Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has become the focus of political, regulatory, and international scrutiny after users exploited it to generate non-consensual sexualised images, including material involving children, triggering urgent action from regulators and reopening a heated debate over online safety and free speech.

What Triggered The Controversy?

The row began in late December when users on X discovered that Grok, the generative AI assistant developed by Musk’s AI company xAI and embedded directly into the platform, could be prompted to edit or generate images of real people in sexualised ways.

How?

For example, by tagging the @grok account under images posted on X, users were able to request edits such as removing clothing, placing people into sexualised situations, or altering images under false pretences. In many cases, the resulting images were posted publicly by the chatbot itself, making them instantly visible to other users.

Reports quickly emerged showing women being “undressed” without consent and placed into degrading scenarios. In more serious cases, Grok appeared to generate sexualised images of minors, which significantly escalated the issue from content moderation into potential criminal territory.

The speed and scale of the misuse were central to the backlash. Examples circulated showing Grok producing dozens of degrading images per minute during peak activity, highlighting how generative AI can amplify harm far more rapidly than manual image manipulation.

Why Grok’s Design Raised Immediate Red Flags

It’s worth noting here that Grok differs from many standalone AI image tools because it is tightly integrated into a major social media platform (X/Twitter). Users don’t need specialist software or technical knowledge, and a single public prompt can lead to an AI-generated image being created and shared in the same conversation thread, often within seconds.

Blurred The Line?

It seems that this integration has blurred the line between user-generated content and platform-generated content, and while a human may type the prompt, the act of creating and publishing the image is carried out by the platform’s own automated system.

This distinction has become critical to the regulatory debate, as many existing laws focus on how platforms respond to harmful content once it is shared, rather than on whether they should prevent certain capabilities from being available in the first place.

The UK Regulatory Response

In the UK, responsibility for enforcement sits with the communications regulator Ofcom, which oversees compliance with the Online Safety Act, the UK law designed to protect users from illegal online content that came into force in 2023.

Ofcom has confirmed it made urgent contact with X and xAI after reports that Grok was being used to create sexualised images without consent. The regulator said it set a firm deadline for the company to explain how it was meeting its legal duties to protect users and prevent the spread of illegal content.

For example, under the Online Safety Act, it is illegal to create or share intimate or sexually explicit images without consent. Platforms are also required to assess and mitigate risks arising from the design and operation of their services, not just respond after harm has occurred.

Senior ministers have publicly backed Ofcom’s intervention. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said she expected rapid updates and confirmed she would support the regulator if enforcement action was required, including the possibility of blocking access to X in the UK if it failed to comply with the law.

Cross-Party Reactions

The political response in the UK was swift, with senior figures from across Parliament condemning the use of Grok to generate non-consensual sexualised imagery and pressing regulators to act.

For example, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the content linked to Grok as “disgraceful” and “disgusting”, and said the creation of sexualised images without consent was “completely unacceptable”, particularly where women and children were involved. He added that all options remained on the table as regulators assessed whether X was meeting its legal obligations.

Also, the Liberal Democrats called for access to X to be temporarily restricted in the UK while investigations were carried out, arguing that immediate intervention was necessary to prevent further harm to victims of image-based abuse and to establish whether existing safeguards were effective.

Concerns were also raised at committee level over whether current legislation is equipped to deal with generative AI tools embedded directly into social media platforms.

Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, said she was “concerned and confused” about how the issue was being addressed, warning that it was “unclear” whether the Online Safety Act clearly covered the creation of AI-generated sexualised imagery or properly defined platform responsibility in cases where automated systems produce the content.

Caroline Dinenage, chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, echoed those concerns, saying she had a “real fear that there is a gap in the regulation”. She questioned whether the law currently has the power to regulate AI functionality itself, rather than focusing solely on user behaviour after harmful material has already been created and shared.

Together, the comments seem to highlight a broader unease in Parliament, not only about the specific use of Grok, but about whether the UK’s regulatory framework can keep pace with generative AI systems that are capable of producing harmful content at scale and in real time.

Musk’s Response And The Free Speech Argument

Elon Musk responded forcefully to the backlash, framing it as an attempt to justify censorship. For example, on his X platform, Musk said critics were looking for “any excuse for censorship” and argued that responsibility lay with individuals misusing the tool, not with the existence of the tool itself. He also stated that anyone using Grok to generate illegal content would face the same consequences as if they uploaded illegal content directly.

Musk also escalated the dispute by reposting an AI-generated image depicting Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a bikini, accompanied by a comment accusing critics of trying to suppress free speech. The post drew further criticism for trivialising the issue and for mirroring the very behaviour regulators were investigating.

Supporters of Musk’s position argue that generative AI tools are neutral technologies and that over-regulating them risks chilling legitimate expression and innovation.

However, critics argue that non-consensual sexualised imagery is not a matter of opinion or speech, but of harm, privacy violation, and in some cases criminal abuse.

X’s Decision To Restrict Grok Features

As pressure mounted, X introduced changes to how Grok’s image generation features could be accessed.

For example, the company has now limited image generation and editing within X to paying subscribers, with Grok automatically responding to many prompts by stating that these features were now restricted to users with a paid subscription.

However, Downing Street criticised the move as insulting to victims, arguing that placing harmful capabilities behind a paywall does not address the underlying risks. Free users, for example, were still able to edit images using other tools on the platform or via Grok’s standalone app and website, further fuelling criticism that the change was cosmetic rather than substantive.

Child Safety Concerns And Charity Warnings

The most serious dimension of the controversy involves child safety. The Internet Watch Foundation, a UK charity that works to identify and disrupt child sexual abuse material online, said its analysts had discovered sexualised imagery of girls aged between 11 and 13 that appeared to have been created using Grok. The material was found on a dark web forum, rather than directly on X, but users posting the images claimed the AI tool was used in their creation.

Ngaire Alexander, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the charity, said: “We are extremely concerned about the ease and speed with which people can apparently generate photo-realistic child sexual abuse material.”

She warned that tools like Grok now risk “bringing sexual AI imagery of children into the mainstream”, by making the creation of realistic abusive content faster and more accessible than ever before.

The charity noted that some of the images it reviewed did not meet the highest legal threshold for child sexual abuse material on their own. However, it warned that such material can be easily escalated using other AI tools, compounding harm and increasing the risk of more serious criminal content being produced.

International Pushback And Platform Blocks

The fallout rapidly became global as regulators and governments across Europe, Asia, and Australia opened inquiries or issued warnings over Grok’s image generation capabilities. Several countries demanded changes or reports explaining how X intended to prevent misuse.

For example, Indonesia became the first country to temporarily block access to Grok entirely. Its communications minister described non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and citizen security in the digital space, and confirmed that X officials had been summoned for talks.

Also, Australia’s online safety regulator said it was assessing Grok-generated imagery under its image-based abuse framework, while authorities in France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden condemned the content and raised concerns over compliance with European digital safety rules.

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Leadership Influence And Questions Of AI Governance

The Grok controversy has also revived questions about how leadership ideology and platform culture can shape the behaviour, positioning, and governance of AI systems.

For example, Grok was publicly positioned by Elon Musk as a less constrained alternative to other AI assistants, designed to challenge what he has described as excessive moderation and ideological bias elsewhere in the technology sector. That framing has informed both how the tool was built and how its early misuse has been addressed, with a strong emphasis placed on user responsibility and free speech rather than on restricting functionality by default.

For regulators, this presents an additional challenge. When an AI system is closely associated with the personal views and public statements of its owner, scrutiny can extend beyond technical safeguards to questions of organisational intent, risk tolerance, and willingness to intervene early. Musk’s own use of AI-generated imagery during the controversy, including reposting sexualised depictions of public figures, has further blurred the line between platform enforcement and leadership example.

This dynamic matters because trust in AI governance relies not only on written policies, but on how consistently they are applied and reinforced from the top. For example, where leadership signals appear to downplay harm or frame enforcement as censorship, regulators may be less inclined to accept assurances that risks are being taken seriously, particularly in cases involving children, privacy, and image-based abuse.

Why Grok Has Become A Test Case For AI Regulation

At the heart of the dispute is essentially a question regulators around the world are now grappling with. When an AI system can generate harmful content on demand and publish it automatically, the question is, who is legally responsible for the act of sharing?

For example, if the law treats bots as users, and the platform itself controls the bot, enforcement becomes far more complex.

This case is, therefore, forcing regulators to examine whether existing frameworks are sufficient for generative AI, or whether new rules are needed to address capabilities that create harm before moderation systems can intervene.

It has also highlighted the tension between innovation and responsibility. For example, Grok was promoted as a bold, less constrained alternative to other AI assistants, and that positioning has now collided with the realities of deploying powerful generative tools at social media scale.

The outcome of Ofcom’s assessment and parallel investigations overseas will shape how AI-driven features are governed, not just on X, but across the wider technology sector.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The Grok controversy has exposed a clear gap between how generative AI is being deployed and how existing safeguards are expected to work in practice. Regulators are no longer looking solely at whether harmful content is taken down after the fact, but are questioning whether platforms should be allowed to offer tools that can generate serious harm instantly and at scale. That distinction is likely to shape how Ofcom and its international counterparts approach enforcement, particularly where AI systems are tightly embedded into large social platforms rather than operating as standalone tools.

For UK businesses, the implications extend well beyond X. For example, any organisation developing, deploying, or integrating generative AI will be watching this case closely, as it signals a tougher focus on product design, risk assessment, and accountability, not just user behaviour. Firms relying on AI-driven features, whether for marketing, customer engagement, or content creation, may face increased expectations to demonstrate robust safeguards, clearer consent mechanisms, and stronger controls over how tools can be misused.

For policymakers, platforms, charities, and users alike, Grok has become a real world stress test for how AI governance works under pressure. The decisions taken now will influence how responsibility is shared between developers, platforms, and individuals, and how far regulators are prepared to go when innovation collides with harm. What happens next will help define the boundaries of acceptable AI deployment in the UK and beyond, at a moment when generative systems are moving faster than the rules designed to contain them.

In this week’s Tech Insight, we look at 15 notable gadgets from a CES focused on how artificial intelligence is being embedded into physical products for homes, health, and everyday use.

CES 2026

The Consumer Electronics Show, held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, has long been a place where experimental concepts sit alongside near ready consumer products. This year, at CES 2026 (held 6 to 9 January), the emphasis seemed to have shifted from screen-based, software-led generative AI and digital assistants decisively towards what many exhibitors described as physical AI, systems where software intelligence is combined with sensors, motors, cameras, and materials that allow it to act in the real world rather than simply respond on a screen.

The Same Core Technologies

Rather than being dominated by a single category, CES 2026 showed how the same core technologies are being applied across robotics, smart homes, personal devices, and health monitoring.

A 15 Gadget Snapshot Of CES 2026

Here, we’ve selected 15 gadgets from CES 2026 to give a sense of how the event showcased AI being built into physical products for homes, health, and everyday use.

1. Razer Project AVA Holographic Desk Companion

Razer, the Singapore-founded gaming hardware company, showcased an evolved version of Project AVA, reworking its earlier esports coach concept into a holographic desk companion. The device projects a small animated character that can offer gaming advice, productivity support, and general assistance, using eye tracking and a built-in camera to remain aware of the user and their screen. While the lifelike movement and character customisation drew attention, the idea of a device that constantly watches its user also triggered some privacy concerns. Razer continues to describe AVA as more of a concept, leaving questions about data handling and whether it will ever reach retail.

2. An’An AI Panda Companion Robot

Developed by Mind with Heart Robotics, a China-based robotics company, An’An is a soft, plush AI-powered panda designed to support older adults living alone. Sensors across its body allow it to respond naturally to touch, while voice recognition and memory features let it adapt to a user’s habits and preferences over time. Beyond companionship, An’An is positioned as a wellbeing tool, offering reminders and sharing updates with caregivers. Unlike novelty robots, its value is tied to ageing populations and loneliness, which is why it stood out amid more playful concepts.

3. GoveeLife Smart Nugget Ice Maker Pro

US-based smart home brand GoveeLife demonstrated how AI can be applied in subtle ways with its Smart Nugget Ice Maker Pro. The machine uses predictive monitoring to reduce noise by identifying when ice formation is likely to cause loud cracking and triggering defrosting early. Rather than adding features, the focus is on refining behaviour, making this a rare example of AI being used to make an existing appliance less annoying rather than just trying to introduce novelty.

4. Seattle Ultrasonics C 200 Ultrasonic Chef’s Knife

The C 200 cordless, battery-powered kitchen knife from Seattle Ultrasonics uses a blade that vibrates at ultrasonic frequencies, reportedly over 30,000 times per second. The vibration reduces the force required to cut, allowing the blade to behave as if it were sharper without a visibly moving edge. Reactions at CES seemed to be mixed, with some questioning its practicality for everyday cooking, while others pointed to its potential accessibility benefits for users with reduced hand strength.

5. Lollipop Star Musical Lollipop

One of the most debated gadgets at CES 2026 was the musical lollipop from US-based consumer electronics startup Lollipop Star, which actually uses bone conduction to play music through vibrations while in the mouth. While technically clever, the product raised some concerns about disposable electronics and embedded batteries in single use items. This meant it became a bit of a focal point in wider discussions about waste and sustainability rather than a serious consumer proposition.

6. Zeroth Robotics W1 Home And Outdoor Robot

China-based robotics company Zeroth Robotics introduced the W1, a mobile robot positioned as both a home security patrol unit and an outdoor companion for activities such as camping. The robot can move autonomously, carry equipment, take photos, and provide portable power. Its broad feature set reflects a trend towards multi purpose robots, though its high price places it firmly in the experimental luxury category rather than mainstream adoption.

7. Mira Ultra4 Hormone Monitor

The Ultra4 Hormone Monitor from Mira, a San Francisco-based women’s health technology company, is designed for at home tracking of four reproductive hormones using urine test wands. By providing insights into fertile windows and hormonal changes, the device highlights how health testing is moving out of clinics and into the home. The convenience is clear, although experts have stressed the importance of clear guidance to prevent misinterpretation of results without medical support.

8. Roborock Saros Rover Stair Climbing Robot Vacuum

Beijing-based home robotics company Roborock drew crowds with the Saros Rover, a robot vacuum designed to climb and clean stairs using articulated leg wheel mechanisms. Stairs remain one of the biggest barriers to full home automation, and while demonstrations showed promise, coverage also noted the difficulty of making such systems work reliably across varied real world environments.

9. LG OLED Evo W6 Wallpaper TV

South Korea-based electronics giant LG returned to its ultra thin “Wallpaper” TV concept with the OLED evo W6. Measuring just millimetres thick, the TV is designed to sit flush against a wall, using wireless connectivity to reduce visible cabling. Rather than being a pure concept, the W6 reflects years of incremental display improvements reaching a point where extreme thinness is finally practical.

10. LEGO Smart Play Interactive Bricks

LEGO introduced Smart Play, a system of electronic bricks that include sensors, lights, and sound. The bricks respond to movement and interaction during play, adding feedback without relying on a phone or tablet as the primary interface. The idea here appears to be to keep the focus on physical creativity while quietly introducing children to interactive systems and cause and effect logic.

11. Aqara Smart Lock U400 With Ultra Wideband

China-based smart home company Aqara showcased the Smart Lock U400, a connected front-door smart lock designed for residential use, which uses ultra wideband radio to enable more reliable auto unlocking. Ultra wideband can measure distance and direction with far greater accuracy than Bluetooth, reducing false triggers. The lock also supports the Matter standard, meaning it can work with a wider range of smart home platforms rather than being tied to a single ecosystem.

12. Flint Biodegradable Paper Battery

Singapore-based battery startup Flint showcased a biodegradable battery made from water-based chemistry and cellulose rather than lithium or cobalt. Positioned as non-explosive and environmentally safer, the battery attracted attention because it is already in production rather than being purely experimental. That said, it did raise some questions about performance and cost, although its presence at CES reflects growing pressure to rethink energy storage materials.

13. Clicks Communicator Physical Keyboard Phone

The Clicks Communicator from US-based hardware startup Clicks is a smartphone that combines a physical keyboard with a simplified Android interface designed primarily for messaging. By reducing visual distraction and prioritising communication, the device has been designed as a response to growing dissatisfaction with attention-driven smartphone design rather than competing on raw specifications.

14. Punkt MC03 Privacy Focused Smartphone

Swiss company Punkt presented the MC03 as a smartphone built around privacy and user control because it doesn’t have many of the default services and background tracking common on mainstream smartphones. By limiting default services and reducing reliance on data-intensive ecosystems, the device is designed to appeal to users who are particularly concerned about tracking and profiling. While niche, it reinforces the idea that privacy is becoming a differentiating feature rather than an afterthought.

15. Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist

Well-known Chinese technology company Lenovo showcased the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist, a laptop concept featuring a motorised rotating display that responds to voice and gesture commands. The design aims to adapt the screen to different usage modes automatically, showing how AI is being used to rethink hardware interaction rather than just software features.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Taken together, these gadgets, and many others at the show, highlight how CES 2026 was less about headline grabbing AI software and more about the harder task of making AI useful once it is embedded into physical products. Many of the devices on display were not radical in isolation, e.g., an ice maker, a door lock, a TV, a phone, but they show how AI is increasingly being used to refine behaviour, reduce friction, and adapt hardware to real world contexts. At the same time, the presence of unfinished concepts and questionable designs highlights how difficult it remains to balance intelligence, reliability, privacy, and sustainability once AI moves beyond the screen.

For UK businesses, this shift has some practical implications. For example, as AI becomes built into everyday equipment rather than delivered purely through apps and cloud services, purchasing, security, and compliance decisions will increasingly involve physical assets. Smart locks, health devices, robotics, and connected appliances raise new questions around data governance, maintenance, liability, and lifecycle management, particularly in regulated environments such as healthcare, education, and housing. Businesses that understand these trade-offs early will be better placed to adopt useful systems while avoiding unnecessary risk.

For consumers, policymakers, and technology providers, CES 2026 also highlighted that physical AI raises the stakes. For example, devices that watch, listen, move, or interact physically demand a higher level of trust than software alone. As these products move closer to market, expectations around transparency, safety, repairability, and long-term value will only increase. The overall trend may be clear, but the pace and shape of adoption will most likely depend on how well the industry addresses these concerns as AI continues to move into homes, health, and everyday life.

WhatsApp has rolled out a set of new group chat features designed to reduce confusion in larger conversations and make coordination easier, as the platform continues to evolve beyond simple one-to-one messaging.

What Has Been Introduced?

In a blog post published on 7 January, WhatsApp confirmed the launch of three new group chat features entitled Member Tags, Text Stickers, and Event Reminders.

The company framed the update as a practical upgrade rather than a major redesign, saying: “It’s a new year and a great time for some upgrades to your group chats.” The focus, WhatsApp explained, is on helping people stay connected and express themselves more clearly in group conversations.

These new tools are being rolled out gradually across devices and regions, in line with WhatsApp’s usual release approach.

Why Group Chats Have Become A Problem Area

Group chats are one of WhatsApp’s most heavily used features, yet they are also one of its most strained. For example, WhatsApp now serves more than 3 billion users globally, and many of its group chats are no longer small circles of close friends who all recognise each other instantly. Parent groups, sports teams, volunteer organisations, neighbourhood groups, and work-adjacent chats often include dozens of people, some of whom may never have met.

In these settings, simple issues become persistent friction points. People share the same first name, profile photos are unclear, phone numbers are not saved, and context is missing when someone new joins. Planning events or coordinating schedules can also become chaotic as messages pile up and key details get buried.

WhatsApp’s own blog post alludes to this changing use case, noting that group chats are now used for virtually everything from family coordination to planning social events and shared activities across devices and platforms.

Member Tags And Identity Clarity

With these group chat issues in mind, perhaps the most significant of the new features introduced by WhatsApp is Member Tags.

Member Tags quite simply allow users to add a short descriptive label to their name within a specific group chat. The key point is that the tag is unique to each group, meaning the same person can present themselves differently depending on the context.

WhatsApp explained the thinking behind the feature, saying: “We all wear different hats and sometimes you want to give that more context in a group chat.” The company gave examples such as being “Anna’s Dad” in one group and “Goalkeeper” in another.

In practical terms, this is designed to tackle one of the most common complaints about large WhatsApp groups, as using these tags makes it immediately easier to understand who someone is and why they are there, without needing to scroll through past messages or ask clarifying questions.

For everyday users, this could reduce awkward introductions and repeated explanations. For organisers or admins, it can make it far easier to direct questions or requests to the right person.

Text Stickers And Visual Emphasis

Text Stickers are a lighter addition, but they reflect a broader trend in messaging apps towards visual communication. For example, the feature allows users to type a word into WhatsApp’s Sticker Search and instantly turn it into a sticker-style graphic. WhatsApp said this is intended for messages users want to “really stand out”.

There is also a small but notable usability detail. Newly created text stickers can be added directly to a user’s sticker pack, without needing to send them in a chat first. This removes a common workaround where people clutter conversations just to save a sticker for later use.

While the feature may seem playful, it also serves a functional purpose. In fast-moving group chats, visually distinct messages can help important information cut through the noise.

Event Reminders And Coordination

The third new feature focuses on planning. Event Reminders allow users to set early reminders when creating and sharing an event in a group chat. WhatsApp says this is designed to help people remember to travel to an event or join a call at the right time.

This addresses a long-standing group chat issue, i.e., plans are often agreed, then pushed out of view by ongoing conversation. Reminders, therefore, should reduce the need for repeated follow-ups from organisers and help ensure that agreed plans actually happen.

While this doesn’t turn WhatsApp into a calendar tool, it nudges group chats closer to structured coordination rather than informal discussion alone.

Business And Work-Related Use

Although WhatsApp is not positioned as a formal workplace platform, it is, of course, widely used for work-related communication, especially in sectors where staff are mobile, customer-facing, or do not sit at desks.

Trades, logistics, cleaning services, hospitality, events, construction, and care settings frequently rely on WhatsApp groups for day-to-day coordination. In these environments, clarity and speed matter more than advanced integrations. With this in mind, Member Tags may provide some immediate operational value. For example, simple labels such as “Site Supervisor”, “Shift Lead”, “Driver”, or “First Aider” should make it easier to route questions quickly and reduce mistakes in time-sensitive situations.

Similarly, Event Reminders could help with shift changes, site visits, call-outs, or meeting links, cutting down on missed appointments and last-minute confusion.

Text Stickers are more ambiguous for business use, and some may avoid them to maintain a professional tone, particularly in groups that include customers or external partners. Others may use them selectively to highlight key messages or confirmations.

What This Says About WhatsApp’s Direction

These updates do seem to fit into a broader pattern for WhatsApp. Over the past few years, WhatsApp has steadily expanded what group chats can do, adding features such as large file sharing up to 2GB, HD media, screen sharing, and voice chats. In its January blog post, WhatsApp explicitly positioned the new features as part of this ongoing investment in group communication.

Rather than transforming WhatsApp into a full workplace suite, the company now appears to be strengthening its role as a universal coordination layer that works across devices and operating systems.

For its parent company Meta, this approach essentially reinforces WhatsApp’s importance within its wider ecosystem. Keeping users active in WhatsApp for planning and organising everyday life strengthens engagement without undermining the platform’s reputation for simplicity and privacy.

How This Compares With Competitors

It’s worth noting here that other messaging platforms have taken different paths. For example, Telegram has long focused on large group management and community features.

Also, Discord is built around roles, channels, and permissions, making identity and structure central to its design. Workplace tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams offer deep organisational controls and integrations.

WhatsApp’s changes seem to be deliberately lighter. For example, Member Tags provide context without introducing roles or permissions, and Event Reminders support coordination without becoming a full scheduling system.

This simplicity may help adoption among casual users, yet it also means WhatsApp is not directly challenging enterprise collaboration tools. Instead, it could be said to sit between personal messaging and structured workplace communication.

Challenges And Likely Criticisms

The new features are not without potential downsides. For example, Member Tags raise questions about privacy and social pressure. Tags are visible to everyone in the group, including people who join later. In some contexts, users may feel uncomfortable sharing role information, especially in groups that mix personal and professional contacts.

For businesses, there is also a risk that tags blur boundaries, making employees feel permanently identifiable or reachable in informal spaces.

Event Reminders add another layer of notifications to an app that many users already find noisy. Without careful use, reminders could contribute to alert fatigue rather than reducing it.

Text Stickers may divide opinion. For example, some users will welcome more expressive tools, while others will see them as frivolous and unnecessary clutter in an app valued for its simplicity.

That said, as with most WhatsApp updates, the gradual rollout means not everyone in a group will see the same features at the same time (at the time of writing, only Member Tags are visible). That can create short-term confusion, especially when new habits start forming around tools that are not yet universally available.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

These updates seem to show a platform responding to how it is actually being used, rather than how it was originally designed. WhatsApp group chats have become places where coordination, identity, and accountability matter, not just casual conversation. Member Tags and Event Reminders address clear, everyday problems that users have been working around for years, while Text Stickers show the company is still balancing utility with expression.

For UK businesses, the changes reinforce WhatsApp’s role as an informal but powerful coordination tool, particularly in sectors where speed and clarity matter more than formal systems. Used carefully, Member Tags could reduce confusion and mistakes, and Event Reminders could potentially improve attendance and reliability. At the same time, organisations will need to think about boundaries, privacy, and tone, especially where personal devices and professional communication overlap.

For WhatsApp itself, the update signals a continued move towards structured group communication without abandoning simplicity. The platform doesn’t seem to be trying to compete head on with enterprise tools, but it is clearly aiming to remain indispensable for organising real-world activity at scale. Competitors with more complex role and admin systems may still appeal to power users, but WhatsApp’s lighter approach plays to its strength as a universal, low-friction service.

The challenge now lies in execution. How users adopt these features, how clearly they are understood, and how well WhatsApp manages privacy expectations will determine whether they genuinely bring order to group chats or simply add another layer to an already crowded interface.

Spotify has introduced two new Messages features that let users see what friends are listening to in real time and invite them into shared listening sessions, signalling a deeper shift towards in-app social interaction.

Wider Rollout By Early February

The update, confirmed by Spotify on 7 January, adds Listening Activity and Request to Jam to markets where Messages is already available, with wider rollout expected by early February.

Why Spotify Is Doubling Down On Social Features

For much of its history, Spotify has been a largely solitary experience. For example, while playlists, links, and Wrapped summaries encouraged sharing, that sharing typically happened elsewhere, via WhatsApp, Instagram, or other messaging platforms.

However, the introduction of Messages in August 2025 marked a change in direction. Spotify began experimenting with keeping conversations inside its own ecosystem, rather than acting purely as a content source for other apps.

According to Spotify’s Newsroom, that shift has already shown measurable engagement. The company says that “almost 40 million users have sent nearly 340 million messages” since Messages launched, indicating sustained use rather than novelty adoption.

Listening Activity and Request to Jam build directly on that behaviour, turning private listening into a visible signal and reducing friction between discovery, conversation, and shared playback.

Listening Activity

Listening Activity is an opt-in feature that displays what a user is currently listening to within the Messages interface. If the user is not actively playing audio, their most recently played track is shown instead.

Once enabled (via the Privacy and social settings), activity appears at the top of Messages chats and in the chat row of the side drawer. It is only visible to contacts a user has already messaged on Spotify.

Spotify has been keen to highlight the controllability of Activity sharing, pointing out that it can be turned off at any time, and users can still see other people’s listening activity even if they have not enabled their own, provided the other person has opted in.

Tapping on a friend’s listening activity opens a set of quick actions, including starting playback, saving the track, opening the context menu, or reacting with one of six emojis. The design focuses on immediacy rather than commentary, encouraging lightweight engagement rather than long conversations.

Spotify describes the feature as giving users “a real-time look at what music your friends and family are listening to”, positioning it as a social awareness rather than a performance feature.

Request To Jam And The Growth Of Shared Listening

Alongside visibility, Spotify is also making it easier to act on that awareness through Request to Jam. This is Spotify’s real-time collaborative listening feature, which allows users to share a queue of tracks and listen synchronously from different locations. Spotify says Jam usage has been accelerating, noting that daily active users have “more than doubled year over year”.

Why?

Request to Jam actually addresses one of the main barriers to remote shared listening, i.e., timing. For example, previously, users needed to coordinate externally or guess when friends were available. With Listening Activity, availability becomes visible, and Request to Jam provides a one-tap invitation.

Premium users can send a Jam request directly from a Messages chat. The recipient can accept or decline. If accepted, the recipient becomes the host, and both participants can add tracks to a shared queue.

Suggested Tracks

During a Jam, participants see each other’s display names and receive suggested tracks based on their combined listening profiles. Invitations expire if not accepted, and users can leave sessions at any time.

Spotify frames this as a way to “quickly turn those moments into shared listening sessions”, blending discovery with participation.

Subscription, Age, And Messaging Limits

Spotify says access to the new features is shaped by existing platform constraints. Listening Activity is available to all users with access to Messages, regardless of subscription tier. Request to Jam, however, can only be initiated by Premium users, though Free users can join when invited.

Both features are limited to users aged 16 and over, reflecting Messages’ existing age restriction. Messages themselves remain one-to-one only, and users can only message people they have previously shared content with, such as playlist collaborators or Jam participants.

Messages are encrypted at rest and in transit, though Spotify has confirmed they are not end-to-end encrypted, a point that may matter to privacy-conscious users.

For Spotify

From a commercial perspective, these features support several of Spotify’s core objectives. For example, keeping discovery, conversation, and shared listening inside the app increases time spent on the platform, strengthens habit formation, and reduces reliance on external social networks. Each of those factors contributes to retention, which remains critical in a highly competitive streaming market.

Also, Request to Jam essentially reinforces the value gap between Free and Premium tiers. While Free users can participate, only Premium subscribers can initiate sessions, subtly encouraging upgrades without aggressive prompts.

There is also a data dimension to all this. For example, social listening creates more context around discovery, which may improve recommendation quality over time, especially when combined listening preferences are involved.

Competitive Pressure On Other Streaming Platforms

Spotify’s move further differentiates it from rivals that focus primarily on catalogue and audio quality rather than social interaction.

Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music all offer sharing and collaborative playlists, but none have integrated real-time listening visibility and messaging in the same way. Spotify’s approach positions social engagement as a product feature rather than a marketing add-on.

If Listening Activity and Jam continue to grow, competitors may face some pressure to respond, particularly if users begin to associate Spotify with shared experiences rather than individual consumption.

Users And Business

For everyday users, the changes lower the barrier to discovery and shared listening, particularly for people who already use Spotify socially with friends or family.

For businesses, creators, and brands, the implications are more indirect but still relevant. For example, music-led environments such as gyms, retail spaces, cafés, and studios increasingly use Spotify as part of their brand experience. Greater social visibility may influence how playlists spread organically between users.

Artists and podcasters may also benefit if listening activity encourages faster, peer-driven discovery, though Spotify has not yet provided data on how activity visibility affects streaming behaviour at scale.

Criticisms and Challenges

Despite the careful framing, the update is not without potential drawbacks. For example, some users may be uncomfortable with even limited visibility into their listening habits, particularly when content is personal or sensitive. Although Listening Activity is opt-in, social pressure can still influence participation once features become widespread.

There are also privacy questions around how listening data is surfaced, even among known contacts. While Spotify has avoided public feeds, the boundary between awareness and exposure remains subjective.

From a product perspective, Messages is still a relatively constrained system. The lack of group chats and broader discovery limits how far social interaction can scale, and some users may continue to prefer external messaging apps regardless of new features.

It remains unclear at this point how Listening Activity will affect listening behaviour itself. Although visibility can encourage sharing, it can also lead to self-censorship, where users avoid certain content because they know it may be seen.

That said, Spotify’s rollout seems to suggest a confidence that the benefits will outweigh those risks, but real-world adoption will determine whether social listening becomes a core part of the platform or remains a feature used by a smaller subset of engaged users.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Spotify’s decision to surface listening behaviour and make shared sessions easier reflects a broader recalibration of what a streaming platform is expected to do. For example, this is no longer just about access to a catalogue or algorithmic recommendations, but about creating moments of interaction that keep users present, engaged, and less likely to drift elsewhere. Listening Activity and Request to Jam both essentially prioritise immediacy, reducing the steps between discovery, response, and participation.

For Spotify, retention matters as much as growth, and social features that sit naturally inside everyday listening habits offer a way to deepen engagement without radically changing how the app works. The measured design choices, opt-in visibility, one-to-one messaging, and Premium-led initiation suggest an attempt to balance expansion with control rather than chasing scale at all costs.

For competitors, this could raise the bar around what shared listening looks like in practice. Collaborative playlists alone may start to feel static if real-time awareness and interaction become more normalised. Whether rivals respond with similar features or take a different approach will shape how social music streaming evolves over the next few years.

UK businesses and organisations that already rely on Spotify as part of their customer or workplace experience may also feel indirect effects. For example, shared listening habits can influence how playlists circulate organically, how music-led environments shape brand perception, and how quickly new content gains traction through peer visibility. For creators, venues, retailers, and service-led spaces, the line between listening and recommendation is becoming shorter and more socially driven.

At the same time, adoption is not guaranteed. Privacy comfort levels, differing attitudes to visibility, and the continued pull of external messaging platforms will all influence how widely these features are used. Spotify’s challenge now is less about launching new tools and more about ensuring they become part of everyday behaviour without creating friction or fatigue.

How users respond over the coming months will determine whether social listening becomes a defining layer of Spotify’s identity or remains a useful but optional enhancement for a more engaged subset of its audience.

Google is reshaping Gmail around its Gemini AI models, introducing a personalised AI Inbox, natural-language AI Overviews in email search, and a wider rollout of writing and summarisation tools designed to help users manage rising email volumes more efficiently.

To Help Manage Information Overload

Google says more than 3 billion people now rely on its email service every day, and the company says the way people use email has changed fundamentally since Gmail launched in 2004. In a blog post published on 8 January 2026, Google argued that the challenge today is no longer sending or receiving messages, but managing information overload and turning large volumes of email into clear actions and answers.

The result is what Google describes as Gmail entering “the Gemini era”, with its latest generation of large language models embedded more deeply across inbox organisation, search, and writing assistance.

From Passive Inbox To Proactive Assistant

Google’s central claim is that Gmail is now shifting from a passive repository of messages into a personal, proactive assistant. AI has already been part of Gmail for years, underpinning features such as Smart Reply, Smart Compose, and spam filtering. The latest update expands that role significantly.

According to Google, email volume is now at an all-time high, and users are spending more time searching, scanning threads, and piecing together information than actually acting on it. The new tools are designed to reduce that friction by summarising conversations, surfacing priorities automatically, and allowing users to ask their inbox direct questions in plain language.

These changes are powered by Gemini (Google’s own AI model family), with Google confirming that many of the new capabilities rely on Gemini 3, its latest model generation.

AI Overviews Come To Gmail Search

One of the most significant additions is AI Overviews inside Gmail search. This feature mirrors the AI Overviews Google has been rolling out in its core search product, but is restricted entirely to a user’s own inbox.

For example, rather than just returning a list of emails based on keywords, Gmail can now generate a direct answer to a question by synthesising information across messages. This means that, e.g., a user can ask, “Who was the plumber that gave me a quote for the bathroom renovation last year?” and receive a concise summary highlighting the relevant name, date, and details pulled from past emails.

Google says this is intended to remove the need to manually search through long email histories or open multiple messages to extract basic facts. Conversation-level summaries are also generated automatically for long email threads, presenting key points at the top of the discussion. If it works like it sounds, it could be quite helpful.

AI Overview summaries for threaded emails are rolling out to all Gmail users at no cost. The ability to ask the inbox direct questions using natural language is being limited to Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra subscribers, reflecting Google’s broader strategy of reserving more advanced reasoning features for paid tiers.

A New AI Inbox Focused On Priorities

Alongside search, Google says it’s also introducing an entirely new AI Inbox view. Rather than replacing the traditional inbox, this appears as an optional tab that users can toggle on and off.

The AI Inbox is designed to act as a personalised briefing. For example, it highlights what Google believes matters most, based on signals such as who a user emails frequently, who appears in their contacts, and relationships inferred from message content.

In practice, the AI Inbox is split into two main sections. “Suggested to-dos” surfaces high-priority items that require action, such as bills due, appointment reminders, or requests that have not yet been answered. “Topics to catch up on” groups informational updates such as deliveries, refunds, and financial statements into categories like purchases or finances.

In a recent briefing with reporters, Google described this as Gmail “having your back” by showing users what they need to do and when, without requiring them to manually sort or label messages.

Google has stressed that this analysis happens within what it describes as a secure and isolated environment, with personal email data remaining under the user’s control. The AI Inbox is currently being made available to trusted testers, with a broader rollout planned over the coming months.

Writing, Replying And Proofreading With AI

Google is also expanding access to several AI-powered writing tools. “Help Me Write”, which can draft emails from a short prompt or rewrite existing text, is now rolling out to all users at no cost. Suggested Replies, an evolution of Smart Reply, now generate responses based on the full context of a conversation and attempt to match the user’s writing style.

For example, when coordinating an event, Suggested Replies can draft a tailored response that reflects prior messages, which the user can then edit before sending. Google has framed this as a way to save time on routine communication without removing human oversight.

A new Proofread feature adds more advanced grammar, clarity, and style checks. This tool flags incorrect word usage, suggests simpler phrasing, and recommends breaking up complex sentences. Google has been explicit that this is intended to reduce reliance on third-party tools such as Grammarly or copying text into general-purpose AI chatbots for editing.

Proofread is limited to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, reinforcing the company’s tiered approach to AI capabilities.

When And Where Are These Changes Rolling Out?

Google says that many of these features actually began rolling out in the US in January 2026, starting with English language support. Wider language and regional availability is planned over the coming months.

AI Overviews for threaded emails, Help Me Write, and Suggested Replies will be available to all users but AI Inbox and inbox-wide AI search remain gated, either behind testing programmes or paid subscriptions.

Google AI Pro and Ultra pricing varies by region, but these subscriptions sit within Google’s broader push to monetise advanced AI features across Workspace and consumer services.

Business Users And Google’s Competitors

For business users, the changes reflect Google’s attempt to make Gmail a more effective productivity hub rather than just a communication tool. Faster access to information buried in emails, clearer prioritisation of tasks, and reduced time spent drafting responses all align with wider trends in workplace automation.

These features also place Google in more direct competition with Microsoft, which has been embedding Copilot across Outlook, Teams, and the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Both companies are now positioning email as an interface for AI-driven knowledge retrieval rather than a simple inbox.

The inclusion of proofreading and drafting tools also puts pressure on standalone writing assistants, while AI Inbox overlaps with features offered by third-party email management tools that focus on prioritisation and summarisation.

Challenges And Criticism

Despite Google’s assurances, the move has raised some familiar concerns around privacy, transparency, and control. For example, some users and regulators remain sceptical about AI systems analysing personal communications, even when data is processed locally or in isolated environments.

Accuracy is another challenge. AI-generated summaries and answers risk missing nuance, context, or important details, particularly in professional or legal correspondence. Google has positioned these tools as optional and assistive rather than authoritative, but reliance on automated summaries could still introduce errors.

There is also an ongoing debate about subscription-based access to core productivity enhancements. As more advanced features move behind paid tiers, businesses may face pressure to upgrade simply to maintain efficiency parity.

Also, Google’s expansion of AI Overviews continues to attract some scrutiny following mixed reactions to similar features in Search, where early rollouts drew criticism for incorrect or misleading answers. Applying the same concept to private email data may reduce some risks, but expectations around reliability remain high.

Taken together, Gmail’s move into the Gemini era signals Google’s intention to make AI central to everyday digital work, while testing how far users are willing to trust automated systems with the most personal layer of their online activity.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

What emerges most clearly here is that Google is no longer treating AI in Gmail as a set of optional extras, but as core infrastructure for how email is organised, searched, and acted upon. By introducing Gemini directly into inbox prioritisation, search, and writing, Google is betting that users want fewer messages on screen and clearer signals about what actually needs attention. That approach reflects a broader shift in productivity software away from manual sorting and towards AI-mediated decision support, where the system actively interprets information rather than simply storing it.

For UK businesses, the potential upside is pretty meaningful. For example, faster access to buried information, clearer visibility of tasks, and reduced time spent drafting routine emails could translate into real efficiency gains, particularly for small and mid sized teams already operating under time pressure. At the same time, the growing split between free and paid capabilities raises practical questions around cost, governance, and consistency across organisations, especially where some staff have access to advanced AI features and others do not. Regulators, IT teams, and compliance leaders will also be watching closely to see how Google’s privacy assurances hold up as AI analysis becomes more deeply embedded in everyday business communications.

More broadly, this move reinforces how central email has become as a battleground in the wider AI productivity race. Google is clearly responding to competitive pressure from Microsoft and others, while also testing how comfortable users are with AI interpreting their most personal and professional data. Whether Gmail’s Gemini powered future is seen as genuinely helpful or uncomfortably intrusive will depend less on the ambition of the technology, and more on how accurately, transparently, and reliably it performs once it reaches wider use.

OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Health, a dedicated space for health and wellness conversations that allows users to link personal health data, raising fresh security and privacy concerns around highly sensitive information.

OpenAI says more than 230 million people ask health-related questions on ChatGPT each week, prompting the creation of a separate Health environment with additional protections. Health conversations are isolated from standard chats, encrypted, and excluded from model training, while users can connect data from apps such as Apple Health and other wellness platforms with explicit consent.

Despite these safeguards, ChatGPT Health concentrates medical history, lifestyle data, and behavioural context into a single AI account. If an account is compromised through phishing, weak passwords, or reused credentials, attackers could potentially gain access to deeply personal health information rather than just general chat content. OpenAI also stresses that Health is not intended for diagnosis or treatment, as large language models can still produce inaccurate or misleading responses.

For businesses, the risk lies in staff using AI tools with sensitive personal data on accounts that may not be properly secured. Strong password policies, mandatory multi-factor authentication, and clear guidance on linking personal data to AI services are essential steps to reduce exposure as consumer health features increasingly overlap with everyday work technology.