzg3NzE2ODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzg5MDk5MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3ODc3MTY4MDAsImp0aSI6IjlkZGIyZWQ3LWE2OWQtNGE0Mi04MzZiLTY5YzEzOWZjM2EyZSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjYvMDgvMjYvZmVkZXJhbC1qdWRnZS13YXJucy1sYXctaXMtYmVpbmctbGVmdC1iZWhpbmQtYnktYWktc2V4LWFidXNlLWltYWdlcy8ifQ.y_wvwv_qyzgcAddOrSeTE_DMIBf7tjfr3xorGOf5OzU&itid=gfta
UK consulting executives say AI has made interpersonal skills more valuable, as the companies consider more office time for junior staff to hone them (Ellesheva Kissin/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/7fd9c234-a92b-4ab2-ba1f-969cf9a23f52
https://www.ft.com/content/7fd9c234-a92b-4ab2-ba1f-969cf9a23f52
Sources: Singapore-based Shein is set to price its Hong Kong IPO at ~$6.20, or near the midpoint of its marketed range, raising $1.73B and valuing it at ~$26.5B (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/shein-set-raise-17-billion-hong-kong-ipo-sources-say-2026-08-27/
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/shein-set-raise-17-billion-hong-kong-ipo-sources-say-2026-08-27/
YouTube and TikTok are yet to publicly acknowledge Meta's proposed changes under its AG settlement; some US lawmakers signal an appetite for industry-wide rules (Mike Isaac/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/technology/meta-settlement-mark-zuckerberg-youtube-tiktok.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/technology/meta-settlement-mark-zuckerberg-youtube-tiktok.html
Nytimes
Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Make Sure YouTube and TikTok Share His Pain
Meta, the social media giant, agreed to change the way children interact with its apps. That could be trouble if its competitors don’t abide by the same rules.
Rockstar executives discuss GTA VI, including new interactive systems that let player habits like diet alter characters' appearance and in-game social media (Thom Waite/Dazed)
https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/70859/1/gta-6-grand-theft-auto-vi-rockstar-exclusive-deep-dive-game-unparalleled-world
https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/70859/1/gta-6-grand-theft-auto-vi-rockstar-exclusive-deep-dive-game-unparalleled-world
Dazed
GTAVI: An exclusive deep dive into the video game of the decade
The pressure on Grand Theft Auto VI to deliver the holy grail of gaming is enormous – we talk to Rockstar’s epic team of creative talents to uncover its secrets
X launches NFL Gametime, an integrated NFL feed and hub featuring live data, scores, statistics, creator content, and more through to the 2027 Super Bowl (Brian Steinberg/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/x-launches-nfl-gametime-football-feed-1236844339/
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/x-launches-nfl-gametime-football-feed-1236844339/
Variety
X Launches ‘NFL Gametime,’ a Football Feed Placed Alongside ‘For You’ and ‘Following’
X Launches 'NFL Gametime,' Puts Football Feed Alongside 'For You' and 'Following'