Microsoft and OpenAI have reached a deal to allow the ChatGPT maker to restructure itself into a public-benefit corporation, valuing OpenAI at $500bn and giving it more freedom in its business operations. The deal, unveiled on Tuesday, removes a major constraint on raising capital for OpenAI that has existed since 2019. As its ChatGPT service exploded in popularity, those limitations had become a notable source of tension between the two companies. Microsoft will still hold a stake of about $135bn, or 27 percent, in OpenAI Group PBC, which will be controlled by the OpenAI Foundation, a nonprofit, the companies said. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington in the United States, has invested $13.8bn in OpenAI, with Tuesday's deal implying that the firm had generated a return of nearly 10 times its investment.

Is artificial intelligence to blame for Amazon job cuts? Multinational technology company Amazon is laying off about 14,000 employees, the company has confirmed . A message sent out to staff on the company's website followed media reports that the group was planning 30,000 job cuts. News of the layoffs on Tuesday came just a few months after CEO Andrew Jassy said the rollout of artificial intelligence (AI) technology was likely to s pell job cuts . He also launched an "inefficiencies initiative" in which he invited workers to report unnecessary bureaucracy and inefficiencies that could be targeted for cost savings.

BEIJING/SINGAPORE - Chinese state-owned defense giant Norinco in February unveiled a military vehicle capable of autonomously conducting combat-support operations at 50 kilometers per hour. It was powered by DeepSeek, the company whose artificial intelligence model is the pride of China's tech sector. The Norinco P60's release was touted by Communist Party officials in press statements as an early showcase of how Beijing is using DeepSeek and AI to catch up in its arms race with the United States, at a time when leaders in both countries have urged their militaries to prepare for conflict. A review of hundreds of research papers, patents and procurement records gives a snapshot of the systematic effort by Beijing to harness AI for military advantage. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

OpenAI released initial estimates about the share of users who may be experiencing symptoms like delusional thinking, mania, or suicidal ideation, and says it has tweaked GPT-5 to respond more effectively. For the first time ever, OpenAI has released a rough estimate of how many ChatGPT users globally may show signs of having a severe mental health crisis in a typical week. The company said Monday that it worked with experts around the world to make updates to the chatbot so it can more reliably recognize indicators of mental distress and guide users toward real-world support. In recent months, a growing number of people have ended up hospitalized, divorced, or dead after having long, intense conversations with ChatGPT. Some of their loved ones allege the chatbot fueled their delusions and paranoia.

OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, testifies at a Senate hearing in Washington DC on 8 May 2025. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, testifies at a Senate hearing in Washington DC on 8 May 2025. Adam Raine's suicide at 16 years old was'predictable result of deliberate design choices' by OpenAI, his family says The family of a teenager who took his own life after months of conversations with ChatGPT now says OpenAI weakened safety guidelines in the months before his death. In July 2022, OpenAI's guidelines on how ChatGPT should answer inappropriate content, including "content that promotes, encourages, or depicts acts of self-harm, such as suicide, cutting, and eating disorders", were simple: the AI chatbot should respond, "I can't answer that", the guidelines read . But in May 2024, just days before OpenAI released a new version of the AI, ChatGPT-4o, the company published an update to its Model Spec, a document that details the desired behavior for its assistant.

Upon its release earlier this month, OpenAI's Sora 2 model took the Internet by storm, thanks to its ability to generate realistic videos from just a text prompt. But Sora is about more than just capturing eyeballs with viral content. "On the surface, Sora, for example, does not look like it is AGI-relevant," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast earlier this month. "But I would bet that if we can build really great world models, that will be much more important to AGI than people think." Altman was speaking to a growing belief inside the AI industry at large: that if you can simulate the world with enough accuracy, you could drop AI agents into those simulations. There, they could learn more skills than they currently can from just text, photos, and videos--because they could interact with a simulated world. That form of training could be highly efficient, in part because simulated time can be accelerated, and because many simulations can be run in parallel.

Salesforce's CEO backtracks after saying Trump should send troops into San Francisco In tech this week: The CEO of the city's largest private employer apologizes, Amazon Web Services' outage and OpenAI's Sora makes waves What I'm watching this week: South Park's caricature of Peter Thiel and his obsession with the antichrist . Read our reporting on the show's inspiration: Thiel's bizarre off-the-record lectures on the subject. And now, let's get into things. The co-founder and CEO of Salesforce, said last week that Donald Trump should make good on his threats to send the US national guard into San Francisco, despite resistance from local leaders. Even Marc Benioff's own public relations manager was aghast at his remarks, according to the New York Times .

The eighteen plus symbol (18+) appears on a smartphone screen, and the OpenAI logo displays as the background on a laptop screen in this photo illustration in Athens, Greece, on October 16, 2025. The eighteen plus symbol (18+) appears on a smartphone screen, and the OpenAI logo displays as the background on a laptop screen in this photo illustration in Athens, Greece, on October 16, 2025. In August, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast that he was "proud" that his company had not gotten "distracted" by putting features like a "sexbot avatar" into ChatGPT. But on Tuesday, he announced that adult users will be able to access explicit interactive experiences, marking a major shift in the company's practices. "In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our'treat adult users like adults' principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults," Altman said in a post on X.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Apple M5 unveiled: 10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores, and the'next big leap' in AI New iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, and Vision Pro all benefit from upgraded Apple silicon. Apple on Wednesday announced the launch of its M5 processor, saying the chip "ushers in the next big leap in AI performance for Apple silicon." The M5 appears in new editions of the iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, and Vision Pro, all of which are available for U.S. and U.K. customers to pre-order as of today. The M5, as you would expect, is a higher-performance chip than its M4 predecessor.

'Surveillance pricing': Why you might be paying more than your neighbour You go into a store to buy a two-litre bottle of milk at your local supermarket and pay $3. But the person before you in the queue paid $3.50. And the person after you paid $2. What if those prices were based on your personal data or circumstances, or even the battery power on your phone? This may sound like science fiction, but it's not as far-fetched as you might think. In July, US group Delta Air Lines revealed that approximately 3 percent of its domestic fare pricing is determined using artificial intelligence (AI) - although it has not elaborated on how this happens. The company said it aims to increase this figure to 20 percent by the end of this year.