Marketplace Tech

There's a new flex in Silicon Valley: how big is your AI agent swarm? They can work on your behalf, autonomously, 24/7, on whatever goal you give them. You might think having an army of AI minions could free up some time, maybe make work more chill. But, you'd be wrong, as Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino reports.

On this week's “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review,” we'll discuss why Apple is paying a $250 million settlement over its Apple Intelligence tool and its capabilities. Plus, GameStop makes a surprising buyout offer for eBay. But first up: Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, announced a new computing deal this week with SpaceX and its AI division, xAI. Anthropic will get access to SpaceX's Colossus One data center, which will let the company increase how much its customers can use Claude. The deal comes as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is facing off in federal court against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke about all this with Caroline O'Donovan, AI and technology senior reporter at The San Francisco Standard, who noted that Anthropic's leaders talked about the need for more computing power at their developer conference this week. Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes.”

Back in 2015, Elon Musk and Sam Altman got the idea to start a nonprofit AI lab to develop artificial general intelligence that benefits all humanity. The lab would also make its technology open source, calling it OpenAI.All that is according to a complaint filed by Elon Musk, who has since parted ways with the organization. And now he is suing OpenAI, its CEO Sam Altman and its president Greg Brockman, saying they have abandoned the founding principles of the organization in pursuit of profits.They are currently facing off in federal court in the Northern District of California. Paresh Dave at Wired has been in the courtroom. He explains more on what the core of Musk's case is.

Technology has been transformative for how police officers do their jobs. Body cameras, speed detection technology and surveillance drones are some prominent examples. And now, law enforcement departments are trying to figure out if and how they want to add artificial intelligence to the mix. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Greg Barber, a science and technology journalist who recently wrote about this for Proof News. He explained how AI is being used in police work now and whether or not AI has become a time-saving tool for officers.

The startup Winnie is a marketplace for childcare. It works like this: Parents type in the age of their kid and their zip code, then different childcare providers in the area will pop up. You can also filter by languages spoken, and whether you want a childcare center or home-based daycare or another option. It's free for parents to use.But the company was founded back in 2016, when AI search wasn't really a thing. And Winnie's CEO and co-founder Sara Mauskopf says parents now want to be able to describe what they're looking for in natural language. So, Winnie has had to adapt. It's just released an AI-powered search tool.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Mauskopf to learn more about their new AI search engine and the challenges of keeping up with the fast-paced AI sector.

The GUARD Act is a bipartisan bill that would prohibit companies from letting kids under 18 interact with what the legislation calls "AI companions,” which are chatbots designed to encourage the simulation of an interpersonal relationship.This comes after some harrowing stories of teenagers who developed relationships with chatbots and then harmed themselves or others. The bill just passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes talks about this with Ashley Gold, a senior tech policy reporter at Axios.

This week, Taylor Swift trademarked her voice and image in what appears to be a bid to protect against AI misuse. Plus, a Japanese airline is experimenting with humanoid robots to help with baggage.But first, Google landed a deal with the Pentagon to let its AI models be used for classified work. A Google spokesperson told us in a statement that the company is proud to be providing its services for national security and that it believes AI should not be used for “domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weaponry without appropriate human oversight."We talked with Maria Curi at Axios about how Google's deal compares to ones the Department of Defense has with other AI companies. Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes.”

The war with Iran has upended supply chains including for materials that are critical to building the electronics we use everyday, such as a certain kind of thermoplastic, copper, and helium. We are now dealing with shortages of all of them. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Jeff Janukowicz, an analyst with the research firm IDC, to learn more.

There's been renewed interest in nuclear power in recent years, thanks in part to demand from tech companies in search of reliable energy to power their AI data centers. The startup Kairos Power has jumped on this opportunity. Its nuclear reactors are cooled by molten salt. They also use golf-ball sized nuclear fuel, instead of uranium rods cooled by water used by traditional reactors. Mike Laufer, co-founder and CEO of Kairos, says their reactors a bit like an upside down gumball machine.The company just started construction on its first power plant, located in eastern Tennessee, called Hermes 2. It will supply energy to the utility in the area, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and specifically to Google to power its data centers. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Laufer to learn more.

The International Math Olympiad is a yearly competition for students, most of them high school age, who compete to solve six difficult math problems. They're chosen from a pool of math problems submitted by different countries that participate in the competition. The problems that don't make the cut previously have mostly just been lost; there was no one place you could go to find them.But now a team at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab has gathered over 30,000 of those problems together in one dataset so both humans and AI models can look through and study them.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Mark Hamilton, a visiting researcher at MIT CSAIL who has been part of the work to gather problems. He's also a Research Scientist at Google's DeepMind laboratory.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, allows government agencies to collect information about foreign nationals located abroad. That surveillance can happen without a warrant and the government can order email providers to turn over any messages of a particular foreigner, including those with a U.S. citizen.Section 702 is set to expire this week. President Donald Trump has called for its extension, but there are Congressional lawmakers in both parties who oppose the kind of surveillance the law allows for. Elizabeth Goitein at the Brennan Center for Justice has testified before Congress advocating for reform of the law. She says right now it lets agencies search through Americans' sensitive data.

This week, Meta is reportedly laying off 10% of its workers. But in the meantime, it's also capturing their mouse clicks to train its AI models. Plus, Roblox settles with states over child safety concerns. But first, Apple's CEO is stepping down. The company announced this week that CEO Tim Cook is moving on from that role after about 15 years. His successor is John Ternus, a senior vice president of hardware engineering at the company. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Anita Ramaswamy, a columnist at The Information, about all these headlines for this week's “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

Lawmakers around the U.S. are moving to restrict data center development. Maine, for example, recently passed what's being called the country's first statewide ban on data centers. The measure would prohibit building any new data centers until late 2027.As of this taping, Maine's governor, Janet Mills, was reportedly still undecided on whether she'd sign the bill. And 13 other states are also considering bans on data center development, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Tony Pipa of the Brookings Institution talks more about how much of the pushback has to do with the speed with which data centers are popping up.

The social media company Snap recently announced it's laying off about 1,000 workers — 16% of its employees. The company said these changes will reduce costs by more than half a billion dollars and help establish a path to net income profitability.This move comes after one of Snap's investors, Irenic Capital Management, wrote a public letter to the company outlining what it needs to do to “save” the company and cut costs.Snap has been a public company for nine years. It's had just a few non-consecutive profitable quarters. Sarah Kunst, a general partner at the venture capital firm Cleo Capital, explains more about when a company has to be consistently profitable.

The Wayback Machine is a project of the Internet Archive. It sends out web crawlers to take snapshots of the internet, creating a digital library of web pages. But now, some news publications are blocking its crawlers over concerns that AI companies will access the Wayback Machine's publicly available archive and then train their AI models with the content.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes talked about this with Andrew Deck at Harvard's Nieman Lab.

California became the first state to regulate embodied carbon in its building code. That's changing the construction industry even beyond the state border. More than a third of planet-warming emissions come from buildings and construction. Marketplace's The rest of it is what's called embodied carbon. That's the emissions that it took to make the steel, concrete, glass and insulation, and put them all together. Caleigh Wells looked into what California's new regulations could mean for builders in this episode of Marketplace Tech, hosted by Stephanie Hughes.

This week, Spotify is letting its users buy physical books. Plus, Amazon acquires the satellite service provide Globalstar. But first, state lawmakers in Illinois are considering a bill that says developers of large AI models can't be held liable for critical harms caused by those models, as long as the developer doesn't intentionally or recklessly cause the harm and has published a safety protocol on its website.A representative from OpenAI testified in favor of the bill; meanwhile, Wired reported this week that Anthropic is pushing for either major changes to the legislation, or for it to be killed completely. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, about all these headlines for this week's “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

The share of older workers is on the decline — about 37% of people age 55 and above are now active in the labor force. About a decade ago, it was around 40%.The pandemic chased some older workers out, and others can simply afford to retire. Another factor that's causing some to exit? The emergence of artificial intelligence. Learning how to interact with it as a tool, maybe even as a colleague, seems like a headache to some. So, they're choosing retirement instead.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Weber, who's been covering the phenomenon.

Routers, computers, web cameras — they all connect to the internet. And they can be infected with malicious software that lets someone else take over. The device becomes a bot, essentially.A group of these devices networked together then becomes a botnet. And these botnets can then be used for nefarious purposes, like distributed denial of service attacks, without the device owners even knowing about it.Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs recently wrote about several large botnets including one called Kimwolf that compromised more than three million devices.

State governments invest their money a lot like a person might. Some treasuries, some mutual funds, a dash of corporate bonds, all intended to grow over time. Now, some states are looking to cryptocurrency as an investment. In 2025, at least nineteen states considered laws allowing some state funds to be invested in digital assets. Three states — Texas, New Hampshire, and Arizona — actually passed laws around this, according to a review by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes talked about this interest from states with Liz Farmer, senior officer at Pew Charitable Trusts, who explained why crypto is appealing to some state investors.

Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes was shopping recently with her seven-year-old who was drawn to a “Relaxolotl,” a tea infuser shaped like an axolotl. And it had a label: “designed in Rhode Island, by people.” Genuine Fred makes the relaxolotl. President Jason Amendolara told “Marketplace Tech” the company adopted the saying over a decade ago, before artificial intelligence was really in the conversation. It was meant to signal there were real humans behind the ideas. But now, the phrase has taken on new meaning. Genuine Fred does use AI as a tool, but Amendolara says people are still at the center of its design process. That made us wonder: Could human involvement be highlighted more by brands in the future? Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes discussed that with New York Institute of Technology professor Colleen Kirk, who has studied how people respond to marketing messages created by AI.

This week, a Wisconsin city votes to restrict future data center development. Plus, the astronauts on Artemis II take their journey to social media. But first, Anthropic announced this week it has a new AI model called Claude Mythos Preview.The company says it's extremely good at finding security vulnerabilities. So good that Anthropic is not releasing the model to the general public. Instead, it is granting access to a group of over 40 companies and tech organizations, a collaboration called Project Glasswing.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Joanna Stern, founder of the media company New Things, to discuss all these topics and more.

For years, consumers have worried about how the private sector — namely, big tech — handles their personal data. Now a new survey from the Center for Democracy & Technology suggests a large majority are also concerned about how the federal government uses their data.Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Elizabeth Laird, director of equity in civic technology at CDT, to learn more.

As humans have integrated artificial intelligence into their daily lives, there is growing concern that AI is doing the bulk of the thinking.According to the paper: “Thinking—Fast, Slow, and Artificial: How AI is Reshaping Human Reasoning and the Rise of Cognitive Surrender,” by Gideon Nave and Steven Shaw of the Wharton School of Business, they've deemed it a “cognitive surrender.”“Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Shaw, a postdoctoral researcher at Wharton, about their findings and the possible impacts for the future human cognition.

In the U.S., battery electric and plug-in hybrid cars have been more expensive than their gasoline-powered counterparts, costing about $8,000 more on average. Experts say EVs are poised to achieve price parity with internal-combustion engine vehicles in just a few years though, because the single costliest part of an EV — the battery that powers it — is getting cheaper.

Four months after Australia's landmark law that banned all minors under the age of 16 from creating or owning social media accounts, the California legislature is trying to follow suit.But free speech advocates worry that these laws will infringe on the First Amendment rights of many kids and even adults. However, Aaron Mackey, the free speech and transparency litigation director at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, says there is growing sentiment to regulate and protect children from the harms of social media. “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Mackey about how we can still protect kids and consumers without restricting free speech.

On this week's “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review,” Big Tech operations in the Middle East from companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft could be targeted by Iran. And California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a new AI executive order with a not-so-thinly veiled message to the Trump administration. But first, Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX reportedly took a first step towards a highly anticipated initial public offering this week. The company made a confidential filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that potentially puts it on track to go public at a more than $2 trillion valuation in June. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at WIRED, to learn more.

It is day 34 of the internet blackout in Iran. But while it is the longest in their history, it does not mean that Iranians are without internet.In Iran, there is the global internet, and then the intranet, or National Information Network, which is controlled by the Iranian government. Right now, only the NIN is available, and Iranians have been digitally isolated from the outside world, according to Amir Rashidi, the director for digital rights and security at the Miaan Group, a human rights nonprofit.“Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Rashidi about the current status of internet connection in Iran.

In rare verdicts, juries in New Mexico and Los Angeles sided against multiple Big Tech companies last week.In Los Angeles, Meta and Youtube were found liable for intentionally creating addictive products, while in New Mexico, Meta was found to have violated state law and misled consumers on child safety guardrails.The result of these two cases will ripple to the thousands of pending cases against Big Tech companies across the country and could impact future legislation. “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Eric Goldman, co-director at Santa Clara University's High Tech Law Institute, about the verdicts.

The promise of artificial intelligence is that it will take on all the boring tasks we don't want to do and free us up to do the fun, high-level work. But managing the AI tools can be its own kind of work. A new study from the Boston Consulting Group found that when workers have to closely monitor and manage their AI tools can cause cognitive exhaustion, which they dubbed “AI brain fry.”Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Matt Kropp, managing director and senior partner at BCG and one of the co-authors of this new study.

In baseball, calling balls and strikes is a kind of art form. Now, a little more science is being added to the artistry. Major League Baseball has introduced the automated ball-strike, or ABS, challenge system. If a batter, catcher, or pitcher disagrees with the human umpire's call, he can tap his hat. Then, the ABS system uses cameras to say whether the pitch was indeed in the batter's strike zone. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Nola Agha, professor of sports management at the University of San Francisco, to learn more.

The prediction market platform Kalshi announces new rules this week. Plus, the Department of Labor introduces an AI literacy course. But first, a jury in Los Angeles this week found that Meta and YouTube were negligent in what's being called a landmark case.The social media companies were accused of intentionally designing their platforms to be addictive, which caused harm to a young user's mental health. The companies were ordered to pay $6 million in damages — and they've told media outlets they disagree with the verdict and are exploring their legal options.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, about all these headlines for this week's “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

It's been two years exactly since the Francis Scott Key Bridge here in Baltimore was hit by a container ship, the Dali, causing it to collapse. When it fell, the state lost a well-traveled highway that served commuters as well as truckers moving goods around the port of Baltimore. Now, the state is rebuilding the bridge. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Jim Harkness, chief engineer for the Maryland Transportation Authority, about how the new bridge will incorporate new technology.

There are few worse feelings for a radio journalist than when you realize some tape you thought you had nicely stored is actually gone. And when we say tape, we mean the digital sound recording. All digital files are stored on physical media, such as hard drives or what's called in the industry of digital archiving, "LTO data tape." And anything physical can fail. So, some companies and libraries and public radio stations turn to digital archivists. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Linda Tadic, who leads the company Digital Bedrock, about her horror stories about tape that just seemed to be gone and why it's important to maintain your digital work even after you've backed it up.

Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino takes a look at how platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are allowed to function in states with varying gambling restrictions, plus what the CFTC is looking at to try to rein such platforms.

More than 60% of middle, high school, and college students in the U.S. are turning to AI for homework help, according to a new study from RAND. Some use it to help them brainstorm or like an encyclopedia. Others do it to get answers. But while kids are relying more on AI, about two-thirds of students surveyed in the study also believe that this AI use will hurt their critical thinking skills. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Heather Schwartz, co-director of the American Youth Panel at RAND and one of the authors of the report, about why students are worried.

This week, Amazon speeds up delivery even more. Plus, will BuzzFeed stay in business?But first, Gecko, a robotics startup, landed a $71 million contract with the U.S. Navy. The 13-year-old Pittsburgh-based company says it'll be using its drones and wall-climbing robots to help find defects on ships. Then, it will use artificial intelligence to model current and future structural issues.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Anita Ramaswamy, financial analysis columnist at The Information, about all these headlines for this week's “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

There have been decades of attempts to make destructive drones, going back to World War I. The technology has advanced significantly since then. Drones now range in size from tiny — as in, fitting in the palm of your hand — to so big they look like little planes.Stacie Pettyjohn directs the defense program at the Center for a New American Security. She spoke with Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes about how drones are being used in the war between Iran, Israel and the U.S., including Iran's Shahed-136 drone.

There's an emerging industry that uses artificial intelligence to create simulations of people who've died. These post mortem avatars are also called griefbots.Some critics, including Tomasz Hollanek, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, say this practice raises a number of ethical issues. He walks us through the mechanics of how this technology works, and how it may or may not be used responsibly.

More and more companies are incorporating artificial intelligence into their workflows — from AI assistants that record and analyze meetings, to AI notetakers that keep track of what's said, to AI summaries and analyses of emails.Workers may know this technology is being used, but some of these tools, which record and monitor, can still catch them off guard. Still, Josh Bersin, an human resources industry analyst and consultant, says the productivity gains from these tools mean many employers are embracing them.Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes had him walk her through what he's seeing businesses try and what they're using at his company — including one HR tool that his company makes and sells called Galileo.

Here at Marketplace, we often report on a monthly economic indicator from the University of Michigan called the consumer sentiment index. It basically looks how people are feeling about the economy. Now, a team of academics at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School have used that index as a model to create something similar though much more niche: how people feel about cryptocurrency. It's called the Consumer Cryptocurrency Confidence Index, a monthly survey now in its third year. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Wharton marketing professor Dave Reibstein, one of the creators of the index, about what he hopes to accomplish with it.

This week, the AI chatbot social network Moltbook finds a new home. Plus, YouTube dominates the media landscape. But first, a look at AI-related site outages at Amazon. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner at Collab Capital, about all these headlines for this week's “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”