Google has entered a classified agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense that lets the Pentagon use the company’s artificial‑intelligence models for “any lawful government purpose,” including sensitive military tasks. The move comes despite an open letter signed by more than 600 Google employees urging CEO Sundar Pichai to refuse the contract, citing concerns over lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. Google says the deal includes safeguards against domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons without human oversight, while the Pentagon declined to comment. The controversy revives memories of the 2018 Project Maven protests and raises fresh questions about corporate responsibility in national‑security AI work. Read more →

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Images 2.0 outperformed Google’s Gemini Nano Banana 2 in a series of practical image‑editing trials, delivering more realistic results across background swaps, cinematic tweaks, product mock‑ups and seasonal changes. While Nano Banana 2 proved faster, reviewers consistently favored ChatGPT Images for its attention to lighting, texture and facial fidelity, naming it the overall winner of the head‑to‑head comparison. Read more →

Google has entered a classified agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense that lets the Pentagon use the company’s artificial‑intelligence models for any lawful government purpose. The deal, reported by The Information, comes just a day after more than 560 Google engineers signed an open letter urging CEO Sundar Pichai to refuse such military contracts. Unlike an earlier Anthropic pact that barred mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, Google’s terms contain no ethical carve‑outs. The move adds the tech giant to a short list of AI firms supplying unrestricted AI capability to the U.S. military. Read more →

Google is testing a conversational search feature called “Ask YouTube” that turns video discovery into a dialogue. The experiment, available now to U.S. YouTube Premium subscribers aged 18 and older, adds an “Ask YouTube” button to the search bar and generates AI‑crafted result pages that blend text summaries, long‑form videos, Shorts and suggested prompts. Early testers report mixed results: the tool can quickly surface concise overviews, but occasional factual errors remind users to verify information. Google says the trial will later expand beyond Premium members as it refines the experience. Read more →

Google rolled out two productivity upgrades for its AI‑powered research tool NotebookLM. The notebook now automatically tags and groups sources once a user adds five or more items, cutting the time spent sorting material. A new sharing workflow lets users paste an entire list of email addresses, letting teams collaborate without entering each address individually. Both features are live for all NotebookLM users and are part of a broader push to integrate the tool with Gemini and make notebook projects free for anyone using the Gemini web platform. Read more →

Google is investing between $10 billion and $40 billion in Anthropic, a rapidly growing AI startup, valuing the company at $350 billion. This move follows Amazon's recent $5 billion investment in Anthropic, which also includes potential for further investment based on performance. Read more →

Alphabet's Google will invest $10 billion in AI startup Anthropic now, with an option to add $30 billion if the firm hits performance targets. The agreement also secures five gigawatts of Google‑provided TPU capacity by 2027 and mirrors a similar multi‑billion‑dollar pact the startup struck with Amazon earlier this year. Anthropic, fresh from a $30 billion funding round, will rely on Google’s silicon and cloud infrastructure as part of the deal, underscoring the growing trend of circular investments in the artificial‑intelligence sector. Read more →

Alphabet’s Google Cloud announced a multi‑phase deal that could total $40 billion for AI lab Anthropic. The first tranche of $10 billion values the startup at $350 billion, with an additional $30 billion tied to performance milestones. The partnership expands Anthropic’s access to Google’s tensor processing units and adds roughly 5 gigawatts of compute capacity over five years. The move follows Anthropic’s rollout of its latest model, Mythos, and comes as the firm also secures funding from Amazon and eyes a possible IPO later this year. Read more →

Google unveiled Workspace Intelligence, a new feature that integrates its Gemini AI model across the Google Workspace suite. The tool can pull data from Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive, using personal context to draft emails, edit documents, generate presentations and summarize conversations without users having to supply extra details. By tapping into stored emails, chats and files, Gemini promises to streamline routine tasks and keep output consistent with company style guides. The rollout follows Google’s earlier Personal Intelligence rollout, which let Gemini access Gmail and Photos for personal use. Read more →

Google is weaving its Gemini AI assistant directly into Google Chat, turning the messaging platform into a one‑stop hub for routine work. Users can type natural‑language commands to draft Google Docs, build slide decks, pull files and book meetings without leaving the chat thread. The rollout also brings a daily briefing that surfaces urgent items and integrates third‑party tools such as Asana, Jira and Salesforce. By merging communication with execution, Google aims to cut the back‑and‑forth between apps and sharpen the productivity edge of Workspace. Read more →

At the Google Cloud Next conference, the company unveiled a suite of AI-driven tools for its Workspace productivity platform. Named Workspace Intelligence, the new features let users tap Gemini to draft emails, generate documents, and auto‑populate spreadsheets. Administrators retain control over data access, and Google promises up to nine‑times faster data entry in Sheets. The rollout marks Google’s push to embed generative AI deeper into everyday office workflows, positioning its entrenched suite against rivals from Microsoft to emerging startups. Read more →

A small group of users gained entry to Anthropic’s restricted Claude Mythos Preview AI model on the day the company announced its launch, exploiting a third‑party vendor environment by guessing the model’s URL. Anthropic confirmed it is investigating the incident and said there is no evidence the breach affected its core systems. The episode highlights vulnerabilities in the way frontier AI tools are shielded behind external partners, raising concerns about the security of powerful cybersecurity AI models that can autonomously discover and exploit zero‑day vulnerabilities. Read more →

Google has assembled an internal “strike team” to accelerate the development of its Gemini AI agents after co‑founder Sergey Brin warned that the company is falling behind Anthropic’s Claude Code. The effort, overseen by Brin and DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu, aims to boost Gemini’s ability to write and execute code, a capability Brin says is essential for the final sprint toward AI takeoff. While the team’s work may initially remain internal, Google hopes the improvements will eventually translate into more powerful models for both its engineers and, potentially, the broader market. Read more →