Meta wants to be a bigger player in AI. But as the company pushes further into the space, its relationship with the publishers and businesses that help fuel its platforms is coming under renewed scrutiny.
In this episode of The Signal, Tom Trewinnard and Fergus Bell unpack the controversy surrounding Meta's proposed changes to its business terms, which raised concerns about the company's ability to access content from websites linked to business accounts. Following a backlash from publishers, Meta revised the wording and delayed implementation. But the episode explores the bigger issue behind the headlines: as technology companies race to build increasingly powerful AI products, where does that leave the organisations creating the content they rely on?
The conversation then turns to Meta's wider AI ambitions, from its licensing deals with publishers to its efforts to establish itself as a serious contender in the next phase of the AI race. With the launch of its Muse personal AI assistant, the competition is moving beyond chatbots and towards tools that can take action, manage tasks and work on our behalf.
And that raises another question: what happens when AI becomes part of how we organise our working lives?
Tom and Fergus share their own experiences of building and customising personal AI assistants, exploring how they can connect with everyday tools like Slack and email, help prioritise tasks and take some of the mental admin out of the working day. With OpenAI's dots also entering the picture, the idea of having an AI assistant working alongside you is becoming increasingly tangible.
From who controls the content powering AI to who controls the assistants increasingly doing our work, this episode looks at two sides of a rapidly changing relationship with technology.
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