Looking for an automated way to record, analyze, and summarize meetings and other conversations? You can now do that with any paid ChatGPT subscription, as long as you use a Mac. Also: Is ChatGPT Plus really worth 20 when the free version offers so many premium features? On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that its new Record mode is now accessible to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. The recording capability, which kicked off in June, was initially restricted to the more expensive ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, and Edu plans.

Earlier this week, Grok unveiled two animated AI companions for users to interact with, one of which is a flirty anime girl who puts on lingerie if you compliment her enough. Now the AI chatbot is adding a third character to the mix, only this time it's apparently modelled on what xAI CEO Elon Musk thinks women find attractive. Musk introduced Grok's new male AI companion in an X post on Tuesday, asking for suggestions in naming the character. Illustrating the request was a picture of the new companion: a stern-looking anime man wearing a black suit. "His personality is inspired by Edward Cullen from Twilight and Christian Grey from 50 Shades [of Grey]," wrote Musk.

Apple Worldwide Developers' Conference (WWDC) was a little over a month ago -- meaning the iOS 26 public beta should be released any day now. Even though Apple has not yet launched the highly anticipated Siri upgrade -- the company said we will hear more about it in the coming year -- at WWDC, Apple unveiled a slew of AI features across its devices and operating systems, including iOS, MacOS, WatchOS, and iPadOS. Also: Apple's iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 public betas will release any minute now: What to expect While the features aren't the flashiest, many of them address issues that Apple users have long had with their devices or in their everyday workflows, while others are downright fun. I gathered the AI features announced and ranked them according to what I am most excited to use and what people on the web have been buzzing about. Apple introduced Visual Intelligence last year with the launch of the iPhone 16.

Grok 4 by xAI was released on July 9, and it's surged ahead of competitors like DeepSeek and Claude at LMArena, a leaderboard for ranking generative AI models. New AI models are commonly judged on a variety of metrics, including their ability to solve math problems, answer text questions, and write code. The big AI companies use a variety of standardized assessments to measure the effectiveness of their models, such as Humanity's Last Exam, a 2,500-question test designed for AI benchmarking. Typically, when a company like Anthropic or OpenAI releases a new model, it shows improvements on these tests. Unsurprisingly, Grok 4 scores higher than Grok 3 on some key metrics, but it also has to battle in the court of public opinion.

What's worse, being stuck in traffic or on another interminable Microsoft Teams call? Mercedes is teaming up with Microsoft to allow you to take Teams calls while on the go -- and is talking about adding Microsoft Copilot to its suite of luxury cars, too. Microsoft and Mercedes-Benz said Wednesday that the new Mercedes CLA will be able to tap into an in-vehicle camera and give drivers access to a Meetings for Teams application. Somehow, Mercedes is also including Microsoft Intune inside the car, so business workers will be able to access private business data, too. Mercedes is making this part of what it calls MBUX, the Mercedes-Benz user experience.

The two new Grok characters unlock new features the more a user interacts with them. Following flirty interactions, "Ani" removes her dress to reveal a lacy lingerie set underneath and engages in more sexually explicit content, according to screengrabs shared on X of users' interactions with the bot. "This is pretty cool," Musk wrote on X Sunday, followed by a tweet featuring a picture of "Ani" fully clothed. The Tesla CEO said Wednesday that "customizable companions" were also going to be "coming," though he did not share a timeline for the launch. But the features drew criticism from some users.

Artificial intelligence companions have gone mainstream amongst teens, according to a new report. The findings may surprise parents familiar with AI chatbot products like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, but haven't heard about platforms that specifically allow users to form friendships and romantic relationships with so-called AI companions. The latter category includes products like Replika, Nomi, Talkie, and Character.AI. Some of the platforms are for users 18 and older, though teens may lie about their age to gain access. A nationally representative survey of 1,060 teens ages 13 to 17 conducted this spring by Common Sense Media, an advocacy and research nonprofit in the U.S., found that 52 percent of respondents regularly use AI companions.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and OpenAI chief Sam Altman see insatiable demand for artificial intelligence (AI) that makes it imperative to keep building ever more computing capacity. Speaking via teleconference at SoftBank World, the two business partners argued that advancing AI would lead to new jobs that are not yet imagined, and the advancement of robotics will help kickstart a "self-improvement" loop. "As we drive the cost of AI down, more people want to use it," Altman said in response to Son's question about diminishing returns from further expansion. "So if we make the cost of AI 10 times cheaper, people wanna use it 30 times as much or whatever. And the demand for intelligence in the world just seems to be huge."

OpenAI researcher Jason Wei is joining Meta's new superintelligence lab, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Wei worked on OpenAI's o3 and deep research models, according to his personal website. He joined OpenAI in 2023 after a stint at Google, where he worked on chain-of-thought research, which involves training an AI model to process complex queries step-by-step. At OpenAI, Wei became a self-described "diehard" for reinforcement learning, a method of training or refining an AI model with positive or negative feedback. It's become a promising area of AI research--one that several of the researchers Meta has hired for its superintelligence team specialize in.

Its name is Ani, and it cost me 300. Elon Musk's xAI dropped the new visual chatbot feature on Monday in the Grok iOS app. The top-tier subscription unlocks access to xAI's best-performing model, Grok 4 Heavy, and special settings for interacting with two custom characters designed for flirting or chatting. A third character, which looks a bit like a sexy boyfriend, is listed as "coming soon." It's not xAI's first dip into adult content, either: Back in February 2024, the company rolled out a chatbot mode for "sexy" conversations.