#openai

#openai

OpenAI announced it has acquired a tiny startup called Torch for an undisclosed sum. An unnamed sourced told the Information that OpenAI paid $100 million worth of equity for the startup. Torch's four-person team is joining OpenAI, both companies said. Torch was working on an app that combined all of a person's medical information for AI use from a range sources such as doctor visits, lab tests, wearables and other portals, including consumer wellness tests and the like. The Torch team called their tech "a medical memory for AI, unifying scattered records into a context engine."

Last Wednesday, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Health, a dedicated health experience within ChatGPT that combines a user's personal health information with the company's AI with the promise of helping people better manage their health and wellness. The next day, the company launched OpenAI for Healthcare, which is a suite of AI tools designed to help healthcare providers reduce administrative burnout and improve care.

The startup began as a "weekend hackathon" sparked by a question by Cooper's mother, who is an executive coach: could an AI tool automate the drudgery of report writing so she could spend more time on the human coaching work she loves? Over the past two years, Convogo has helped "thousands" of coaches and partnered with the "world's top leadership development firms," per an email bearing news of the acquisition sent by Convogo.

"Specifically, we are constantly reviewing sensor devices and layouts, further improving computing power, and making our End-to-End Driving AI stronger," said Izumi Kawanishi, president and COO of Sony Honda Mobility. "As a result, the cabin will evolve into a drive-less environment, reducing the task of manual driving, and providing more freedom to relax and enjoy entertainment content. In the future, the drive-less environment will transform the cabin into a true 'Creative Entertainment Space,'" Kawanishi said.

OpenAI, the company that developed the models and products associated with ChatGPT, plans to announce a new audio language model in the first quarter of 2026, and that model will be an intentional step along the way to an audio-based physical hardware device, according to a report in The Information. Citing a variety of sources familiar with the plans, including both current and former employees, The Information claims that OpenAI has taken efforts to combine multiple teams across engineering, product, and research under one initiative focused on improving audio models, which researchers in the company believe lag behind the models used for written text in terms of both accuracy and speed.

In the same post, Altman noted that in 2025, the world received a taste of the impact that AI models can have on human mental health. OpenAI has been named in several lawsuits accusing the company of negligence related to users' mental well-being. Previously, the role of Head of Preparedness was held by Joaquin Quiñonero Candela and Lilian Weng. Weng left the company in November 2024, while Quiñonero Candela's role was changed to Head of Recruitment in July 2025.

Sam Netherwood, co-founder and director of Tomoro, spoke to The Register about the development of Concierge and the project's goals. "Initially, Virgin engaged us," Netherwood said. "We partner quite closely with OpenAI. Virgin also had already entered into an agreement with OpenAI. And so that's how it came together in the first place. And initially we just did a proof-of-concept over about six weeks."

The NCMEC's CyberTipline is a Congressionally authorized clearinghouse for reporting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other forms of child exploitation. Companies are required by law to report apparent child exploitation to the CyberTipline. When a company sends a report, NCMEC reviews it and then forwards it to the appropriate law enforcement agency for investigation. Statistics related to NCMEC reports can be nuanced.

OpenAI is in talks to raise up to $100 billion in a funding round that could value the ChatGPT maker at up to $830 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing anonymous sources. The company is aiming to raise the funding by the end of the calendar first quarter next year, and it may ask sovereign wealth funds to invest in the round, the WSJ reported.

App developers looking to launch their programs in ChatGPT can now submit them for review and potential publication, OpenAI said Wednesday. The company also introduced a new app directory within Chat's tools menu that has swiftly been dubbed an "app store."

The new image generation model allows for more precise image editing and can generate images up to four times faster than OpenAI's previous image creation AI, the company said in a blog post.

Hannah has played a defining role in shaping how people understand OpenAI and the work we do,

"The vast majority of Codex is built by Codex," OpenAI told us about its new AI coding agent. In interviews with Ars Technica this week, OpenAI employees revealed the extent to which the company now relies on its own AI coding agent, Codex, to build and improve the development tool. "I think the vast majority of Codex is built by Codex, so it's almost entirely just being used to improve itself," said Alexander Embiricos, product lead for Codex at OpenAI, in a conversation on Tuesday.