The Meta AI app and Meta AI on WhatsApp have a new "incognito chat" option, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said is a "completely private way to interact with AI."
Zuckerberg also said that Meta AI's incognito mode is the first major AI product where there is no log of conversations stored on servers. Zuckerberg likened the feature to end-to-end encryption, and said no one will be able to read the AI conversations, not even Meta or WhatsApp.
AI inference for incognito chat is done in a Trusted Execution Environment that Zuckerberg said is not accessible to Meta. Conversations also disappear from the phone when exiting a chat session, and nothing is saved or logged. Web searches are conducted privately, with no search information linked to the user.
"To get the most from personal superintelligence, we'll all need ways to discuss sensitive topics in ways that no one else can access," Zuckerberg said.
WhatsApp head Will Cathcart told reporters that the AI has safety guardrails, and it will refuse to answer questions that could be interpreted as harmful or illegal, steering conversations in a different direction. The mode also only supports text, and users are unable to upload images.
Incognito chat for Meta AI comes as OpenAI is facing a lawsuit for allegedly causing a teen's drug overdose. The teen asked ChatGPT for information on whether it was safe to take two drugs together, and was provided with an incorrect answer that led to his death. OpenAI has been sued several times by the families of people who used ChatGPT before dying by suicide.
Lawsuits against OpenAI have involved chat logs recovered by the plaintiffs, and without those logs, there would be far less evidence for a legal complaint over AI actions and advice.
Google and OpenAI also offer temporary chat options, but messages are still stored on remote servers. Google keeps data for up to three days, and OpenAI keeps logs for 30 days.
Meta's private chat option is rolling out in the coming months in the Meta AI app and WhatsApp.
OpenAI today launched Codex for Chrome, a Chrome extension that lets Codex work directly in the browser on Macs and PCs.
With the extension, Codex can use the browser to test web apps, get context across multiple tabs, use web DevTools, and more without taking over the browser from the user.
OpenAI says that after it launched Computer Use in the desktop Codex app, it saw that most common workflows happened in the browser. The Chrome extension should make it faster and easier for Codex to help with browser-based work that plugins or APIs can't handle.
According to OpenAI, Codex has more than 4 million weekly active users, an increase of 8x since the beginning of the year. The Chrome extension is part of OpenAI's broader effort to make Codex more useful for work people do daily, while keeping it useful for developers.
The Chrome extension can be installed through the Codex Plugins menu.
Medellín AI Summit outlines strategic growth for global investors.
The city of Medellín is scheduled to host the second edition of the “WOBI on AI and Business Transformation” summit on April 28, 2026. The event, which will take place at Plaza Mayor, represents the sixth major collaboration between the Alcaldía de Medellín and WOBI since the partnership began in 2017. This year’s forum focuses on the integration of artificial intelligence into corporate leadership and operational strategy, reinforcing the city’s status as a Special District of Science, Technology, and Innovation.
Martha Lucía Maldonado Nieto, Managing Director of WOBI Colombia, detailed the evolution of the event series, noting that previous editions held between 2017 and 2019 attracted more than 4,300 business owners. “Since last year, we have shifted these digital transformation conversations toward an unavoidable topic: Artificial Intelligence,” Maldonado stated. She emphasized that the summit is designed to analyze how AI supports macro-management themes rather than providing purely technical instruction. “WOBI is not about providing technical content. Our goal isn’t to teach people how to operate a specific AI tool, but rather to support them in their roles as leaders.”
“We are certain that only by sensitizing our leaders will we achieve real changes in organizations.” — María Fernanda Galeano Rojo
The upcoming summit features a lineup of international speakers covering diverse facets of the technology. Terry Gutiérrez, the General Manager for Tesla (TSLA) in Mexico and Latin America, will present on leadership algorithms. Nathan Furr, a professor at INSEAD, is set to discuss using AI to scale business models. Other speakers include marketing expert Giuseppe Stigliano and Andrew Mayne, a former prompt engineer at OpenAI, who will provide insights into the development of ChatGPT. Maldonado noted that the curation of this content is managed by WOBI’s team in New York to identify global trends relevant to executive decision-making.
María Fernanda Galeano Rojo, the Secretary of Economic Development for Medellín, will also address the assembly on the role of “Cities that Think.” Galeano Rojo highlighted the city’s commitment to ensuring high-level technological discourse reaches multiple sectors of the local economy. “We will have 600 leaders, more than 70% of whom will be from our city,” Galeano Rojo said. “At the same time, we will have parallel activities where we will be talking with these same speakers, as well as with entrepreneurs and university students. What we want is for all this knowledge to reach different sectors of our city.”
The event structure has transitioned to a membership model as of 2024, though individual tickets remain available. Maldonado confirmed that the average cost for participation is approximately $1,990,000 COP. The summit aims to build on the success of the inaugural AI edition, which saw 800 attendees from 350 companies and has since been exported to Madrid and Milan. “Artificial Intelligence is not just another trend; it is a new reality,” Maldonado added. “It is going to change and impact us in much the same way that the internet at some point changed the way we function.”
The Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico continues to prioritize digital skills and AI training as part of its broader economic strategy. According to Galeano Rojo, the objective of the Alcaldía de Medellín is to use these international platforms to drive social and organizational transformation. “We are betting on digital skills training and AI training,” she remarked. “We are certain that only by sensitizing our leaders will we achieve real changes in organizations.”
The one-day academic session will begin at 9:00 AM. Key regional entities including Rappi, McKinsey, and Procter & Gamble (PG) were cited as background for the expertise being brought to the stage, reflecting the professional trajectories of the invited speakers.
OpenAI is working on a smartphone in what appears to be a significant reversal from previous reports that the company had no plans to enter the phone market, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
Kuo shared the findings from his latest supply chain checks in a post on X, saying MediaTek and Qualcomm are the chosen chip partners and Luxshare Precision Industry is the exclusive manufacturing partner, with mass production scheduled for 2028. Exact chip specifications and additional suppliers are expected to be finalized by late 2026 or the first quarter of 2027.
Kuo argues that the smartphone remains uniquely positioned for AI agent use because it is the only device that captures a user's full real-time state, including location, activity, communication, and context, which he describes as the most important input for real-time AI agent inference. He claims that AI agents will fundamentally change how people interact with a phone, shifting the focus from launching individual apps to completing tasks through a more continuous, context-aware interface.
He argues that fully controlling both the operating system and the hardware is the only way for the company to deliver a comprehensive AI agent service, and that a subscription-bundled business model could enable OpenAI to build a developer ecosystem around those agents.
Kuo suggests that Luxshare, which has long sought to reduce its dependence on Apple supply chain work, could benefit substantially from an early position in what he frames as the next generation of smartphone hardware.
The development represents a notable reversal in OpenAI's publicly stated hardware strategy. Previous reports have consistently described the company's hardware ambitions as centered on non-phone form factors developed in collaboration with Jony Ive, the former Apple design chief whose startup io Products was acquired by OpenAI for $6.5 billion. Those plans include a smart speaker, which is likely the first product to launch, along with smart glasses, a smart lamp, and potentially earbuds. OpenAI Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane has said the first hardware announcement is expected in the second half of 2026, with launch around early 2027.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X the same day Kuo published his analysis, writing that it "feels like a good time to seriously rethink how operating systems and user interfaces are designed." Such a device would obviously put OpenAI in direct competition with Apple's iPhone.
Apple gave its iPhone Product Design team bonuses worth "several hundred thousand dollars" in an effort to keep them from being poached by other companies, reports Bloomberg. The bonuses were provided as restricted stock units (RSUs) that will vest over a four-year period.
Hardware designers given bonuses will need to stay with Apple to get the full value of the stock award, which can range from $200,000 to $400,000 or even more depending on how Apple stock does over the next several years.
Apple executives are concerned with the number of engineers the company has been losing to rivals like OpenAI. Several former Apple designers are now working on hardware products at OpenAI, including former Apple design chief Jony Ive. OpenAI has been recruiting Apple engineers that worked on the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro, and it has hired over 40 former Apple employees.
In 2021 and 2022, Apple also handed out stock bonuses to engineers in silicon design, hardware, software, and operations to thwart poaching and increase employee retention.
OpenAI has a Mac "superapp" in development that unifies its ChatGPT app, Codex coding platform, and Atlas browser, reports The Wall Street Journal ($).
The idea behind the all-in-one app is to simplify the user experience, following the launch of several standalone products, some of which haven't resonated with OpenAI's customers. The company is also trying to bounce back after the recent successes of its main rival, Anthropic.
OpenAI executives are said to be looking at areas it can deprioritize while it focuses on creating agentic AI capabilities within the new superapp that can work autonomously on a user's computer to carry out various tasks like writing code and analyzing data.
In an all-hands meeting last week, OpenAI's chief of applications Fidji Simo reportedly told employees they couldn't afford to be distracted by "side quests" given Anthropic's rapid success winning over enterprise and coding customers. From the report:
An OpenAI spokeswoman said the new "superapp" will enable teams inside OpenAI to work more closely together, and help the research division focus its efforts around improving one central product. Over the coming months, the company expects to add new "agentic" capabilities within its Codex app so it can help with productivity-related tasks beyond coding before merging ChatGPT and the Atlas browser into the superapp as well.
OpenAI unveiled a series of major initiatives last year, like its Sora video app and the acquisition of Jony Ive's AI hardware venture. Since then, however, Anthropic has gained strong momentum with the success of its Code Claude and Cowork offerings.
The WSJ report gave no timeline for the launch of OpenAI's so-called superapp, but it said the company's mobile ChatGPT app will remain unchanged.
On March 8, for the first time in Colombia’s history, an artificial intelligence candidate appeared on ballot papers across the country.
Gaitana IA (AI) ran for the Indigenous seat in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the northern state of Sucre.
While Gaitana did not win a seat in either of the country’s legislative bodies, it has sparked debate about the role of AI in Colombian politics.
With the ballots counted, Gaitana won a total of under 3,000 votes – less than 2% of the total votes for the Indigenous seat – suggesting that many people remain skeptical of this new digital approach.
Many questions have emerged surrounding Gaitana, such as why the Registraduría—the Colombian entity in charge of validating and accepting candidates—permitted this unprecedented candidacy, or what the intentions were behind the AI.
“Many local media outlets talked about an AI going to Congress, but that is not the case; they are humans leading the project,” Gaitana’s co-founder, Natalia Aase, told The Bogotá Post.
“It is actually a consensus tool developed by our community members, between 14 and 25 years old, from the Senú community of Reparo Torrente, in Coveñas,” she explained.
Rather than planning for the AI to assume office, Gaitana was devised as a democratic experiment underpinned by real human candidates
Aase detailed how the platform was designed to work: Colombian citizens could subscribe through a link to virtually participate and propose various debates regarding topics such as healthcare, women’s rights, and more. These interactions would also feed the AI database.
Once an initiative reached a collective consensus, the people occupying the seats in Congress would “decide the direction of the proposed laws.”
The two humans represented by Gaitana were Carlos Redondo Rincón, a Mechatronics Engineer from the Senú community, who was running for Senate, and Luz Rincón, an Embera-Katio Indigenous sociologist, who was seeking a seat in the House of Representatives.
The co-founder of Gaitana also revealed that the team conducted deep research into global democratic models, such as the one in Norway, and compared them with their own community dynamics.
As the research advanced, the team found that their community in Senú had already established a model of social interaction that worked well, prompting them to launch a digital project modeled on their own practices.
This meant digitizing their traditional way of reaching a consensus; in the Senú community, men, women, and youth gather around tables to discuss specific topics, such as women’s health or local fishing.
“Gaitana IA is not a generative AI; it is a participatory AI. What does that mean? Well, it is not ChatGPT. Instead, it takes the information provided by the users and organizes it,” pointed out Aase. “Transparency and security are the most important things for us; that is why we use blockchain technology—a system of blocks—to power this platform.”
According to Aase, the project was born from a motivation to prevent corruption and explained that with ‘Gaitana AI’, the decisions are not made by a single person but must be approved by at least 100 people.
“You might be able to manipulate one individual, but you cannot manipulate a hundred if you don’t even know who they are,” she concluded.
OpenAI is working on several AI hardware devices in partnership with former Apple designer Jony Ive, and the first product that comes out could be a smart speaker. The company is developing a smart speaker, a smart lamp, and considering AI glasses, according to The Information, with the speaker set to come out in early 2027.
OpenAI's smart speaker has an integrated camera and it is designed to learn information about who is using it and what's around them. It will include a facial recognition feature similar to Face ID, and users will be able to use the speaker to make purchases. The speaker will have AI integration, so users can ask it questions and make requests.
In an internal presentation, OpenAI employees were told that the speaker would observe users and suggest actions to help them achieve goals, such as suggesting an early bedtime ahead of a morning meeting.
Apple is working on a similar home hub device that's set to come out this year. The home hub will include an integrated camera and speaker for video calls and controlling smart home products, plus it will have deep integration with the updated version of Siri that Apple is developing.
OpenAI is planning to price the speaker between $200 and $300, with a launch planned for February 2027 at the earliest. OpenAI is exploring a smart lamp and smart glasses, but those products won't be ready until 2028 or later. With the exception of the speaker, OpenAI's hardware development is in the early stages and other products could be canceled.
Jony Ive has been working with OpenAI since OpenAI acquired Ive's hardware firm io in May 2025. Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have shared some details on their AI hardware work, suggesting that there was an established prototype in November 2025. At the time, Ive and Altman said the device would be "peaceful" and an "active participant" that's not annoying. The duo also described the device as a product that would "make people feel joy."
Additional rumors about OpenAI's plans came following an employee meeting, where Ive and Altman said they didn't want a device with a screen. The device, which is presumably the speaker that The Information says is in development, was described as pocket-sized and contextually aware of the user's surroundings. Altman told employees it's "the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen."
While Altman and Ive have promised the next big thing after the iPhone, there is some internal tension at OpenAI. Ive's LoveFrom design company has remained separate from OpenAI, but LoveFrom is providing hardware designs to OpenAI. It's up to OpenAI's hardware and software engineers to actually make the products that LoveFrom comes up with.
OpenAI employees have apparently complained about LoveFrom's secrecy and slow speed when it comes to design revisions. Former Apple designer Evans Hankey is leading industrial design, and Ive is said to be making the final call on almost all design choices. Other former Apple employees working at OpenAI on hardware include Tang Tan and Scott Cannon, plus Eddy Cue's son Adam Cue is working on OpenAI software.
If you’d like to maintain and ad-free AI experience, you might want to consider using Claude, which offers free AI tools, web chat, and clients for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, all of which are free from advertising clutter. Why are you mentioning this? Well, you might have seen that OpenAI has recently announced that ChatGPT ... Read More
As OpenAI is making plans to introduce ads to ChatGPT, competitor Anthropic has promised to keep Claude ad-free. In a blog post today, the company said that there are "many good places for advertising," but a "conversation with Claude is not one of them."
According to Anthropic, including ads in Claude would not be in line with its mission of creating a helpful assistant for work and deep thinking. Anthropic claims that users should not need to second-guess whether an AI is being helpful or "subtly steering the conversation towards something monetizable."
There will be no ads or sponsored links in conversations with Claude, and Claude's responses will not be influenced by advertisers or include third-party product placements.
Our analysis of conversations with Claude (conducted in a way that keeps all data private and anonymous) shows that an appreciable portion involve topics that are sensitive or deeply personal--the kinds of conversations you might have with a trusted advisor. Many other uses involve complex software engineering tasks, deep work, or thinking through difficult problems. The appearance of ads in these contexts would feel incongruous--and, in many cases, inappropriate.
Promising an ad-free experience could encourage people to choose Claude over OpenAI's ChatGPT. In January, OpenAI said that it would start testing ads in the United States for free and Go tier subscribers, though subscribers with higher paid tiers will not see ads. OpenAI claims that ads will be clearly labeled and will not influence the answers that ChatGPT provides, nor will the company provide conversation details to advertisers.
To further reinforce the difference between Claude's ad-free experience and ChatGPT's ad-supported experience, Anthropic plans to run a humorous Super Bowl commercial where a man gets an unwanted cougar dating ad after asking about his mother. "Ads are coming to AI," reads the video's text. "But not to Claude."
Anthropic plans to continue to monetize through enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions, with revenue reinvested in improving Claude. Anthropic will maintain a free tier, and the company says that it may also offer lower-cost subscription tiers and regional pricing in the future if there is demand for it. Claude Pro is priced at $20 per month, which is the same price as ChatGPT's higher-end Plus tier.
An ad-free Claude experience isn't a sure thing forever, as Anthropic gives itself an out in the blog post: "Should we need to revisit this approach, we'll be transparent about our reasons for doing so."
OpenAI today announced the launch of ChatGPT Health, a dedicated section of ChatGPT where users can ask health-related questions completely separated from their main ChatGPT experience.
For more personalized responses, users can connect various health data services such as Apple Health, Function, MyFitnessPal, Weight Watchers, AllTrails, Instacart, and Peloton. Last month, MacRumorsdiscovered icons related to Apple Health within the ChatGPT app, and today's announcement makes the integration official. Once connected, ChatGPT will be able to access your health and fitness data from Apple Health, including movement, sleep, and activity patterns.
ChatGPT Health can also integrate with your medical records, allowing ChatGPT Health to analyze your lab results and other aspects of your medical history to inform its answers to your health-related questions. OpenAI emphasizes that ChatGPT Health is not intended to provide diagnoses or treatment and is not a substitute for consulting with medical professionals, but it can be used to help understand results or prepare for upcoming appointments.
Privacy and security are always major concerns when it comes to health records, and OpenAI says ChatGPT Health has been developed with multiple layers of encryption and operates as a separate space with enhanced privacy. Data from ChatGPT Health is not used to train ChatGPT's foundation models by default, and users who start health-related conversations in the general ChatGPT interface will receive suggestions to move the discussions to the Health section.
ChatGPT Health is launching with a waitlist to join a group of beta users, with users on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans outside of the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom eligible to start. Medical record integrations and some apps are only available in the United States at the current time. Access to ChatGPT Health will expand to all users on web and iOS in the coming weeks.
Dozens of Apple engineers and designers with expertise in audio, watch design, robotics, and other core product areas have left the company for OpenAI in recent months, the Wall Street Journal reports.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a review of data from LinkedIn suggests a signifiant scale and concentration of talent now moving specifically to OpenAI as it builds a dedicated hardware division. The reviewed profiles show that former Apple staff joining OpenAI include contributors to multiple flagship categories, ranging from wearable-device industrial design to platform-level audio technologies used across the iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch. Several individuals also listed experience in robotics. OpenAI is expected to launch its first hardware device next year.
Earlier this week, it emerged that Meta had hired multiple Apple employees, including longtime Apple designer Alan Dye, while conducting its own recruiting blitz for AI and smartglasses development. Meanwhile, Apple announced the retirement of Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kate Adams, Lisa Jackson, Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, and AI chief John Giannandrea. Earlier this year, Apple lost Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who is retiring, and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri. There have also been rumors about Apple CEO Tim Cook retiring, with rumors suggesting he is preparing to leave his role as soon as next year.
A U.S. appeals court has upheld a temporary restraining order that prevents OpenAI and Jony Ive's new hardware venture from using the name "io" for products similar to those planned by AI audio startup iyO, Bloomberg Law reports.
iyO sued OpenAI earlier this year after the latter announced its partnership with Ive's new firm, arguing that OpenAI's planned "io" branding was too close to its own name and related to similar AI-driven hardware. Court filings later showed that Ive and Sam Altman chose the name io in mid-2023, and that iyO CEO Jason Rugolo had approached Altman in early 2025 seeking funding for a project about "the future of human-computer interface." Altman declined, saying he was already working on "something competitive."
OpenAI countered that io's first product would not be a wearable device, and that Rugolo had voluntarily disclosed details about iyO while suggesting OpenAI acquire his company for $200 million. Despite this, a district court issued a temporary restraining order blocking OpenAI, Altman, Ive, and IO Products, Inc. from using the io mark in connection with products deemed sufficiently similar to iyO's planned AI-audio computer. OpenAI removed its io branding shortly after.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the order earlier this week. The court agreed there was a likelihood of confusion between "IO" and "iyO," that reverse confusion was a significant risk given OpenAI's size, and that iyO could face irreparable harm to its brand and fundraising. However, the ruling does not bar all uses of the io name, only marketing and selling hardware similar to iyO's.
The case now returns to the district court for a preliminary injunction hearing in April 2026, with the broader litigation expected to extend into 2027 and 2028. OpenAI's first hardware device is expected to launch next year.
OpenAI today said that it has acquired Software Applications Incorporated and its AI app, Sky. Software Applications Incorporated and Sky were created by a team of former Apple employees known for their work on Apple's Shortcuts feature and the Workflow app that preceded it.
Ari Weinstein and Conrad Kramer, two of the founders of Software Applications Incorporated, also founded Workflow. Workflow was a popular iOS automation app before Apple acquired it in 2017. Weinstein and Kramer joined Apple when Workflow was acquired, and the app ended up serving as the backbone for the Shortcuts feature that's available across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
Kramer left Apple in 2019 and Weinstein left in 2023, which is when the two teamed up to found their new company and start work on Sky. Sky didn't officially launch, but it is a Mac-based natural language AI assistant able to answer questions and complete tasks in any open Mac window.
OpenAI says that it plans to bring Sky's deep macOS integration into ChatGPT, with all members of the Sky team set to join OpenAI. That includes Weinstein, Kramer, and several other ex-Apple employees.
"We've always wanted computers to be more empowering, customizable, and intuitive. With LLMs, we can finally put the pieces together. That's why we built Sky, an AI experience that floats over your desktop to help you think and create. We're thrilled to join OpenAI to bring that vision to hundreds of millions of people." --Ari Weinstein, Co-Founder and CEO, Software Applications Incorporated
OpenAI's Sky acquisition comes just a day after OpenAI announced ChatGPT Atlas, a new browser that's designed to compete with Safari and Chrome. ChatGPT Atlas can perform tasks on the user's behalf with ChatGPT's existing AI Operator features, but Sky could further enhance that functionality in the future.
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