The decision is part of the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to reduce the market power of the world’s biggest technology companies and give competitors a fairer chance to compete.

The Commission announced the measures after opening specification proceedings six months ago to help Google meet its obligations under the DMA.

Under the new regulations, Google must make 11 Android features available to competing AI developers.

The changes will allow users to activate rival AI assistants through voice commands in much the same way they currently use Google’s “Hey Google” feature.

For example, users will be able to ask another AI assistant to book a taxi or search for nearby places directly from their Android devices.

The Android changes will take effect from July 2027 as part of the next version of the operating system.

The Commission also ordered Google to share anonymised search data that it uses to improve its own search engine. The data will be available to OpenAI and other AI chatbots with search functions, as well as competing search engines, from January 2027.

Before granting access, Google can assess whether applicants meet privacy and cybersecurity requirements. The Commission said only companies that satisfy those standards will receive access. It also introduced a pricing formula for the shared data.

EU officials said the measures are designed to encourage more competition in online search and AI services while protecting users’ privacy and device security.

“Thanks to these measures we hope to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google’s AI services, such as Gemini, and that users in the EU can enjoy greater choice of services,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.

Google objected to the decision, arguing that the requirements could weaken protections for users.

“Today’s decisions risk undermining vital privacy and ⁠security guardrails for millions of Europeans,” Google’s lawyer Kent Walker said in an email.

“We ⁠have repeatedly offered solutions to safeguard users while satisfying the DMA’s goals, but these rulings ⁠discount extensive evidence of user harm,” he said.

EU regulators believe opening access to Android features and search data will help rival AI companies and search providers compete more effectively with Google’s Gemini AI service and Google Search.

The post Google Ordered to Open Android Features, Search Data to AI Rivals Under EU Rules appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The company also introduced GPT-5.6, its latest artificial intelligence model, which powers the new service.

ChatGPT Work brings together OpenAI’s chatbot and its coding tool, Codex, allowing users to complete a wide range of workplace tasks from a single platform.

According to OpenAI, ChatGPT Work can pull together information from a team’s connected tools, files and desktop applications to turn notes, drafts and ideas into finished work.

Users can review the plan before the system begins a task, work alongside it during editing, and connect it with existing workflows.

One of the new features, called Sites, enables users to build and share interactive websites and web applications directly from ChatGPT Work. It can also create dashboards, project trackers, reports, launch calendars and prototypes, while keeping them updated as information changes.

The service will be available first to Pro, Enterprise and Edu users on the web and mobile platforms before expanding to Plus and Business subscribers over the coming days.

OpenAI said ChatGPT Work is built for professionals who want to use advanced coding capabilities without having technical expertise. The company believes the service will help teams complete routine work more efficiently across finance, marketing, sales, engineering and data analytics.

Speaking about the launch, Ty Geri, product manager for ChatGPT Work, said the new model extends coding beyond software development.

“You can apply the model’s ability to code to solve problems across every industry.”

Geri also said GPT-5.6 delivers strong performance at a lower cost.

“Competitive with models that are far, far more expensive at twice the speed and much, much cheaper.”

Alongside ChatGPT Work, OpenAI unveiled three versions of GPT-5.6 to give organisations more flexibility based on their performance and cost requirements. The company said the models are designed to handle professional tasks with less prompting while adapting as work progresses.

OpenAI also announced a new ChatGPT desktop application and a hosted websites feature, allowing users to create and publish websites directly through ChatGPT Work.

The launch expands OpenAI’s portfolio of workplace tools, which already includes ChatGPT Agent and enterprise workflow automation features, as the company continues to strengthen its offerings for business customers.

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The AI deployment unit, called Microsoft Frontier Company, will bring together engineers, consultants, sales staff and industry specialists.

They will sit with clients, design systems with them, and support ongoing AI deployment inside business operations.

Judson Althoff, who leads Microsoft’s commercial business, said the company is building something larger than typical deployment teams.

“This goes beyond what has been labelled as Forward-Deployed Engineering (FDE),” he said, “and will be the largest, most capable, outcome-driven engineering organisation in the industry.”

The model is not entirely new in the tech sector as Amazon Web Services recently committed about $1 billion to a similar structure focused on AI deployments.

Other AI firms have also moved in the same direction, with OpenAI and Anthropic both setting up forward-deployed engineering teams in recent months, usually working with consultants and private capital partners.

Microsoft’s approach leans heavily on embedding staff inside large enterprises already using its cloud systems. The company says this gives it a head start in industries where it already has strong relationships.

Early deployments include work with financial data provider London Stock Exchange Group, consumer goods firm Unilever, and food company Land O’Lakes. Microsoft also mentioned healthcare company Novo Nordisk among early adopters.

At the London Stock Exchange Group, Microsoft engineers helped build AI features into its Workspace platform. The system allows users to ask complex questions and receive answers drawn from both structured and unstructured financial data.

Microsoft says the system continues to improve as users interact with it.

Althoff also noted that customers are now asking more questions about how AI should fit into their operations. He said firms are no longer just asking what the tools can do, but how to structure their entire workflows around them.

He also pointed to challenges in the market. Companies are still deciding whether to commit to a single model provider or mix several systems depending on use cases.

Microsoft argues for flexibility, saying customers should be able to use different AI models depending on need, without locking themselves into one ecosystem.

The company described its platform as “model-diverse” and said customers should not be tied to one vendor. Instead, organisations should be able to choose between models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft’s own systems, open-source options, or industry-specific tools.

Placing data control at the forefront, Microsoft says customer information will not be used in ways that weaken competitive advantage.

“There is no societal permission for an AI future that eats the intelligence of the companies it’s deployed inside,” Satya Nadella said.

Microsoft says this principle affects how the new unit will operate, customer data and intellectual property will remain protected and separate from model training in ways that could expose proprietary information.

The company has long worked with enterprise clients through consulting and support services, but it says this new structure goes further. It combines engineering, industry knowledge, and continuous deployment in one operating model.

Rodrigo Kede Lima will lead the new unit, having spent three decades in the technology sector and previously led Microsoft’s business across Asia as well as parts of the Americas.

He has also worked closely with enterprise customers on large-scale digital transformation projects.

Microsoft has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure and has built large data centre capacity, rolling out products such as Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot, though adoption has varied across markets.

The tech giant has not hidden the uneven pace of uptake. Some AI tools have spread fast, while others have found it difficult to gain broad use in enterprise settings.

Companies are spending heavily on AI infrastructure, but many are still working out how to turn that investment into steady returns.

Microsoft’s commercial services generated about $2.1 billion in the March quarter, growing slightly from the previous year. The company says its strongest results come when it works closely with clients to build what it calls an “intelligence platform” around their existing systems.

That means helping firms connect data, manage models, and track performance across business units.

Microsoft says the goal of establishing the unit is not just AI deployment but ongoing adjustment, where systems are refined based on how they perform inside real operations.

The post Microsoft Launches $2.5bn AI Unit With 6,000 Staff to Drive Enterprise AI Deployment appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

However, the report says the country’s businesses are adopting artificial intelligence far more slowly than its workforce.

The index placed Nigeria 17th among the world’s 25 leading outsourcing destinations, with an overall score of 49.15 out of 100.

South Africa ranked first in Africa with 66.5 points, followed by Egypt with 49.35, while Nigeria finished just 0.20 points behind Egypt and 1.55 points ahead of Kenya.

One of Nigeria’s strongest performances came in workforce AI literacy, where it ranked sixth globally with a score of 66. Only India, Brazil, the Philippines, Poland and Malaysia scored higher.

The report revealed Nigeria outperformed every other outsourcing destination across Europe, Latin America and the rest of Africa in that category.

However, Nigerian companies have not matched the pace at which workers are adopting AI.

The country scored 34 for enterprise AI adoption, placing it 19th out of the 25 countries assessed. The country ranked ahead of only Ghana, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda and Ethiopia in that category.

According to the index, the 32-point difference between Nigeria’s workforce AI literacy score and enterprise AI adoption score is the widest workforce-to-enterprise gap among all outsourcing destinations covered in the study.

Nigerian workers have embraced AI tools faster than businesses and educational institutions have integrated them into their operations.

The AI readiness report also showed that Nigeria ranked 19th for its AI education pipeline with a score of 41. Combined with weak enterprise adoption, this reduced the country’s overall standing despite its strong workforce performance.

Although Egypt ranked above Nigeria overall, the report noted that Nigeria recorded a much stronger workforce AI literacy score, 66 compared with Egypt’s 50.

Egypt, however, performed better in population AI adoption, enterprise AI adoption and AI education, giving it a slightly higher overall score.

The report also found that Nigeria maintained an advantage over several competing outsourcing destinations. It scored 8.55 points higher than Pakistan and 16.35 points above Bangladesh in overall AI readiness.

The 2026 Ataraxis Global Outsourcing AI Readiness Index measures countries across four areas: population AI adoption, workforce AI literacy, enterprise AI adoption and AI education pipeline.

The study draws on publicly available data and analysis from sources including Microsoft, OpenAI, OECD, LinkedIn, Coursera, GitHub and Cloudflare Radar.

The post Nigeria Ranks Third in Africa, 17th Globally for AI Readiness, but Business Adoption Lags – Report appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

According to CNN, the request follows the government’s recent order requiring Anthropic to withdraw its advanced Mythos and Fable AI models after officials pointed to potential cybersecurity risks.

A source familiar with the matter said the White House considers GPT-5.6 to be comparable to Anthropic’s Mythos in capability. Rather than stopping the launch entirely, the government asked OpenAI to introduce the model through a controlled rollout.

OpenAI agreed to the request. In an internal memo sent to staff on Thursday, CEO Sam Altman said access to GPT-5.6 would be approved “customer by customer” during the initial release.

“We’ve made clear to the U.S. government that this is not our preferred long-term model, and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases,” Altman said in the memo.

A White House official told CNN that the administration is continuing to work with leading AI companies to develop shared approaches for managing the challenges created by increasingly advanced AI models. OpenAI declined to comment.

The request has also drawn attention to the lack of a clear regulatory framework for advanced AI in the United States.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order asking companies developing frontier AI models to voluntarily submit them for government review 30 days before public release. However, officials are yet to establish how the process will work.

The current situation has also created uncertainty within the AI industry. While the White House requested OpenAI’s limited rollout, the Commerce Department issued the export control order that forced Anthropic to suspend access to Mythos and Fable, leaving companies without a single, consistent regulatory process.

Experts say government oversight is important because advanced AI models can identify software vulnerabilities and simulate sophisticated cyberattacks. However, they also warn that regulation should be transparent and predictable.

“The Fable episode shows the need for clear regulations. Right now, you have an ad hoc, personalised, opaque, possibly lawless approach,” Brad Carson, head of Public First, a bipartisan pro-AI safety organisation, told CNN.

“It is certainly appropriate for the government to recall dangerous products, including AI models, but it has to be done in a way consistent with transparency and basic fairness.”

GPT-5.6 is expected to undergo testing with a limited number of enterprise partners before OpenAI decides on a wider public release.

The post US Government Restricts OpenAI GPT-5.6 Release Over National Security Concerns appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The product, called “Patching as a Service,” will be provided in Japan through a joint venture between SoftBank’s telecoms arm, SoftBank Corp, and OpenAI.

It focuses on vulnerability assessments, planning fixes, and advising companies on how to apply them.

SoftBank says it will first target selected firms linked to critical infrastructure. These include organisations whose systems support essential public and business services. Outreach to those companies will begin gradually.

Cybersecurity risks have been increasing as attackers utilise artificial intelligence to speed up and scale breaches. SoftBank says this has made it harder for organisations to keep systems secure, especially when threats change quickly and affect multiple layers of infrastructure.

The company tested the system internally before the rollout. During that phase, SoftBank Corp carried out a large vulnerability assessment across its own systems using OpenAI’s cybersecurity tools.

It said the exercise helped identify weaknesses and gave its security teams practical experience that now feeds into the commercial service.

SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said, “We want to create a system where we will be able to ‌defend ⁠critical Japanese infrastructure,”

“We want to leverage the new weapon of OpenAI to defend, we ⁠see this as our obligation,” Son added.

Junichi Miyakawa, president and CEO of SoftBank Corp, said the company would apply lessons from its internal testing to external clients.

“Leveraging the practical expertise we’ve acquired through our use of OpenAI’s cybersecurity technologies, we’ll confront the increasingly sophisticated cyber threats targeting Japan’s critical infrastructure.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “AI is transforming cybersecurity, and we’re focused on building durable programs that help it accelerate defenders. We’re excited to work with SoftBank to deliver the transformational benefits of our cyber models to more organisations in Japan and strengthen the systems all of us rely on.”

SoftBank said the cybersecurity service combines the models of OpenAI with its own operational experience in managing large-scale telecom and enterprise systems. It believes this mix will help organisations move from detection to action more quickly, rather than reacting after breaches occur.

The rollout will start with a small team of around 50 people working on deployment and support. That figure is expected to grow to about 1,000 as demand increases and the service expands across more sectors in Japan.

The post SoftBank Launches OpenAI-Built Cybersecurity Service to Detect, Fix System Weaknesses Before Exploits appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The proposed class action was filed in a federal court in Seattle by the City of St. Clair Shores Police and Fire Retirement System, a Michigan pension fund.

The lawsuit names Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood and other company executives as defendants.

Shareholders claim Microsoft gave investors an incomplete picture of Azure’s performance and the financial demands of its AI expansion between May 1, 2025 and January 28, 2026.

According to the complaint, the company downplayed the impact of high cost infrastructure while overstating the strength of products such as Copilot and the benefits of its partnership with OpenAI.

The case follows a decline in Microsoft’s share price earlier this year. On January 29, the stock fell 10% after the company released its quarterly earnings a day earlier, wiping about $357 billion from its market value. It was Microsoft’s biggest one-day stock market loss in almost six years.

In its fiscal second quarter ended December 2025, Microsoft reported 39% growth in Azure and other cloud services revenue. While that matched analysts’ expectations, it was a slowdown from the 40% growth recorded in the previous quarter.

The company also projected Azure growth of between 37% and 38% for the following quarter.

At the same time, spending still increased. Microsoft reported capital expenditure of $37.5 billion during the quarter, up nearly 66% from a year earlier and well above analysts’ forecast of $34.3 billion.

The lawsuit argues that Azure’s slower growth and the increase in spending were linked to capacity constraints as Microsoft redirected resources towards AI development.

Investors allege the company devoted significant investment to AI infrastructure, research and products such as Copilot without adequately warning shareholders about the financial impact.

Microsoft has invested heavily in AI infrastructure in recent years, including data centres, graphics processing units and custom chips designed to support growing demand for AI services.

Estimates reveal the company’s AI infrastructure spending reached an annualised run rate of roughly $37 billion during the 2026 financial year.

The company’s relationship with OpenAI also features in the lawsuit. Shareholders claim the partnership helped create an impression of sustained growth and competitive strength, while masking challenges within Azure’s underlying business. Microsoft remains OpenAI’s largest investor.

The shareholders sued Microsoft at a time when investors are scrutinising the billions of dollars being spent on AI across the technology industry.

Companies including Amazon and Google are also investing heavily in AI infrastructure, but the lawsuit alleges Microsoft’s disclosures to investors failed to fully reflect the risks and costs involved.

Microsoft has rejected the allegations.

“Microsoft stands by the integrity of its public statements and will vigorously defend itself in court,” the company said.

The case seeks to represent investors who bought Microsoft shares during the proposed class period and suffered losses following the stock’s decline in January.

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The company announced the changes on Monday, making AI Plus the lowest-priced paid AI subscription offered by a provider in the US market.

Vikas Kansal, product lead for Gemini AI subscriptions, said on X that the storage upgrade would reach users over the next few days.

Google AI Plus was introduced in January as an entry-level paid plan aimed at individual users and students. The service includes access to Gemini with higher usage limits, Omni Flash video generation, Google Flow creative tools, NotebookLM and AI-powered features in Gmail.

In Nigeria, alongside AI Plus at N7,700, Google still offers higher-priced plans. Google AI Pro costs N28,500 per month and includes 5TB of storage, expanded Gemini access and the company’s Pro model.

Google AI Ultra starts at N89,000 per month, offers at least 20TB of storage and provides significantly higher usage limits, as well as early access to new features.

The current price reduction follows a series of changes to Google’s AI subscription business this year. In April, the company increased storage on its AI Pro plan to 5TB without raising prices. A month later, it launched a new AI Ultra package and reduced the cost of its top-tier subscription from $250 to $200 per month.

With competition increasing among AI providers over subscription pricing, and premium plans taking over the market, companies have now started introducing cheaper options to attract more users.

This first became visible in India, one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Go there in August 2025 at about $4.60 per month, well below the price of its standard ChatGPT Plus subscription. Google followed with its own sub-$5 AI Plus offering in India later that year.

Google’s latest decision brings that pricing strategy to the United States, where subscription costs have so far played a smaller role in competition between major AI companies.

The development could increase pressure on competitors, particularly Anthropic, which has not introduced a lower-cost subscription tier or localised pricing in key international markets.

OpenAI and Anthropic are both preparing for public listings after filing confidential IPO paperwork, and growing price competition could become an important issue for investors assessing the long-term profitability of AI businesses.

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The company announced on Monday that it had submitted a confidential S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but said it had not yet decided when to go public.

In a statement, OpenAI said: “We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it. We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”

The filing places OpenAI alongside competing AI developers Anthropic and Perplexity, which also submitted confidential IPO documents last week and this week.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing for its own stock market debut, setting up what could become one of the biggest waves of technology listings in recent years.

Although OpenAI did not disclose the size of the proposed offering or a timeline for the listing, this development will boost the company’s growth since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

OpenAI has grown into one of the world’s most valuable private firms, with latest valuation standing at about $852 billion, while Anthropic was recently valued at nearly $965 billion following a new funding round.

According to reports, OpenAI has been working with investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on the IPO process.

The company is also expected to organise a tender offer that would allow employees to sell some of their shares, providing liquidity ahead of any public listing.

OpenAI, however, is still facing challenges to justify its valuation as it spends heavily on computing power and infrastructure needed to train and operate more advanced AI models.

The company has reportedly raised more than $180 billion from investors but is still in a phase of significant spending.

Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said in a recent blog post that the company is entering what he described as its “third phase”.

According to Altman, OpenAI first focused on research into artificial general intelligence before becoming a product company through services such as ChatGPT.

“Now we are entering the third phase,” Altman wrote. “The economy is beginning to reshape around AI. The central question now is how to make advanced AI abundant, affordable, safe, useful, and easy enough for every person and organization to benefit from it.”

The planned IPO arrives shortly after a case involving OpenAI and Musk. An advisory jury recently ruled against claims brought by Musk, who had accused OpenAI and Altman of abandoning commitments related to the company’s original non-profit mission. A federal judge subsequently adopted the jury’s verdict.

The number of AI companies preparing for public listings is also drawing attention across the wider industry.

AI search startup Aravind Srinivas said Perplexity still intends to pursue an IPO in 2028 regardless of how the listings of OpenAI and Anthropic perform.

“Agnostic of these two companies, we were planning for something in 2028, so that still remains the case,” Srinivas told CNBC.

He acknowledged that investor reaction to upcoming AI listings could influence market sentiment, particularly the reception to SpaceX’s offering.

“I certainly think there will be ripple effects if they don’t go well, like there is no sugar coating on that. The SpaceX IPO this week will definitely be a leading indicator of how Anthropic or OpenAI will go out,” he said.

Srinivas added that strong public market performances would benefit the AI sector.

“I think it’s important for the AI industry that these IPOs go well, and I actually think they will go well, because they’re doing well.”

The post OpenAI Files Confidential IPO Papers but Says Public Listing May Still Be Some Time Away appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

A report by the Wall Street Journal said Meta had repeatedly delayed plans to make the API available to developers and, as of Tuesday, had not set a launch date. The report cited people familiar with the matter.

However, Meta disputed suggestions that the project had stalled. A company spokesperson said on Wednesday that testing is already underway with a group of early partners and that the company still expects to release the API later this month.

“The muse spark API will be coming soon,” Meta AI Chief Alexandr Wang announced in a post on X in April.

Meta AI Unveils Spark to Power Next-Gen AI across Platforms

The API would allow developers to integrate Muse Spark into their own software and services. An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a software bridge that enables different systems to communicate and work together.

Meta introduced Muse Spark in April as the first model developed under its Superintelligence Labs initiative, which was created to strengthen the company’s position in the competitive AI market.

The model is designed to narrow the gap between Meta and competitors including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.

While Muse Spark is already available to consumers through Meta’s applications, users can currently access it only through built-in modes such as Instant, Thinking and Contemplating. Developers still do not have access to a public API, and Meta has yet to release documentation, pricing details, rate limits or eligibility requirements.

The lack of information has created apprehension among developers hoping to build products around the model. Without a public timeline, waitlist or technical documentation, companies interested in integrating Muse Spark are unable to plan deployments or assess costs.

The delays also come at a sensitive time for Meta. Investors have been monitoring the company’s AI strategy as it spends heavily on infrastructure, talent and product development.

Questions about execution have grown following reports of an Instagram security incident involving Meta’s AI-powered support system, which exposed weaknesses in automated account management processes.

Earlier on Wednesday, Meta unveiled a new AI agent designed to help businesses handle day-to-day tasks, showing that the company is going beyond consumer chatbots and into enterprise services.

The launch highlights Meta’s goal to compete more directly with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google across multiple areas of the AI market.

Muse Spark is expected to bolster that strategy. It is the first in what Meta has described as a new generation of advanced models from its Superintelligence Labs unit.

However, the repeated postponements have left analysts, developers and investors waiting for evidence that the company can translate its AI investments into products that are ready for global use.

Access is still currently limited to a small group of testing partners, while the developer community is waiting for Meta to open the platform to the public.

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