Electronic Arts has partnered with Stability AI to co-develop new models, tools, and workflows that empower game designers, artists and developers. The partnership comes on the heels of the publicly traded EA agreeing to go private in a deal valued at $55 billion, including debt, led by Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, equity firm Silver Lake and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). The partners aim to “reimagine how content is built,” according to EA. The 40-plus years firm has of late been using machine learning and artificial intelligence to power real-time animation and physics simulation. Continue reading EA and Stability AI Partner to Develop Models, Creative Tools

Salesforce is reimagining Slack as a conversational AI assistant with agentic capabilities that can also serve as the gateway to third-party agents within the operating system. The upgrade, which is expected to be complete by the end of the year, will feature native AI experiences built into Agentforce for Sales, IT and HR Service, Tableau and more. Salesforce’s Slack redesign could position the app to compete with Microsoft’s Copilot and Teams as the conversational AI layer inside an enterprise’s daily workflow — the place to talk to both people and agents, accessing and interacting with a company’s data. Continue reading Salesforce Retools Slack as Agentic AI Assistant for Enterprise

Google is bolstering its AI-powered coding agent Jules with the introduction of Jules Tools — a lightweight, Command Line Interface (CLI) that is rolling out with a preview look at a new Jules public API. The features allow you to integrate Jules more directly into systems and workflows by plugging into the Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline as well enabling real-time collaboration by integrating with third-party applications like Slack. The move comes as competition among companies building AI coding assistants intensifies, becoming a key component of the future of software development. Continue reading Google Polishes Jules with New CLI and Preview of Public API

“There will soon be more machines in the workforce than humans,” predicts Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel. The good news is, “that’s how we are going to deliver on the promise of 8 billion people amplified to have the throughput capacity of 80 billion,” Patel told the crowd at the WebexOne conference in San Diego where the networking giant emphasized a message of “connected intelligence” with AI embedded “deeply and natively” across its flagship collaboration platform Webex. During the event, Patel promised smarter meetings, automated tasks and better security and reliability with Webex. Continue reading Cisco Shares Its Vision of Workplace AI at Webex Conference

Netflix has issued partner guidelines outlining use of generative AI in content workflows. The guidelines emphasize circumstances in which the use of generative AI requires advanced written approval, such as altering a character or performance, any inclusion of generative AI in the final product or using AI in a way that materially impacts union work. Fabricated content that could be “mistaken for real events” is to be avoided. Use of AI for “ideation” is deemed generally acceptable if done within guidelines. Allowing models to train on input or output of material destined for Netflix is off-limits. Continue reading Netflix Publishes Partner Guidelines for GenAI Production Use

Netflix is taking steps aimed at upgrading the viewer experience, rolling out AV1 Film Grain Synthesis (FGS) streams to the majority of its subscribers. While FGS has been part of the AV1 standard since the Alliance for Open Media introduced the format in 2018, Netflix began to apply it to a limited number of titles in 2021 and is is now enabling it at scale. The streamer says the open-source FGS compression system “revolutionizes video streaming” and will “preserve the artistic integrity of film grain” — a feature generally considered essential to achieving a cinematic look — while also optimizing data efficiency. Continue reading Netflix Is Implementing AV1 Film Grain Synthesis Tech at Scale

Avid is deploying its popular Media Composer and Avid NEXIS tools at Amazon MGM Studios via the cloud using Amazon Web Services (AWS). The integration will enable the studio’s customers to use Avid’s editing and storage solutions via the cloud in a way that fits their specific production needs. Avid has been collaborating with Amazon MGM Studios for the past three years, and at the NAB 2025 show expanded the partnership to include the Avid on AWS production framework, offering studios, broadcasters, and streaming services cloud access to Avid’s post-production solutions on AWS. Continue reading Amazon MGM Studios Offering AWS Cloud-Based Avid Tools

OpenAI has upgraded its autonomous web browsing agent Operator to the new reasoning model OpenAI o3 from the prior GPT-4o multimodal LLM engine. The update is being released globally in research preview this month for those who subscribe to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro for $200 per month. Operator serves OpenAI’s “computer-using agent” (CUA), a model trained to interact with graphical interfaces that uses the Web to perform tasks for people. “Using its own browser, it can look at a webpage, and interact with it much like a human would by typing, clicking, scrolling and more,” OpenAI explains. Continue reading New Reasoning Model Improves Smarts of OpenAI Operator

The “open agentic web” was a major focus at the Microsoft Build conference, with dozens of new AI tools and features aimed at helping developers create autonomous systems that can shoulder routine and repetitive duties for human taskmasters and even undertake things like independent research with minimal supervision. The company unveiled a new GitHub Copilot coding agent that “supercharges” the AI assistant, allowing it to undertake more complex tasks and collaborate with other agents. Copilot Tuning was introduced as a “low-code” customization tool for adding corporate data to AI models. In all, Microsoft made more than 50 news announcements. Continue reading Microsoft Promotes AI Agent Capabilities with New Features

Apple has teamed with Anthropic on a “vibe coding” AI platform that will write, edit and test software for developers. The system is essentially an update on Xcode, Apple’s free integrated development environment (IDE) that will be powered by Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model, according to reports. Apple’s plan is said to be introducing the software internally then deciding later whether to launch it publicly. Apple developed the proprietary Xcode suite of tools and began using it in 2003 to code, debug, test and vet submissions to the App Store for software that runs on all of its operating systems, from iOS to visionOS. Continue reading Apple Reportedly Using Anthropic’s Claude for AI Code Tool

Agentic AI company Moveworks has opened an AI Agent Marketplace that launches with more than 100 pre-built agents, enabling users to discover, install, and deploy AI assistants that automate business processes. Agentic AI is booming, as businesses seek to offload tasks from human workers to software. To support that, new companies and existing ones have started providing pre-built agents that are more convenient than building them from scratch. “What once took weeks to build can now be installed and deployed in mere minutes,” Moveworks says, touting its library offerings. Continue reading Moveworks Joins Competition in Offering Enterprise AI Agents

Runway has introduced a new video generation model, launching a next phase of competition that could transform film production. Notably, its Gen-4 system improves the consistency of characters, locations and objects across multiple scenes, an elusive prospect for most AI video generators. The New York-based startup calls its new development “a step towards Universal Generative Models that understand the world.” The key, Runway says, is to provide a single reference image of the character, item or environment as part of the model’s project material. Runway Gen-4 can generate 5- and 10-second clips at 720p resolution. Continue reading Runway Gen-4 Tackles AI’s Elusive Video Scene Consistency

Microsoft Copilot now helps subscription users create personal themes in Outlook using generative AI. In what Microsoft says is “the first instance of dynamic AI-generated theming in productivity applications,” Copilot can now display inboxes against dynamic backdrops based on geography, the weather, or anything else users can imagine. The new feature is available across all popular platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and the Web. Just like you might “spruce up your office with artwork or plants,” Copilot lets AI enhance your digital environment, according to Microsoft. Continue reading Copilot Now Enables Custom AI Themes in Microsoft Outlook

After previewing its Windows App unified gateway last year, Microsoft is now rolling it out wide. This means accessing the Windows operating system from mobile devices is intended to increase productivity via a cloud-based workflow. The Windows App is now generally available on Windows, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and via web browser, and in public preview for Android. Microsoft couches the app as a secure way “to connect to Windows across Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Remote Desktop, Remote Desktop Services, Microsoft Dev Box, and more.” Continue reading Microsoft Offers Mobile Windows App for Android and Apple

Blackmagic Design announced that its new URSA Cine 17K 65 camera is available for orders from resellers worldwide, starting at $29,995. The cinema camera, which includes a massive 65mm RGBW 17,520 x 8,040 sensor with larger photo-sites for 16 stops of dynamic range, was previewed in April at NAB. Its features include interchangeable PL, LPL and Hasselblad lens mounts and industry standard Lemo and Fischer connections. The base model comes with 8TB of internal storage and also has high-speed networking built-in for media uploads and syncing to Blackmagic Cloud. Continue reading Blackmagic URSA Cine 17K Camera Priced Starting at $30K