Google launches free AI avatars, Veo 3.1 video generation, and AI music tools in Google Vids just as OpenAI shuts down Sora, positioning itself as the dominant force in AI video creation for both consumers and enterprise users.
Microsoft launches three in-house AI models — MAI-Transcribe-1, MAI-Voice-1, and MAI-Image-2 — claiming best-in-class performance across speech and image generation while undercutting rivals like OpenAI and Google on price, built by teams of fewer than 10 engineers using half the GPUs of competitors.
Google launches Veo 3.1 Lite at just 5 cents per second, dramatically undercutting competitors in the AI video market as OpenAI simultaneously retreats by scrapping its Sora model and abandoning a $1 billion Disney deal.
DeepSeek suffers its longest outage in over a year, with two incidents totaling more than eight hours of downtime on March 29-30, 2026, just as the Chinese AI startup prepares to launch its next major model, V4, a multimodal system trained with help from Huawei and Cambricon.
OpenAI shuts down its Sora AI video app after just five months, triggering Disney to pull a $1 billion licensing deal as the entertainment giant's AI strategy hangs in uncertainty under new CEO Josh D'Amaro.
AI photo 'restoration' tools are fabricating history by inventing details that never existed, and experts warn that no workflow refinement can justify altering the visual identity of real people — true conservation means preserving what exists, not generating fiction.
Google launches Gemini 2.0 Flash Live via its Live API, giving developers the power to build real-time voice and vision AI agents with support for over 90 languages, reduced latency, and improved noise filtering across industries ranging from elder care companions to interactive gaming.
CapCut rolls out Dreamina Seedance 2.0 to paid users across seven markets, delivering AI-powered video generation with realistic motion, physics, and audio syncing for clips up to 15 seconds, backed by strict safety measures including real-face restrictions, invisible watermarking, and C2PA Content Credentials.
WhatsApp launches a major update introducing AI-powered writing assistance, in-chat photo editing via Meta AI, large file cleanup tools, cross-platform chat history transfer, and dual account support for iOS users, all while promising user chats remain private.
Charlotte robotics startup Lucid Bots raises $20M in Series B funding, bringing total investment to $34M, as its window-cleaning drones and robots surge from 100 to nearly 1,000 units sold while expanding into painting, waterproofing, and sealing markets.