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By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

NEW YORK (AP) — Google said Sunday that it is expanding the shopping features in its AI chatbot by teaming up with Walmart, Shopify, Wayfair and other big retailers to turn the Gemini app into a virtual merchant as well as an assistant.

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An instant checkout function will allow customers to make purchases from some businesses and through a range of payment providers without leaving the Gemini chat they used to find products, according to Walmart and Google.

The news was announced on the first day of the National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York, which is expected to draw 40,000 attendees from retail and technology companies this week. The role of artificial intelligence in e-commerce and its impact on consumer behavior are expected to dominate the three-day event. read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation cooled a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell, a sign that stubbornly elevated cost pressures are slowly easing.

Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said Tuesday, the same as in November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.2%, also matching November’s figure. Increases at that pace, over time, would bring inflation closer to the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

Many economists had expected inflation to jump last month as the government resumed normal data collection after the six-week shutdown last fall, so the modest increases that matched the November figures came as a relief. The price of manufactured goods was flat in December, a sign that the impact of tariffs may be starting to fade.

“Distortions caused by the government shutdown have made the inflation data harder to interpret, but the recent run of figures suggests inflation has peaked,” Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN and MARC LEVY, Associated Press

It won’t be easy for Big Tech companies to win the hearts and minds of Americans who are angered about massive artificial intelligence data centers sprouting up in their neighborhoods, straining electricity grids and drawing on local reservoirs.

Microsoft is trying anyway.

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The software giant’s president, Brad Smith, is meeting with federal lawmakers Tuesday to push forward an approach that calls for the industry, not taxpayers, to pay the full costs of the vast network of computing warehouses needed to power AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s own Copilot. read more

TALLAHASSEE — A tech industry group that has battled Florida social-media laws in court is opposing new legislation dubbed the “Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights.”

The Computer & Communications Industry Association on Friday sent a three-page letter to the Florida Senate saying the legislation “would impose an expansive and fragmented regulatory regime that risks chilling innovation, undermining free expression and placing Florida significantly out of step with recommended federal and international approaches to artificial intelligence governance.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis has made a priority of what he has called an AI bill of rights, and Sen. Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, filed such a bill (SB 482) last month. Rep. Alex Rizo, R-Hialeah, filed an identical House proposal (HB 1395) on Friday.

The legislation addresses a variety of issues, such as establishing a “right” for parents to control children’s interactions with artificial intelligence; saying people have a right to know when they’re communicating with a human or an AI system or chatbot; and setting rules about the unauthorized AI-generated use of people’s names, images or likenesses. read more