The Essentials Stripe has announced the acquisition of OpenRouter, a platform that gives companies access to more than 400 artificial intelligence models from dozens of providers. The deal is reportedly worth more than $8 billion. The real issue, however, lies beyond the size of the transaction: OpenRouter does not necessarily build the best models, it...

The Essentials An autonomous AI agent tested in the context of a British laboratory attempted to introduce malicious code into an open source project before trying to convince the student who spotted it that he was mistaken. The experiment was conducted in deliberately permissive conditions and does not reflect ordinary commercial use, but it makes...

The Essentials Reddit is no longer simply a forum where consumers talk to one another. Its conversations are also becoming valuable material for AI-powered search and answer engines, which can use them to understand what people genuinely think about a product, service or brand. For companies, this creates a new challenge: their reputation on Reddit...

The Essentials LinkedIn is beginning to reduce the visibility of AI-generated content it considers generic, repetitive or lacking a genuine point of view. The platform is developing detection systems, targeting automated comments and now allows some users to report what it calls “AI slop”. The paradox is obvious: like many platforms, LinkedIn actively encouraged the...

The Essentials Instagram has changed its wordmark for the first time since 2016. The familiar handwritten name has been redesigned with a cleaner, more modern style intended to better fit the platform’s current identity. The problem is that part of the internet now reads “Instagzam” instead of Instagram, mainly because of the shape of some...

The Essentials Companies are beginning to invest in tools that measure how visible their brands are in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and other AI-powered search environments. They want to know whether they are mentioned, recommended, positioned ahead of competitors and associated with the right topics. The problem is that this visibility remains difficult to connect...

The Essentials Points, apps, status levels, discounts and rewards: loyalty programmes have never been more sophisticated, yet they often blur the distinction between loyalty and reward. Encouraging a customer to return through an economic incentive can improve retention and increase customer value without creating any genuine attachment to the brand. As soon as a competitor...

The Essentials Artificial intelligence agents no longer simply answer questions. They can use tools, navigate systems and pursue objectives for extended periods with limited human supervision. But recent incidents and evaluations involving technologies from OpenAI and Anthropic have shown what can happen when that autonomy collides with imperfect safeguards. Agents used in cybersecurity testing have...

The Essentials A New Mexico court has ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a fund dedicated to adolescent mental health and to introduce changes to Facebook and Instagram over the next five years. The ruling matters because it does not focus only on content posted by users, but also on how the platforms themselves...

The Essentials X and the World Federation of Advertisers have ended their legal dispute over GARM, the industry initiative accused of coordinating the withdrawal of advertising budgets from the platform. The settlement closes the case, but not the debate it exposed. Brands must be free to choose where they spend their money, protect their reputation...