FTC Probes OpenAI and Anthropic as AI Campaign Ad Spending Hits $137M

The FTC is probing Anthropic and OpenAI following President Trump's dismissal of AI fears as a "hoax," and may fine the AI firms on par with penalties levied against companies that delay data breach reports, according to a recent report. The regulatory scrutiny marks a significant escalation in federal oversight of leading AI developers.

US candidates and PACs, predominantly tied to Republicans, have spent over $137 million on 220 AI-generated campaign ads for the 2026 election cycle, according to the New York Times. Roughly 70% of those 220 videos did not disclose their use of AI, with applications ranging from subtle visual enhancements to convincing deepfakes.

Meta and Apple have teamed up to launch Meta's newest open-weight AI model, Muse Spark Open, designed to run locally on Apple silicon Macs. This collaboration enables on-device AI processing without requiring cloud infrastructure, a notable shift toward privacy-focused machine learning.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is gaining the ability to peek at users' open Google Chrome tabs through a new extension upgrade, with the company posting a demo video of the functionality. The extension allows ChatGPT to view browser tabs when users tag Chrome within the ChatGPT web or desktop app, following the discontinuation of the standalone ChatGPT Atlas browser.

Cal AI's viral success was fueled by a small army of paid influencers, generating over $30 million in revenue across two years, according to TechCrunch. The AI-powered calorie tracking app was subsequently acquired by MyFitnessPal for an undisclosed sum in March.

YouTube Music is rolling out new generative AI labeling to distinguish between authentic singers and AI-generated "clanker" vocals. The AI music labels are currently appearing in YouTube Music and will expand to the main YouTube platform soon, per a company announcement.

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