I pushed eight free AI chatbots to their limits to find the best AI chatbots of 2026. To explore our top picks, check out ZDNET's chatbot-by-chatbot guide.

Abstract: ChatGPT can promptly reformulate a text and improve its quality in content and form while preserving the original meaning. Yet, little is known about how learners respond to such ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a JScript-based command-and-control (C2) framework called PeckBirdy that has been put to use by China-aligned APT actors since 2023 to target multiple ...

Texas public schools could soon be required to teach biblical passages in English classes from kindergarten to senior year, according to a draft proposal before the State Board of Education. The ...

For someone who is not a professional swimmer, I spend an awful lot of time under water. I consider it an act of mobile meditation: Sensory input is muffled, so the chaos of the surface world ...

ICE can’t function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping. Marchers in Charlotte, North Carolina, protest the ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good, on ...

In the first long-term and real-world reflective study of its kind, scientists have uncovered new detrimental health impacts of the artificial sweetener aspartame that echoes those found in shorter ...

In 2024, my niece Caroline received a Ph.D. in gravitational-wave physics. Her research interests include “the impact of model inaccuracies on biases in parameters recovered from gravitational wave ...

If only they were robotic! Instead, chatbots have developed a distinctive — and grating — voice. Credit...Illustration by Giacomo Gambineri Supported by By Sam Kriss In the quiet hum of our digital ...

Soon AI agents will be writing better, cleaner code than any mere human can, just like compilers can write better assembly. There’s an old joke about the weather in San Francisco: If you don’t like it ...

Function, a whole-body health company, announced it secured $298 million in an oversubscribed Series B round, boosting its valuation to $2.5 billion. Redpoint Ventures participated in the round, with ...

Academic reading and writing constitute fundamental competences in higher education that enable access to disciplinary knowledge and participation in academic communities. The incorporation of ...