Megan Morrone

OpenAI's metamorphosis from chat app to tech giant OpenAI doesn't just want ChatGPT to be the everything app — it wants to be the everything company.

Chatbots were just the starter course.
Now ChatGPT has a browser. It's a shopping mall. It's an app store. It's a social media app. It's porn.
Full story @axios: www.axios.com/2025/10/22/o...

Trapped in a ChatGPT Spiral

I'm on The Daily today talking about my reporting on AI chatbots and how heavy users of ChatGPT can go into delusional, and sometimes tragic, spirals: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/p...

Also today, an OpenAI blog post from Sam Altman on "safety, freedom & privacy": openai.com/index/teen-s...

OpenAI outlines new mental health guardrails for ChatGPT The company says parents will soon be able to link their accounts to those of their teens.

OpenAI is rolling out new ChatGPT guardrails for teens and people in distress: parental controls, crisis support, trusted contacts.

This is nearly one year after the first parent sued an AI company over a child’s suicide.

Read @axios.com → axios.com/2025/09/02/chatgpt-openai-mental-health-teens

That’s Megan.Morrone@axios.com

I want to talk to you about your kids’ K-12 new school AI policies this year. For an @axios.com story. Please share this most with anyone. I’m at Megan.Morrone@Axios

I'm looking to chat with anyone who definitely would not like their next of kin to reanimate them with AI after they die...as one does.

This is for an Axios story. DM me here or megan.morrone@axios.com.

DM me about your AI job anxiety. I'm less empathetic than ChatGPT and it might be used in a story with your permission. So email if you're OK with that: megan.morrone@axios.com

Altman plans D.C. push to "democratize" AI economic benefits Altman wants to continue driving debate over the effect AI will have on jobs.

NEW data first reported by Axios:

• ChatGPT users send more than 2.5B prompts globally each day, per OpenAI
• More than 330M of those are in US
• The free version of ChatGPT is used by the vast majority of the platform's 500m weekly active users

New ChatGPT Agent promises to do more for you OpenAI says its new tool can take over more of your tasks from start to finish.

Agents. Agents. Agents. Agents.

ChatGPT Agent is out today. OpenAI says it can start and finish complex web and computing tasks without you holding its hand.

I’ll be testing it soon. In the meantime, here’s my Axios piece with the details:
www.axios.com/2025/07/17/c...

The top U.S. cybersecurity agency is shrinking quickly under Trump 2.0 Companies and critical infrastructure will be more vulnerable as a result, experts warn.

CISA spent years building out its role (and brand!) as the country's go-to partner on cyber issues.

piece by piece, that work is being dismantled as workforce reductions and budget cuts hit the agency.

more from today's @axios future of cyber newsletter:
www.axios.com/2025/07/15/c...

ChatGPT keeps having more memories of you OpenAI's expanded memory feature presents thorny privacy, personalization and control dilemmas.

ChatGPT’s new memory feature is here. And it raises big questions.

For @axios.com I talked with OpenAI's Christina Wadsworth Kaplan and Samir Ahmed about how memory works in ChatGPT and what it means to be remembered by a chatbot.

www.axios.com/2025/07/11/c...

I am a very simple woman. All I want is for AI to do my expense reports

Exclusive: The rise of the AI-savvy generalist New data from freelance platform Upwork shows how AI is shifting skills.

New @axios.com story: Upwork data shows a rise in “vibe coders” — people using AI to code without knowing how — and demand for “generalists” who can blend AI with creative skills.

www.axios.com/2025/06/30/a...

Exclusive: New Anthropic report details How Claude became an emotional support bot The research shows users grow more positive while chatting with Claude.

Anthropic just dropped new data on how folks are using Claude for emotional support.

Bots can be comforting. But they weren’t built for therapy. Thx to @miles.land &‬ Alex Sanderford from @anthropic.com & @erictopol.bsky.social for insights. In @axios.com AI+.

www.axios.com/2025/06/26/a...

Scoop: Trump to headline Sen. McCormick's AI energy summit in Pittsburgh Trump's attendance is a win for McCormick's efforts to bring AI and energy leaders together.

From @megmorrone.bsky.social: Trump will attend a summit next month at Carnegie Mellon -- a big win for Sen. Dave McCormick's efforts to bring AI and energy leaders together. www.axios.com/2025/06/12/t...

Here is your friendly reminder that LLMs are simply guessing at the next word. They're not designed to give you facts or to verify them. They don't "think," they infer. As far as I know, dogs still are unable to use Google when they've lost their socks.

CEOs are scaling themselves with AI digital twins Execs are pushing AI, but slow adoption at the top can cause workplace rifts.

I wrote for @axios.com about the executive “digital twin”: bots trained on a leader’s voice, writing, and decisions to scale their time and influence.

With insight from @levie.bsky.social, @samliang.bsky.social @jlevitt.bsky.social and @jgcarpenter.com.

Read here: www.axios.com/2025/06/10/a...

Ferris Bueller's iconic vest hits the auction block "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?"

As far as I'm concerned this is the biggest news of the day www.axios.com/local/chicag...

I’ve been on a plane from NY to SF for the past few hours and I’ve never before wished so hard that I didn’t have wifi.

AI companies could reduce hallucinations, but it would make their models slower, costlier, and less “helpful.”

So they optimize for speed and scale instead.

That’s why chatbots still confidently make stuff up. And probably always will.

Some highlights:

– RAG and SAFE aim to reduce hallucinations, but can’t eliminate them
– Newer models hallucinate more because they reason more
– “Hallucination-free AI may never arrive”

AI's "making stuff up" problem won't go away Companies are making some headway at limiting "hallucinations." The price is slower, costlier AI.

For @axios.com, I wrote about why AI hallucinations persist. And why tech companies aren’t doing more to fix them. (Hint: accuracy is expensive, and speed sells.)

🧵 www.axios.com/2025/06/04/f...

Workers are hiding their use of ChatGPT and other AI Why employees won't admit to using generative AI.

The ChatGPT bans are gone, but the fear and secrecy stuck around.

People are using AI behind their bosses backs, and it’s a recipe for screwups.

New from me at @axios.com , with insight from Gong, Coursera, @atlassian.bsky.social, mixus and @emollick.bsky.social: www.axios.com/2025/05/29/s...

Google's new Veo 3 AI video tool floods internet with real-looking clips Many seem to feel this is the moment we stop being able to tell the difference between real and AI.

Brace yourselves: We've officially climbed out the other side of the uncanny valley.

There’s something eerie and also inevitable about watching an AI-generated actor wrestle with the fact that they were created by a prompt.

My latest for Axios:
www.axios.com/2025/05/23/g...

Chatbot mentoring is popular — but relying on it is risky Workers and students who turn to AI instead of their teachers and bosses can miss out on key lessons.

I talked to experts about what we lose when we turn to prompts instead of people.

Story here: www.axios.com/2025/04/25/a...

OpenAI rolls out o3 and o4-mini The new models are designed for better reasoning and visual understanding.

OpenAI's newest model "thinks" with images, per @inafried.bsky.social on @axios.com www.axios.com/2025/04/16/o...

NOAA research websites slated to go dark get reprieve with contract extension NOAA is under a mandate to slash its IT costs.

"There will be no interruption in service. All NOAA Research sites will remain online," a NOAA spokesperson told Axios Friday afternoon. www.axios.com/2025/04/04/n...

PSA: Claude, SF's beloved albino alligator, now has a livestream — and it's giving us life. Watch: calacademy.org/learn-explore/animal-webcams/claude-cam

The webcam is sponsored by @anthropic.com — who, fittingly, also has a virtual assistant named Claude. The collab we didn't know we needed. 🐊🤝

‘The Terror Is Real’: An Appalled Tech Industry Is Scared to Criticize Elon Musk A huge swath of Silicon Valley is horrified by what Elon Musk is doing — but they’re increasingly afraid to say so.

A lot of Silicon Valley finds the whole DOGE/Musk approach troubling, or just bad management — but they're afraid to say so out loud. New from @issielapowsky.bsky.social:

www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Elon Musk says xAI has acquired X Musk said the all-stock merger valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $45 billion (including $12 billion of debt).

Musk says xAI has acquired X www.axios.com/2025/03/28/m...