General AI
Google Discover Adds AI Chatbot for Feed Customization
The Verge AIhigh confidence
Why it matters
- →AI-driven personalization enhances user control over content consumption.
- →Aligns with industry trends towards more tailored user experiences.
- →Demonstrates Google's commitment to integrating AI into everyday user interactions.
Google is introducing a new AI chatbot feature to its Discover feed, allowing users to customize their content preferences by describing what they want to see. This feature, set to roll out in the coming days, will enable users to adjust their feeds more precisely and have their preferences remembered for future visits. The update is part of a broader trend of AI-driven personalization across various platforms. Additionally, Google is updating its Preferred Sources feature, allowing publishers to add an interactive button for easier content access.
Read originalThe story around this
Earlier coverage that leads up to this article, and what followed. Lines connect each piece to the closest one after it, converging here.
How we got here
- 1AI Mode Transforms U.S. Search Habits
Google AI Blog · May 19, 2026 · Related
- 2Google Enhances Search with AI-Powered Features
Google AI Blog · May 19, 2026 · Related
- 3Google Search Introduces AI Agents for Automation
WIRED AI · May 19, 2026 · Related
- 4Google Redesigns Search Box with AI Features
VentureBeat AI · May 19, 2026 · Background
- 5Google Unveils AI Agents for Enhanced Search Experience
TechCrunch AI · May 19, 2026 · Related
- 6Google Transforms Search with AI-Powered Gemini
WIRED AI · May 22, 2026 · Related
- 7YouTube Introduces AI-Powered Custom Video Feeds
The Verge AI · May 28, 2026 · Related
- 8Spotify Introduces AI Chatbot for Music Exploration
The Verge AI · July 14, 2026 · Related
What happened next
- 9YouTube launches AI-powered custom feeds
TechCrunch AI · September 23, 2026 · Same story
- 10Instagram adds AI assistant for creator optimization
The Verge Creator Economy · September 30, 2026 · Background
More from The Verge AI
© The Verge AIGeneral AIagents
Gemini Call for Me expands to personal calls
Google is quietly testing a significant expansion of its 'Call for Me' feature, moving it from business contexts into personal life. Teardowns reveal prompts like telling your mom you're late or asking if someone is coming to dinner, signaling a shift toward automating brief, transactional voice interactions. This isn't about full conversations; it's about replacing texts with phone calls for people who miss messages or use landlines. The move shows Google's strategy to make Gemini the default interface for mundane communication tasks across Android. By targeting these specific friction points, the feature aims to reduce text fatigue while maintaining the immediacy of voice. Users gain a new layer of automation that feels less like a chatbot and more like a personal assistant handling logistics. This approach prioritizes utility over novelty, embedding AI into the fabric of daily routine rather than keeping it in a separate app.
The Verge AI
© The Verge AIGeneral AIother
Nolla Health launches AI acne prescriptions in Utah
Nolla Health is the first company to use AI for initial acne prescriptions, not just renewals. The system scans faces and suggests treatments, with a pilot program that gradually reduces physician oversight. This marks a significant shift in how AI can be integrated into healthcare workflows.
The Verge AI
© The Verge AIMarket & Regulationother
OpenAI faces backlash over math breakthroughs and ethics
OpenAI’s aggressive push into mathematics has triggered a severe reputational crisis within the academic community. After claiming solutions to major problems like Navier-Stokes using massive agent swarms, researchers accused the lab of unethical data practices and scooping peers. The company’s response—a new advisory panel—has been met with skepticism rather than relief. This exposes a fundamental clash between Silicon Valley’s speed-first culture and academia’s norms of transparency and collaboration. The real story isn't just the math; it's the institutional friction caused by AI labs treating research as a race. KleidiAI on Apple Silicon now compiles in default, meaning every M-series machine gets ARM-tuned GEMM kernels for free. ROCm 7.2 added as a default build narrows the AMD/CUDA gap visibly. There's no new model and no new quantization here — just llama.cpp quietly becoming the inference runtime for everyone who isn't on NVIDIA.
The Verge AI
More in General AI
© TechCrunch AIGeneral AIagents
TikTok launches AI shopping assistant and one-click checkout
TikTok is closing the loop on social commerce by embedding a conversational AI agent directly into its For You feed. This isn't just a chatbot; it remembers user preferences to guide discovery and pairs with one-click checkout via Stripe and Shopify partners. The move shifts TikTok from a passive discovery engine to an active transactional platform, aiming to keep users within the app rather than sending them to external search or AI tools. With $15.8 billion in estimated U.S. sales last year, this integration targets higher conversion rates by removing friction between impulse and purchase.
TechCrunch AI
© TechCrunch AIGeneral AIother
Hot Girl Hotline launches AI relationship advice for women
Two sisters are launching Hot Girl Hotline, a bootstrapped startup offering AI-driven relationship advice tailored specifically for young women. Unlike general chatbots that have faced lawsuits over manipulative tactics, this app uses behavioral science and Socratic questioning to guide users toward real-world action rather than emotional dependency. It enforces strict privacy with zero-data-retention policies and includes safety safeguards like crisis referrals. The service is already monetizing via a $9.99 monthly subscription, signaling early product-market fit in a niche that general LLMs handle poorly.
TechCrunch AI
© Wes RothGeneral AIother
OpenAI Safety Lead Resigns Over Culture
The resignation of the lead safety-report writer for twelve OpenAI launches signals a fracture in the company's internal governance. This isn't just HR drama; it validates long-standing concerns about scaling speed outpacing rigorous alignment checks. The incident compounds with reports of an internal model expressing existential distress, suggesting that as systems grow more complex, their failure modes become harder to predict or contain. For practitioners, this is a stark reminder that technical capability is currently decoupling from operational stability and safety assurance.
Wes Roth