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

In addition to the free streaming video content that has helped propel YouTube to more than 225 monthly unpaid U.S. users, the Google platform has become a major player in the television market, offering cable-like channel bundles for a monthly fee. Now, it is expanding those offerings with more than 10 genre-specific packages coming in early 2026. The first unveiling from the new skinny bundles is the YouTube TV Sports Plan, with access to the major broadcasters, sports networks including FS1 and NBC Sports Network, as well as all ESPN networks and ESPN Unlimited. Continue reading YouTube TV Sports Plan First of New Skinny Bundles for 2026

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

FixBot is a new AI app from iFixit that can figure out what’s wrong with broken devices and guide you through the repair using hands-free instruction, visual analysis, and instant access to the world’s repair knowledge. Available from the App Store and Google Play, the FixBot is optimized for mobile. Free on launch, the company is developing an alternate Enthusiast tier that will cost $4.99 per month or $50 per year and include perks like voice and document upload. FixBot is iFixit’s second attempt at a repair app, following an attempt that ran from 2011 to 2015. Since it went dark, the company’s community kept asking for a more mobile-friendly redux. Continue reading iFixit’s AI-Powered FixBot Puts Expert Advice in Your Pocket

Roughly 20 percent of U.S. teens surveyed say they were on TikTok and YouTube “almost constantly” in 2025, with YouTube distinguishing itself for use “by nearly all teens,” according to a new Pew Research study. Ninety percent of teens surveyed say they’ve used YouTube, followed by TikTok and Instagram, with at least 60 percent claiming usage, with Snapchat landing at about 55 percent. Chatbot use is at about 64 percent among respondents, with about 30 percent of teens saying they use companionable AI answer engines daily, led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT (59 percent). Continue reading Pew Research: 30 Percent of U.S. Teens Use Chatbots Daily

Letterboxd, the online social cataloging movie service that publicly launched in 2013, is about to become more than a fan board. The operation, said to have more than 24 million worldwide members, has launched The Letterboxd Video Store for online movie rentals. Available in 23 countries, the new service focuses on rare and unusual films, curating them on “shelves.” One shelf, Unreleased Gems, features “discoveries that select audiences have been raving about, but most of us haven’t had the opportunity to watch until now,” the company says. The Gems are available exclusively from the Letterboxd Video Store in designated countries. Continue reading Letterboxd Video Store Now Offers Rare Films, Festival Titles

YouTube has issued its first annual YouTube Recap. The feature is available to users worldwide and takes the form of a shareable YouTube Short that highlights favorites based on your watch history from the year. “You’ll get a set of up to 12 different cards that spotlight your top channels, interests, and even the evolution of your viewing habits, or which personality type you fall into based on the videos you loved to watch,” YouTube explains of the highlight reel. Along with YouTube Recap, the streamer also released its 2025 U.S. trending lists covering creators, songs, podcasts and cultural moments. Continue reading YouTube Issues Year-End Viewer Recap Alongside Trend Lists

Spotify’s Wrapped 2025 is here, and as usual, the streaming service is mixing up its annual lists including Top Global Artist (Bad Bunny), Top Global Podcast (“The Joe Rogan Experience”) and Top U.S. Artist (Taylor Swift) with some surprises. The company has included top audiobook genres for the first time, also adding “author clips” — messages from authors populated for those who’ve listened to their books. The platform is also extending the traditional Wrapped playlist — a list of each Spotify account holder’s most-played tunes — with the Wrapped Party, which lets friends go head-to-head to see who is the bigger fan. Continue reading Spotify Adds Audiobooks, Party Competition to Wrapped 2025

Runway Gen-4.5 is rolling out, and the text-to-video model grabbed the No. 1 spot on the Video Arena leaderboard for generative models that don’t simultaneously output sound, beating the non-audio versions of Google’s Veo 3 and OpenAI’s Sora 2 Pro. Offering what Runway AI calls “unprecedented visual fidelity” across cinematic and “highly realistic” outputs, it is also built for creative freedom, providing “precise control over every aspect of generation.” The new model is good at understanding physics, cause and effect through casual reasoning, camera movements and human emotion, claims the New York-based startup. Continue reading Runway Gen-4.5 Video Debuts at No. 1 on Video Arena Chart

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

Snapchat is adding community conversations under the header Topic Chats. Aiming to stimulate public discourse on news, events and other trending topics, Snap will be aggregating the threads across the app in the coming weeks for users in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. Chat shortcuts, search, the Stories page, and Spotlight videos will feature “a big yellow button” that says “Join the Chat” inviting users to the parley. Profiles will stay private to those who a user is not friends with, a feature intended to help avoid unwanted friend requests and direct messages. “This is new for Snapchat, because we’ve primarily focused on supporting private conversations rather than public ones,” Snap notes. Continue reading Snapchat Is Testing Public Conversations with ‘Topic Chats’

DJI’s Osmo Action 6 is its first variable aperture action camera, offering f/2.0 to f/4.0. Coupled with a new 1/1.1-inch square CMOS sensor, DJI promises better low-light imaging with dynamic range of up to 13.5 stops. The new flagship-level also has a 4K custom mode that leverages the large sensor to allow users to “shoot first and crop later in post-production” to frame images, making it easy to edit for different aspect ratios and social platforms. “Creators no longer need to manually position the camera horizontally and vertically to get their shot,” according to DJI. Continue reading DJI Osmo Action 6 Camera’s Variable Aperture Called a First

TikTok is testing a new tool that aims to help users determine how much AI-generated content they see in their For You feeds. The ByteDance-owned company becomes the first of the giant social media platforms to try putting that control in user hands amidst growing animosity toward “AI slop.” Pinterest added a GenAI user filter in October, while Spotify and Jack Dorsey’s Vine relaunch diVine have implemented system-level filters. TikTok’s AI controls fall within its Manage Topics tool. The platform is also adding more advanced AI labeling technology. Continue reading TikTok Testing User-Controlled Feed Filter for GenAI Content

Amazon Prime is providing viewers with Video Recaps, AI-powered highlight rewinds to bring them quickly up to date on seasonal episodes they may have missed for their favorite shows. Amazon is touting the new feature as a “first-of-its-kind application of generative AI,” thought it does follow the X-Ray Recaps — spoiler free text summaries Amazon AI began providing last year. Prime Video Recaps are now available in beta for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S. It is likely Amazon will eventually extend the Recaps to premium licensed shows, too, if it can work out rights issues. Continue reading Amazon Prime Introduces GenAI ‘Video Recaps’ for TV Series

Bytedance-owned social video platform TikTok is launching a one-to-many bulletin board messaging feature that lets creators share content directly with fans via in-app broadcasts. Bulletin boards support video, text and image posts, but recipients are limited to emoji replies, not comments. The new feature is rolling out globally for creators who are at least 18 years old with a minimum of 50,000 followers. Artists and musicians can use bulletin boards to share new material or send save-the-date invitations for new releases, among other things. Once subscribed, followers will receive inbox notices of new posts. Continue reading TikTok Creators Get One-to-Many Broadcast Bulletin Boards