Daily News: May 29, 2025 - by Tom Martin
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New York Times and Amazon Reach Landmark AI Licensing Agreement
The New York Times announced a multiyear licensing agreement with Amazon, granting the tech giant rights to use its editorial content, including news articles, NYT Cooking recipes, and sports coverage from The Athletic, across Amazon’s artificial intelligence platforms. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien emphasized the arrangement aligns with the company's commitment to valuing high-quality journalism, while Amazon plans to leverage the content to enhance its AI products and services, potentially including Alexa and AI model training.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/business/media/new-york-times-amazon-ai-licensing.html
DeepSeek Releases Compact R1 AI Model That Runs Efficiently on a Single GPU
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek unveiled a smaller, "distilled" version of its advanced R1 reasoning model, named DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B. Built upon Alibaba’s Qwen3-8B, this compact model outperforms Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash in mathematical reasoning tests and closely competes with Microsoft's Phi 4 on rigorous benchmarks. The distilled DeepSeek model can run efficiently on a single GPU, significantly reducing computing demands and making it appealing for both academic research and commercial deployment.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/29/deepseeks-distilled-new-r1-ai-model-can-run-on-a-single-gpu/
Meta AI Hits 1 Billion Monthly Users, Eyes Paid Subscription Expansion
Meta AI now reaches one billion monthly active users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced at the company's annual shareholder meeting. Doubling from 500 million users since September 2024, Meta aims to deepen user engagement by enhancing personalization, voice interactions, and entertainment features. Zuckerberg hinted at future monetization possibilities, setting the stage for Meta AI to directly compete with popular AI chat platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The milestone follows the recent launch of a dedicated Meta AI app.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/29/meta-ai-now-has-1b-monthly-active-users/
Nvidia and AMD to Launch New AI Chips in China Amid US Export Restrictions
To comply with U.S. semiconductor export restrictions, Nvidia and AMD are preparing to introduce specialized AI chips for the Chinese market. Nvidia will sell a simplified GPU code-named "B20," while AMD will offer its Radeon AI PRO R9700 workstation GPU, with sales expected to begin in July. Nvidia anticipates an additional $8 billion impact next quarter, prompting the introduction of budget-friendly alternatives priced below existing offerings.
Salesforce Cuts Engineering and Service Jobs as AI Boosts Productivity
Salesforce has revealed it is hiring fewer software engineers and customer service employees due to improved productivity from artificial intelligence, according to CFO Robin Washington. As AI assistants streamline internal processes, the company plans reduced hiring in technical roles, though it continues expanding its sales team by 22% this year. Salesforce’s shift highlights a broader trend where major tech firms increasingly rely on AI for coding and operational tasks.
Today’s headlines confirm we're rapidly crossing from speculative promises about AI to tangible economic disruption. The arrival of a new economic reality, where AI reshapes markets, employment, geopolitics, and culture at breathtaking speed.
