Tesla’s sales are down 30% in China, and it’s not because of Elon Musk

Apple had previously been considering using OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, but decided in the end to go with Google as it works toward improving its own internal models. Google, which makes a much less widely sold phone, the Pixel, has succeeded in bringing consumer AI to smartphone users where Apple has failed.

Google’s antitrust ruling in September helped safeguard the two companies’ partnerships — including the more than $20 billion Google pays Apple each year to be the default search engine on its devices — as long as they aren’t exclusive.

It builds on Netflix’s previous attempt at measuring ad viewership with monthly active users, which is the number of profiles that have watched ads (94 million as of May). The MAV measurement, of course, is a lot bigger, and bigger numbers are more attractive to advertisers, who are spending more and more on streaming platforms.

“After speaking to our partners, we know that what they want most is an accurate, clear, and transparent representation of who their ads are reaching,” Netflix President of Advertising Amy Reinhard explained in a press release. “Our move to viewers means we can give a more comprehensive count of how many people are actually on the couch, enjoying our can’t-miss series, films, games, and live events with friends and family.”

Netflix last reported its long-followed and more easily understood paid membership numbers at the beginning of the year, when it crossed 300 million.

Like a similar piece from The New York Times in September, this one has a lot of fun details. Read it all, but here are some to tide you over:

• Musk spent so much time at xAI this summer that he held meetings there with Tesla employees.

• He personally oversaw the design of a sexy chatbot named Ani, who sports pigtails and skimpy clothes and for whom “employees were compelled to turn over their biometric data” to train.

• The chatbot, which users can ask to “change into lingerie or fantasize about a romantic encounter with them,” has helped boost user numbers, which are still way lower than ChatGPT’s.

• Executives and board members have told top investors in the past few weeks that they can’t make Musk work at Tesla full time. Board Chair Robyn Denholm explained that in his free time, Musk “likes to create companies, and they’re not necessarily Tesla companies.”

The letter from MPA’s law firm reportedly said the organization worked for decades to earn the public’s trust in the rating system, and it does not want Meta’s AI-powered content moderation failures to blow back on its work:

“Any dissatisfaction with Meta’s automated classification will inevitably cause the public to question the integrity of the MPA’s rating system.”

Meta told the WSJ that it never claimed or implied the content on Instagram Teen Accounts would be certified by the MPA.