Character.ai has filed for bankruptcy and is up for sale, with the transaction expected to complete before early December 2026; the platform and subscriptions keep running in the meantime, and the service will shut down if no buyer is found. Disney has acquired some assets for $20 million.
MIT Technology Review reports that as public and synthetic datasets peak, AI labs are buying code and workspace data from dead startups via shutdown service providers such as SimpleClosure and Sunset. SimpleClosure's Asset Hub has facilitated over 150 transactions and is expected to recover over $10 million for startups by the end of 2026; 47% of its transactions now include code or data sales.
The White House reversed its earlier decision to block the UK AI Security Institute (AISI) from accessing new AI models, restoring its early testing access to models from Anthropic, Google DeepMind and OpenAI.
Biohub, the nonprofit funded by Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, is leading a $1.8 billion effort to train AI models that predict cell behavior to speed up drug development, including $500 million from the five-year Virtual Biology Initiative they pledged this April.
Google DeepMind, Meta, and AI drug discovery startup Isomorphic Labs are jointly investing $300 million in Biohub, the nonprofit biomedical research organization founded by the Zuckerbergs, according to Reuters.
Australia is considering banning smart glasses in certain public places, and courts in several countries have issued bans; Norway's government calls a ban a high priority, with a draft bill to be submitted to parliament soon, though it is not seeking a blanket ban. Norway's Micaelsen said people should not have to worry about hidden recording, photos and filming in settings unaccustomed to surveillance.
TrendForce released a monthly report based on its Data Center Tracker (covering nearly 2,000 facilities), with AWS adding the most MW this month, contributed largely by the Susquehanna campus accounting for nearly half; Google adjusted across three countries, led by 330 MW of new air permits in Omaha.
US federal judge Amit Mehta dismissed the antitrust lawsuits by Chegg and Penske Media against Google, ruling that Google's conduct in AI overviews and similar products does not violate antitrust law.
Google's Project Suncatcher prototype satellite launched on October 1 aboard a SpaceX rocket from California, putting its TPU in space for the first time; built by Planet Labs, the satellite will run TPUs in 15-minute bursts to verify in-orbit operation.
US federal judge Amit Mehta on Wednesday dismissed two antitrust lawsuits against Google brought by Chegg and Rolling Stone parent Penske Media, which had accused Google of forcing publishers to provide content to AI Overviews for free or vanish from search results.
More than twenty tech companies signed a voluntary agreement committing to independent safety audits and regular discussions of AI safety standards, but the deal is not legally binding. The report notes some signatories such as Anthropic, Google and OpenAI had already promised external audits; critics question whether self-policing can solve safety problems, as California and Delaware investigate whether OpenAI's recent loss-of-control incidents involved governance failures, and the FTC has launched an inquiry into the potential consumer harms of rogue AI agents.
After a dinner with tech leaders, Trump said there will be no federal AI regulation and the industry will instead self-police. Pichai, Amodei, Zuckerberg, Brockman, Musk and Jensen Huang signed the morally binding Joint Frontier Responsibility Commitments. The pledge requires companies to self-regulate AI according to common-sense guidelines, with no apparent real consequences for violations; the six signatories each commented in support afterward, and Amodei said mechanisms for addressing AI risks are still under discussion.
The US Federal Trade Commission is investigating OpenAI, Anthropic and other leading AI labs over suspected consumer protection violations. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson plans to use legally binding Civil Investigative Demands to compel documents and question executives, with orders to be issued within weeks.
According to The Information, Google's pilot paying publishers for AI content contributions has accepted about 100 publishers, who get paid when their content substantially contributes to Gemini-powered results such as AI Overview. Several small and mid-sized publishers said payments equal only about 0.1% of their ad revenue, and multiple large publishers have reportedly declined to participate, hoping to force Google to offer better terms.
According to The Information, Google has launched a pilot program paying publishers based on how much their content contributes to AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini, with about 100 publishers taking part. One of the earliest participants earned over $1 million in a year, while another that joined a few months ago received about $50,000 to $60,000. The UK has previously required Google to let publishers opt out of AI search features, and the EU has investigated its impact on search traffic and demanded changes.
The Verge published details of the "morally binding" AI safety pact Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities announced by Trump yesterday.
According to The Information, Google is paying about 100 publishers for their content for use in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini. Small sites earn less than $1,000 over months, while some publishers earn over $1 million a year; the payment mechanism is opaque and changes month to month.
Steve Yegge announced he is shutting down Gas Town after spending thousands of dollars a month on coding agent subscriptions, admitting it was the only output. Databricks rolled out GPT-6 Astra to about 3,500 engineers; it clearly outperforms Opus 5 / Sol 5.6 on complex long-horizon tasks but raised total coding spend by about 60%, prompting a dedicated sub-budget. OpenAI released a framework for disclosing model misalignment incidents plus six case reports from the past six months.
Emerald AI, Google, and NVIDIA announced the launch of the AI Energy Management Alliance (AEMA) to advance data centers that dynamically adjust power consumption based on grid conditions. The alliance is committed to technology neutrality and measuring by performance, will unify technical requirements and performance metrics, and offer faster grid interconnection for participants making verifiable flexibility commitments. AEMA brings together members across the supply chain—AI platforms, data center operators, utilities, and grid operators—to advance US AI infrastructure.
At the DOE Genesis Mission Summit 2026, Google announced a commitment of $40 million in AI tokens and cloud resources to support the US Department of Energy's Genesis Mission.
Google DeepMind and A24 have announced a first-of-its-kind research partnership pairing a frontier AI research lab with a film studio to help artists develop new workflows and techniques. The two will collaborate on long-term R&D across multiple projects: A24's filmmakers can help shape new technologies, while Google DeepMind gets guidance and feedback from working artists. Google has also invested in A24, and the partnership's specific goals and technical outputs will evolve over time.
Google DeepMind, together with Schmidt Sciences, the Cooperative AI Foundation, and ARIA, and supported by Google.org, launched a research grant program of up to $10M for multi-agent AI safety, open to researchers worldwide.
Google DeepMind launched the Google DeepMind Accelerator: Robotics, a program for early-stage European robotics startups, selecting 15 companies across Europe in its first cohort.
Google DeepMind announced a new National Partnerships for AI initiative in Singapore, focused on healthcare, science, and education. The collaboration includes exploring an AI co-clinician "trio of care" with public healthcare clusters, using AlphaFold to accelerate outbreak research, developing a Gemma-powered running assistant for visually impaired runners, and providing Gemini for Education to all teachers from primary school through junior college.
Google Research outlines its open science practices: over a decade, open-sourced tools and datasets such as DeepVariant, Neuroglancer, NeuralGCM, SpeciesNet, and HAI-DEF (including MedGemma) have served more than 250,000 researchers and developers worldwide.
Google DeepMind announced a partnership with Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) as part of its National Partnerships for AI program, including an AI Campus in Seoul.
Google DeepMind announced partnerships with Accenture, Bain & Company, BCG, Deloitte and McKinsey to help enterprises adopt frontier AI at scale.