LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS
India ranked an 'AI Rising Contender' by BCG, built on talent rather than compute
India has been identified as a Rising Contender in artificial intelligence by Boston Consulting Group's latest report. The country benefits from a large pool of skilled AI professionals, bolstered by returning talent from abroad. The government has implemented training programs to upskill millions of citizens and broaden access to AI knowledge.
Instagram’s 90-minute video bet could soon take it into direct confrontation with YouTube
Instagram is testing videos of up to 90 minutes with select creators in the US and Brazil as it looks to expand beyond short-form content and compete with YouTube and OTT platforms for viewers and advertising budgets. The move could bring podcasts, comedy specials and episodic shows to the platform, with creators using Reels to attract viewers to longer videos. Instagram is also working on a TV version of Reels to tap into connected TV (CTV) audiences. No India launch timeline has been announced.
ByteDance prepares Meta's Muse-like agent in push to close AI gap
ByteDance is preparing to release an AI assistant similar to Muse by Meta Platforms soon. Co-founder Zhang Yiming has shared his vision of competing with companies like Anthropic and OpenAI by 2030. The company intends to invest up to $70 billion in developing the Seedance video AI platform.
ET AI Business Transformation Masterclass heads to IIM Bangalore to decode enterprise AI adoption
The AI Business Transformation Masterclass & Awards 2026 at IIM Bangalore will feature leaders from IndusInd Bank, PhonePe, PepsiCo, Shadowfax, Myntra, Shopify, NVIDIA and other organisations. Sessions will cover agentic AI, voice technology, supply chains, contextual commerce and physical AI, followed by the ET Most Innovative AI Product Awards 2026.
Using ChatGPT at work could make your boss trust you less, even if you deliver better results, study of managers warns
A new study spanning six experiments finds that employees who use ChatGPT and other AI tools at work may be seen as less trustworthy by their bosses, even when they deliver better results. Researchers found that managers were more likely to trust employees who worked independently, while clear company policies encouraging AI use could help reduce the trust penalty.
Anthropic IPO: Amazon, Google could make staggering over USD 400 billion from Claude maker's successful listing. Here's how
Anthropic IPO: Amazon has invested at least $13 billion in Anthropic and in April agreed to invest up to an additional $20 billion. Google has committed up to $40 billion to Anthropic, including an initial $10 billion investment announced in April.

Meta unveils India pricing for AI agent Muse ahead of local launch
Meta has announced the pricing details for its AI companion, Muse, in India. The subscription options are set at ₹1,799 for the 'Power' tier and ₹8,999 for the 'Maximum' tier. Users currently outside supported markets can register via a VPN. Muse aims to enhance user experience by integrating with various Meta services, positioning itself against local competitors like Instinct, available worldwide.

ShareChat hires creative directors as AI cuts microdrama costs by 40%: CTO Nitin Jain
Nitin Jain told the Economic Times Digital that AI has lowered the barrier to entry for creators, while the company's engineers now supervise AI-written code instead of writing it by hand.

It's the ecosystem, stupid! Anand Mahindra celebrates India's rise to the top 3 in the AI race, beating the UK, Japan and South Korea
Anand Mahindra has welcomed India's rise to the top three in Stanford's global AI vibrancy rankings, ahead of countries such as Japan and South Korea. He believes India's software talent, systems integration expertise and huge domestic market could give it a significant advantage in the global AI race. Explaining his optimism, Mahindra said the next big AI opportunity could come from applications, industry-specific expertise and enterprise-wide adoption rather than chips and foundational AI models.

Linguistic barriers & legacy tech slow India’s VoiceAI shift
India’s broader conversational artificial intelligence market, spanning voice and text-based applications, is estimated at $500-550 million and has an addressable opportunity of about $4 billion over the next decade, growing at 23-25% annually, Deloitte India estimates.

From streaming to software, microdrama startups rewrite their growth pitch
Peak XV Partners-backed Dashverse has discontinued its consumer platform DashReels and is looking to raise $30-40 million, largely for Frameo AI, its video production software for businesses. Eloelo, which raised $80 million this week led by Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal, is investing in Dolphin AI, its new production suite, alongside content creation and international expansion.

Apple Intelligence AI service registers with Chinese regulator for use on tablets, laptops
The cyberspace regulator in China's Shanghai said on Monday that Apple's generative AI service, Apple Intelligence, has been registered for use on tablets and laptops in China.

AI Can Measure How ESG Really Impacts the Bottom Line
Advances in large language models are making rigorous sustainability analysis dramatically faster and cheaper, allowing investors and other stakeholders to connect companies’ disclosed environmental and social risks directly to financialperformance in a matter of hours rather than weeks. Applying a simple methodology to ExxonMobil, the authors used AI to map sustainability-related issues to specific financial statement line items and estimate their impact on earnings and value, demonstrating both the promise and the limitations of AI-assisted analysis. As these capabilities become widely accessible, the competitive advantage long held by ESG ratings agencies, standard setters, and sustainable fund managers may erode, shifting attention from proprietary scores toward transparent assumptions and financial consequences. Human judgment remains essential to validate AI-generated outputs, but the broader trend is clear: sustainability analysis is becoming more democratized, financially grounded, and adaptable, with significant implications for how investors, regulators, and other institutions assess corporate performance and value creation.

Why Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Uber are restricting AI access for employees
Goldman Sachs recently restricted most of its employees from using Anthropic’s Claude Code and Microsoft’s GitHub coding tools,Bloomberg reported, citing an October internal guidance. The American investment banking company had earlier allowed employees across departments to experiment with these tools to automate routine tasks, analyse trading activity, and create content.

Story TV parent Eloelo raises $80 million from Hornbill, NBCUniversal
The funding follows a surge in Story TV’s business, which has helped lift annualised collections more than tenfold to around $250 million over the past year, according to people familiar with the company. Eloelo said Story TV offers over 5,000 dramas in six languages, while its apps have more than 40 million monthly active users.

EloElo eyes global expansion post $80 million fundraise, aims to build ‘Netflix of micro-drama’
EloElo Group, the parent company of Story TV, successfully raised $80 million in a Series C funding round. The funding round was led by Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal, significantly increasing the company's valuation. EloElo aims to enhance its micro-drama platform and expand into international markets. The company reported substantial user growth and high production efficiency using AI technology.

Google's use of press by AI chatbot may infringe copyright rules, EU court adviser says
A recent advisory from a leading legal authority in Europe highlights that press publications can sometimes violate copyright laws. The Advocate General emphasized that while copyright covers unique expressions, using such material for the development of large language models may fall under the text and data mining exception. This advisory is part of a legal challenge brought by Like Company against Google.

Perplexity’s AI got some answers wrong, but it helped Aravind Srinivas find his first users
Perplexity’s early growth came from an unexpected way, people searching for their own social media profiles and sharing the AI’s sometimes amusing answers online. Aravind Srinivas explains how the experiment attracted attention and helped shape the startup’s shift from Twitter search to a broader AI-powered answer engine.

India’s Arrakis problem: The price of what low-skilled workers know
Indian workers contribute valuable data for training AI systems, which is transforming how tasks are automated. As technology advances, low-cost labour is becoming a significant resource for AI development globally. Companies are increasingly relying on Indian workers for video data that demonstrates various physical tasks. This trend poses challenges regarding data ownership and the economic benefits for India.
Load More
