Plus, Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek’s body-scan startup is valued at $1.8 billion. And Apple and Google mobile ecosystems face U.K. probe under new tech rules. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:31] TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, January 23rd. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI says its new artificial intelligence tool that can buy groceries and file expense reports went live today for some users. The startup's Operator Agent is part of a new generation of AI agents that can act on behalf of users. Other tech companies are working on similar kinds of agents.
[00:00:54] OpenAI's Operator is available to ChatGPT Pro users in the US. The startup is working with tech firms including Instacart, Uber, and eBay to make their webpages more accessible to users on the Operator homepage. The companies don't have a financial relationship with OpenAI as part of the collaboration. That's according to OpenAI's COO. Wall Street Journal owner News Corp has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI.
[00:01:19] Neko Health, a preventative healthcare tech company, has raised $260 million. The deal brings its value to $1.8 billion. That's according to people familiar with the funding. Neko Health was started by Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek. The Series B funding round was led by venture firm Lightspeed Venture Partners and is aimed at expanding the body scan startup's footprint in Europe and launching in the US.
[00:01:44] And the UK's Competition and Markets Authority is investigating Apple's and Google's mobile ecosystems to see if the two tech giants need to obey a new law governing digital competition. The CMA said the probes will assess the company's dominance in spaces like mobile phone operating systems, app stores, and web browsers. If the investigations determine that the companies have what it calls strategic market status, it can impose custom rules on them under the new law known as the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act.
[00:02:14] An Apple spokesperson said it faces competition in every segment and jurisdiction where it operates and its priority is customers' trust. Apple and Google said they would work constructively with the CMA. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing podcast.