Octopus Energy is trying to get its arms around a complicated issue: the clean-energy transition and the increase in electricity demand that’ll accompany it.

The renewable energy company is off to a strong start in its home market, the United Kingdom, where this year it became the largest domestic electricity supplier. Now, backed by a $9 billion valuation and investors like former Vice President Al Gore’s investment firm, it’s working to replicate that model in the Wild Wild West—the Texas energy market.

Octopus Energy’s US division, based in Houston, has an array of offerings, from thermostats to batteries to EV charging, with an emphasis on how each of those products interacts with the electric grid.

“We’re focused on reimagining what retail energy looks like,” Michael Lee, Octopus Energy US CEO, told Tech Brew, “especially as this particular state, Texas, goes through the energy transition at light speed as we bring on a ton of renewable energy, a lot of new electricity demand as we electrify everything, and really help balance this grid.”

Keep reading here.—JG

You may know net zero as the state when emissions are balanced by the amount removed from the atmosphere. It’s also the largest infrastructure opportunity you might come across today.

Wanna learn more? Check out EQT, an organization that has already made thematic infrastructure investments into areas like:

• generating, storing, and distributing energy
• decarbonization and electrification of industrial processes and transport
• resource efficiency and circularity

EQT has set Science Based Targets for 44 portfolio companies, and its infrastructure business has invested over $13 billion in the energy transition to date.

Dive deeper with EQT.

Can AI simulate the experience of fumbling through a conversation spoken in a language one only half knows?

A new feature from Duolingo lets subscribers practice their language skills through AI-powered video calls with one of the company’s cartoon characters, Lily. The OpenAI-powered tool is designed to immerse learners in “spontaneous, realistic conversations” in order to get hands-on chatting experience.

The feature was initially only available in Spanish, French, and English, but the company added German, Italian, and Portuguese soon after.

“The idea here is that speaking is a muscle,” Duolingo Principal Product Manager Zan Gilani told Tech Brew. “Up until now, finding access to native speakers has been very hard for most people…And then even when you do have access to them, it’s very nerve-racking. Often, you feel kind of embarrassed and shy.”

It’s just the latest way the gamified language learning platform has been tapping large language models through a longstanding partnership with OpenAI.

Keep reading here.—PK

The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on companies making big claims about AI.

On Wednesday, the FTC announced cases against four businesses the commission claims made “allegedly deceptive claims about AI-driven services” to market and sell their businesses. In addition, the FTC announced a settlement with another company that allowed users to create fake customer reviews using GenAI tools.

The batch of cases, part of an enforcement strategy dubbed Operation AI Comply—which is totally not a cheesy Steven Seagal flick—involves three companies that the FTC alleges promised profitable digital storefronts that never materialized. The commission also settled a case with the company DoNotPay, which offered legal services but, according to an FTC complaint, “did not conduct testing to determine whether its AI chatbot’s output was equal to the level of a human lawyer” and didn’t hire or retain attorneys.

“Some marketers can’t resist taking advantage of that by using the language of AI and technology to try to make it seem like their products or services deliver all the answers,” Julia Solomon Ensor, an attorney in the enforcement division of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, wrote in a blog post announcing the cases.

Keep reading on Marketing Brew.—RB

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

Let’s talk business: LinkedIn appears to be using all those posts about how B2B SaaS led one marketer to uncover the meaning of life to…train its AI. If you don’t want your precious and very SFW observations to be used as a training ground, you’ve gotta opt out. The Washington Post has the details.

Forage at your own risk: While we’re sure there’s a joke about hallucinating here, we’ll keep it serious: Be careful when relying on Google to tell you whether a mushroom is safe to eat. “Google is serving AI-generated images of mushrooms when users search for some species, a risky and potentially fatal error for foragers who are trying to figure out what mushrooms are safe to eat,” 404 Media reported.