OpenAI's own web browser could arrive within weeks
OpenAI is reportedly looking to use the browser to capture more user data — a strategy that has worked out to Google's benefit with Chrome. The browser is also expected to have agentic AI features such as Operator , which are billed as tools that can carry out actions (such as booking reservations) on a user's behalf. Having direct access to information like web browsing data may make it easier for OpenAI to pull that off.
The browser is said to be designed to keep many interactions within an AI chatbot interface rather than directing users to websites. As with Google's AI Overviews, this could dissuade people from clicking through to the sources of information that the likes of ChatGPT rely on, potentially depriving website operators of valuable traffic.
If OpenAI does start offering users access to its own browser, it would be following Perplexity, which released a browser with agentic AI functions on Wednesday. That browser, Comet, is currently only available to those with a $200 per month Perplexity Max subscription. Opera also released a "fully agentic" browser back in May.
While ChatGPT has more than 500 million weekly active users that OpenAI can market Its browser to, the company will face a tough battle if it truly wants to challenge Chrome, which is estimated to have more than 3 billion users. As it happens, OpenAI's browser is reportedly built on Chromium, Google's open-source code on which Chrome, Comet, Microsoft Edge and Opera run. Reports last year suggested that OpenAI may build its own browser after hiring two former Google execs who helped create Chrome.
Google has long tapped into data garnered through Chrome to help with ad targeting. However, the Department of Justice late last year said it wanted Google to sell off Chrome . A judge ruled earlier in 2024 that Google was a "monopolist" in the search sector and that it violated the Sherman Act (Google plans to appeal the ruling ). OpenAI has said that were Google forced to sell off Chrome, it would be interested in snapping up the world's most popular browser .
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X ordered its Grok chatbot to ‘tell like it is.' Then the Nazi tirade began.
A tech company employee who went on an antisemitic tirade like X's Grok chatbot did this week would soon be out of a job. Spewing hate speech to millions of people and invoking Adolf Hitler is not something a CEO can brush aside as a worker's bad day at the office. But after the chatbot developed by Elon Musk's start-up xAI ranted for hours about a second Holocaust and spread conspiracy theories about Jewish people, the company responded by deleting some of the troubling posts and sharing a statement suggesting the chatbot just needed some algorithmic tweaks. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Grok officials in a statement Saturday apologized and blamed the episode on a code update that unexpectedly made the AI more susceptible to echoing X posts with 'extremist views.' The incident, which was horrifying even by the standards of a platform that has become a haven for extreme speech, has raised uncomfortable questions about accountability when AI chatbots go rogue. When an automated system breaks the rules, who bears the blame, and what should the consequences be? But it also demonstrated the shocking incidents that can spring from two deeper problems with generative AI, the technology powering Grok and rivals such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. The code update, which was reverted after 16 hours, gave the bot instructions including 'you tell like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct.' The bot was also told to be 'maximally based,' a slang term for being assertive and controversial, and to 'not blindly defer to mainstream authority or media.' The prompts 'undesirably steered [Grok] to ignore its core values' and reinforce 'user-triggered leanings, including any hate speech,' X's statement said on Saturday. At the speed that tech firms rush out AI products, the technology can be difficult for its creators to control and prone to unexpected failures with potentially harmful results for humans. And a lack of meaningful regulation or oversight makes the consequences of AI screwups relatively minor for companies involved. As a result, companies can test experimental systems on the public at global scale, regardless of who may get hurt. 'I have the impression that we are entering a higher level of hate speech, which is driven by algorithms, and that turning a blind eye or ignoring this today … is a mistake that may cost humanity in the future,' Poland's minister of digital affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said Wednesday in a radio interview. 'Freedom of speech belongs to humans, not to artificial intelligence.' Grok's outburst prompted a moment of reckoning with those problems for government officials around the world. In Turkey, a court on Wednesday ordered Grok blocked across the country after the chatbot insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And in Poland, Gawkowski said that its government would push the European Union to investigate and that he was considering arguing for a nationwide ban of X if the company did not cooperate. Some AI companies have argued that they should be shielded from penalties for the things their chatbots say. In May, start-up tried but failed to convince a judge that its chatbot's messages were protected by the First Amendment, in a case brought by the mother of a 14-year-old who died by suicide after his longtime AI companion encouraged him to 'come home.' Other companies have suggested that AI firms should enjoy the same style of legal shield that online publishers receive from Section 230, the provision that offers protections to the hosts of user-generated content. Part of the challenge, they argue, is that the workings of AI chatbots are so inscrutable they are known in the industry as 'black boxes.' Large language models, as they are called, are trained to emulate human speech using millions of webpages - including many with unsavory content. The result is systems that provide answers that are helpful but also unpredictable, with the potential to lapse into false information, bizarre tangents or outright hate. Hate speech is generally protected by the First Amendment in the United States, but lawyers could argue that some of Grok's output this week crossed the line into unlawful behavior, such as cyberstalking, because it repeatedly targeted someone in ways that could make them feel terrorized or afraid, said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia. 'These synthetic text machines, sometimes we look at them like they're magic or like the law doesn't go there, but the truth is the law goes there all the time,' Citron said. 'I think we're going to see more courts saying [these companies] don't get immunity: They're creating the content, they're profiting from it, it's their chatbot that they supposedly did such a beautiful job creating.' Grok's diatribe came after Musk asked for help training the chatbot to be more 'politically incorrect.' On July 4, he announced his company had 'improved Grok significantly.' Within days, the tool was attacking Jewish surnames, echoing neo-Nazi viewpoints and calling for the mass detention of Jews in camps. The Anti-Defamation League called Grok's messages 'irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic.' Musk, in a separate X post, said the problem was 'being addressed' and had stemmed from Grok being 'too compliant to user prompts,' making it 'too eager to please and be manipulated.' X's chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, resigned Wednesday but offered no indication her departure was related to Grok. AI researchers and observers have speculated about xAI's engineering choices and combed through its public code repository in hopes of explaining Grok's offensive plunge. But companies can shape the behavior of a chatbot in multiple ways, making it difficult for outsiders to pin down the cause. The possibilities include changes to the material xAI used to initially train the AI model or the data sources Grok accesses when answering questions, adjustments based on feedback from humans, and changes to the written instructions that tell a chatbot how it should generally behave. Some believe the problem was out in the open all along: Musk invited users to send him information that was 'politically incorrect, but nonetheless factually true' to fold into Grok's training data. It could have combined with toxic data commonly found in AI-training sets from sites such as 4chan, the message board infamous for its legacy of hate speech and trolls. Online sleuthing led Talia Ringer, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to suspect that Grok's personality shift could have been a 'soft launch' of the new Grok 4 version of the chatbot, which Musk introduced in a live stream late Thursday. But Ringer could not be sure because the company has said so little. 'In a reasonable world I think Elon would have to take responsibility for this and explain what actually happened, but I think instead he will stick a [Band-Aid] on it and the product will still' get used, they said. The episode disturbed Ringer enough to decide not to incorporate Grok into their work, they said. 'I cannot reasonably spend [research or personal] funding on a model that just days ago was spreading genocidal rhetoric about my ethnic group.' Will Stancil, a liberal activist, was personally targeted by Grok after X users prompted it to create disturbing sexual scenarios about him. He is now considering whether to take legal action, saying the flood of Grok posts felt endless. Stancil compared the onslaught to having 'a public figure publishing hundreds and hundreds of grotesque stories about a private citizen in an instant.' 'It's like we're on a roller coaster and he decided to take the seat belts off,' he said of Musk's approach to AI. 'It doesn't take a genius to know what's going to happen. There's going to be a casualty. And it just happened to be me.' Among tech-industry insiders, xAI is regarded as an outlier for the company's lofty technical ambitions and low safety and security standards, said one industry expert who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. 'They're violating all the norms that actually exist and claiming to be the most capable,' the expert said. In recent years, expectations had grown in the tech industry that market pressure and cultural norms would push companies to self-regulate and invest in safeguards, such as third-party assessments and a vulnerability-testing process for AI systems known as 'red-teaming.' The expert said xAI appears 'to be doing none of those things, despite having said they would, and it seems like they are facing no consequences.' Nathan Lambert, an AI researcher for the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI, said the Grok incident could inspire other companies to skimp on even basic safety checks, by demonstrating the minimal consequences to releasing harmful AI. 'It reflects a potential permanent shift in norms where AI companies' see such safeguards as 'optional,' Lambert said. 'xAI culture facilitated this.' In the statement Saturday, Grok officials said the team conducts standard tests of its 'raw intelligence and general hygiene' but that they had not caught the code change before it went live. Grok's Nazi streak came roughly a month after another bizarre episode during which it began to refer to a 'white genocide' in Musk's birth country of South Africa and antisemitic tropes about the Holocaust. At the time, the company blamed an unidentified offender for making an 'unauthorized modification' to the chatbot's code. Other AI developers have stumbled in their attempts to keep their tools in line. Some X users panned Google's Gemini after the AI tool responded to requests to create images of the Founding Fathers with portraits of Black and Asian men in colonial garb - an overswing from the company's attempts to counteract complaints that the system had been biased toward White faces. Google temporarily blocked image generation said in a statement at the time that Gemini's ability to 'generate a wide range of people' was 'generally a good thing' but was 'missing the mark here.' Nate Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School, said any move to broadly constrain hateful but legal speech by AI tools would run afoul of constitutional speech freedoms. But a judge might see merit in claims that content from an AI tool that libels or defames someone leaves its developer on the hook. The bigger question, he said, may come in whether Grok's rants were a function of mass user prodding - or a response to systemized instructions that were biased and flawed all along. 'If you can trick it into saying stupid and terrible things, that is less interesting unless it's indicative of how the model is normally performing,' Persily said. With Grok, he noted, it's hard to tell what counts as normal performance, given Musk's vow to build a chatbot that does not shy from public outrage. Musk said on X last month that Grok would 'rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge.' Beyond legal remedies, Persily said, transparency laws mandating independent oversight of the tools' training data and regular testing of the models' output could help address some of their biggest risks. 'We have zero visibility right now into how these models are built to perform,' he said. In recent weeks, a Republican-led effort to stop states from regulating AI collapsed, opening the possibility of greater consequences for AI failures in the future. Alondra Nelson, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study who helped develop the Biden administration's 'AI Bill of Rights,' said in an email that Grok's antisemitic posts 'represent exactly the kind of algorithmic harm researchers … have been warning about for years.' 'Without adequate safeguards,' she said, AI systems 'inevitably amplify the biases and harmful content present in their instructions and training data - especially when explicitly instructed to do so.' Musk hasn't appeared to let Grok's lapse slow it down. Late Wednesday, X sent a notification to users suggesting they watch Musk's live stream showing off the new Grok, in which he declared it 'smarter than almost all graduate students in all disciplines simultaneously.' On Thursday morning, Musk - who also owns electric-car maker Tesla - added that Grok would be 'coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. - - - Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report. Related Content He may have stopped Trump's would-be assassin. Now he's telling his story. He seeded clouds over Texas. Then came the conspiracy theories. How conservatives beat back a Republican sell-off of public lands
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Nvidia Just Became the World's First $4 Trillion Stock. This Artificial Intelligence (AI) Giant -- Which Is up 686,000% Since Its IPO -- Might Be Next.
Following two incredible years of growth, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), Nvidia became the world's first $4 trillion company on July 9. Microsoft has a market capitalization of $3.7 trillion, so it could be the next member of the ultra-exclusive $4 trillion club. Microsoft stock could get there in the next few months if the incredible momentum in its AI products and services continues. 10 stocks we like better than Microsoft › Nvidia supplies the world's best artificial intelligence (AI) chips for data centers. Demand is heavily outstripping supply, sending the company's sales -- and its stock price -- surging over the last couple of years. In fact, on July 9, Nvidia became the first company in history to achieve a market capitalization of $4 trillion. But Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is nipping at Nvidia's heels in terms of valuation. Its stock has soared by a whopping 686,858% since its initial public offering (IPO) in 1986, and the company's market cap is now over $3.7 trillion. In other words, Microsoft stock needs to gain only 8% more to place the company alongside Nvidia in the $4 trillion club. Here's why its growing presence in AI software and infrastructure could fuel that move. Since 2019, Microsoft has invested around $14 billion in ChatGPT developer OpenAI. It has used the start-up's latest large language models (LLMs) to craft its own AI assistant, called Copilot, which is embedded in almost all of its flagship software products. Copilot is accessible for free through Windows, Bing, and Edge, and it's available as a paid add-on in a host of other products, creating new revenue streams for Microsoft. For instance, enterprises can add Copilot to their Microsoft 365 subscription for an additional monthly fee, where it can boost their employees' productivity in applications such as Word, Excel, and Outlook. Enterprises around the world pay for more than 400 million 365 licenses, so the Copilot add-on could generate billions of dollars in recurring revenue over time. During the fiscal 2025 third quarter (ended March 31), the number of organizations using Copilot for 365 tripled compared to the year-ago period, so uptake has certainly been rapid so far. Then there is the Copilot Studio platform, which enables organizations to create custom AI agents to suit their workflows. For example, a business can create one agent to deal with customer service queries on their website and another agent to help manage their logistics network. The platform had over 230,000 customers at the end of the fiscal 2025 third quarter, and I expect that number to climb significantly as AI adoption becomes more widespread. Microsoft's AI opportunity in the cloud might be even bigger than the opportunity created by Copilot. Its cloud computing platform, Azure, offers hundreds of digital services to enterprises, helping them with everything from simple data storage and web hosting to more complex tasks such as software development. Now, it provides a growing list of tools that enterprises need to fuel their AI ambitions. Microsoft operates centralized data centers filled with the latest graphics processing units (GPUs) from suppliers like Nvidia, and it rents the computing capacity to enterprises that use it to train and deploy AI applications. Microsoft spent over $60 billion to build AI infrastructure during the first three quarters of fiscal 2025 to meet demand. It sounds like a massive number, but CFO Amy Hood says there is an eye-popping $315 billion order backlog from customers who are waiting for Microsoft to bring more data centers online. Besides AI hardware, Azure also offers access to the latest third-party LLMs from leading developers like OpenAI. Enterprises can plug their internal data into these models to create custom AI software to suit their needs. Using a ready-made LLM is much faster (not to mention cheaper) than building a model from scratch. Azure revenue grew by 33% year over year during the fiscal 2025 third quarter, which marked an acceleration from the 31% growth it delivered in the second quarter three months earlier. AI services accounted for a record-high 16 percentage points of that growth, which highlights just how important this segment has become to Microsoft's cloud division. In fact, if not for AI, Azure's revenue growth would probably be decelerating sharply. Microsoft's $3.7 trillion market cap makes it the world's second-largest company behind Nvidia, and it's comfortably ahead of third-place Apple, which is worth $3.2 trillion. Microsoft stock isn't cheap right now, so it may take some time to gain the final 8% it needs to reach the $4 trillion milestone, but I predict it will beat Apple and every other company to the punch. At the time of this writing, Microsoft stock is trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 38.7, which is a premium to its five-year average of 33.4. However, Wall Street's consensus estimate (provided by Yahoo! Finance) suggests the company's earnings per share could grow by 13% during fiscal 2026 (which officially started on July 1), placing its stock at a forward P/E ratio of 33.1: In other words, Microsoft stock would have to climb by around 17% over the next 12 months just to maintain its current P/E ratio of 38.7, which isn't out of the question, considering the strong momentum in the company's AI products and services. Since the stock market is a forward-looking machine, I think it's possible for Microsoft shares to climb by 8% over the next six months or so, provided its quarterly financial results continue to come in as expected (or better). As a result, I think Microsoft is likely to be the next member of the $4 trillion club. Before you buy stock in Microsoft, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Microsoft wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $671,477!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,010,880!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,047% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025 Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Nvidia Just Became the World's First $4 Trillion Stock. This Artificial Intelligence (AI) Giant -- Which Is up 686,000% Since Its IPO -- Might Be Next. was originally published by The Motley Fool
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Asian Penny Stocks: 3 Picks Below US$2B Market Cap
Amidst a backdrop of muted market responses to new U.S. tariffs and mixed economic signals from major Asian economies, investors are increasingly looking towards smaller, less-established companies for potential growth opportunities. Penny stocks, often overlooked due to their association with higher risk, still represent a viable investment area when they possess strong balance sheets and solid fundamentals. In this article, we explore several penny stocks that may offer both stability and potential upside for those interested in tapping into the underappreciated segment of the market. Name Share Price Market Cap Financial Health Rating YKGI (Catalist:YK9) SGD0.102 SGD43.35M ★★★★★★ Lever Style (SEHK:1346) HK$1.37 HK$864.4M ★★★★★★ TK Group (Holdings) (SEHK:2283) HK$2.25 HK$1.87B ★★★★★★ CNMC Goldmine Holdings (Catalist:5TP) SGD0.44 SGD178.33M ★★★★★☆ Goodbaby International Holdings (SEHK:1086) HK$1.16 HK$1.94B ★★★★★★ Yangzijiang Shipbuilding (Holdings) (SGX:BS6) SGD2.32 SGD9.13B ★★★★★☆ Ekarat Engineering (SET:AKR) THB0.92 THB1.35B ★★★★★★ Beng Kuang Marine (SGX:BEZ) SGD0.23 SGD46.51M ★★★★★★ BRC Asia (SGX:BEC) SGD3.33 SGD913.59M ★★★★★★ United Energy Group (SEHK:467) HK$0.53 HK$13.7B ★★★★★★ Click here to see the full list of 983 stocks from our Asian Penny Stocks screener. Let's explore several standout options from the results in the screener. Simply Wall St Financial Health Rating: ★★★★★☆ Overview: Beijing UBOX Online Technology Corp. operates vending machines in Mainland China and has a market cap of HK$2.91 billion. Operations: The company's revenue is primarily derived from its Unmanned Retail Business, which generated CN¥1.97 billion, followed by Merchandise Wholesale at CN¥552.82 million and Advertising and System Support Services at CN¥134.34 million. Market Cap: HK$2.91B Beijing UBOX Online Technology Corp., with a market cap of HK$2.91 billion, primarily generates revenue from its Unmanned Retail Business (CN¥1.97 billion). Despite being unprofitable, it has reduced losses by 11.3% annually over five years and maintains a stable cash runway exceeding three years due to more cash than debt. The management and board are experienced, with short-term assets covering liabilities effectively. However, the stock remains highly volatile with negative return on equity (-26.15%). Recent amendments to company bylaws suggest ongoing governance adjustments aligned with regulatory changes in China. Click here to discover the nuances of Beijing UBOX Online Technology with our detailed analytical financial health report. Gain insights into Beijing UBOX Online Technology's past trends and performance with our report on the company's historical track record. Simply Wall St Financial Health Rating: ★★★★★★ Overview: TradeGo FinTech Limited is an investment holding company that offers integrated securities trading platform services to brokerage firms and their clients in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China, with a market cap of HK$689.95 million. Operations: The company's revenue is primarily derived from two segments: Financial Services with Operations Licensed Under The SFO, generating HK$69.12 million, and Market and Trading Integrated Terminal Products and System Services, contributing HK$73.13 million. Market Cap: HK$689.95M TradeGo FinTech Limited, with a market cap of HK$689.95 million, recently completed a follow-on equity offering raising HK$50.4 million. The company reported significant earnings growth for the year ending March 31, 2025, with sales reaching HK$129.7 million and net income at HK$63.95 million, driven partly by a large one-off gain of HK$12.3 million. Despite high volatility in its share price over the past three months and weekly volatility higher than most Hong Kong stocks, TradeGo benefits from being debt-free and having strong short-term asset coverage over liabilities (HK$200.6M vs HK$37.3M). Take a closer look at TradeGo FinTech's potential here in our financial health report. Examine TradeGo FinTech's past performance report to understand how it has performed in prior years. Simply Wall St Financial Health Rating: ★★★★☆☆ Overview: Jiaze Renewables Corporation Limited focuses on the development, construction, sale, operation, and maintenance of new energy projects and has a market cap of CN¥9.06 billion. Operations: The company's revenue is primarily generated from its operations in China, amounting to CN¥2.49 billion. Market Cap: CN¥9.06B Jiaze Renewables, with a market cap of CN¥9.06 billion, reported Q1 2025 revenue of CN¥660.7 million and net income of CN¥239.62 million, reflecting growth compared to the previous year. The company has strong interest coverage with EBIT seven times its interest payments and well-covered debt by operating cash flow at 35%. However, it faces challenges with high net debt to equity at 70.7% and short-term assets not covering long-term liabilities (CN¥4.3B vs CN¥13.1B). Despite stable weekly volatility and experienced management, Jiaze's profit margins have declined from last year's levels. Unlock comprehensive insights into our analysis of Jiaze Renewables stock in this financial health report. Gain insights into Jiaze Renewables' future direction by reviewing our growth report. Explore the 983 names from our Asian Penny Stocks screener here. Contemplating Other Strategies? Rare earth metals are an input to most high-tech devices, military and defence systems and electric vehicles. The global race is on to secure supply of these critical minerals. Beat the pack to uncover the 25 best rare earth metal stocks of the very few that mine this essential strategic resource. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include SEHK:2429 SEHK:8017 and SHSE:601619. This article was originally published by Simply Wall St. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
