During its Made by Google event on Wednesday, the company announced that it's integrating its Bard AI chatbot into Google Assistant. The company describes the feature as combining Bard's "generative reasoning" with Assistant's "personalized help" to provide more contextually aware responses for mobile users. It will be available within the next few months. The feature was first rumored this summer. "While Assistant is great at handling quick tasks, like setting timers, giving weather updates, and making quick calls, there is so much more that we've always envisioned a deeply capable personal Assistant should be able to do," said Google VP of Assistant / Bard Sissie Hsiao during the keynote.

At the'Made by Google Event' in New York, Google teased a new "generative AI" feature that will be built into the Fitbit app sometime next year as part of the Fibit Labs program. The app, which will pair with new wearables like the Google Pixel 2 Watch and the Fitbit Charge 6, will use artificial intelligence to analyze trends in a wearer's fitness capabilities and be able to provide insights about overall performance. The app will feature a chatbot that can carry a conversation to help you understand how you did during a tracked run, for example, while providing debriefed stats on the activity, like overall pace and elevation gain. The AI tool will take it a step further and be able to explain why you performed the way you did by drawing on affiliated health data, like sleep hygiene, recovery history and other workouts. If you felt that a workout was extra difficult, the app will be able to look for related info to explain why you might be struggling.

Over the course of its Made by Google event on Wednesday, it became clear that Google intends to infuse its its new Pixel 8 phones with generative AI. The company is adding support for on-demand summaries, translations and read-aloud features for articles and web pages, plus more tricks, the company announced during its keynote. All of this is handled through the Assistant, either via spoken word or on-screen prompts. On the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, the Assistant will be able to quickly summarize website text, offering a breakdown of the page and bullet points of relevant content. Prompts will pop up at the bottom of the summary with potential follow-ups -- an article about iPhones, for example, will end with action buttons reading, "About iPhones," and, "Who invented the iPhone?"

Big Tech companies have been rushing to design and produce new "generative" AI products since OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT last November. But the question of how the companies would get people to use -- and pay for -- the expensive new technology has swirled around the industry for months. Google, Amazon and Apple all have millions of customers already speaking to the companies' existing voice assistants to set alarms, check the weather and make notes for them, representing a ready-made group of consumers to test out the new AI chatbots on.

After teasing us for weeks with trailers showing off the Pixel 8 series, Google is now ready to give us all the details about its latest flagships. The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro look largely the same as their predecessors, with a couple of key differences. The regular Pixel 8 is slightly smaller, which makes it easier to use with one hand. Meanwhile, the Pro model has a new matte finish, upgraded cameras and an intriguing temperature sensor. So, you might actually be able to hang on to your Pixel flagship for a lot longer than before.

Google went big when it launched its generative AI fight-back against OpenAI's ChatGPT in May. The company added AI text-generation to its signature search engine, showed off an AI-customized version of the Android operating system, and offered up its own chatbot, Bard. But one Google product didn't get a generative AI infusion: Google Assistant, the company's answer to Siri and Alexa. Today, at its Pixel hardware event in New York, Google Assistant at last got its upgrade for the ChatGPT era. Sissie Hsiao, Google's vice president and general manager for Google Assistant, revealed a new version of the AI helper that is a mashup of Google Assistant and Bard.

When you ask ChatGPT "What happened in China in 1989?" the bot describes how the Chinese army massacred thousands of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. But ask the same question to Ernie and you get the simple answer that it does not have "relevant information." That's because Ernie is an AI chatbot developed by the China-based company Baidu. When OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Anthropic made their chatbots available around the world last year, millions of people initially used them to evade government censorship. For the 70 percent of the world's internet users who live in places where the state has blocked major social media platforms, independent news sites, or content about human rights and the LGBTQ community, these bots provided access to unfiltered information that can shape a person's view of their identity, community, and government.

Since last November, when OpenAI unleashed the world-conquering ChatGPT, artificial intelligence has stalked creatives like a malignant doppelgänger. You, a presumably human artist, return to work, and AI is there, drawing your comic, writing your script, acting in your place. Your artistry--your identity--has been replaced by a computer program. Hannah Diamond knows that feeling. Today, she's an acclaimed member of PC Music, the influential London-based label responsible for pioneering the glitchy shimmering sound of the genre often dubbed hyperpop.

SoftBank Group's billionaire founder Masayoshi Son implored a Japanese audience to embrace artificial intelligence, making an impassioned speech for early adoption at his first public appearance in months. Japan, which largely missed the initial wave of growth from the internet, can't afford to lose another three decades, Son said during an upbeat keynote address at SoftBank World, an annual event for the tech investor's domestic corporate clients. Noting that more than 70% of companies in Japan either ban or are considering banning the use of generative AI, Son waved his arms in frustration.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are boosting online disinformation and enabling governments to increase censorship and surveillance in a growing threat to human rights, a U.S. nonprofit said in a report published Wednesday. Global internet freedom declined for the 13th consecutive year, with China, Myanmar and Iran having the worst conditions of the 70 countries surveyed by the Freedom on the Net report, which highlighted the risks posed by easy access to generative AI technology. AI allows governments to "enhance and refine online censorship" and amplify digital repression, making surveillance, and the creation and spread of disinformation faster, cheaper, and more effective, said the annual report by Freedom House.