As we’ve covered here and others have as well, Google continues to make search more AI driven. A lot of people have complained about the ‘AI Overview,’ and how links are placed under it. 9to5google.com is reporting that Google is introducing a new opt-out toggle in the Search Console to determine whether a site appears in and is used to help ground generative AI features. Sites that opt out will not receive traffic or impressions from AI Overviews, AI Mode, or AI Overviews in Google Discover, but will otherwise continue to appear in regular Google Search results and the Discover feed. There is a big caveat…this doesn’t apply to the Gemini app. Google is giving website publishers new generative AI Search stats in Search Console. Insights include impressions metrics, which pages appear in AI responses, and in what countries. 

In the latest earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg intimated that Meta had major plans for AI agents. Now, there’s some movement in that direction. According to engadget.com, they have launched AI agent tools for businesses that rely on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta Business Agent will let business owners delegate many daily tasks, like interacting with customers and booking appointments. Meta even claims that the agent will have the ability to ‘close sales’ and recommend products. Meta does note that the human business owners can jump into interactions at any point. Zuckerberg says the ultimate goal is for the agents to ‘eventually help you run your whole business.’ It’s a freebie, right? Well, not for long. Meta will place the feature into one of its subscription offerings ‘in the coming months.’

A class action suit has bee filed against Amazon which looks for damages for millions of Americans whose faces may have been recorded by Ring cameras since the Familiar Faces feature was rolled out late last year. Arstechnica.com notes that the suit lists $5 million in damages, but that is just the legal threshold…and the plaintiffs will seek far more. What is the uproar about? Ring’s Familiar Faces feature is designed to identify people who appear at one’s door and provide alerts to the owner of the camera. Amazon says Familiar Faces is not enabled by default but that owners of Ring cameras can turn it on. Ring camera users can create a “personal directory of up to 50 familiar faces” so they can be alerted when one comes to the door. A personal note here…I have a Ring, and while the feature isn’t on by default, the app pesters you each time you check it to activate the feature. The lawsuit claims that the feature ‘violates basic notions of consumer privacy.’ Besides money damages, the suit seeks an injunction against Amazon, praying for the court to change Amazon’s behavior with regards to the Familiar Faces feature. Amazon has not commented on the suit so far. 

OpenClaw, which has stormed into computers as an AI assistant, has gotten a lot of attention from the AI and tech communities. After OpenAI scooped up the founder of OpenClaw, techcrunch.com reports that Microsoft has dropped their own AI assistant…which operates similarly. Microsofts’s Scout is designed to bring what they are calling ‘power and flexibility’ to the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It is an always-on agentic assistant, and it’s intended to work alongside the user, mimicking the user’s style and identity. Scout is available through Microsoft’s Frontier program, which if for early adaptors. It requires an GitHub Copilot subscription to use. Microsoft claims Scout will come with a built-in “policy conformance system” that will continuously check whether the system is operating according to set guidelines, and each conformance check will produce its own audit trail.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.