A coalition of state attorneys general has opened an investigation into OpenAI.

The company was served with a subpoena from New York’s attorney general on Friday, according to The Wall Street Journal. That subpoena sought documents related to a broad range of topics including the company’s advertising, user engagement and retention, model sycophancy, handling of consumer data and health data, and treatment of minors and seniors.

“AI is a new and powerful technology, and we work every day to safely bring its benefits to people in a responsible way,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. “We take the concerns raised by state attorneys general seriously and intend to engage constructively with their offices.”

The spokesperson also said, “Today’s ChatGPT includes a more protective experience for minors and people experiencing difficult situations, with safeguards that direct them to real-world resources and trusted human contacts. We believe kids should be treated like kids, which is why we built age prediction, released parental tools to guide their children’s use of AI, and disallowed advertising that targets kids.”

The company did not specify which states are involved in the investigation or share more details about what information was requested. TechCrunch has also reached out to New York attorney general’s office for confirmation.

OpenAI recently defeated its co-founder Elon Musk in a high-profile trial, after Musk accused the company of violating its founding agreement. (Musk’s lead attorney said he will appeal the decision.)

However, OpenAI still faces lawsuits over everything from alleged copyright infringement to ChatGPT’s alleged role in user suicides. Earlier this month, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, claiming that OpenAI and Altman “ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians.”

Altman recently apologized to the community of Tumbler Ridge, Canada after a mass shooting; he acknowledged that OpenAI failed to alert law enforcement after the company flagged and banned the suspected shooter’s ChatGPT account.

The company announced this week that it has filed confidentially to go public.

This post has been updated with a statement from an OpenAI spokesperson.

Spotify has removed more than 57,000 fake podcast episodes and banned 3,500 accounts tied to illegal drug promotion after a US Senate investigation exposed the scale of the problem. The episodes, spread across more than 3,000 shows, used AI-generated audio to direct listeners to websites selling modafinil, opioids, and cryptocurrency on unregulated marketplaces. Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, led the congressional inquiry that forced the platform to act.

The numbers are damning not for their size but for the timeline. In all of 2024, Spotify actioned just 87 accounts for similar violations. The surge to 3,500 bans in 2025 came only after CNN published an investigation in May documenting the drug-spam pipeline in detail. One podcast identified by CNN linked directly to a site called opioidstores.com, which the DEA subsequently seized.

Spotify’s own data reveals how deeply the spam had embedded itself before anyone noticed. Ninety-four percent of the removed episodes had zero plays, and 99% had fewer than ten streams, suggesting the content was indexed and searchable long before any human listener encountered it. The episodes functioned less as listenable content and more as SEO vectors, directing search traffic toward illegal storefronts.

But not all of it went unheard. Some episodes had accumulated thousands of listens, with AI-generated voices reading aloud instructions for purchasing modafinil and cryptocurrency. The content was not subtle, it was keyword-stuffed, algorithmically optimised, and designed to exploit Spotify’s historically permissive approach to podcast moderation.

The platform acknowledged in its response to Hassan’s office that it is “not particularly well-positioned” to identify AI-created podcast content. Spotify uses automated moderation for music, where it has deployed tools to detect AI-generated songs and streaming fraud, but no equivalent system exists for podcasts. The company does not specifically prohibit AI-generated podcasts in its terms of service, creating a gap that bad actors have exploited at scale.

That gap is especially striking given Spotify’s recent moves on the music side. In April, the company launched a Verified by Spotify badge that explicitly excludes AI-persona artist accounts and has begun flagging AI-generated songs that mimic real artists. But podcasts, which number in the millions and require no distributor relationship to upload, remain largely unpoliced.

Hassan’s investigation also found that Spotify did not report any of the removed drug-promotion content to law enforcement. The company pulled the episodes and banned the accounts but did not refer the material to the DEA or any other agency, even when the content contained direct links to sites the DEA later seized independently. Hassan called the response insufficient and urged Spotify to implement proactive detection rather than waiting for external pressure.

The problem is not unique to Spotify. Similar AI-generated drug-spam podcasts have been found on other platforms, though none have disclosed removal figures on this scale. The ease of creating synthetic audio, combined with the open-upload model most podcast platforms use, has made the medium a low-cost, high-volume channel for illicit advertising. AI-generated content already floods Spotify’s music catalogue without labels, and the podcast side appears even further behind on detection.

The enforcement pattern, reactive and media-driven rather than proactive, raises questions about what else is sitting on the platform undetected. Spotify went from 87 account bans in a full year to 3,500 in a matter of weeks once reporters and legislators started looking. The 94% zero-play rate means the company’s existing systems were not surfacing this content through engagement metrics or user reports, invisible until someone searched for it deliberately.

Spotify has not announced any new automated detection tools for podcast content in response to the investigation. The company said it is working to improve its systems but offered no timeline or technical details. For a platform that hosts more than five million podcast titles, the absence of podcast-specific AI moderation is no longer an oversight, it is a policy choice with measurable consequences.

Nintendo is introducing a new account-history requirement for Switch 2 purchases in Japan to keep consoles away from resellers. The move targets the multi-language Nintendo Switch 2 sold through the official Japanese Nintendo Store, which scalpers have been buying in bulk because it can be bought for less in Japan and resold abroad.

The price difference explains why scalpers are interested. In Japan, the multi-language Switch 2 is considerably cheaper compared to some other markets. That gap gives resellers room to import units and mark them up overseas, especially while official stock remains limited. The Japan-exclusive model, which only supports Japanese text and characters, is not affected by the new rule.

Nintendo is using account history as a filter

Nintendo said on X that it had found multiple orders linked to suspected resale activity and temporarily paused sales of the multi-language model. When sales resume, buyers will need to meet stricter conditions. Their Nintendo Account must show at least 50 hours of playtime on the original Nintendo Switch by 11:59 PM on May 31, 2026. Playtime from demo titles and free software will not qualify.

Nintendo StoreにおけるNintendo Switch 2（多言語対応）の販売につきまして、買い占め等の疑いがある注文を複数確認しましたので、一時的に販売を停止しておりました。…

— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) June 11, 2026

The company is also limiting purchases to one console per Nintendo Account. That gives Nintendo a way to reduce repeat buying while making fresh accounts less useful for resellers.

Nintendo takes a page out of Valve’s playbook

The Switch 2 has become one of the most practical handheld gaming console options, especially after Valve’s Steam Deck price hike made PC handhelds a bigger expense for many buyers. Still, Nintendo’s console will not stay immune to higher pricing for long, with its own price increase expected soon.

Scalpers have been a thorn in the side of gamers for years. Valve faced a similar issue with the recent Steam Controller launch, where units quickly sold out and appeared on resale sites at inflated prices. Valve responded with a reservation queue, purchase-history checks, and a one-controller-per-account limit.

Nintendo is now applying a similar idea to the Switch 2. Fresh accounts will have a much harder time passing the check, which could reduce bulk buying through the Japanese store.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy may have been the source of security concerns that led Anthropic to cut off worldwide access to two models on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Jassy told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other government officials that Amazon researchers used Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 to obtain information that could be used in cyberattacks. The government subsequently imposed an export control ban on the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models.

An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that while it’s “not uncommon for governments to seek our counsel on potential security risks,” the company does not “share the details of those discussions.”

The spokesperson also pointed to an update stating that AWS has been affected by the model cut off.

The Information and Reuters similarly reported that Amazon (a major Anthropic investor) had communicated concerns about the security of Anthropic’s models.

David Sacks, Trump’s former AI czar who now co-chairs the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, offered his own account of the discussions, claiming that “a highly credible trusted partner of both Anthropic and the USG […] came forward with a jailbreak.”

Sacks added, “The Admin asked [Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei] to fix the jailbreak or de-deploy the model. Dario refused.”

Anthropic said in a blog post that the capabilities apparently causing government concern are already available in other publicly accessible models.

This post has been updated with a statement from an Amazon spokesperson.

General Motors shut down Cruise, its $10 billion robotaxi division, in December 2024. Eighteen months later, the company’s chief product officer says GM’s autonomous vehicles will eventually be capable of operating as robotaxis anyway. Sterling Anderson, the former head of Tesla’s Autopilot program, told Business Insider that GM’s personal autonomy strategy and the robotaxi business model are on a collision course.

“Ultimately, the two converge. Our operating region looks identical to the operating region of a robotaxi company,” Anderson said. “The question at that point becomes, ‘Why not offer them in a robotaxi-type application as well?‘”

Anderson’s approach starts with highway driving and works outward. GM is breaking the driving experience into segments, tackling long stretches of motorway first before expanding to arterial roads and urban centres. The idea is that by the time the system handles enough road types, the coverage area will be indistinguishable from what a dedicated robotaxi operator needs.

The foundation for that expansion is Super Cruise, GM’s hands-off, eyes-on driver assistance system. In April, GM said customers had driven one billion hands-free miles with the feature across roughly 750,000 vehicles covering 700,000 miles of North American roads. The company plans to introduce eyes-off highway driving on the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028, upgrading Super Cruise from a Level 2+ system to Level 3 using lidar, radar, and cameras.

To build the technology, GM has been quietly reassembling the team it dismantled. The Information reported that the company has rehired approximately 100 former Cruise employees, including senior managers who have returned to their previous roles. GM also hired Ronalee Mann, a former Cruise and Tesla executive, to lead product operations under Anderson, and has recruited engineers from Nvidia, Uber, and Zoox.

The rehiring is a reversal from a painful exit. GM acquired Cruise in 2016 for $581 million and spent more than $10 billion on the division before pulling the plug. The shutdown followed a 2023 incident in San Francisco in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian who had been hit by another vehicle, prompting California regulators to suspend the company’s driverless licence.

Anderson was hired in May 2025 with a $40 million compensation package and has since emerged as a potential successor to CEO Mary Barra. Before GM, he co-founded Aurora Innovation, which launched the first commercial fully driverless trucking service in the US, operating between Houston and Dallas. His appointment signalled that GM was serious about autonomy even after abandoning the dedicated robotaxi model.

The competitive landscape has shifted considerably since Cruise’s collapse. Waymo now delivers more than 500,000 paid rides per week across 10 US metro areas and is deploying its cheaper sixth-generation Ojai robotaxi to scale further. Tesla has launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin using a camera-only approach. Amazon’s Zoox operates roughly 50 robotaxis in San Francisco and Las Vegas.

Legacy automakers are also moving. Hyundai-backed Motional relaunched a robotaxi service with Uber in Las Vegas in March and plans to offer fully driverless rides there by the end of 2026. Rivian signed a $1.25 billion deal with Uber in March to deploy up to 50,000 autonomous R2 vehicles across 25 cities by 2031, starting in San Francisco and Miami in 2028.

GM’s strategy is a slower, lower-risk path than building a standalone robotaxi fleet. By embedding autonomy in personal vehicles first, the company avoids the enormous capital expenditure of operating its own ride-hailing network while still accumulating the driving data and regulatory approvals it would need to enter that market later. The one billion Super Cruise miles already driven give GM a dataset that few competitors outside Tesla and Waymo can match.

Whether the approach works depends on execution speed. GM is targeting eyes-off highway driving in 2028, the same year Rivian’s autonomous R2s are expected to start carrying Uber passengers. “If that’s where the world goes, our autonomous vehicles will be capable of being robotaxis as well,” Anderson said.

Samsung’s next Galaxy Watch Ultra could bring the battery upgrade many users have been waiting for. The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is expected to launch in the coming weeks, and a new report suggests it may arrive with a much larger battery than the 2024 and 2025 models.

According to SamMobile, the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 will use a battery with a rated capacity of 784mAh. Samsung could market this as an 800mAh typical capacity, which would make it around 35% larger than the 590mAh battery used in the current Galaxy Watch Ultra models.

A bigger battery could push the Ultra closer to three days

Samsung currently claims up to two days of battery life on the Galaxy Watch Ultra when users rely on features such as GPS training mode. If the reported battery upgrade is accurate, the Watch Ultra 2 could get much closer to three days of regular use, depending on display settings, workout tracking, cellular use, and health monitoring.

The battery may not be the only efficiency upgrade. The smartwatch is also rumored to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite chip instead of Samsung’s Exynos W1000, which could help stretch runtime further.

5G support could complicate the battery gains

Another reported change is 5G support. Previous leaks have suggested that Samsung is preparing a 5G version of the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, though availability may initially be limited to markets such as the US and South Korea.

That upgrade could make the watch more capable away from a phone, but it may also affect battery life. Until Samsung announces the device, it is unclear how much of the larger battery will be used to offset 5G power demands. Samsung is also likely to base the Watch Ultra 2’s software on Wear OS 7, which Google recently unveiled at I/O 2026.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is expected to debut alongside Samsung’s next foldables, which are rumored to arrive in July 2026. So, it looks like we may not have to wait long to find out whether Samsung’s next Ultra watch really delivers the battery jump suggested by the latest reports.

Professional services firm KPMG has pulled a report titled, “Redefining excellence in the age of agentic AI,” after numerous organizations said the report’s claims about their AI usage were untrue.

Research group GPTZero identified a number of inaccuracies in the report, which was published in October 2025. GPTZero told the FT that the inaccuracies stemmed from AI hallucinations. In other words, the professional services firm appears to have used AI to help write a report about AI. 

UBS, the UK’s National Health Service, Swiss Federal Railways, and Transport for London all told the FT that the report’s claims about their AI usage were either untrue or misleading. A KPMG spokesperson said the firm removed the report from its websites while conducting its own investigation.

“We expect all our people to follow our guidelines on the responsible use of AI, including human oversight to validate content and verify independent sources,” the spokesperson said.

Last month, EY withdrew a report on loyalty rewards programs that appeared to include fake footnotes and AI hallucinations.