Meta plans to significantly increase its investment in AI infrastructure, including data centers and servers, with capital expenditures expected to reach $66-72 billion in 2025, a $30 billion year-over-year increase. This aggressive investment will continue into 2026 as Meta pursues opportunities to expand its AI capabilities.

The company is developing leading AI infrastructure to build the best AI models and product experiences, with potential collaborations with financial partners to co-develop data centers. Meta has announced major AI "titan clusters" like Prometheus in Ohio and Hyperion in Louisiana, along with other unnamed projects.

Meta also anticipates increased employee compensation to attract AI engineers and researchers for its Superintelligence Labs unit, focusing on "personal superintelligence." The company's stock surged 10% after reporting strong revenue growth driven by AI-powered advertising tools, despite a $4.5 billion loss in its Reality Labs segment.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributes the rise in user engagement on the company's apps during the second quarter to advancements in AI. According to Zuckerberg, AI improvements in recommendation systems have led to a 5% increase in time spent on Facebook and a 6% increase on Instagram this quarter alone. Overall, Meta reports that its family of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp) had over 3.4 billion daily users in June, a 6% year-over-year increase. This growth contributed to a total family of apps revenue of $47.1 billion, a 22% year-over-year rise. The company also noted a 20% year-over-year increase in video time spent, driven by optimized ranking systems and the promotion of original content on Instagram. Even Threads, Meta's competitor to X, experienced gains in time spent due to the incorporation of LLMs.

Google has proposed changes to its Play Store policies in India, aiming to allow more real-money gaming apps on its platform. This move is an attempt to settle an antitrust case with WinZO. The proposal involves replacing the current pilot program with broader access for real-money games, requiring developers to prove their games are "games of skill" via third-party certification.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is reviewing Google's proposal, which includes updating Developer Program Policies and finalizing a business model for real-money game developers. Google plans to allow compliant games on the Play Store within 120 days of CCI approval and ad policy changes within 150 days.

This initiative could benefit Google by increasing revenue from real-money gaming apps and their ads. It may also help developers distributing apps outside the Play Store. However, the CCI's investigation into Google's practices is ongoing.

The Trump administration has announced collaborations with major tech companies like Google, OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic, and Apple to develop a digital health ecosystem. The initiative aims to improve patient and provider data sharing and create personalized tools for health management, including AI-powered assistants and digitized paperwork. Over 60 companies are participating, with expected results in early 2026.

Conversion, an AI-powered marketing automation startup founded by UC Berkeley dropouts, has raised a $28 million Series A led by Abstract. The company was conceived when the founders sought to enhance HubSpot with automation features.

The startup's AI-driven approach allows for automating personalized follow-up emails and lead organization, which has attracted midsize businesses looking to replace legacy marketing tools.

With the new funding, Conversion aims to target businesses using older marketing tools, leveraging the growing interest in AI to reach nearly $10 million in ARR over the past two years. The company competes with legacy and AI-native marketing platforms in a crowded market.

Hackers breached Allianz Life and stole customer Social Security numbers along with other personal data.

The breach occurred on July 16 and compromised the customer relationship database through a social engineering attack.

Affected data includes names, dates of birth, postal addresses, and Social Security numbers of a majority of 1.4 million customers.

Allianz Life is notifying affected individuals starting August 1 with specific details about the compromised data.

This breach is part of a recent increase in cyberattacks targeting insurance companies using social engineering tactics.

Germ, a startup, has launched end-to-end encrypted DMs for Bluesky in beta, offering a more secure messaging option than Bluesky's existing DMs.

Germ leverages Messaging Layer Security (MLS) and the AT Protocol, integrating with ATProto to allow users to chat securely with friends on Bluesky and other open social web apps.

Users can control who can initiate chats and block users across Germ, Bluesky, and other ATProto-powered apps.

Germ utilizes Apple's App Clips for quick chats via a 'magic link' in a user's Bluesky bio, allowing immediate conversations without a full app install.

The startup, founded by Tessa Brown and Mark Xue, aims to provide private communication and may introduce a premium subscription with advanced services in the future.

PlayerZero, founded by Animesh Koratana, has raised a $15 million Series A led by Foundation Capital to combat AI-generated bugs in software. The startup's AI agents are trained to identify and fix problems before code reaches production, functioning as an immune system for large codebases. Koratana developed PlayerZero at Stanford DAWN, with early backing from Matei Zaharia (Databricks) and support from investors like Drew Houston (Dropbox) and Guillermo Rauch (Vercel). PlayerZero is gaining traction, including with customers like Zuora, for its focus on safeguarding complex code, especially in billing systems.