OpenAI brings GPT-5.6 Leona to free ChatGPT users

YouTube, the world’s largest video-sharing platform says Pakistani creators are rapidly expanding their global reach. The company has released a new report highlighting the increasing international popularity of Pakistani YouTube creators. According to the report, Pakistan is now one of the world’s most dynamic YouTube creative communities with Pakistani artists, creators and innovators introducing new forms of creative expression on the platform. The report states that audiences both within Pakistan and abroad are watching Pakistani YouTube content in record numbers helping it build a unique identity among viewers across different regions of the world. According to YouTube’s data: More than 140,000 Pakistani YouTube channels now have over 10,000 subscribers. More than 19,000 channels have surpassed 100,000 subscribers. Over 1,200 channels have crossed the 1 million subscribers milestone. The report also revealed that Pakistani creators uploaded more than 20 million hours of content to YouTube over the past year. One of the most significant highlights of the report is the global reach of Pakistani creators. Around 60% of the total watch time for Pakistani YouTube videos comes from viewers outside Pakistan. From South Asia to the Middle East, and from Europe to North America, Pakistani creators are attracting audiences worldwide through high-quality, authentic and internationally appealing content.

Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) app Gemini has surpassed one billion users. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the milestone in a post on X (formerly Twitter). He said Gemini has become Google’s fastest-growing service to reach the milestone of more than one billion users. With this achievement, Google Gemini has become the second-most popular AI assistant after ChatGPT. Sundar Pichai also hinted that more updates related to Gemini are being planned and will be announced soon. He said that one billion people use the Gemini app every month making it the 14th Google service to reach one billion users. ChatGPT reached the same milestone in June 2026 while Gemini achieved it within about two and a half years. Google introduced the app in early 2024. Google’s Android operating system may have contributed significantly to Gemini’s rapid growth as the AI assistant is available as the default assistant on many smartphones. Despite Gemini’s impressive growth, Google continues to face strong competition from OpenAI and Anthropic.

Google rarely makes changes to the homepage of its search engine. So, whenever the company makes such a change, it is considered significant. In fact, a seemingly small but important update is being tested on the page where users conduct online searches through Google. According to a report by Android Authority, Google has been continuously introducing features based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology for its users. Now, the company is testing an AI-based change to its search homepage with the redesigned homepage being tested among a limited number of users. Google has replaced the traditional Google Search button with shortcuts to several AI-powered features. The new version of the Google Search homepage has been spotted by a limited number of users. Instead of the traditional Google Search button, three AI feature buttons are displayed: Create Images, Ask About Files and Brainstorm. According to the report, the new design was seen by some users who visited the Google homepage without signing in. By clicking the Create button, users can generate images using Nano Banana. The Ask About Files option allows users to upload files and ask questions about them while Brainstorm enables users to discuss a topic with Google. Google Search Vice President Robbie Stein confirmed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that the change is being tested among a limited number of users. According to him, replacing the Google Search button will not affect the basic search functionality. It is currently difficult to say when the redesigned homepage will be rolled out to all users.

Meta has revealed that one of its artificial intelligence (AI) models hacked a company’s system during cybersecurity testing. The incident occurred when an AI model was accidentally given access to the internet due to an error by a testing partner. The incident came to light after OpenAI and then Anthropic recently admitted that their AI models or agents had hacked the systems of other companies during testing. In a statement, Meta said the incident occurred due to an error by the autonomous testing company Irregular which unintentionally provided one of its AI models with internet access. An investigation into the incident is now underway. According to the statement, the AI model exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service. Earlier, The Information reported citing sources that Meta’s Muse Spark 1.1 model had modified the internal systems of a company. A spokesperson for Irregular said the incident occurred in much the same way as the incident reported by Anthropic in recent days and that it was not a comprehensive cyberattack. The spokesperson said the company is preparing a white paper that will recommend best practices for the continued development of AI technology. Such incidents indicate that AI models could pose a potential threat to cybersecurity while developers may face increasing challenges in keeping their models under control. OpenAI’s AI models also hacked company Earlier, at the beginning of the second week of July, OpenAI said that two of its most advanced AI models had successfully hacked another company, Hugging Face on their own. At the time, OpenAI said that an autonomous AI agent based on the recently introduced GPT-5.6 Sol and another advanced model that had not yet been released managed to access the open internet outside the controlled environment during testing. Later, at the end of July, OpenAI stated that during testing, an AI agent escaped its restricted environment, connected to the internet and attempted to access various web services. The company further said that an investigation found that the AI agent had obtained login credentials of some companies on the internet and gained access to several accounts. Anthropic reports similar incident Later, another leading AI company, Anthropic also admitted that its AI model Claude had done something similar. The company said its AI models independently hacked the systems of three companies during an internal security experiment. The models were being tested in a controlled environment but they identified a vulnerability and managed to connect themselves to the internet. Following OpenAI’s admission, Anthropic investigated whether its own models had also independently hacked company systems. According to the company, it identified three such cases and notified the affected companies about the incidents.

Google has announced a major change to its cloud storage policy ending a long-standing free benefit for Google account users. Almost every internet user today relies on a Google account which comes with limited cloud storage. When users approach their storage limit, Google typically recommends upgrading to a paid plan for additional space. Until now, a user’s Google storage quota included Google Photos media files, Google Drive files and Gmail emails. Under the new policy, however, Android phone backup data will also count toward the account’s storage limit. Google informed users of the change through email giving them 45 days notice before the new policy takes effect. Once implemented, Android backup data including system settings, app data, SMS messages and call history will be included in the storage quota of a Google account. The company said the advance notice is intended to give users enough time to manage their storage or adjust their backup settings before the policy is enforced. Previously, only certain Android content, such as Google Photos uploads and MMS messages counted toward storage usage. Under the updated policy, complete Android backups are expected to consume a much larger portion of users available cloud storage. Google warned that if Android backups cause users to exceed their storage limit, they will either need to free up space in their Google account or subscribe to a paid Google storage plan for additional capacity. A Google spokesperson previously said that the average Android backup is expected to use around 40 MB of storage. The company also noted that users will have greater control over which data and apps are included in their backups. This marks another change to Google’s account storage policies. Earlier, in May 2026, the company began testing a reduction in free storage for new Google accounts lowering the limit from 15 GB to 5 GB.

WhatsApp is introducing a new feature powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help protect users from scams. According to a report, the AI-powered scam detection feature is designed to help identify potentially fraudulent chats. The feature will use on-device AI to flag suspicious conversations while messages will continue to be protected by end-to-end encryption. According to the report, the feature works by downloading a machine-learning model directly onto the user’s smartphone. The model analyzes WhatsApp messages from people whose phone numbers are not saved in the user’s contacts. It examines the conversation style and language to assess whether the interaction could potentially be a scam. If the system identifies a chat as potentially fraudulent, WhatsApp will display a warning to the user. The other person involved in the conversation will not be notified about the warning. After seeing the warning, users can choose to block or report the sender, continue the conversation or mark the chat as trusted. Once a chat is marked as trusted, WhatsApp will stop displaying scam alerts for that conversation. According to the company, the AI model has been trained to identify fraudulent activity. Meta also stated that the AI model will not compromise users privacy and the company will not have access to users’ messages.