Meta

A new generation of AI-powered wearables from Amazon, Apple and Meta that constantly listen and interpret speech is pushing the boundaries of privacy law, with legal experts warning that users could potentially face liability for recording private conversations without consent, even when no audio is stored. The devices, including Amazon's Bee line, Apple Watch Series 12 and Meta's smart glasses, are designed to transcribe, summarize and analyze a user's day, but critics say they enable covert surveillance of bystanders and test laws written long before continuous audio processing existed.

Meta has removed language from its commercial terms that critics said could allow the company to scrape content from news websites to train its artificial intelligence models. The update follows backlash over a clause that gave Meta broad rights to use any content from linked domains, pages, or URLs.

A growing number of websites are blocking AI agents from performing automated tasks, forcing companies like Meta, xAI, and OpenAI to navigate a fragmented internet where access comes at a price.