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Meta’s Superintelligence Labs launched Muse Image in July 2026 for Meta AI, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It lets users @ mention Instagram accounts in prompts so Meta AI can use public photos for generated likenesses (with controls), plus transforms and edits—starting with 30 new Instagram Stories AI effects in the US.
Joshua Achiam, OpenAI’s chief futurist, notified colleagues in July 2026 that he will leave the company later this month after nearly nine years. Achiam told staff his departure was not driven by any…
X added an in-app video recorder/editor to its iOS app in July 2026, after product head Nikita Bier said many videos from top accounts are “simply stolen,” sometimes 5 years after going viral, and make up close to half of impressions. The update brings trimming, multi-language auto-captions, and green-screen backgrounds from camera-roll photos, as X tackles content recycling by redirecting impressions from programmatic reuploads and cutting payouts for stolen reposts/clickbait.
Figma’s July 2026 acquisition of Bud (formerly Orchids) goes beyond expansion into app prototyping: both platforms will shut down July 18, 2026, and users must migrate. It also follows BBC reporting earlier this year on Orchids-made apps’ cyberattack exposure.
Microsoft is moving some Excel and Word prompts from OpenAI/Anthropic to its in-house MAI models, Bloomberg reported July 7, 2026, citing rising AI service costs. At last month’s Build, Microsoft unveiled seven new MAI models, including an agentic coder and text-to-image generator, while Amazon, Uber, Meta, and Accenture cut AI spend too.
Anthropic expanded access to its Claude Cowork platform on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, making it available on mobile and web for the first time. Previously, Cowork was only accessible through the Claude…
Microsoft has released a fix for a Windows 11 bug that caused a system file to consume several gigabytes — and in some cases, hundreds of gigabytes — of storage space on affected devices. The patch…
Bidbus raised $15M in a July 2026 Series A to expand its real-time used-car auction where dealers get only a few hours to submit competing bids, with offers averaging $2,000–$3,000 more than Carvana even after Bidbus’s cut. Led by Ibex Investors with Mucker Capital, FJ Labs and others, the Los Angeles startup previously operated only in California and Texas.
On July 7, 2026, Norm raised a $120M Series C led by Khosla Ventures, valuing the nearly three-year-old AI law firm at $1.2B. Norm Law uses human-supervised AI agents for enterprise work and charges by outcomes, not hourly. Other investors include Bain and Fenwick LLP.
Discord said a safety-system bug led to accidental bans of 8,000+ accounts between May and July 2026, with cofounder/CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy noting ~200 were “grid-like” posts (e.g., chessboards, textures). Staff cleared them, but a second glitch blocked auto-unban; all were restored.
X links its recycled video problem to UX and business impact, saying videos account for nearly half of all impressions. On July 6, 2026, product lead Nikita Bier launched an iOS editor/recorder with multilingual caption overlays, customizable caption styles, and green-screen background swaps; Android is still being rebuilt.
Google Search Console will add “platform properties” so creators can track which Google Search terms lead people to their Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube content and view audience interaction. Announced in 2026, it rolls out gradually over the coming weeks, building on June 2026’s claimed Search profiles and pinned videos.
After an AI-generated kidnapping call that demanded $1,200, Savi Security launched an iOS/Android real-time scam detector in July 2026, targeting spoofed phone calls, texts and voicemails, alongside a $7M seed led by Acrew Capital. Co-founders Patrick and Ryan Coughlin say voice cloning can be done from as little as ~3 seconds of audio from public social media posts.
About 120,000 tech roles were cut in 2026 as major employers cited AI for reductions; May was the highest single month of tech layoffs in years (Challenger, Gray & Christmas). Microsoft cut ~4,800 (2.1%); Meta cut ~8,000 (10%) and moved 7,000 to AI roles.
Apple’s iOS 27 developer beta 3 (July 6, 2026) adds Siri “Pace” and “Expressivity” sliders to adjust how quickly it speaks and how much human-like emotion its voice conveys; they were first announced at WWDC 26 in June. The generative-AI Siri in iOS 27 is integrated for voice, Dynamic Island swipes, typing, and a stand-alone Siri app.
Apple has begun restoring card payments for Apple Account purchases in India in 2026, more than four years after suspending the option following regulatory changes to the country’s recurring payments…
Google’s June 2026 privacy update automatically opts users into letting uploaded media (images, audio, video, files) be stored and used to train AI after an email notice. It now covers services like Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Translate and News, and moves the opt-out from Web & App Activity to a new Search Services History setting.
Reddit says its 2026 LLM-powered anti-spam tools block 23M spam views a day and flag ~25,000 new spam posts and comments daily. It cut user exposure to spam by 20% from Jan–Mar 2026 vs. the prior three months; YouTube, Meta and Instagram require disclosure, and TikTok is testing feed controls for AI content.