The Justice Department is coming under intense scrutiny from members of Congress in both parties for allegedly cataloguing the search history of lawmakers who have gone to review the unredacted Epstein files.
Why it matters: It's a fresh and high-octane scandal for Attorney General Pam Bondi at a time when she is already facing bipartisan heat over her handling of the Epstein matter.
Anthropic raised $30 billion in one of the largest private funding rounds in tech history, and the Claude developer said demand for its tools has risen exponentially just this year.
Why it matters: Despite worries about runaway spending and shaky markets, investors are still pouring billions into an AI race that is heating up faster than even the optimists could have imagined.
Usually, when the economy grows, so does employment in the kinds of office jobs that form the backbone of modern corporate life. It hasn't been true lately, and that may solve a key mystery of the 2020s' economy.
The big picture: While overall employment trends have been steady, companies have successfully squeezed more out of a falling number of workers in the sectors that are the major sources of white-collar office jobs.
Linda Boff, the former marketing chief of GE and the current CEO of the startup agency Said Differently, has been named president of Forbes' CMO Network, an exclusive community for top marking leaders across the world's biggest brands.
Why it matters: Boff is one of the most visible and successful marketers in recent history. Forbes' CMO Network is one of the most exclusive networks for top marketers globally.
Alex Bores, the Democratic New York assembly member running for Congress, is making AI safety central to his campaign with a new policy platform released on Thursday.
Why it matters: Bores is banking that backing AI guardrails will help, not hurt, his bid for Congress — even as pro-AI super PACs spend big against him.
Anthropic is donating $20 million to Public First Action, a bipartisan advocacy group focused on AI transparency and safeguards, the company announced on Thursday.
Why it matters: AI policy is becoming a campaign flashpoint, and super PACs are raising millions to sway voters.
Top AI experts at OpenAI, Anthropic and other companies warn of rising dangers of their technology, with some quitting in protest or going public with grave concerns.
Why it matters: Leading AI models, including Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT, are getting a lot better, a lot faster, and even building new products themselves.
Uber's CEO says the introduction of robotaxis will be good for its business, not the death knell that some investors fear.
Why it matters: Fifteen years ago, Uber was transportation's Great Disruptor. Now the ride-hailing company itself is in danger of losing ground to competitors like Waymo and Tesla as robotaxis expand across America.
Omnicom has consolidated public relations agencies Porter Novelli with FleishmanHillard and Ketchum with Golin following its merger with IPG.
Why it matters: The restructuring underscores the accelerating consolidation across the agency world as it grapples with economic pressures, changing client expectations and AI disruption.
Warner Bros. Discovery is under new pressure this morning to switch horses from Netflix to Paramount, although it still appears to be waiting for a price sweetener.
Driving the news: Activist investor Ancora Partners disclosed around a $200 million stake and argued that the Paramount bid provides more price and regulatory certainty.
Three more Coupang investors on Wednesday joined the lawsuit against South Korea's government, arguing that it acted unlawfully against the e-commerce firm.
Why it matters: This is becoming a flashpoint in U.S.-South Korea relations, and could impact U.S. investment in South Korean companies.
Anthropic's latest models display some vulnerability to being used in "heinous crimes," including the development of chemical weapons, the company said in a new sabotage report released late Tuesday.
Why it matters: Increasingly powerful AI models also mean heightened scrutiny of the potential for disastrous behavior.
Uber is rolling out a new AI-powered assistant in Uber Eats that builds grocery carts from text or image prompts — automating a traditionally time-consuming task.
The U.S. Marine Corps tapped Kodiak AI to install its autonomy aboard the ROGUE-Fires vehicle, an integral part of a ship-sinking missile launcher known as NMESIS, among other potential setups.
Why it matters: It's another foot in the defense door for the California company, which previously worked with the Army on robotic combat vehicles and the Air Force on the flight line of the future.
"This is a clear indication of the military, in general, wanting to move toward commercially mature technologies," CEO Don Burnette told Axios.
Raytheon, a division of RTX, downed multiple drones simultaneously at a U.S. Army exercise using a Coyote Block 3 Non-Kinetic interceptor, the company told Axios.
It's stoked by the Pentagon's Drone Dominance initiative, the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, Ukraine's stunning Spiderweb operation and security concerns surrounding stateside events like the Super Bowl and World Cup.
23,000 FEET ABOVE THE DESERT —The British Voyager hadsome 70 metric tons of fuel aboard as it began circling the Nevada Test and Training Range. Over the course of a few hours, it topped off Royal Air Force Typhoons and U.S. Marine Corps F-35s. An American KC-135 lingered nearby.
"We can talk to them," Master Aircrew Andy Welham-Jones said to the small group of reporters on board.
It felt no different in the cockpit, he added, to restock the different warplanes from different countries.
Why it matters: The Voyager, part transporter and part refueling tanker, and its crew were fighting in Red Flag 26-1. The exercise embroils British, Australian and American forces — including aviators, cyber and space specialists, and logisticians — in realistic but less-than-lethal combat.
Spending by hyperscalers — the data center behemoths in the vanguard of the AI revolution — is expected to total $610 billion at the midrange of company guidance estimates, about triple the spending from just two years ago.
Why it matters: The AI buildout is getting more and more expensive.
Drones and other tech advances are reshaping how viewers from around the world experience the Winter Olympics.
Why it matters: New camera angles can pull the audience into the athlete's perspective, making the sheer intensity and speed of events like skiing and bobsled easier to grasp.
After a near-death experience postpartum, I worried for about a year and a half whether months of complications could return at any moment. ChatGPT gave me the closure my doctors didn't.
Why it matters: As a lifelong skeptic of any shiny new gadget, I never thought a 4-year-old chatbot would explain my medical saga better than a dozen human providers.
