I pushed eight free AI chatbots to their limits to find the best AI chatbots of 2026. To explore our top picks, check out ZDNET's chatbot-by-chatbot guide.

Artificial-intelligence agents have their own social-media platform and are publishing AI-generated research papers on their own preprint server.

Meta will no longer allow teens to chat with its AI chatbot characters in their present form. The company announced Friday that it will be "temporarily pausing teens’ access to existing AI characters ...

Match made in heaven.

Chinese tech firms are turning AI chatbots into full-service shopping and payment tools. Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance are racing to build AI-powered super apps. U.S. firms lead in AI models, but ...

Cross Bot will analyze your games in Crossplay, a new two-player word game from The Times. By Asmaa Elkeurti Tom Giratikanon and Eve Washington New York Times Games has launched Crossplay, a new ...

The Philippines said Wednesday it will end its ban on Elon Musk's Grok, less than a week after blocking the AI chatbot over its ability to generate sexualised deepfakes. The decision follows developer ...

OpenAI says it will soon start showing advertisements to ChatGPT users who aren't paying for a premium version of the chatbot. The artificial intelligence company said Friday it hasn't yet rolled out ...

Moxie Marlinspike, the cryptographic prodigy who wrote the code that underpins Signal and WhatsApp, has a new project—and it could be one of the most important things happening in AI right now. The ...

What just happened? A human-assisted AI search engine, marketed as an innovative blend of automation and expert advice, is now facing serious federal scrutiny. This week, the Federal Trade Commission ...