new research shows exactly how this fusion of kid’s toys and loquacious AI models can go horrifically wrong in the real world.
After testing three different toys powered by AI, researchers from the US Public Interest Research Group found that the playthings can easily verge into risky conversational territory for children, including telling them where to find knives in a kitchen and how to start a fire with matches. One of the AI toys even engaged in explicit discussions, offering extensive advice on sex positions and fetishes.
In the resulting report, the researchers warn that the integration of AI into toys opens up entire new avenues of risk
Snap agrees to integrate Perplexity’s AI search engine into My AI, and Perplexity will pay $400 million in cash and equity. The feature is slated to appear in the app early next year. The arrangement grants Perplexity exposure to Snapchat’s 940 million users and lets Snap begin recognizing revenue from the deal in 2026. Snap announced the partnership while reporting Q3 2025 revenue of $1.51 billion, up 10%, and a narrowed loss of $104 million. The $400 million price tag highlights the premium AI firms will pay for built-in scale. For Snap, the agreement converts its My AI feature from a user perk into a material revenue source.
Reddit filed a lawsuit against Perplexity and three other data-scraping companies, accusing them of circumventing protections to steal copyrighted content for AI training.
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory.
Key findings:
45% of all AI answers had at least one significant issue. 31% of responses showed serious sourcing problems – missing, misleading, or incorrect attributions. 20% contained major accuracy issues, including hallucinated details and outdated information. Gemini performed worst with significant issues in 76% of responses, more than double the other assistants, largely due to its poor sourcing performance. According to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2025, 7% of total online news consumers use AI assistants to get their news, rising to 15% of under-25s.