Meta's new Muse AI assistant is having a moment — and it's kind of adorable. Meta announced a slew of new integrations for its AI assistant at a company event this week, including a customizable furry lil’ avatar and a Tamogatchi-like wearable device for interacting with it.

Plus, Wall Street is betting billions on growing demand for cybersecurity in the age of AI and social media platform Discord enters its age-gating era.

Anita Ramaswamy at The Information is here to help us unpack the week in tech.

More on this:

I Gave My Life Over to Meta’s A.I. Agent and Was Blown Away — New York Times

Meta Tests Muse AI Agent Calls That Are Actually Made By Humans in a Call Center — 404 Media

CrowdStrike and Okta Trade at Big Premiums Despite Unproven AI Payoff — The Information

Discord’s age-verification era is upon us, despite community backlash — Tech Crunch

The AI smart speaker market is getting crowded. This year, Amazon, which is a Marketplace underwriter, rolled out a large language model-powered version of its classic voice assistant.

You can still talk to Alexa+ using Amazon echo devices, but it also operates as a text chatbot, replacing the old Rufus AI. It's capable of conversational searches, managing to-do lists and even generating podcasts.

Daniel Rausch, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa and Echo, broke down what's new with Alexa+.

More on this:

“I’ve Been Testing Alexa for a Decade. Here’s My Take on How Alexa+ Compares.” from Wirecutter

“Amazon's Alexa+” from Amazon

A proliferation of AI apps that allow users to create sexualized images of real people have grown into a multi-million dollar industry.

Social media platforms are serving as de facto gateways to these services, despite the fact that most prohibit the sharing or promotion of this kind of non-consensual intimate imagery, according to Sina Laubenstein, director of programs at the Institute for Strategic Dialogues, which recently published a report on this.

The ocean is already one of the best climate solutions we’ve got. It absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that would otherwise contribute to global warming. But what if it could store even more CO2? Marketplace’s Amy Scott, host of our climate podcast “How We Survive,” looked into one strategy to achieve that goal. And she set sail for a demonstration.

This feature is part of “How We Survive.” You can hear more of Amy’s reporting on marine carbon removal and other geoengineering solutions on their new season, wherever you get your podcasts.

Shri Narayanan, professor of engineering, psychology and linguistics at the University of Southern California, teaches his students to privilege humans when using artificial intelligence for their research across areas of study. In this episode, he walks us through how he, for example, uses AI to map behavioral analyses that can inform areas of study including autism and depression.

Meta and Microsoft — as well as other tech titans — have been reporting quarterly earnings, and investors are looking at AI spending with a more skeptical eye. Plus, more than 1,000 workers at top AI labs signed an open letter this week calling on the government to "deliberately set the pace" of this fast-moving technology, and NBCUniversal makes a deal with YouTube to add all of Peacock's content to its premium streaming service.

Anita Ramaswamy, columnist at The Information, joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino to discuss these stories on this week’s “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”