The Walt Disney Company has struck a “landmark” three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI in which the studio will become the first major content partner for the Sora AI video generator. The deal will make more than 200 characters available from the Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars vaults. The companies announced that fan-inspired social videos are expected by early 2026, some of which will stream on Disney+. The Hollywood giant will also become an OpenAI customer, “using its APIs to build new products, tools, and experiences, including for Disney+, and deploying ChatGPT for its employees.” In addition, Disney is planning a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI. Continue reading Disney Strikes Licensing Deal with OpenAI, Invests $1 Billion

Adobe launched its popular creative and productivity apps Photoshop, Adobe Express and Acrobat for ChatGPT this week, enabling users to edit images, animate elements and modify PDFs by simply asking the chatbot. “Now hundreds of millions of people can edit with Photoshop simply by using their own words, right inside a platform that’s already part of their day-to-day,” said Adobe President of Digital Media David Wadhwani. Photoshop, Express and Acrobat for ChatGPT are currently free for ChatGPT users, available via desktop, web and iOS. Adobe Express for ChatGPT has Android support, which is coming soon for Acrobat and Photoshop. Continue reading Adobe Integrates Photoshop, Acrobat, Express with ChatGPT

Google has added four new features in Flow, its AI tool for storytelling, that offer more precise control over images and videos. The upgrades include generative imaging with Nano Banana Pro, doodle prompts, an object insertion/removal tool and camera motion. Flow was introduced in May and offers the ability to edit and build scenes using natural language. The improvements aim to make Flow output more polished. “In Flow, you can use images to serve as the characters, subjects and starting points for your clips” with pictures you upload or create in Flow with the new “Images” tab, according to the company. Continue reading Google Adds New Features to Its Flow GenAI Storytelling Tool

As promised last month, Google Photos is getting AI enhancements powered by Gemini’s top-rated image editing model Nano Banana. Users can now open a photo, select “Help me edit” and type “Remove Riley’s sunglasses, open my eyes, make Engel smile and open her eyes” to quickly doctor a shot. Photos will draw on images from your private library of “face groups” to generate “personalized, accurate edits of people in your photo library,” Google says. The company is also introducing a new “Ask” button to get information about photos and make requests and expanding natural language instruction. Continue reading Gemini’s Nano Banana Image Editor Added to Google Photos

Sony AI has introduced the Fair Human-Centric Image Benchmark (FHIBE, pronounced “Fee-bee”), a new global benchmark for fairness evaluation in computer vision models. FHIBE addresses the industry challenge of identifying biased and ethically compromised training data for AI, aiming to trigger “industry-wide improvements for responsible and ethical protocols throughout the entire life span of data — from sourcing and management to utilization — including fair compensation for participants and clear consent mechanisms,” Sony AI says. The FHIBE dataset is publicly available now, following publication in the science journal Nature. Continue reading Sony Debuts Benchmark for Measuring Computer Vision Bias

Canva has retooled the pricing of its Affinity image-editing and publishing apps to better compete with Adobe. The company announced a new offering that bundles Affinity’s Photo, Publisher and Designer apps into a software package called “Affinity by Canva” that is free for users with a Canva account but requires a paid subscription to access generative AI features. Canva’s paid subscription plans start at $120 a year for individuals. Previously, Affinity software was available by perpetual license, a pricing option that Canva — which purchased Affinity late last year — is retiring. Canva also had to reconcile its acquisition’s anti-AI stance, something it seems to have accomplished. Continue reading Affinity by Canva Is a Free Photo, Design and Layout Bundle

Google has made upgrades to its AI Studio development platform, adding a vibe code interface with buttons and retooling the AI Playground as a central hub for the company’s latest AI models. According to Google, users can now easily switch between Gemini, GenMedia (with new Veo 3.1), text-to-speech (TTS) and Live models, “all without losing your place or switching tabs,” while the Chat UI has been conformed more with typical interfaces. The updates allow users to more easily “go from prompt to image to video to voiceover in one continuous flow.”
Continue reading Google Revamps AI Studio with Vibe Coding, Maps Integration

For those who may be too busy to look through their smartphone’s camera rolls, Meta Platforms has debuted a new Facebook feature that will parse collections for you, then recommend “fun” edits and collages to make the content more shareable. The feature could also offer ideas such as recaps and birthday themes. Available to users in the U.S. and Canada, to leverage this new AI-powered feature, one must opt-in, and it can be turned off at any time. Once a suggestion is reviewed, the user can then determine whether they want to share it and with whom. Then it’s just a one-click share through Facebook or Messenger. Continue reading Meta AI Wants to Parse Your Camera Roll to Suggest Styling

Microsoft is teasing a bespoke AI image generator. The model, called MAI-Image-1, was designed in-house and works using text prompts. It is the third AI model Microsoft has debuted this year, following MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview, both released in August. The company, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, has been seeking to put some breathing room between itself and the startup to better position the fledgling firm for independence and profitability. And products exclusive to Microsoft surely won’t hurt that company’s bottom line. “We’re creating AI for everyone,” Microsoft says, calling MAI-Image-1 “the next step on our journey.” Continue reading Microsoft’s In-House AI Image Generator Receives High Marks

OpenAI has added parental controls for ChatGPT’s Web interface, with mobile controls coming soon. The controls give parents the ability to reduce or remove certain content and dial down personalization by turning off ChatGPT’s transcript memories. At the same time, OpenAI has added the ability to restrict image generation with the launch of Sora parental controls for ChatGPT-connected teen accounts. There are also controls for sending and receiving direct messages through the app. OpenAI says the changes aim “to give families tools to support their teens’ use of AI.” To activate control access, parents must have their own accounts and teens will need to opt in. Continue reading OpenAI Rolls Out New Parental Controls to Help Protect Kids

Apple has reportedly developed a ChatGPT-like iPhone app for internal use in testing its AI overhaul of Siri. Apple’s AI unit is using the app to assess new features for its famous conversational assistant, putting it through its paces for tasks like sifting through personal data, including documents, audio and emails, and performing actions including photo and video editing, according to reports. Called Veritas, Latin for “truth,” the developmental software is garnering attention as a pivotal tool in Siri’s highly anticipated AI makeover, expected to make its public debut next year. Continue reading Apple Creates an AI Chatbot to Help Train the Next-Gen Siri

Alibaba Cloud’s newest AI model, Qwen3-Omni-30B-A3B, has debuted with a splash. The Chinese company is touting it as “the first natively end-to-end omni-modal AI unifying text, image, audio & video in one model.” While Qwen3-Omni can accept prompts of text, image, audio and video, it only outputs text and audio. Alibaba Cloud has released the three versions of Qwen3-Omni so users can select based on their needs, choosing between general multimodal capabilities, deep reasoning or specialized audio understanding. Alibaba has also developed an AI chip called T-Head that performs comparably to Nvidia’s H20. Continue reading Alibaba’s Qwen3-Omni AI Ingests Text, Images, Audio, Video

Amazon has introduced Lens Live, an AI-powered update to the Amazon Lens shopping tool. The app, which works in concert with Amazon’s Rufus shopping assistant, uses smartphone cameras much like Google Lens does with visual search. Pinterest Lens is another such app. But the purpose-built Rufus ties it even more closely to the shopping experience with instant scanning, real-time product matches and insights from Rufus. Lens Live is already available to tens of millions of U.S. users on iOS in the Amazon Shopping app with plans to roll out to all U.S. customers in the coming months. Continue reading Amazon’s Lens Live Brings Real-Time AI Shopping to Mobile

As ByteDance approaches the latest U.S. deadline to sell TikTok or face being banned here, it continues to add new features, with barely a ripple of news concerning a sale. The legislation that contained the sales clause became law in April 2024. The most recent of several extensions was issued in June, pushing the deadline to September 17. In July Reuters reported a deal was “close,” with TikTok building a new U.S. version of its app ahead of a planned sale “to a group of investors.” Now the platform is adding voice notes to DMs and image uploads in chats. Up to nine images or video clips can be added to individual or group chats. Continue reading TikTok Adds Voice Notes for DMs and Image Uploads in Chats

Grok Imagine is xAI’s new video and image generator, which is currently available via the X social platform, the Grok mobile app, and Grok web interface. Imagine replaces AI image generator Aurora, which was retired in May following a string of offensive posts that led to media criticism and user concerns. Despite the backlash, Elon Musk’s xAI seems determined to have Imagine push conventional limits, with a “spicy” mode that outputs imagery including adult content. Its text-to-image capabilities work with text or voice prompts, while the video tool relies on image prompts to make short clips using images from a user’s gallery or generated by Grok. Continue reading Grok Imagine from xAI Offers Video Generation, ‘Spicy’ Mode