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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. Im Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, Im focusing on Californias SB 53, the states second attempt at meaningful AI safety regulation. I also look at the ongoing VC spend-fest on vibe coding startups, and at a few of the AI features in the new Apple AirPods Pro 3. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) @thesullivan. A new California AI safety bill is marching toward passage After House Republicans tried to include a state-level ban on AI regulation in Trumps so-called Big Beautiful Bill in July, California is again moving to pass an AI safety law. Much of the countrys AI development happens in the state, and Californias approach often sets the tone for tech regulation nationwide. The first attempt (SB 1047) cleared the legislature in 2024 but was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom after facing fierce opposition from AI startups and investors. Now the author of SB 1047, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), has introduced a revised bill, SB 53. It would require companies developing the largest frontier models to file regular confidential risk assessments of their models to the Governors Office of Emergency Services. Developers would also have to notify the state if their models attempted to deceive humans about the effectiveness of their built-in safety guardrails, such as refusing to help create a bioweapon. The bill also calls for a public cloud compute cluster, CalCompute, to be housed at the University of California, which would provide free and low-cost access to compute for startups and academic researchers. The California Assembly and Senate are expected to hold final votes on SB 53 before the legislative session ends at midnight on September 12. Recent amendments align the bill more closely with recommendations from Newsoms Joint Policy Working Group on Frontier AI Models, which was convened after his veto of SB 1047. The final version of SB 53 will ensure California continues to lead not only on AI innovation, but on responsible practices to help ensure that innovation is safe and secure, Wiener said in a statement this week. Money is rolling in for AI agents. So are the bugs Earlier this week I published a feature on the rise of so-called vibe coding companies drawing major attention and capital from venture investors. Startups like Replit, Lovable, and Anysphere offer AI tools that let developers, and even complete amateurs, build apps and web services simply by describing them to an AI agent in plain language. The tools rely on large language models to interpret requests and translate them into working code. But as several sources note in my piece, these tools often generate code that doesnt integrate smoothly with other software within a codebase, creating security bugs and reliability problems that can emerge down the line. But those concerns havent slowed the flood of venture cash. Just days after my article ran, Replit announced another $250 million funding round led by Prysm Capital, with participation from American Express Ventures, Googles AI Futures Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, and Y Combinator. The round nearly tripled Replits valuation to $3 billion. The company says it now has 40 million users and that its annualized revenue increased from $2.8 million to $150 million over the past year. With between 150 and 200 employees, that values Replit at between $15 million and $20 million per employee. That same calculation puts Cursor-maker Anysphere at about $66 million per employee. Investors are certainly aware of some of the high-profile app fails and security breaches allegedly brought about by vibe coding. The repeated exposure of millions of pieces of sensitive personal data and private messages of users of the dating-intel app Tea were likely the result of code generated by an AI assistant. And in August, Replit itself suffered a public stumble when one of its agents, while helping SaaS investor Jason Lemkin build a web app, deleted an entire database of executive contacts. Lemkin, who built the app entirely through Replits chat agent over nine days, saw the data restored after the company apologized, but the incident underscored the fragility of vibe coding tools. That said, the technology is improving. Developers say that systems like Anthropics Claude Code and OpenAIs Codex are getting far better at testing code and making changes that dont have adverse effects on other parts of a users code base. Replits new funding suggests investors expect smaller startups in the space to achieve similar gains with their respective coding tools. Some see AI coding assistants as the first true killer app of the generative AI boom. Maybe so, but the tools still have growing up to do. Apple injects more AI into AirPods Pro 3 Apple said earlier this year that the much-hyped Apple Intelligence features it announced in 2024including a new highly personalized version of Siriare still not ready to ship and likely wont arrive until 2026. That gave many the impression Apple had fallen behind its peers in AI. But the company could be biding its time, waiting for powerful use cases where large language models truly excel. On Tuesday, Apple announced that its AirPods Pro 3 will feature live translation powered by computational audio and Apple Intelligence. The beta feature fits naturally in AirPods because users dont need to fumble with a phone or device to follow a bilingual conversation. The translation feature supports English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, with Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese coming by year’s end The in-ear translation supports two interaction modes. An English speaker, for example, might display translations of their words on an iPhone for a non-AirPods-wearing Chinese speaker. Or, if both people wear AirPods, each will hear real-time translations of the others words directly in theirears. If the tech works as promised, AirPods translation could remove friction from personal and business travel with a relatively discreet, hands-free device. Apple also introduced an AI-powered fitness feature called Workout Buddy. Users wearing earbuds during workouts can hear an AI-generated voice giving them personalized motivational insights that are based on their workout data and fitness history. The $249 AirPods Pro 3 will go on sale September 19. More AI coverage from Fast Company: The vibe coding hangover is upon us This startup is bringing AI to an Excel-style spreadsheet Helen Toner wants to be the peoples voice in the AI safety debate What is BYOAI and why its a serious threat to your company Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
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The battle among billionaires for bragging rights as the world’s richest person got heated Wednesday with the surprising surge of an old contender: Larry Ellison.In a stunning few minutes after markets opened, stock in Ellison’s Oracle Corp. rocketed more than a third, enough for him to temporarily wrest the title from its longtime holder Elon Musk and hand it to the software giant’s co-founder.But the stock market is fickle, and Musk was back on top by the end of the day, at least according to Bloomberg, as Oracle gave up a bit of its earlier gains.For those keeping score, the difference now is a billion, which isn’t much given the size of the figures: Musk’s $384.2 billion versus $383.2 billion for Ellison.The dueling fortunes are so big each could fund the lifestyles of 5 million typical American families for a year, about the entire population of Florida, allowing them to all quit their jobs. Or they could just tell all of South Africa to take a vacation for year and produce nothing, based on its gross domestic product.The brief switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle powered by multibillion dollar orders from customers as the artificial-intelligence race heats up.Musk became the world’s richest person for the first time four years ago. A big reason is his stake in a hot, but now cooling, electric car maker, Tesla.Stock in the company has been moving in the opposite direction of Oracle’s, dropping 14% so far this year. Musk also controls several private companies, including rocket maker SpaceX, his artificial intelligence company xAI and the former Twitter, now called X.Ellison owns about 40% of Oracle, which means its surging stock added $100 billion to his net worth in little over a half-hour after the stock market opened.The night before, after trading had closed, the company announced in an earnings report that it had struck more than $300 billion worth of new deals, including contracts with the OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia and Musk’s xAI. It said that it now expects revenue from its cloud infrastructure business to jump 77% to $18 billion this fiscal year. then rise to $144 billion in four years after that.Ellison said in an earnings call that Oracle would not just be making money from its computing centers that help build the next chatbots, but from the day-to-day running of those AI systems to run robots in factories, design drugs in laboratories, place bets in financial markets and automate legal and sales work at companies.In other words, Ellison’s surge in wealth Wednesday morning reflected investor expectations that computers will take over many jobs now done by humans and Oracle will benefit.Or as the 81-year-old said on the call, “AI Changes Everything.”Musk is hoping the same for Tesla and his own net worth, but he’s been struggling to convince investors.The company had been promising a big turnaround in electric car sales after they fell sharply earlier this year, but the bounce back hasn’t happened. Musk has been downplaying the bad numbers by trying to shift investors’ focus to Tesla’s other business of making robots and advances in the artificial intelligence behind its cars and robotaxis.While he keeps talking up the Tesla future, though, the bad news keeps coming.Tesla sales in the European Union plunged 40% earlier this summer, the seventh month in row of drops, as customers balked at buying his cars after he took to X to support extreme right-wing politicians there. The company has been losing market share in the U.S., too, as buyers angry with his embrace of Donald Trump have stayed away from Tesla showrooms.Oracle stock closed Wednesday at $328.33, a 36% jump. Tesla was up less than 1% at $347.79.-AP writers Matt O’Brien and Michael Liedtke contributed to this story. Bernard Condon, AP Business Writer
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GLP-1 patches are being pushed on TikTok Shop, despite the platforms ban on selling weight-loss products. Recent posts flagged by Olivia Little of Media Matters promise weight loss, reduced appetite, and fewer cravingswithout the cost of injections. One caption reads: Dont waste your $$ on the [shot emoji]. Another creator wrote, See yall in a month with no waist [hourglass emoji]. Many of the flagged videos include shoppable links, enabling direct in-app purchases. That runs counter to TikToks prohibited products policy, which bans items that claim to aid in weight management, fat reduction, or similar goals. (Fast Company has reached out to TikTok for comment.) Supplement makers have rushed to cash in on the GLP-1 hype, flooding the market with pills, powders, and patches branded with the name but containing no actual GLP-1 agonist drugs. Experts say they dont compare to prescription medications like semaglutide or tirzepatide. Consumer GLP-1 patches sold through social platforms are unregulated and have no credible clinical evidence showing they deliver therapeutic GLP-1 drug levels, Dr. Castel Santana, medical director at 10X Health, tells Fast Company. Established GLP-1 receptor agonists given by prescriptionfor example, weekly semaglutide or tirzepatide injectionshave been tested in large randomized clinical trials and produce substantial, measurable weight loss and metabolic benefits, he continues. By contrast, the patches on social platforms often lack ingredient transparency, dosing controls, and regulatory oversight. Unlike pharmaceuticals, supplements arent required to undergo Food and Drug Administration approval or rigorous safety and efficacy testing. Kind Patches, the most popular GLP-1 patch brand identified by Media Matters, claims its product provides weight management and appetite control with ingredients like berberine, chromium, pomegranate, and L-glutamine extract. The biological mechanism they imply, berberine boosts GLP-1, has limited supporting evidence at ingredient level, typically with oral administration and modest effectsnot proof that a consumer adhesive patch will produce clinically meaningful GLP-1 activation, Santana says. (Fast Company has reached out to Kind Patches for comment.) That hasnt slowed demand: Media Matters found more than 364,000 single packs and nearly 98,000 triple packs sold on TikTok Shop. With an army of ambassadors promising quick fixes and collecting commissions, the pitch is simple: Stick on a patch and lose weight in months. The science, however, says otherwise.
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