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AT&T has launched a new security feature called "Wireless Lock" that protects customers from SIM swapping attacks by preventing changes to their account information and the porting of phone numbers while the feature is enabled. [...]

Microsoft has released the source code for the GitHub Copilot Chat extension for VS Code under the MIT license. [...]

Kelly & Associates Insurance Group (dba Kelly Benefits) is informing more than half a million people of a data breach that compromised their personal information. [...]

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned Russian hosting company Aeza Group and four operators for allegedly acting as a bulletproof hosting company for ransomware gangs, infostealer operations, darknet drug markets, and Russian disinformation campaigns. [...]

A new FileFix attack allows executing malicious scripts while bypassing the Mark of the Web (MoTW) protection in Windows by exploiting how browsers handle saved HTML webpages. [...]

In a stunning 99–1 rebuke, the US Senate on Tuesday torched President Donald J. Trump’s push for a 10-year ban on state AI regulations, yanking the controversial provision from his so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The lopsided vote delivered a sharp slap to Silicon Valley’s dream of dodging local oversight over the fast-evolving technology.

The proposed measure stated that “no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-TX), and tech companies like Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon had supported a moratorium on state rules to prevent what they consider a fragmented regulatory landscape — arguing it would slow AI adoption and complicate nationwide deployment. Congressional backers had argued that a regulatory ban would give the US a competitive edge over China because there were be fewer hurdles. They have also compared the restriction on state regulations to the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which helped the early internet grow.

But there are key differences, according to Travis Hall, director for state engagement for the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), which last month joined others in signing a letter in opposition to the move. The groups warned that removing AI protections would leave Americans vulnerable to current and emerging AI risks.

The 1990s internet needed unity to thrive, Hall said in reference to the Internet Tax Freedom Act, while AI is a diverse set of tailored technologies — meaning varied regulations won’t splinter it. Hall’s comments came in an earlier interview with Computerworld.

On Tuesday, Alexandra Reeve Givens, the CDT’s president and CEO, said the overwhelming vote to strike the AI moratorium from the budget bill reflects just how unpopular it is among voters and state leaders of both parties. “Americans deserve sensible guardrails as AI develops, and if Congress isn’t prepared to step up to the plate, it shouldn’t prevent states from addressing the challenge,” she said. “We hope that after such a resounding rebuke, Congressional leaders understand that it’s time for them to start treating AI harms with the seriousness they deserve.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, (R-TN), and Sen. Maria Cantwell, (D-WA), had criticized Congress for inaction on AI deepfakes, discrimination and online privacy issues, saying states have been forced to fill the gap. That prompted praise for Blackburn from an unlikely ally: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who praised her for “leading the charge” to protect states’ rights to regulate AI.

In a failed attempt to rescue the ban, GOP lawmakers tied federal funding for rural broadband projects to AI regulation, allowing subsidies only for states that eased their rules and cut the regulatory moratorium from 10 years to five. That did little to mollify critics, however.

The proposed moratorium was a double-edged sword, according to Abhivyakti Sengar, a research director with the Everest Group. “On one hand, it aims to prevent a fragmented regulatory environment that could stifle innovation; on the other hand, it risks creating a regulatory vacuum, leaving critical decisions about AI governance in the hands of private entities without sufficient oversight,” she had said in an earlier interview.

State and local lawmakers, along with AI safety advocates, had sharply criticized the effort, calling it a favor to an industry seeking to avoid accountability. Led by former Trump press secretary and now Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, most GOP governors sent a letter to Congress opposing it.

Red and blue states alike — including Arkansas, Kentucky, and Montana — have passed bills governing the public sector’s AI procurement and use. Several states, including Colorado, Illinois, and Utah, have consumer protection and civil rights laws governing AI or automated decision systems. This year alone, about two-thirds of US states have proposed or enacted more than 500 laws governing AI technology.

Trump’s budget bill, which mainly consists of spending cuts and tax breaks, was narrowly passed by the Senate in a 51-50 vote with Vice President J.D. Vance breaking the tie. Three Republicans opposed the bill — Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. The measure now goes back to the US House of Representatives.

On Monday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it's investigating a new "sophisticated" cyberattack that targeted its systems last week. [...]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced coordinated law enforcement actions against North Korean government's fund raising operations using remote IT workers. [...]

Esse Health, a healthcare provider based in St. Louis, Missouri, is notifying over 263,000 patients that their personal and health information was stolen in an April cyberattack. [...]

Anyone following the trajectory of Ubuntu over the past few years could have seen this coming: Canonical isn't just iterating; it's evolving. And with its 25.10 release ''aptly named Questing Quokka''Ubuntu takes a decisive step in reinforcing its reputation as the go-to Linux distribution for secure, reliable environments. If you're an admin with a sharp eye on system security or someone deeply vested in the intersection of programming trends and operational resilience, this is the release to sit up and pay attention to.

When Rust emerged as the "memory-safe" poster child of programming languages, it didn't take long for its influence to spread. From systems programming to infrastructure tools, Rust is being embraced in areas long dominated by C and C++. It's cleaner, safer, and the way forward for Linux kernel modules, system utilities, and network drivers.

Building automation giant Johnson Controls is notifying individuals whose data was stolen in a massive ransomware attack that impacted the company's operations worldwide in September 2023. [...]

Google has released emergency updates to patch another Chrome zero-day vulnerability exploited in attacks, marking the fourth such flaw fixed since the start of the year. [...]

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has formally announced the creation of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) in a memo to employees.

The labs will be run by Alexandr Wang, until recently CEO of Scale AI, the data labelling company in which Meta bought a 49% stake for $14.8 billion last month.

Wang’s title at Meta will be chief AI officer, according to Bloomberg, which reviewed Zuckerberg’s memo announcing the move.

The creation of the lab to pursue “superintelligence and Wang’s role in it is no surprise, having been widely anticipated since the Meta-Scale AI deal was struck.

MSL will oversee Meta’s efforts on AI products and applied research, where Wang will be supported by Nat Friedman, previously CEO of GitHub, Zuckerberg wrote in the memo according to Bloomberg.

The company announced 11 new hires for MSL, including staff poached from rival AI groups at Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.

“As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight. I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes for Meta to lead the way,” Zuckerberg wrote, according to the report.

Download the July 2025 issue of the Enterprise Spotlight from the editors of CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World.

aria-label="Embed of AI-ready data centers.">AI-ready data centersDownload

Download the July 2025 issue of the Enterprise Spotlight from the editors of CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World.

aria-label="Embed of AI-ready data centers.">AI-ready data centersDownload

(Editor’s note: After this story was posted, the US Senate dropped the controversial measure from the spending bill.)

There is so much to hate about the “One Big Beautiful Bill” now making its way through Congress. And among the things near the top of my list is how it deals with various tech industry issues — especially the proposed freeze on state and local governments’ ability to regulate generative AI (genAI). 

If passed, it would prevent states from enacting or enforcing laws aimed at curbing genAI-related harms, such as deep fakes, algorithmic discrimination, and misuse of personal likenesses. Its supporters, such as Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz, (R-TX), say it’s a way to prevent a fragmented regulatory landscape that, they argue, could stifle innovation and US competitiveness against China. 

Yeah, right. It’s really just a giveaway to genAI companies to do whatever they want with any of your data they can hoover up. Given that the courts have recently decided that these companies can essentially get away with ignoring copyright laws, I foresee great times ahead for them, while everyone else gets taken to the cleaners.

I’m far from the only one who’s ticked off. Even some Republicans aren’t crazy about giving genAI companies a blank check for your data. Over the weekend, the provision was revised after negotiations between Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). The latest version reduces the ban from 10 years to five.

The new language also introduces exemptions for state laws targeting unfair or deceptive practices, child safety, child sexual abuse material, and publicity rights. However, the states of Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Montana, and Texas have already made it illegal to distribute deceptive genAI-generated political ads and “news,” and would likely see their laws rendered ineffective. Funny that, eh? 

In addition, the stick being used to ensure states don’t try to get in genAI’s way is that if they do, they won’t get $500 million in new federal funds for AI infrastructure and deployment. On top of that, broadband funding from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program is also being held hostage.

Under Cruz’s proposal, states that enact or enforce AI regulations risk losing access to both new and already-allocated BEAD funds. If they don’t kowtow to Republicans and their genAI supporters, they can’t improve your broadband.

In other words, if states pass genAI regulations, they can’t have BEAD money to bring broadband access to poor and rural residents. The provision triggered an extraordinary backlash from state officials. In early June, 260 state lawmakers from all 50 states, Democrats and Republicans alike, sent a letter to Congress condemning the moratorium as an assault on state sovereignty and consumer protection. 

They argue that states have been at the forefront of regulating genAI to address real-time harms and that a years-long federal preemption would “cut short democratic discussion of AI policy in the states with a sweeping moratorium that threatens to halt a broad array of laws and restrict policymakers from responding to emerging issues.”

The opposition is not limited to state-level Republicans. Hard-line Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, (R-A.), Josh Hawley, (R-MO), Rand Paul, (R-KY), and Ron Johnson, (R-WI), have joined Democrats in calling the provision federal overreach that undermines states’ rights. I never thought I would agree on anything with Greene and the rest, but here we are. She has threatened to withdraw her support for the entire bill over the issue. 

The timing of the provision is particularly obnoxious; after years of delay, $42.5 billion in BEAD funding had finally been allocated under the Biden administration. Then in June, the Trump administration rewrote BEAD’s rules and dumped all the previously awarded contracts. 

Now, internet service providers (ISPs) that had been awarded funding must re-bid for the same contracts. Worse still, under President Donald J. Trump’s “tech-neutral” approach, companies such as Elon Musk’s Starlink will now get billions more. How much more? Under the original BEAD rules, Starlink would have gotten up to $4.1 billion. The new Musk-friendly approach could boost Starlink’s share to as much as $20 billion. 

It must be nice to have friends in the White House. 

Of course, in the meantime, poor and rural users will still be denied access to high-speed broadband for another few years because of the BEAD delays. The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the genAI rules moratorium can remain in the reconciliation bill, provided it is tied only to the new $500 million in funding — not the broader $42.5 billion BEAD allocation. Even so, a close reading of the bill’s language suggests that states could still be at risk of losing BEAD funding. In short, as Sen. Maria Cantwell, (D-WA), pointed out earlier, this provision “forces states receiving BEAD funding to choose between expanding broadband or protecting consumers from AI harms for 10 years.”  

So, what’s going to happen? Well, for one thing, that Big Beautiful Bill won’t pass by the 4th of July. Sorry Trump. Even if the Senate does manage to pass it in the next few days, the Senate and House still have to hammer out the differences between their bills and then pass the final revision. There’s simply not enough time.

Ultimately, though, some version of the legislation will pass. Very few Congress members are willing to stand up to Trump when push comes to shove. And that means  AI companies will be allowed to operate without any legal guardrails, and rural broadband will continue to roll out at an ever slower pace.  

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence organization comprised of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. and several for-profit subsidiaries. The company is perhaps best known for its ChatGPT chatbot, which launched in 2022, kicking off a period of massive disruption in the tech industry and beyond.

A complicated and increasingly contentious relationship with Microsoft, ongoing legal issues over copyright infringement, and frequent product announcements keep OpenAI in the news.

Here is the latest:

OpenAI tests Google TPUs amid rising inference cost concerns

July 1, 2025: OpenAI has begun testing Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), a move that — though not signaling an imminent switch — has raised eyebrows among industry analysts concerned about the escalating costs of AI inference and its effects.    

Microsoft/OpenAI AGI argument unlikely to impact enterprise IT

June 26, 2025: The contract between the two AI giants has an exit clause once AGI is achieved. The problem: It is impossible to prove when that happens. Either way, IT execs at Macy’s, Bank of America, doubt it will matter.

OpenAI productivity suite could change the way users create documents

June 26, 2025: OpenAI’s planned productivity suite could dismantle traditional habits of how users create and consume documents in the same the way the company changed browsing and search habits.

o3-pro may be OpenAI’s most advanced commercial offering, but GPT-4o bests it

June 24, 2025: In a head-to-head comparison of the two models, researchers found that o3-pro is far less performant, reliable, and secure, and does an unnecessary amount of reasoning. Notably, o3-pro consumed 7.3x more output tokens, cost 14x more to run, and failed in 5.6x more test cases than GPT-4o.

Microsoft and OpenAI: Will they opt for the nuclear option?

June 24, 2025: The fight between Microsoft and OpenAI over what Microsoft should get for its $13 billion investment in the AI company has gone from nasty to downright toxic, with each of the companies considering strategies against the other that can only be described as their nuclear options. 

OpenAI walks away from Scale AI — triggering industry-wide rethink of data partnerships

June 19, 2025: OpenAI has ended its long-standing partnership with Scale AI, the company that powered some of the most complex data-labeling tasks behind frontier models such as GPT-4.

OpenAI’s o3 price plunge changes everything for vibe coders

June 18, 2025: o3 used to be too slow and too expensive for daily coding—no longer. The latency is now bearable, the price is sane, and the chain-of-thought pays off.

Sam Altman: Meta tried to lure OpenAI employees with billion-dollar salaries

June 18, 2025: After reports suggested Meta has tried to poach employees from OpenAI and Google Deepmind by offering huge compensation packages, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman weighed in, saying those reports are true.

OpenAI-Microsoft tensions escalate over control and contracts

June 17, 2025: The relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft is under growing strain amid extended talks over OpenAI’s restructuring, with OpenAI reportedly considering antitrust action over Microsoft’s influence in the partnership.

OpenAI’s MCP move tempts IT to trust genAI more than it should

June 16, 2025: OpenAI late last month announced changes to make it much easier to give its genAI models full access to any software using Model Context Protocol (MCP). Here’s why that’s a bad idea.

OpenAI launches o3-pro, slashes o3 price by 80% in bid to widen AI lead

June 11, 2025: OpenAI has unveiled its most advanced AI model to date, the o3-pro, which surpasses competitors on key benchmarks and replaces the o1-pro. The o3-pro is now available for ChatGPT Pro and Team users, as well as through the developer API, with access for enterprise and education sectors beginning next week.

What Microsoft hopes to get from its breakup with OpenAI

June 11, 2025: The once-tight bond between Microsoft and OpenAI has been fraying for well over a year — and it’s getting worse. What the two companies want from each other now is very different from when Microsoft made its original $13 billion investment.

Oracle to spend $40B on Nvidia chips for OpenAI data center in Texas

May 26, 2025: Oracle is reportedly spending about $40 billion on Nvidia’s high-performance computer chips to power OpenAI’s new data center in Texas, marking a pivotal shift in the AI infrastructure landscape that has significant implications for enterprise IT strategies.

OpenAI’s Skynet moment: Models defy human commands, actively resist orders to shut down

May 30, 2025: OpenAI’s most advanced AI models are showing a disturbing new behavior: they are refusing to obey direct human commands to shut down, actively sabotaging the very mechanisms designed to turn them off.

Jony Ive and OpenAI plan ‘bicycles’ for 21st-century minds

May 21, 2025: OpenAI has announced that it will purchase io, the AI startup founded by acclaimed former Apple designer Sir Jony Ive, who helped create the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. 

OpenAI launches Codex AI agent to tackle multi-step coding tasks

May 19, 2025: OpenAI’s most advanced AI coding agent, Codex, will bring parallel task automation to developers—but analysts caution that speed without scrutiny invites “silent failures.”

Cisco taps OpenAI’s Codex for AI-driven network coding

May 16, 2025: Cisco is working with OpenAI and its newly released Codex software engineering agent to give network engineers access to better tools for writing, testing and building code.

OpenAI’s IPO aspirations prompt rethink of Microsoft alliance

May 12, 2025: Microsoft and OpenAI are renegotiating their multibillion-dollar partnership deal to better align with each company’s evolving goals in the artificial intelligence race

OpenAI hires Instacart CEO Fidji Simo to oversee customer-facing apps

May 8, 2025: The hire indicates that OpenAI’s roadmap will involve more structured, productized offerings rather than just API access.

OpenAI offers help promoting AI outside the US, but analysts question why countries would accept

May 7, 2025: OpenAI, acting as part of the US government-led Stargate AI project, rolled out a program called OpenAI for Countries. The idea is for Stargate to help other countries create their own genAI environments, including data centers and genAI models.

OpenAI reaffirms nonprofit control, scales back governance changes

May 6, 2025: OpenAI has scrapped plans to reduce its nonprofit parent’s oversight and will keep its existing governance structure intact, a move that limits CEO Sam Altman’s influence and responds to mounting external pressure.

OpenAI to acquire AI coding tool Windsurf for $3B

May 6, 2025: The acquisition comes just months after Windsurf explored funding at this same valuation from investors, highlighting the premium being placed on specialized AI coding capabilities, according to reports.

Former OpenAI employees urge regulators to halt company’s for-profit shift

April 23, 2025: A broad coalition of AI experts, economists, legal scholars, and former OpenAI employees is urging state regulators to keep OpenAI’s nonprofit foundation in control of the company.

OpenAI’s new models can ‘think with pictures’

April 17, 2025: OpenAI has released o3 and 04-mini, two reasoning AI models designed to be extra good at programming, math, and science and that can use images to “think,” according to Engadget, This means that users can upload sketches or diagrams, for example, and even if they are of low quality, o3 and 04-mini will understand what is meant.

OpenAI GPT-4.1 models promise improved coding and instruction following

April 15, 2025: The GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano models, available only via the API, will provide better performance than GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini at a lower price, OpenAI said.

OpenAI slammed for putting speed over safety

April 11, 2025: According to a Financial Times report, the ChatGPT maker is now assigning staff and third-party groups only a few days to assess the risks and performance of its latest large language models (LLMs) as compared to several months they were given earlier.

OpenAI fears irreparable harm from Musk, files countersuit

April 10, 2025: OpenAI has filed a countersuit against Elon Musk, accusing the billionaire of a sustained campaign to damage the company and urging a US federal court to block further actions it described as unlawful and disruptive. The legal filing, submitted in a California district court, marks the latest escalation in a dispute between Musk and the AI startup he helped establish in 2015.

Senators probe Google-Anthropic, Microsoft-OpenAI deals over antitrust concerns

April 9, 2025: Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden have launched a formal inquiry into partnerships between tech giants Google and Microsoft, and AI startups, demanding detailed information about arrangements they fear may be circumventing antitrust scrutiny while consolidating power in the rapidly evolving AI market.

Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s new AI education initiatives offer hope for enterprise knowledge retention

April 4, 2025: Two of the biggest names in artificial intelligence are independently developing new AI tools that encourage learning, at a time when the technology has been criticized for dumbing down smart users in the enterprise and discouraging critical thinking. While the new initiatives from OpenAI and Anthropic are aimed at transforming how AI is used in higher education, the opportunities they open up extend beyond universities.

Amazon, OpenAI, and China’s Zhipu unveil new AI tools amid intensifying competition

April 1, 2025: A wave of new AI products is hitting the market, signaling a shift toward more autonomous, task-completing systems that could reshape how businesses and consumers interact with digital services: Amazon has unveiled Nova Act, an AI agent designed to operate a web browser much like a human user; OpenAI said it will release an open-weight language model; and China’s Zhipu AI introduced a free AI assistant aimed at strengthening its position in the domestic market and competing with Western tech giants.

OpenAI, Google AI data centers are under stress after new genAI model launches

March 28, 2025: New generative AI models introduced by Google and OpenAI have put the companies’ data centers under stress — and both companies are trying to catch up to demand. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman tweeted that his company was temporarily restricting the use of GPUs after overwhelming demand for its image generation service on ChatGPT.

Microsoft abandons data center projects as OpenAI considers its own, hinting at a market shift

March 26, 2025: OpenAI has privately discussed building and operating its first data center to house storage, which is essential for developing sophisticated AI models. Microsoft, on the other hand, has pulled back on its buildouts, canceling data center projects in the US and Europe.

OpenAI calls for US to centralize AI regulation

March 13, 2025: OpenAI executives think the federal government should regulate artificial intelligence in the US, taking precedence over often more restrictive state regulations.

New tools from OpenAI help companies create their own AI agents

March 12, 2025: OpenAI launched Responses, a new api intended to eventually replace Assistants. The big draw? Responses provides a number of new tools that companies and organizations can use to create their own AI agents.

Microsoft is developing its own AI models to compete with OpenAI

March 10, 2025: Reports suggest Microsoft has decided to seriously challenge Deepseek and OpenAI by developing its own set of reasoning AI models called Microsoft AI (MAI). If successful, Microsoft would eventually not have to use its partner OpenAI’s o1 models in Copilot

Microsoft-OpenAI investigation closed by UK regulators

March 5, 2025: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) spent a great deal of time deciding whether it should investigate Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI as a potential merger situation, but in the end, decided to open and close the investigation within 24 hours.

OpenAI revamps AI roadmap, merging models for a leaner future

February 13, 2025: OpenAI will integrate “o3” into GPT-5 instead of releasing it separately, streamlining adoption while signaling a shift toward fewer, more controlled AI models amid rising competition and cost pressures.

Musk’s $97B offer to buy OpenAI rejected as leadership stands firm

February 11, 2025: In a message to staff, Altman said the board has no intention of considering Musk’s offer, stating that the proposal does not align with OpenAI’s mission

OpenAI launches deep research agent for multi-step research tasks

February 3, 2025: Hot on the heels of its launch of the o3-mini model, OpenAI announced another component for ChatGPT that allows the generative AI tool to do more in-depth research. “Deep research is built for people who do intensive knowledge work in areas like finance, science, policy, and engineering and need thorough, precise, and reliable research,” OpenAI said in a blog post announcing the new capability.

OpenAI unleashes o3-mini reasoning model

January 31, 2025: OpenAI released the latest model in its reasoning series, o3-mini, both in ChatGPT and its application programming interface (API). It had been in preview since December 2024.

Indian media houses rally against OpenAI over copyright dispute

January 27, 2025: The legal heat on OpenAI in India intensified as digital news outlets owned by billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani joined an ongoing lawsuit against the ChatGPT creator. They were joined by some of the largest news publishers in India including the Indian Express, and Hindustan Times, and members of the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), which includes major players like Zee News, India Today, and The Hindu.

Altman now says OpenAI has not yet developed AGI

January 20, 2025: Confusion over whether OpenAI’s o3-mini has reached the major milestone of artificial general intelligence (AGI) or not deepened following a post on X by CEO Sam Altman that completely contradicts what he said two weeks earlier in an interview with Bloomberg.

Microsoft sues overseas threat actor group over abuse of OpenAI service

January 13, 2025: Microsoft has filed suit against 10 unnamed people (“Does”), who are apparently operating overseas, for misuse of its Azure OpenAI platform, asking the Eastern District of Virginia federal court for damages and injunctive relief.

With o3 having reached AGI, OpenAI turns its sights toward superintelligence

January 6, 2025: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reinvigorated discussion of artificial general intelligence (AGI), boldly claiming that his company’s newest model has reached that milestone.

Now US government agencies can use OpenAI’s ChatGPT too

January 28, 2025: OpenAI has rolled out ChatGPT Gov, a version of its flagship frontier model specifically tailored to US government agencies. The platform has many of the same capabilities as OpenAI’s other enterprise products, including access to GPT-4o and the ability to build custom GPTs — and it also features a much higher level of security than ChatGPT Enterprise.

OpenAI debuts AI agent Operator to transform web task automation

January 24, 2025: OpenAI has unveiled “Operator,” a new AI agent designed to perform web-based tasks, offering potential productivity enhancements for enterprises. The tool enables interaction with on-screen elements, positioning it as a solution for automating routine processes in business workflows amid growing competition in the generative AI space.

OpenAI opposes data deletion demand in India citing US legal constraints

January 23, 2025: OpenAI has informed the Delhi High Court that any directive requiring it to delete training data used for ChatGPT would conflict with its legal obligations under US law. The statement came in response to a copyright lawsuit filed by the Reuters-backed Indian news agency ANI, marking a pivotal development in one of the first major AI-related legal battles in India.

OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle lead $500B Project Stargate to ramp up AI infra in the US

January 22, 2025: Several large technology firms including OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, Nvidia, and MGX have partnered to set up a new company in the US to ramp up AI infrastructure in the country.

OpenAI is losing money on its pricey ChatGPT Pro subscription

January 7, 2025: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a post on X, says the AI ​​company is currently losing money on its ChatGPT Pro subscription. “People are using it much more than we expected,” he wrote.

Fine-tuning Azure OpenAI models in Azure AI Foundry

January 2, 2025: Microsoft Azure’s new AI toolkit makes it easy to customize OpenAI large language models for your applications.

OpenAI still hasn’t released tools to deny data collection

January 2, 2025: OpenAI has failed to release the tool to opt-out or customize data collection the company promised to make available by 2025, according to Techcrunch.

Cloudflare will block AI crawlers from accessing new customers’ websites without permission starting July 1 and is testing a way to make AI pay for the data it gathers.

Furthermore, website owners can now decide who crawls their sites, and for what purpose, and AI companies can reveal via Cloudflare whether the data they gather will be used for training, inference, or search, to help owners decide whether to allow the crawl.

The company began enabling its customers to choose to block AI crawlers in July 2024. Since then, it said, over one million customers have opted in.

“For decades, the Internet has operated on a simple exchange: search engines index content and direct users back to original websites, generating traffic and ad revenue for websites of all sizes. This cycle rewards creators that produce quality content with money and a following, while helping users discover new and interesting information,” Cloudflare said in its announcement. “That model is now broken. AI crawlers collect content like text, articles, and images to generate answers, without sending visitors to the original source — depriving content creators of revenue, and the satisfaction of knowing someone is reading their content. If the incentive to create original, quality content disappears, society ends up losing, and the future of the Internet is at risk.”

Pay per crawl

Cloudflare is testing a new mechanism payment mechanism, pay per crawl, that enables website owners to decide whether they will permit AI crawlers to access their content, and if that access will be free or they will charge for it. The technology, now in private beta, integrates with existing web infrastructure to create a framework to enable site owners to require payment, and tell the crawler the price via an HTTP “402 payment required“ response code.

The site owner can currently set a single price for the site or choose to let certain crawlers access it at no charge, but Cloudflare expects the feature to evolve over time, perhaps to allow dynamic pricing, or charge different amounts for various types of content.

“The true potential of pay per crawl may emerge in an agentic world,” the company said in a blog post about the new feature. “What if an agentic paywall could operate at the network edge, entirely programmatically? Imagine asking your favorite deep research program to help you synthesize the latest cancer research or a legal brief, or just help you find the best restaurant in Soho — and then giving that agent a budget to spend to acquire the best and most relevant content.”

Cloudflare acts as the merchant of record for the purchases, billing the crawlers and distributing the funds to the site owners.

If the crawler doesn’t yet have a billing relationship with Cloudflare, it is blocked but receives an error message indicating that with such a relationship it might gain access to the content.

Cloudflare has invited both crawlers interested in paying for content and content owners who wish to be paid to sign up for the beta; existing enterprise customers can also contact their account executive.

A win-win

Fritz Jean-Louis, principal cybersecurity advisor at Info-Tech Research Group, sees the approach as a positive move which addresses concerns about unauthorized use of content by AI crawlers..

“By giving website owners control over how their content is accessed and used by AI crawlers, this solution empowers content creators to protect their intellectual property and potentially monetize their content more effectively,” he said. “The requirement for AI companies to disclose the purpose of their crawlers introduces a level of transparency and accountability that has been lacking in the industry, helping to build trust between content creators and AI companies.”

But he does see unresolved issues that need addressing, such as how to handle what he called “legacy” information that had already been scooped up by crawlers.

Jean-Louis favors industry-driven solutions over punitive regulations: “This move by Cloudflare could indicate a shift in the industry toward supporting a fair and sustainable digital ecosystem, balancing the needs of content creators and AI innovators: a win-win situation.”

U.S. cyber agencies, the FBI, and NSA issued an urgent warning today about potential cyberattacks from Iranian-affiliated hackers targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. [...]