News/Data
Uber’s gig within gig allows drivers to make money labeling AI data
Uber has launched a pilot program in the US that allows its drivers to complete data labeling tasks during downtime, expanding on a similar initiative already running in India. The move positions Uber to become a major player in the AI training data market by leveraging its global workforce of drivers and delivery workers to help enterprises scale their artificial intelligence efforts. What you should know: Uber's AI Solutions division is testing a program where select US drivers and couriers complete digital tasks like recording speech samples, submitting multilingual documents, and uploading images. The pilot builds on a successful program...
read Oct 14, 2025No, the NFL’s AI-powered “Digital Athlete” is not a companion
The NFL has partnered with Amazon Web Services to develop Digital Athlete, an AI-powered injury prediction tool that analyzes data from all 32 teams to help keep players healthier. The system processes massive amounts of player data from sensors, cameras, and tracking technology to identify injury risks and optimize training schedules, representing a significant shift toward data-driven player safety in professional sports. How it works: Digital Athlete uses sensors in shoulder pads, cameras, and optical tracking to gather comprehensive data from practice and games across all NFL teams. The system generates about 500 million data points weekly—the same amount NextGen...
read Oct 14, 2025France’s Publicis raises growth forecast as AI powers 73% of operations
French advertising giant Publicis raised its full-year organic growth forecast for the second time in 2025, crediting artificial intelligence as its primary growth driver. The company now reports that 73% of its operations are AI-powered, demonstrating how strategic AI implementation can deliver measurable business results amid ongoing debates about AI's practical value. What you should know: Publicis has systematically invested €12 billion ($12.7 billion) in data, technology, and AI infrastructure since 2015, enabling the company to monitor consumer behavior across more than 4 billion individuals globally. The advertising firm now individualizes marketing strategies at unprecedented scale, leveraging this massive data...
readGet SIGNAL/NOISE in your inbox daily
All Signal, No Noise
One concise email to make you smarter on AI daily.
AWS builds AI dashboard to analyze medical reports. Here’s how to make it work.
Healthcare organizations generate massive amounts of medical data daily, yet much of this valuable information remains locked away in complex reports that require significant time and expertise to interpret. A new solution combining Amazon Web Services' artificial intelligence capabilities with modern web technologies promises to transform how medical professionals interact with patient data. This comprehensive dashboard solution leverages Amazon Bedrock (AWS's managed AI service), LangChain (a framework for building AI applications), and Streamlit (a Python-based web application framework) to create an intelligent system that not only stores medical reports but actively helps interpret them through natural language conversations and dynamic...
read Oct 7, 2025JEDEC unveils UFS 5.0 storage standard with 10.8GB/s speeds for AI apps
The Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC), the organization that sets industry standards for semiconductor devices, has officially announced UFS 5.0, a new Universal Flash Storage standard that nearly doubles data transfer speeds to 10.8GB per second. The upgrade represents a significant leap from UFS 4.0's 5.8GB per second speeds and is specifically designed to meet the demanding performance requirements of AI-powered mobile applications and computing systems. What you should know: UFS 5.0 delivers substantial performance improvements while maintaining backward compatibility with existing hardware. The new standard reaches speeds of 10.8GB per second, compared to UFS 4.0's 5.8GB per second...
read Oct 7, 2025The customer journey of a 1,000 miles begins with 3 ways data, AI are shaping audience engagement
Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping how businesses connect with their audiences, but the transformation goes deeper than most companies realize. Traditional marketing approaches—built around predictable customer journeys through company websites and advertising touchpoints—are becoming obsolete as consumers increasingly rely on AI-powered search tools and conversational interfaces to make purchasing decisions. This shift creates both unprecedented challenges and opportunities. While audiences fragment across an expanding array of digital channels, their expectations for personalized, frictionless experiences continue to rise. Companies that master the intersection of data strategy and AI implementation can accelerate their marketing effectiveness from months-long campaign cycles to real-time optimization....
read Oct 3, 2025Only 46% can spot AI-generated phishing emails, according to survey
A global survey of 18,000 employed adults found that only 46% could correctly identify AI-generated phishing emails, while 54% either believed they were authentic human-written messages or were unsure. The findings reveal a critical vulnerability in cybersecurity awareness as artificial intelligence makes phishing attacks increasingly sophisticated and harder to detect across all age groups. What you should know: The inability to distinguish AI-generated threats spans all generations, with no significant differences in detection rates between age groups.• Gen Z correctly identified AI phishing attempts 45% of the time, millennials 47%, and both Gen X and baby boomers 46%.• When shown...
read Oct 3, 2025Uber acquires Belgian Segments.ai to expand AI data labeling services
Uber has acquired Belgian data labeling startup Segments.ai for an undisclosed amount, expanding its push into AI training services beyond its traditional ride-sharing and delivery operations. The move transforms Uber's internal data labeling capabilities—originally developed for its own autonomous driving efforts—into a revenue-generating service for other companies developing self-driving technologies worldwide. What you should know: Segments.ai specializes in annotating objects in videos and LiDAR sensor data, creating the training datasets essential for autonomous vehicle development.• The Y Combinator-backed startup helps engineers label complex visual data that AI systems need to recognize and respond to real-world driving scenarios.• Uber has been...
read Oct 2, 2025Iffy ethics as eufy pays users $40 to film fake package thefts for AI training
Anker's camera brand eufy paid users up to $40 per camera to submit footage of package theft and car break-ins to help train its AI detection systems in late 2024. When users lacked real criminal activity to film, eufy explicitly encouraged them to stage fake thefts, suggesting they position themselves to be captured by multiple cameras simultaneously for maximum efficiency. Why this matters: The approach highlights the creative—and potentially problematic—methods companies use to gather training data for AI systems, raising questions about whether synthetic data can effectively replace authentic criminal behavior patterns. How the program worked: Users could earn $2...
read Oct 2, 2025Job alert: Y Combinator’s Liva AI offers $160K for ops lead in voice data collection
Liva AI, a Y Combinator S25 startup, is hiring a Founding Operations Lead to scale their human voice and video data collection operations. The San Francisco-based company aims to build "the world's richest library of human voice and video data" to power more realistic AI voices and faces that capture diverse ethnicities, accents, and professional backgrounds. What you should know: This is a demanding founding role requiring relocation to San Francisco and a commitment to working 12-hour days, six days a week.• The position offers $120K-$160K salary plus comprehensive benefits including free food, equipment, wellness support, and paid family leave.•...
read Oct 1, 2025Superfiliate launches AI creator discovery tool using Meta’s first-party data
Superfiliate has launched an AI-powered creator discovery tool that uses first-party data from Meta to match brands with social media influencers. The Venice, California-based company aims to streamline what has traditionally been a time-consuming process of manually searching for content creators, leveraging recommendation intelligence similar to Netflix and Spotify's algorithms. How it works: The tool allows marketers to search for specific types of content creators and conduct comprehensive research on potential partnerships. Users can type search queries like "Find me home decor creators with 50K+ followers" to surface viable influencer options. Brands can upload a creator's social media handle to...
read Sep 29, 2025AI platform gives indie filmmakers Netflix-level data insights
Sean O'Kelly and Sami Arpa are democratizing film production with a new AI-powered platform that gives independent filmmakers access to the same data-driven insights that major streaming platforms use internally. Their collaboration between Brilliant Pictures and Largo.ai aims to level the playing field by providing predictive analytics, automated focus group testing, and financing tools that were previously exclusive to industry giants like Netflix and Amazon. What you should know: Largo.ai translates the complex data analytics used by major streamers into accessible tools for independent producers and writers. The platform analyzes scripts scene by scene to predict audience engagement, helping filmmakers...
read Sep 29, 2025Your AI chats aren’t private—here’s what each platform does with your data
AI chatbots have become indispensable business tools, handling everything from customer service inquiries to internal research tasks. However, most users remain unaware of a critical reality: these AI assistants are quietly documenting every conversation, creating detailed records that could expose sensitive business information, personal data, or strategic discussions. This digital paper trail extends far beyond your local device. Most AI providers store conversations indefinitely on their servers, where they may be reviewed by human employees, used to train future AI models, or potentially exposed through security breaches. For business users handling confidential information, client data, or proprietary strategies, understanding these...
read Sep 24, 2025AI system invented by Al Gore tracks deadly soot pollution in 2,500 cities
Former Vice President Al Gore has expanded his Climate TRACE system to track deadly soot pollution using satellite technology and artificial intelligence, enabling neighborhood-level monitoring of particle pollution sources across 2,500 cities worldwide. The system can identify 137,095 pollution sources and track their emissions in real-time, potentially saving millions of lives by empowering communities with precise data about local air quality threats. How it works: Gore's coalition deploys an extensive network of 300 satellites, 30,000 ground sensors, and AI algorithms to monitor particle pollution with unprecedented precision. The system tracks 137,095 sources of particle pollution globally, with 3,937 classified as...
read Sep 24, 2025AI startups risk collapse without data systems, warns ex-Facebook executive
Former Facebook design executive Julie Zhuo warns that AI startups are building their businesses on "good instincts and good vibes" rather than solid data analytics, despite attracting hundreds of millions in funding. Her critique highlights a fundamental vulnerability in the AI boom: companies experiencing explosive growth lack the infrastructure to understand why they're succeeding, leaving them unprepared when inevitable slowdowns occur. What you should know: AI companies are growing at unprecedented speeds without implementing proper data analysis systems to understand their success. "I don't think a lot of the fast-growing companies are using data well at this point," Zhuo explained...
read Sep 23, 2025Google launches MCP Server to democratize AI data access
Google launched the Model Context Protocol Server to provide developers with standardized access to public data from its Data Commons knowledge graph without requiring complex API integrations. The server builds on Anthropic's open MCP standard and aims to reduce AI hallucinations by giving large language models access to trusted public datasets, potentially democratizing data access for AI development at an unprecedented scale. What you should know: The MCP Server simplifies how AI agents consume publicly available data by eliminating the need for developers to navigate complex APIs. Data Commons provides public datasets from trusted sources for AI developers, data scientists...
read Sep 23, 2025California bill requires data centers to report water usage, awaits Newsom signature
California lawmakers have passed Assembly Bill 93, which would require data centers to report their water consumption both before operating and annually thereafter. The legislation, now awaiting Governor Gavin Newsom's signature, comes as the AI-driven data center boom puts growing pressure on water resources in California and the drought-stricken Southwest. Why this matters: Data centers can consume massive amounts of water for cooling—up to 500,000 gallons per day for a 100-megawatt facility—yet many companies don't currently disclose their usage, making it difficult for communities to plan for water allocation amid ongoing shortages. Key details: The bill requires both new and...
read Sep 22, 2025Gang of Eight: NY Times AI team to tackle massive data investigations
The New York Times has built a specialized AI team of eight people, led by editorial director Zach Seward, to help reporters tackle complex investigations involving massive datasets that were previously impossible to analyze manually. The initiative represents one of the most structured approaches to AI integration in newsrooms, focusing on research and investigations rather than content generation. What you should know: Seward's team primarily uses AI for semantic search and data analysis to help reporters process enormous amounts of information under tight deadlines. The team includes four engineers, a product designer, and two editors who work directly with reporters...
read Sep 22, 2025Back to tool: ChatGPT usage surges to 78B tokens as students return to class
OpenRouter data reveals that ChatGPT usage surged to a record 78.3 billion tokens on September 18, 2025, as schools reopened across the West following summer holidays. The dramatic seasonal pattern confirms that students drive a substantial portion of daily ChatGPT traffic, with usage dropping to just 36.7 billion tokens during June's summer break compared to nearly 80 billion tokens per day during May's exam period. The big picture: Academic calendars are directly shaping AI adoption patterns, with OpenRouter's 2.5 million user dataset showing consistent drops during school breaks and sharp recoveries when classes resume. Key usage patterns: The seasonal fluctuations...
read Sep 18, 2025AI storage crisis pushes hard disk drive wait times to nearly a year
AI workloads are creating an unprecedented storage crisis, with ultra-high-capacity hard disk drives now facing wait times of nearly a year and Western Digital implementing immediate price increases across its entire HDD portfolio. The surge in AI inference services from hyperscale cloud providers like Google and Oracle is generating massive data volumes that are overwhelming global storage infrastructure, forcing the industry to reconsider traditional storage strategies. What you should know: The storage shortage is most severe for the largest capacity drives, creating a supply bottleneck that could persist well into 2026. 32TB and larger HDDs now have lead times exceeding...
read Sep 12, 2025U.S. data center spending hits record $40B as AI drives 30% growth
U.S. data center spending reached a record $40 billion in June, marking a 30% year-over-year increase driven primarily by artificial intelligence and machine learning infrastructure demands. This unprecedented investment surge reflects how AI expansion is reshaping digital infrastructure, with tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet leading massive facility buildouts while raising critical questions about electricity grid capacity and sustainability. What you should know: The data center construction boom represents the largest infrastructure investment wave in the sector's history, with AI serving as the primary catalyst. Spending jumped from a 50% increase in 2024 to 30% growth in 2025, according...
read Sep 11, 202547% of retail brands now use AI daily for business operations
Nearly half of retail brands now use artificial intelligence daily or weekly, marking a shift from experimental projects to embedded business operations, according to Amperity's 2025 State of AI in Retail survey. This mainstream adoption reflects retailers' focus on measurable outcomes like revenue growth, customer loyalty, and operational efficiency, with 97 percent planning to maintain or increase their AI investments this year. What you should know: AI integration is becoming seamless across retail operations, from customer data management to personalized marketing campaigns. "We have AI embedded across many parts of the business, which makes it feel seamless rather than experimental,"...
read Sep 10, 2025Pot calling kettle? Spotify upset by thousands of users selling streaming data to AI developers
Over 18,000 Spotify users have joined "Unwrapped," a collective that pools and sells their streaming data to AI developers, earning $55,000 from their first data sale in June. The initiative represents a growing movement where users seek to monetize their personal data while building AI tools that offer deeper music insights than Spotify's annual Wrapped feature provides. The big picture: Users are no longer content waiting for Spotify to evolve its popular year-end recap feature, instead turning to AI-powered alternatives that can analyze their complete listening history for emotional patterns, mood tracking, and social comparisons with friends. What you should...
read Sep 9, 2025Cisco launches AI-powered data fabric to unify enterprise analytics
Cisco has launched an AI-driven data fabric powered by Splunk, designed to help enterprises unify and analyze distributed business and machine data. The new architecture, unveiled at Splunk .conf25 in Boston, integrates the Cisco Data Fabric with Splunk Federated Search for Snowflake to enable AI-powered insights from machine-generated telemetry across multiple platforms. What you should know: The Cisco Data Fabric creates a unified framework that connects disparate data sources for comprehensive analytics and AI applications. Built using Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud Platform capabilities, the fabric federates data from cloud, on-premises, and platforms like Snowflake and Splunk Indexes. The system...
read