Meta has cut several deals with news publishers to help provide real-time data for its AI chatbot services, as reported by Axios. The commercial agreements will allow its Meta AI chatbots to better answer user queries about news and current events.

These are multiyear deals where publishers will be compensated for the use of their content, but we don’t have any monetary specifics. The contracts do stipulate that Meta’s chatbots will link out to articles when answering news queries, potentially offering a slight traffic boost to publishers.

After burning tens of billions and stubbornly insisting the metaverse would eventually justify the cost, Mark Zuckerberg appears to be backing away from his most ambitious project. Once its defining obsession, it appears that Meta’s boss has finally decided to cut his losses: the metaverse could be on the way out.

Reality Labs encompasses several areas of Meta’s VR/AR business, but Bloomberg writes that two of them will be hit hardest: Horizon Worlds and virtual reality. Zuckerberg is planning to slash Reality Labs’ budget by 30%, with the cuts coming as early as January 2026.

LAST MONTH, HBO Max announced a major new addition to its library. Not only would the streamer be adding Mad Men—a show that HBO execs infamously passed on back when Matthew Weiner was a writer on The Sopranos—but it would be presenting the period drama’s episodes in a new 4K remastering. This would, according to the press release, give “audiences and longtime Mad Men fans the opportunity to enjoy the series’ authentically crafted elements with crisp detail and enhanced visual clarity.”