Welcome back to TechCrunch's Week in Review.
This week there were two major events from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI's spring update event revealed its new model, GPT-4o, which has voice and vision capabilities that can turn ChatGPT into a virtual assistant that apparently aspires to be “Her.” Fresh off OpenAI, Google's I/O conference featured some announcements and integrations for its flagship model, Gemini.
This week also saw some big changes to AWS and OpenAI. AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is leaving his role and will be replaced by AWS Sales Chief Matt Garman. And OpenAI co-founder and longtime chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has left the company along with Jan Leike. Sutskever will be replaced by Jakub Pachocki, research director at OpenAI.
There was also a significant change in the Meta. TechCrunch exclusively reported that the company is closing its enterprise communications business, Workplace. It makes us wonder if Meta was ever really serious about his business ambitions.
News
120+ ai Mentions: How much ai is too much ai? For Google, none. They mentioned it non-stop during their I/O keynote, and we have the tapes to prove it. Read more
Talk to me, ChatGPT: OpenAI's latest “omni” model, GPT-4o, can talk to you, change your tone to sarcastic, and even perform language translations in real time. She also sounds suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson. Read more
Microsoft's Cobalt 100 chips: TechCrunch has learned that the company will release its custom Cobalt 100 chips to customers as a public preview at its Build conference next week. And we also discovered some other news Read more
Sony Music cracks down on ai: Sony Music Group has sent letters to more than 700 technology companies and music streaming services to warn them not to use their music to train ai without permission. Sony Music says it has “reason to believe” that those companies “may have already made unauthorized uses” of its content. Read more
SIM swapping attacks: Since mid-2023, an interception operation called Estate allowed hundreds of members to make thousands of automated phone calls to trick victims into entering one-time passwords, giving attackers access to their bank accounts. Read more
The IDX project is now in open beta phase: Announced at Google I/O, the company's next-generation ai-focused browser-based development environment is now in open beta. Google says more than 100,000 developers have already tested the service. Read more
ai to save the birds: Wind is the largest source of renewable energy in the US, but wind turbines can wreak havoc on bird populations. Spoor is a startup that uses ai to help wind farms mitigate that risk. Read more
Apple expands accessibility: Apple is bringing new accessibility features to iPads and iPhones, including the ability to control your device with eye tracking, create custom shortcuts using your voice, and experience music with a haptic motor. Read more
TopicsCover?: instagram Threads is testing pinned columns on the web, which could be a good replacement for TweetDeck. In 2023, x converted TweetDeck to x Pro and put it behind a paywall. Read more
Analysis
Did Meta give the company a fair chance?: Meta pulled the plug on its Workday enterprise product on Tuesday, drawing the curtain on the business experiment nine years after its launch. Ron Miller writes that it's fair to wonder if Meta ever took him seriously. Read more
Mark Zuckerberg, style icon: Recent photos of the Meta CEO have gone viral as users noticed a sudden change in his personal style. Gone were the gray shirts and jeans, replaced by gold chains and graphic T-shirts. Amanda Silberling explores whether his new makeover is a carefully crafted rebrand. Read more
Tesla Supercharger is in limbo: Despite being the undisputed king of EV fast charging (and being profitable), Tesla CEO Elon Musk eliminated the entire Supercharger division. Tim De Chant investigates how the network came to be and what's next now that it's in limbo. Read more
