While AI might be a popular workplace companion for Tech Brew readers, the vast majority of those who responded to a recent survey aren’t shelling out any money for these tools.

About 78% of the 878 readers we surveyed said they don’t pay anything for AI tools overall, 16% allot $1 to $20 per month, and 5% budget more than that. A little over half of these office workers have some form of AI provided to them at work—whether through customized internal tools (23%) or third-party enterprise platforms (30%)—but a plurality (38%) use AI independently on the job.

Business owners/entrepreneurs and freelancers/contractors were much more likely to pay for AI tools—43% and 31%, respectively, paid from a dollar to more than $20 per month—suggesting that other employees might have a workplace footing the bill.

At least one respondent mentioned cost as a roadblock to adoption: “I think one of the big time savers is note-taking at work. But since it costs money, the company only has limited licenses for a few folks,” one respondent at a large company told us.

Keep reading here.—PK

The promise of cars that drive themselves has been just around the corner for many years now.

Self-driving vehicles still may not be mainstream, but 2024 saw incremental progress (with some noteworthy setbacks), from robotaxi companies expanding to new markets to more drivers being able to take their hands off while on highways, to driverless trucks delivering goods along predictable routes. Experts say more small steps will come in 2025.

“Autonomous vehicles are advancing fastest in controlled environments of various kinds,” Paul Miller, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, told Tech Brew. “We see them being deployed at scale in mining, in construction, in warehouses––and much, much, much less on public highways, for all sorts of obvious reasons.”

“We will get there,” he added. “But 2025 is just around the corner, so there’s not going to be a dramatic improvement then.”

Keep reading here.—JG

Starting next year, Meta plans to limit certain advertisers’ access to health-related data that could affect how everything from vitamins and supplements to acne treatments and Botox injections are marketed on the platform.

The plans, contained within a lengthy update to Meta’s advertising policy released last month, detail how the platform plans to limit or entirely restrict advertiser access to data that falls into specific categories like health and wellness, financial services, and politics. The new policy is scheduled to go into effect in January, nearly two years after advertisers using Meta’s ad tools faced scrutiny from the federal government for allegedly sharing users’ sensitive health information with the platform.

The changes could prevent advertisers from being able to access some kinds of data tied to consumers’ online activity, like the purchases they’ve made or the items they’ve placed in their online shopping carts. Those can be crucial data points for advertisers who are increasingly relying on Meta’s AI-powered advertising tools to find potential customers.

Advertisers told Marketing Brew that they had heard little from Meta directly about the full effects of the policy changes, and they described the policy changes as “vague” and “fairly ambiguous.” Beyond that, one described the timing of the announcement as “tone-deaf” amid the busy holiday shopping season.

Regardless, advertisers are working to understand how the updates will affect them—and are bracing for impact.

Keep reading here.—RB