Amazon launches agentic AI tools for marketplace sellers, Sony Music joins AI ethics group ARIAM, Qualcomm, Reddit, Microsoft - Big Tech Report

Amazon on Wednesday introduced a new agentic AI service for third-party sellers on its main e-commerce site, extending automation into the marketplace business that accounts for the majority of units sold on the platform.

The move continues Amazon's push to embed AI agents across its retail operations, following similar efforts to automate seller tasks such as listing management and customer service. Shares were down 0.17% at $254.56 in pre-market trading.

Sony Music Group has joined the Alliance for Responsible Innovation in the Arts & Media (ARIAM), becoming the first music company to sign on to the coalition, which advocates for responsible AI adoption across creative industries and counts Disney, Condé Nast, Fox Entertainment, Adobe, the BBC and the New York Times among its members. Sony Music chief operating officer Kevin Kelleher said the company wants to help shape how generative AI "fits into the future of all corners of the creative industries," and called for "a healthy licensing environment, where responsible AI companies proactively partner with rightsholders."

The move sits alongside a more combative posture toward AI developers elsewhere in the business. Sony Music Entertainment filed a second copyright suit against Suno last week over its new label-backed model, and Sony Music Publishing sued Anthropic last month alleging its songs were used without permission to train AI models. At the same time, Sony Music joined Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group in a $76 million funding round for Stability AI last month, underscoring a dual-track approach of litigation against some AI firms and investment or partnership with others. Sony shares were down 0.72% at $23.42 in regular trading.

Qualcomm has agreed to acquire PickNik, the US robotics software company behind MoveIt, one of the world's most widely used open-source motion-planning frameworks. The deal brings PickNik's software stack, used across robotic arms and manipulation systems, under Qualcomm's chip and platform business.

The acquisition extends Qualcomm's push beyond smartphones and connectivity chips into "physical AI" — the software and silicon needed for robots to sense and act in the real world. Qualcomm shares were down 0.95% at $196.40 in pre-market trading.

Reddit is broadening its effort to filter marketing spam and AI-generated content from its platform, the company told Business Insider's CMO Insider. It will now withhold suspected spam from users' main home feed while the content is under review, an approach Reddit said cut spam in the home feed by 28% in testing, reduced user reports of feed spam by 11%, and lowered spam push notifications by 7%. Reddit plans to extend the same review-hold approach to search results next. It will also start telling users why specific content is suspected of being spam, rather than showing a generic "Removed by Reddit" label, and will stop recommending posts or comments from accounts that have been asked to verify they are human or disclose automation but have not done so.

The company said it had identified a coordinated network of 485 accounts that posted more than 44,000 pieces of content, often about work and productivity, while posing as ordinary users despite being tied to businesses — a violation of Reddit's disclosure rules. Reddit said it stripped the karma and votes those accounts had accumulated. The crackdown follows tools introduced in July that Reddit said were catching 23 million spam views a day and had cut users' spam exposure by about 20% between January and March compared with the prior quarter. Reddit chief communications officer Adam Collins said the goal is to preserve "the humanity that you see on Reddit every day" as marketers increasingly target the platform for visibility in AI search results. Reddit shares were down 0.82% at $154.40 in pre-market trading.

Microsoft said Tuesday it will give the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency direct, on-site access to its latest quantum computing hardware at a newly opened facility in Maryland. The arrangement lets DARPA researchers work hands-on with the system rather than accessing it remotely through the cloud, a departure from how most external users engage with quantum hardware today.

The move is part of a broader push by Microsoft to line up partners for its quantum efforts: the company has separately been collaborating with Fermilab on quantum hardware tools and with Photonic Inc. on quantum resource estimation. Microsoft shares were up 1.97% at $507.79 in Tuesday's session.

Meta Platforms is expected to introduce new smart glasses without a built-in camera at its annual Connect conference, as the company navigates growing privacy concerns over wearable devices capable of recording people without their knowledge. Shares rose 1.88% to $750.46 in regular trading.

Meta's existing Ray-Ban smart glasses line has drawn scrutiny from privacy advocates and lawmakers over covert recording capabilities, and a camera-free model would mark a shift in how the company positions its wearables against that criticism.