On May 21, 2025, OpenAI finalized the acquisition of io, a joint venture between Sam Altman and Jony Ive, for $6.5 billion in an all-equity deal, bringing approximately 55 specialists to OpenAI. Jony Ive will lead creative and design work at OpenAI, with the first devices expected to launch in 2026.

At I/O 2025, announced on May 21, 2025, Google introduced new AI-driven approaches to web interaction, offering AI Mode to every Search user in the United States, enabling conversations with an AI agent for web page summarization and shopping assistance.

On May 21, 2025, at I/O 2025, Google presented Project Mariner, an AI agent for Ultra subscribers capable of handling 10 tasks simultaneously, including web page visits and interactions.

On May 21, 2025, it was reported that AI is responsible for writing up to 30% of Microsoft's code.

On May 21, 2025, it was reported that Meta predicted its generative AI products would generate $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue in 2025 and between $460 billion and $1.4 trillion by 2035.

According to a report published on May 21, 2025, Meta's GenAI budget was more than $900 million in 2024 and could exceed $1 billion in 2025.

On May 21, 2025, LM Arena, founded in 2023, raised $100 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and UC Investments, valuing the organization at $600 million, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Felicis Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins.

On May 21, 2025, at Google I/O, Google announced the SynthID Detector tool for verifying AI-generated content made with Google AI and is moving towards making Project Astra, a “universal AI assistant“ from Google DeepMind, available to smartphone users.

On May 21, 2025, it was reported that OpenAI launched Codex, an AI coding agent, within ChatGPT.

On Tuesday, May 21, 2025, Google announced that the SDK for Gemini models will now natively support Anthropic’s MCP, a standard for connecting agents to data sources across the internet.

On May 21, 2025, The Linux Foundation and Meta highlighted how open-source AI (OSAI) is driving innovation and adoption, with 94% of surveyed organizations already using AI tools.

On May 21, 2025, Google announced it is enhancing Gemini with increased access to user data for personalized responses, giving it an advantage over competitors like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, and plans to extend Gemini's personal context feature beyond Gemini to Search and other services.

On May 21, 2025, Mistral announced Devstral, a new AI model focused on coding, developed in partnership with All Hands AI and openly available under an Apache 2.0 license, priced at $0.1 per million input tokens and $0.3 per million output tokens. This marks Mistral’s third product launch this month, following Mistral Medium 3 and Le Chat Enterprise.

On May 21, 2025, China's Commerce Ministry threatened legal action against anyone enforcing U.S. export restrictions on Huawei's AI chips, responding to the Trump administration's May 13 guidelines regarding Huawei's Ascend AI chips.

TechCrunch Sessions: AI, featuring speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere, will be held in Berkeley, California on June 5, 2025, aiming to gather over 1,200 decision-makers, according to an announcement published on May 21, 2025.

Meta launched the Llama for Startups program on May 21, 2025, to incentivize startups to adopt its Llama AI models, offering direct support and potential funding to eligible US-based firms with a May 30 application deadline.

On May 21, 2025, Google announced it is bringing more ads to AI Overviews and testing them in AI Mode, including search and shopping ads, with desktop rollout in the US starting today and expansion to select countries later this year.

As of May 21, 2025, Mistral, founded in 2023, has raised over €1.1 billion (roughly $1.24 billion) to date, with customers including BNP Paribas, AXA, and Mirakl, and backing from VCs like General Catalyst.

On Tuesday, May 21, 2025, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis raised concerns about the consistency of AI models during a public appearance.

During I/O on May 21, 2025, a Google communications leader stated that “human attention is the only truly finite resource,” and the company’s launch of AI agents aims to give users more of their time back.

On May 21, 2025, Microsoft’s AI security chief accidentally revealed Walmart’s AI plans during a Build talk that was disrupted by protesters, exposing confidential internal messages about Walmart’s upcoming use of Microsoft’s Entra and AI gateway services.

On May 21, 2025, Volvo announced it will be the first to install Google’s Gemini AI in its cars, expanding its partnership with Google, and will serve as one of Google’s reference hardware platforms for automotive technology development and testing.

On May 20, 2025, Google announced its commitment of up to $150 million to Warby Parker to jointly develop AI-powered smart glasses based on Android XR, with a potential equity stake if milestones are met, and plans to launch a series of products incorporating multimodal AI with prescription and non-prescription glasses "after 2025".

On May 21, 2025, it was reported that Google's vision is to use AI to eventually do a lot of Googling for you, relying on AI Mode in Google Search, which is starting to roll out to everyone in the US, and Project Mariner, which can now manage up to 10 simultaneous tasks; Google plans to add a "Deep Search" feature to AI Mode this summer.

On May 21, 2025, Amazon is testing short-form AI-powered audio product summaries on select product pages, voiced by “AI-powered shopping experts,” available to some U.S. customers via the “Hear the highlights” button in the Amazon Shopping app.

On May 21, 2025, Uber Freight formally launched a suite of AI features, including an expansion of Insights AI, to its supply chain software for shippers globally, featuring over 30 AI agents designed to execute key logistics tasks, with Colgate-Palmolive among the first users.

On May 21, 2025, it was reported that Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott presented his vision for an “open agentic web,” where agents act on behalf of users across the internet, at a tech conference this week.

As of May 21, 2025, AI coding assistants are gaining traction, with 76% of developers using or planning to use AI tools in their development processes last year, and companies like JetBrains, Google, Windsurf, and OpenAI unveiling models optimized for programming tasks.