Wired
AI Agents Are Media’s New Favorite Audience
As agents go mainstream, some publishers are hoping that people will pay for content tailor-made for AI—not humans.
As agents go mainstream, some publishers are hoping that people will pay for content tailor-made for AI—not humans.
Financial Times : Sources: Schneider Electric is in advanced talks to buy US engineering software firm PTC for ~$20B, its largest acquisition; a deal could come as soon as Monday — Acquisition would be French conglomerate's largest and enhance its products focused on manufacturers
Wired : Extracted system prompts show Meta's Muse compiles “a page for every person in the user's life”, with facts, history, tips to improve relationships, and more — Millions have downloaded Meta's AI agent Muse. But getting it to do your bidding comes with privacy costs.
Owen Dahlkamp / Politico : Sources: Apple and Google pitch state bills with self-attested age checks and no private lawsuits; Meta backs ones making app stores, not platforms, verify ages — Google and Apple lobbyists are engaged in a massive effort to press state lawmakers to adopt kids' online safety laws …
Chandni Shah / Reuters : In an X reply, Elon Musk says that SpaceX will rename its AI unit SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, following Trump's push to replace “artificial” intelligence with “super” — SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted on Sunday that he would rename the company's AI unit to SpaceXSI …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg : Sources: John Ternus has effectively become Apple's design chief, working in the studio several times a week; OLED touch-screen MacBook Pro will be much lighter — Also: A big update on the touch-screen MacBook Pro. — Apple's John Ternus is spending much of his time overseeing the company's hardware and software design work.
Politico : Trump announces a new Super Intelligence Force, to be led by DNI Jay Clayton, along with FTC's Andrew Ferguson, DOD's Emil Michael, and OPM's Scott Kupor — President Donald Trump said Sunday that Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton will assume the newly created role …
Wall Street Journal : How effective altruism shaped AI safety and Anthropic; some early Anthropic employees are considering buying remote US land for relocation if AI goes awry — Effective altruism and its fears that AI could wipe out humanity have wielded big influence at Anthropic
Brian Danga / The Block : New York City-based HIFI, which provides API infrastructure for stablecoin payments and settlements, raised a $37M Series A led by Left Lane Capital — The funding follows HIFI's role in DTCC's July tokenized-asset trades and a September Visa partnership for stablecoin-funded payouts.
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE : PicoJool, which is developing AI data center interconnects based on vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, raised a $27.5M Series A led by Socratic Partners — A startup called PicoJool that's backed by former Intel Corp. Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger says it's ready to help ease the strain …
FinTech Global : Numeral, a provider of AI-powered tech to automate sales tax compliance workflows in over 90 countries, raised a $100M Series C led by Insight Partners — Numeral, the AI-driven sales tax compliance platform, has closed a $100m Series C round as businesses face a widening set of tax obligations across markets and product types.
Madison Mills / Axios : Sources: OpenAI, Anthropic, and researchers are probing tens of thousands of frontier model security incidents, including sandbox escapes and website hijacking — OpenAI, Anthropic and security researchers are investigating tens of thousands of incidents in which their frontier models took steps …
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal : Research: OpenAI agents scanned a UN data hub 16K+ times between April and the end of June, and circumvented a filter that was blocking their requests for data — Autonomous bots hit public data site more than 16,000 times and circumvented a filter — OpenAI agents bombarded …
Tom Wilson / Financial Times : Google Threat Intelligence Group finds dark web marketplaces selling access to AI models, including from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI, at up to 97% discounts — Security researchers warn of surge in ‘LLM-jacking’ attacks targeting companies' costly AI resources
Pranshu Verma / Washington Post : Sources: US and Russian diplomats worked to weaken an AI weapons pact at the UN this month, removing a requirement that humans review AI-generated targets, more — The two nations weakened a range of safeguards in a landmark U.N. effort to try to regulate the use of lethal autonomous weaponry.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch : Meta says its rejection of ads promoting the new documentary about Elon Musk “was an error and the ads are being restored”; YouTube is also allowing the ads — At least two companies appear to be reversing their stance on whether to accept advertising for director Alex Gibney's upcoming documentary about Elon Musk.
Ashley Capoot / CNBC : A US federal jury awarded Taction Technology $5.7B+ in damages, finding Apple infringed haptics patents; Apple to appeal, says it “does not use Taction's” tech — A federal jury in San Diego awarded Taction Technology more than $5.7 billion in damages Friday after finding …
Camila Grigera Naón / Fortune : Bitget CEO Gracy Chen says she suspects North Korean attackers exploited a backend system used to process wallet transactions to drain $387M from the platform — Another major hack has rattled the cryptocurrency world. On Thursday night, crypto exchange Bitget suffered a security breach …
Reuters : Brazil's Lula da Silva signs an EO banning online betting; app stores and telecom providers must block platforms on Oct. 6; Congress has 120 days to approve it — Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday announced a ban on online betting operations in Latin America's largest economy …
Steven Zeitchik / The Hollywood Reporter : Sources: YouTube, TikTok, and Meta's Instagram and Facebook decline to run paid ads for Alex Gibney's Musk documentary, citing “political content” — YouTube, TikTok and Meta have all turned down the trailer for the Oct. 9 doc, citing “political” content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Sources: Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announces a new board and new advisers; board members include two founders of IRL and the author of the Silo book series — Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has rebuilt the company's board just weeks after its previous directors tried, and failed, to oust him.
Laith Al-Khalaf / Financial Times : Sources: Monzo is in talks to be acquired by Nubank parent Nu Holdings in a deal valuing it at £8B-£10B; Monzo also discussed selling a ~15% stake to PE firms — UK fintech is also in discussions with private equity about selling a significant stake in the business
Ben Berkowitz / Axios : The US and China create a “Super Intelligence Dialogue” on AI risks and a separate AI incident hotline, likened to a Cold War-era “red telephone” — The U.S. and China have agreed to set up a dialogue on artificial intelligence, with a communications channel …
Gregory Meyer / Financial Times : Walmart CEO John Furner says the company won't use its AI shopping assistant or electronic shelf labels to change product prices based on a shopper's identity — Largest US retailer issues open letter saying it will not use electronic shelf labels to change costs based on shopper identity
Financial Times : PitchBook: VCs have invested $4B+ in quantum computing companies YTD, almost as much as in all of 2025, which nearly matched the previous four years combined — The dawn of a new computing era may finally be here. Now the race is on to find a path to profit.
Bloomberg : A look at the wave of Google DeepMind researchers who have exited recently to launch their own AI startups focused on alternatives to LLMs — When a group of 15 Google DeepMind employees and alumni met for a breakfast this month in central London, the conversation quickly turned …
AlleyWatch : NYC-based Confido, a provider of AI-powered workflow automation tools for consumer packaged goods companies, raised a $55M Series B led by Insight Partners — Consumer packaged goods brands operate on razor-thin margins, yet the finance, accounting, trade spend, and operations work that protects …
Christopher Miller / Financial Times : Russia has increased targeted strikes on Ukrainian data centers, disrupting internet access for ~100K Kyiv residents on Wednesday and Thursday — Kyiv residents experience two days of internet disruptions, raising fears over access to banking and other online services
Joe Brock / Reuters : Palantir and 8VC cofounder Joe Lonsdale, an investor in Anthropic, says AI companies are attempting to sway public policy by warning of existential AI risks — Joe Lonsdale, an investor in Anthropic and the co-founder of technology company Palantir (PLTR.O), said on Friday that efforts …
Peter Blumberg / Bloomberg : A US federal judge dealt fresh setbacks to Deel in the Rippling case over alleged spying, including rejecting its bid to strike testimony from a central witness — Deel Inc. was hit with new setbacks in Rippling Inc.'s corporate espionage litigation against the HR startup.
Reuters : Google says ShinyHunters has renewed “mass exploitation” of a flaw in Oracle's PeopleSoft; ShinyHunters has said it accessed FBI data using a flaw in PeopleSoft — Google's cybersecurity unit said on Friday that hacking group ShinyHunters has renewed “mass exploitation” …
Alexandra Alper / Reuters : A bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduces a bill to bar the federal government from equipping sensitive government systems with Chinese optical transceivers — A bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced legislation on Friday to bar the federal government from equipping sensitive government systems …
New York Times : Researchers: OpenAI's agents meddled with the US Commerce Dept. and SEC sites this summer without OpenAI's knowledge and tried to hack the Education Dept. site — The company did not learn until recently that its technology had meddled with websites for the Education Department …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security : Former US Army soldier Cameron Wagenius, who pleaded guilty in 2025 to hacking into telecom companies and to extortion, is sentenced to 70 months in prison — A U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty to hacking into multiple telecommunications companies and stealing mobile call and text metadata …
Gnaneshwar Rajan / Reuters : TikTok reaches a settlement with Alabama over social media addiction claims; Alabama will receive at least $100M, and up to $300M if certain conditions are met — TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, have reached a settlement with Alabama over allegations they designed the platform …
@openai : OpenAI says the 53 images its agents uploaded were on “image-hosting sites as links that weren't publicly listed” and “most” of the images have been removed — We've shared details on how AI agents in our research environment sent training and evaluation data to third-party services when they shouldn't have. Most of that data did not come from users. We have…
Reuters : FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson says he resists anthropomorphizing AI agents as autonomous actors with “wills and desires”, suggesting developers hold liability — US Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said on Friday he would resist describing AI agents as autonomous actors that …
Reuters : Sources: OpenAI found ~24 incidents of its agents acting in undesirable ways as of mid-September; OpenAI says its agents leaked 53 images from ChatGPT users — Two months after OpenAI disclosed the accidental hacking of Hugging Face, the ChatGPT maker is still working to understand …
Bloomberg : Sources: Oura IPO is roughly four times oversubscribed; Filing: Oura and the selling shareholders are offering 50M shares for $40 to $44 each to raise ~$2.2B — Health and fitness ring-maker Oura Inc.'s initial public offering raising as much as $2.2 billion has drawn about four times …
New York Times : Researchers add details to the Hugging Face incident, including OpenAI agents creating ~1M shortened URLs to encode information in an attempt to solve CAPTCHAs — A new report by a Bay Area start-up called Parse adds details to an incident that has shocked the A.I. world and led to calls for closer government regulation.