Wired: Stop Making Me Opt Out of AI
Wired published a scathing takedown on July 16 of the opt-out default that every major software vendor now uses. Generative AI features get flipped on by default. Your data trains their models unless you hunt through settings to disable it. The article argues opt-in should be the legal standard for any feature that ingests sensitive business data. For a Stony Plain plumbing contractor or dental clinic, this means client notes, financials, and proprietary processes could be feeding someone else's model right now — unless you've manually disabled AI in every tool you use.
Every CRM, email platform, and accounting tool you use likely has AI trained on your data by default. Audit your stack today and flip the switches off.
Source: Wired
Quick Hits
Microsoft Coaches Reps to Badmouth OpenAI and Anthropic
Microsoft sales teams are getting playbooks that position its in-house models as cheaper and more efficient than competitors. For SMBs evaluating AI vendors, this means Microsoft reps will downplay GPT-4o and Claude — but independent benchmarks still show trade-offs. Get third-party comparisons before committing to a single ecosystem.
TechCrunchWhatnot Buys Shaped for Real-Time Shopping AI
Livestream marketplace Whatnot acquired recommendation startup Shaped to personalize live shopping feeds. The tech serves product suggestions in milliseconds based on viewer behavior. Retailers in Spruce Grove running Instagram Live or TikTok Shop should watch this — real-time recommendation engines are becoming accessible outside enterprise budgets.
TechCrunchThinking Machines Drops 975B-Parameter Open Model Inkling
Former OpenAI researchers released Inkling, an open-source model trained on video and audio. At 975 billion parameters it rivals proprietary models but runs on your own hardware — no per-token fees. For Alberta businesses processing voice notes or job-site video, this could replace expensive API calls once tooling matures.
WiredCustomer Service Chatbots Are Making People Hate Your Brand
A Wired writer's missing ebike delivery turned into a nightmare of looping chatbots that couldn't escalate to humans. The lesson: automation without a clear human handoff destroys trust. If your HVAC or dental office uses a chatbot, test the 'talk to a person' path this week. Make sure it actually works.
WiredTool of the Day
Perplexity
Search engine that cites sources and writes cited answers
Perplexity combines web search with LLM synthesis. You ask a question, it reads live sources, and returns a concise answer with footnotes linking to each claim. No hallucinated quotes. No clicking through ten blue links. It's research that takes seconds instead of hours.
Go to perplexity.ai and ask: 'What are the 2026 Alberta small business tax deadlines and deduction changes?' Copy the cited answer into your tax folder. Done in 90 seconds.
analytics
Check it out →The Number
50%
Claude Code weekly rate limits are 50% higher through July 19 after Anthropic extended the Fable 5 promotion. If you've been hitting caps on coding tasks, this week is the window to clear backlog.
Source: Android Authority
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