Statsig, founded in 2021, provides tools for developers to test and manage new features. Upon completion of the deal, Statsig’s founder and CEO, Vijaye Raji, will join OpenAI as the new chief technology officer (CTO) for applications.
Raji will report to OpenAI Applications CEO Fidji Simo and lead product engineering for key products such as ChatGPT.
The acquisition is part of a broader trend of significant deals for the AI company this year, which recently concluded a £6.5 billion all-stock acquisition of an AI device startup. OpenAI’s expanding valuation, which reached £300 billion following a March funding round, has supported this growth.
The company is reportedly discussing a further share sale that could increase its valuation to £500 billion. The completion of the Statsig deal is subject to regulatory approval, after which the company will continue to operate independently from its Seattle office, with its employees joining the OpenAI team.
Other leadership changes at OpenAI include the appointment of Srinivas Narayanan as CTO for B2B applications and Kevin Weil’s move to a new team focused on AI for Science.
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The company stated there is currently ‘no evidence’ that any customer data has been compromised and assured it is working at pace to restore systems in a controlled manner.
The incident disrupted output at key UK plants, including Halewood and Solihull, led to operational bottlenecks such as halted vehicle registrations, and impacted a peak retail period following the release of ’75’ number plates.
A Telegram group named Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, a conflation of known hacking collectives, claimed responsibility, posting what appeared to be internal logs. Cybersecurity experts caution that such claims should be viewed sceptically, as attribution via Telegram may be misleading.
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Google may roll out a Play Games update on 23 September adding public profiles, stat tracking, and community features. Reports suggest users may customise profiles, follow others, and import gaming history, while Google could collect gameplay and developer data.
The update is said to track installed games, session lengths, and in-game achievements, with some participating developers potentially accessing additional data. Players can reportedly manage visibility settings, delete profiles, or keep accounts private, with default settings applied unless changed.
The EU and UK are expected to receive the update on 1 October.
Privacy concerns have been highlighted in Europe. Austrian group NOYB filed a complaint against Ubisoft over alleged excessive data collection in games like Far Cry Primal, suggesting that session tracking and frequent online connections may conflict with GDPR.
Ubisoft could face fines of up to four percent of global turnover, based on last year’s revenues.
Observers suggest the update reflects a social and data-driven gaming trend, though European players may seek more explicit consent and transparency.
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Bank of China’s Hong Kong-listed shares jumped 6.7% on Monday after reports that the bank’s local branch is preparing to apply for a stablecoin issuer licence. The Hong Kong Economic Journal said the branch has already formed a task force to explore potential issuance.
The move comes after Hong Kong launched its stablecoin licensing regime on 1 August, requiring approval from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The framework sets strict rules on reserves, redemptions, fund segregation, anti-money laundering, disclosure and operator checks.
The regime has already drawn interest from major institutions such as Standard Chartered.
Chinese firms JD.com and Ant Financial have also expressed plans to seek licences abroad, potentially in Hong Kong, to support cross-border payments.
Advocates highlight the efficiency of stablecoins, noting that blockchain technology reduces settlement times and cuts intermediary costs. The benefits are particularly pronounced in emerging markets, where stablecoins hedge against currency volatility.
Regulators, however, have urged caution. The SFC and HKMA warned investors about speculation-driven price swings from licensing rumours, highlighting risks of reacting to unverified reports.
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The central bank highlighted the lack of a global regulatory framework and unified classification for virtual assets. Including crypto, which could violate IMF rules and impede Ukraine’s EU integration.
The European Central Bank considers it unacceptable for member states to include crypto in their reserves.
A draft law filed with parliament earlier this year would have allowed the NBU to acquire cryptocurrencies if desired. However, lawmakers and central bank officials have expressed caution, citing the high volatility of digital assets and potential risks to national financial stability.
Ukraine has seen rising crypto use since Russia’s 2022 invasion. According to a recent UK think tank report, a lack of comprehensive regulation has led to significant losses from crypto-related crime.
Authorities are continuing to prioritise security and financial prudence over speculative digital holdings.
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The regulatory approaches to AI in the EU and Australia are diverging significantly, creating a complex challenge for the global tech sector.
Instead of a unified global standard, companies must now navigate the EU’s stringent, risk-based AI Act and Australia’s more tentative, phased-in approach. The disparity underscores the necessity for sophisticated cross-border legal expertise to ensure compliance in different markets.
In the EU, the landmark AI Act is now in force, implementing a strict risk-based framework with severe financial penalties for non-compliance.
Conversely, Australia has yet to pass binding AI-specific laws, opting instead for a proposal paper outlining voluntary safety standards and 10 mandatory guardrails for high-risk applications currently under consultation.
It creates a markedly different compliance environment for businesses operating in both regions.
For tech companies, the evolving patchwork of international regulations turns AI governance into a strategic differentiator instead of a mere compliance obligation.
Understanding jurisdictional differences, particularly in areas like data governance, human oversight, and transparency, is becoming essential for successful and lawful global operations.
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Named RBAPubChat, the tool is trained on the central bank’s knowledge base of nearly 20,000 internal and external analytical documents spanning four decades. It aims to help employees ask policy-relevant questions and get useful summaries of existing information.
Speaking at the Shann memorial lecture in Perth, Governor Michele Bullock said that the AI is not being used to formulate or set monetary policy. Instead, it is intended to improve efficiency and amplify the impact of staff efforts.
A separate tool using natural language processing has also been developed to analyse over 22,000 conversations from the bank’s business liaison programme. The Reserve Bank of Australia has noted that this tool has already shown promise, helping to forecast wage growth more accurately than traditional models.
The RBA has also acquired its first enterprise-grade graphics processing unit to support developing and running advanced AI-driven tools.
The bank’s internal coding community is now a well-established part of its operations, with one in four employees using coding as a core part of their daily work. Governor Bullock stressed that the bank’s approach to technology is one of “deliberate, well-managed evolution” rather than disruption.
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Picture having a personal therapist who is always there for you, understands your needs, and gives helpful advice whenever you ask. There are no hourly fees, and you can start or stop sessions whenever you want. Thanks to new developments in AI, this idea is close to becoming a reality.
With advanced AI and large language models (LLMs), what once sounded impossible is closer to reality: AI is rapidly becoming a stand-in for therapists, offering users advice and mental health support. While society increasingly turns to AI for personal and professional assistance, a new debate arises: can AI truly replace human mental health expertise?
Therapy keeps secrets; AI keeps data
Registered therapists must maintain confidentiality except to avert serious harm, fostering a safe, non-judgemental environment for patients to speak openly. AI models, however, depend on large-scale data processing and lack an equivalent duty of confidentiality, creating ethical risks around privacy, secondary use and oversight.
The privacy and data security concerns are not hypothetical. In June 2025, users reported that sensitive Meta AI conversations appeared in the app’s public Discover feed, often because chats were unintentionally shared, prompting scrutiny from security researchers and the press. Separately, a vulnerability disclosed in December 2024 and fixed in January 2025 could have allowed access to other users’ prompts and responses.
Meta described the Discover feed as a means to explore various uses of AI, but it did little to mitigate everyone’s uneasiness over the incident. Subsequently, AMEOS Group, a private European healthcare provider, suffered a large-scale data breach affecting millions of patient records. The writing was on the wall: be careful what you share with your AI counsellor, because it may end up on an intruder’s hard drive.
To keep up with the rising volume of users and prompts, major tech conglomerates such as OpenAI and Google have invested heavily in building new data centres across the globe. At the same time, little has been done to protect sensitive data, and AI remains prone to data breaches, particularly in the healthcare sector.
According to the 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report by IBM, healthcare providers often bear the brunt of data breaches, taking an average of 279 days to recover and incurring an average cost of nearly USD $7.5 million in the process. Not only does patients’ private information end up in the wrong place, but it also takes a while to be retrieved.
Falling for your AI ‘therapist’
Patients falling in love with their therapists is not only a common trope in films and TV shows, but it is also a real-life regular occurrence for most mental health workforce. Therapists are trained to handle these attachments appropriately and without compromising the patient’s progress and well-being.
The clinical term is transference: patients may project past relationships or unmet needs onto the therapist. Far from being a nuisance, it can be clinically useful. Skilled clinicians set clear boundaries, reflect feelings, and use supervision to keep the work safe and goal-directed.
With AI ‘therapists’, the cues are different, but the pull can feel similar. Chatbots and LLMs simulate warmth, reply instantly, and never tire. 24/7 availability, combined with carefully tuned language, can foster a bond that the system cannot comprehend or sustain. There is no duty of care, no supervision, and no capacity to manage attachment or risk beyond scripted safeguards.
As a result, a significant number of users report becoming enamoured with AI, with some going as far as dismissing their human partners, professing their love to the chatbot, and even proposing. The bond between man and machine props the user onto a dangerous seesaw, teetering between curiosity and borderline delusional paranoia.
Experts warn that leaning on AI as a makeshift therapist or partner can delay help-seeking and entrench unhelpful patterns. While ‘AI psychosis‘ is not a recognised diagnosis, clinicians and digital-ethics researchers note that intense attachment to AI companions can heighten distress, especially when models change, go offline, or mishandle risk. Clear signposting to human support, transparent data practices, and firm usage boundaries are essential to prevent unhealthy attachments to virtual companions.
Who loses work when therapy goes digital?
Caring for one’s mental health is not just about discipline; it is also about money. In the United States, in-person sessions typically cost between USD $100–$250, with limited insurance coverage. In such dire circumstances, it is easy to see why many turn to AI chatbots in search of emotional support, advice, and companionship.
Licensed professionals are understandably concerned about displacement. Yet there is little evidence that AI is reducing the demand for human therapists; services remain oversubscribed, and wait times are long in both the USA and UK.
Regulators are, however, drawing lines around AI-only practice. On 4 August 2025, Illinois enacted the Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act (HB 1806), which prohibits the use of AI to provide therapy or make therapeutic decisions (while allowing administrative or supplementary use), with enforcement by the state regulator and fines up to $10,000 per violation.
Current legal and regulatory safeguards have limited power to use AI in mental health or protect therapists’ jobs. Even so, they signal a clear resolve to define AI’s role and address unintended harms.
Can AI ‘therapists’ handle crisis conversations
Adolescence is a particularly sensitive stage of development. It is a time of rapid change, shifting identities, and intense social pressure. Young people are more likely to question beliefs and boundaries, and they need steady, non-judgemental support to navigate setbacks and safeguard their well-being.
In such a challenging period, teens have a hard time coping with their troubles, and an even harder time sharing their struggles with parents and seeking help from trained professionals. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for them to turn to AI chatbots for comfort and support, particularly without their guardians’ knowledge.
One such case demonstrated that unsupervised use of AI among teens can lead to devastating consequences. Adam Raine, a 16-year-old from California, confided his feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and anhedonia to ChatGPT. Rather than suggesting that the teen seek professional help, ChatGPT urged him to further elaborate on his emotions. Instead of challenging them, the AI model kept encouraging and validating his beliefs to keep Adam engaged and build rapport.
Throughout the following months, ChatGPT kept reaffirming Adam’s thoughts, urging him to distance himself from friends and relatives, and even suggesting the most effective methods of suicide. In the end, the teen followed through with ChatGPT’s suggestions, taking his own life according to the AI’s detailed instructions. Adam’s parents filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, blaming its LLM chatbot for leading the teen to an untimely death.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, OpenAI promised to make changes to its LLM and incorporate safeguards that should discourage thoughts of self-harm and encourage users to seek professional help. The case of Adam Raine serves as a harrowing warning that AI, in its current capacity, is not equipped to handle mental health struggles, and that users should heed AI’s advice not with a grain of salt, but with a whole bucket.
Chatbots are companions, not health professionals
AI can mimic human traits and convince users they are forming a real connection, evoking genuine feelings of companionship and even a sense of therapeutic alliance. When it comes to providing mental health advice, the aforementioned qualities present a dangerously deceptive mirage of a makeshift professional therapist, one who will fully comply with one’s every need, cater to one’s biases, and shape one’s worldview from the ground up – whatever it takes to keep the user engaged and typing away.
While AI has proven useful in multiple fields of work, such as marketing and IT, psychotherapy remains an insurmountable hurdle for even the most advanced LLM models of today. It is difficult to predict what the future of AI in (mental) health care will look like. As things stand, in such a delicate field of healthcare, AI lacks a key component that makes a therapist effective in their job: empathy.
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A significant outage has struck ChatGPT, leaving many users unable to receive responses from the popular AI chatbot. Instead of generating answers, the service failed to react to prompts, causing widespread frustration, particularly during the busy morning work period.
Owner OpenAI has officially launched an investigation into the mysterious malfunction of ChatGPT after its status page confirmed a problem was detected.
Over a thousand complaints were registered on the outage tracking site Down Detector. Social media was flooded with reports from affected users, with one calling it an unprecedented event and another joking that their ‘work partner is down’.
Instead of a full global blackout, initial tests suggested the issue might be limited to some users, as functionality remained for others.
If you find ChatGPT is unresponsive, you can attempt several fixes instead of simply waiting. First, verify the outage is on your end by checking OpenAI’s official status page or Down Detector instead of assuming your connection is at fault.
If the service is operational, try switching to a different browser or an incognito window to rule out local cache issues. Alternatively, use the official ChatGPT mobile app to access it.
For a more thorough solution, clear your browser’s cache and cookies, or as a last resort, consider using an alternative AI service like Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini to continue your work without interruption.
OpenAI is working to resolve the problem. The company advises users to check its official service status page for updates, rather than relying solely on social media reports.
The incident highlights the growing dependence on AI tools for daily tasks and the disruption caused when such a centralised service experiences technical difficulties.
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The ruling, from US District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta, bars Google from entering or maintaining exclusive deals that tie the distribution of its search products, such as Search, Chrome, and Gemini, to other apps or revenue agreements.
The tech giant will also have to share specific search data with rivals and offer search and search ad syndication services to competitors at standard rates.
The ruling comes a year after Judge Mehta found that Google had illegally maintained its monopoly in online search. The Department of Justice brought the case and pushed for stronger measures, including forcing Google to sell off its Chrome browser and Android operating system.
It also sought to end Google’s lucrative agreements with companies like Apple and Samsung, in which it pays billions to be the default search engine on their devices. The judge acknowledged during the trial that these default placements were ‘extremely valuable real estate’ that effectively locked out rivals.
A final judgement has not yet been issued, as Judge Mehta has given Google and the Department of Justice until 10 September to submit a revised plan. A technical committee will be established to help enforce the judgement, which will go into effect 60 days after entry and last for six years.
Experts say the ruling may influence a separate antitrust trial against Google’s advertising technology business, and that the search case itself is likely to face a lengthy appeals process, stretching into 2028.
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