Apple Shortcuts, which lets users write custom automations, recently earned some new capabilities thanks to Apple Intelligence. Here’s how to make the most of this upgrade.
As sentences go, “Apple Intelligence now works in Apple Shortcuts” isn’t the most likely to inspire a lot of people to click a link. And that’s too bad: This change, one of the more overlooked new features in macOS 26, means you can use Apple’s on-board AI to do all kinds of things while designing shortcuts.
Look, I get it: Apple Intelligence makes AI a feature, not a product, and features are generally less interesting to read about than full-blown products. And Apple Shortcuts—which lets you create one simple automation to execute multiple tasks—is one of those features that’s easy to overlook. But it can save you a lot of time, if you own a device that supports the AI engine and you’re willing to put in a bit of effort to automate tasks you do often.
I, for example, set up my daily journal with Shortcuts, creating a fresh journal entry that pulls in things like the weather, a quote, and a general structure. I use this shortcut just about every day, and it makes my life better.
Adding a large language model to Shortcuts means it’s easier to build automations that can simplify your life. Here’s how:
How This Works
Head to Apple Shortcuts, create a new shortcut, and you’ll see “Apple Intelligence” as one of the listed applications that’s supported. There are a few Actions related to text, allowing you to do things like proofread, summarize, and make a list from text. You also get the ability to create an image, if you want.
For my money, though, the most useful Action offered is “Use Model,” mostly because of how open-ended it is. With this you can choose between three models—the totally offline and private model running on your device, a server offered by Apple using the same models, or even ChatGPT (no subscription or API key necessary).
You can write any prompt you want, allowing you to manipulate text in all kinds of useful ways. I, for example, wanted to be able to quickly copy the details of an event invitation from a text message or email, then add it to my calendar. I created a new shortcut that grabs the current text from the clipboard. I added a bunch of Use Model steps that use the original text and output things like an event title, the start time for the event, and the location. Then I set the shortcut to create an event using these details.
It all took some fine-tuning, sure, but it now works well enough that I can add events to my calendar much more quickly than ever before. And I made a similar shortcut for adding items to Reminders, which I use as my primary to-do list.
Neither of these are perfect—they get things wrong, which I’m sure I could prevent with more fine-tuning. But they work well enough, and they let me review entries before adding them to my calendar. This has already saved me a bit of time in day-to-day life.
I’m sure you can think of some similar task you can automate. My point isn’t to say that you should use this exact shortcut—it’s to say that you can build a shortcut that works exactly the way you want it. The AI means you can grab details from text that’s not necessarily structured in a clean way and output those details exactly where needed.
I’ve mentioned in multiple articles over the past few weeks that I don’t think the chatbot will ultimately be the primary way most of us actually use AI in the coming years. Apple’s Shortcuts, which empowers the user to build things using the technology, is the version of this technology I would like to see catch on—a feature that makes existing tools a little bit better.
The new ChatGPT-powered web browser is OpenAI’s boldest play yet to reinvent how people use the web.
Illustration: WIRED Staff
OpenAI announced on Tuesday it’s rolling out a new internet browser called Atlas that integrates directly with ChatGPT. Atlas includes features like a sidebar window people can use to ask ChatGPT questions about the web pages they visit. There’s also an AI agent that can click around and complete tasks on a user’s behalf.
“We think that AI represents a rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during a livestream announcing Atlas. “Tabs were great, but we haven’t seen a lot of browser innovation since then.”
Atlas debuts as Silicon Valley races to use generative AI to reshape how people experience the internet. Google has also announced a plethora of AI features for its popular Chrome browser, including a “sparkle” button that launches its Gemini chatbot. Chrome remains the most used browser worldwide.
OpenAI says the Atlas browser will be available starting today for ChatGPT users globally on macOS. Windows and mobile options are currently in the works. Atlas is free to use, though its agent features are reserved for subscribers to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Pro plans.
“We’ve made some major upgrades to search on ChatGPT when accessed via Atlas,” Ryan O’Rouke, OpenAI’s lead designer for the browser, said during the livestream. If a user asks for movie reviews in the Atlas search bar, a chatbot-style answer will pop up first, rather than the more traditional collection of blue links users might expect when searching the web via Google.
Now, in addition to that result, users can switch to other tabs to see a collection of website links, images, videos, or news related to their queries. It’s a bit of an inversion of the Google Chrome experience. Rather than the search result being a collection of links with AI features added on top of that, the AI chatbot is central in Atlas, with the list of website links or image results as secondary.
Another feature OpenAI highlighted in the livestream is Atlas’ ability to collect “browser memories.” The capability is optional, and is an iteration of ChatGPT’s existing memory tool that stores details about users based on their past interactions with the chatbot. The browser can recall what you searched for in the past and use that data when suggesting topics of interest and actions to take, like automating an online routine it detects or returning back to a website you previously visited that could be helpful for a current project.
Tech giants and smaller startups have been experimenting with baking AI into web browsers for the past several years. Microsoft was one of the first movers when it threw its AI tool, called Bing at the time, into its Edge browser as a sidebar. Since then, browser-focused companies like Opera and Brave have also continued to tinker with different AI integrations. Another notable entry in the AI browser wars is Perplexity’s Comet, which launched this year and is also free to use.
AI isn’t coming—it’s here. Today’s STEM students aren’t fighting it; they’re learning to read it, question it, and use it. The new skill isn’t coding the machine, but understanding its logic well enough to steer it.
A degree in computer science used to promise a cozy career in tech. Now, students’ ambitions are shaped by AI, in fields that blend computing with analysis, interpretation, and data.
In the early 2010s, nearly every STEM-savvy college-bound kid heard the same advice: Learn to code. Python was the new Latin. Computer science was the ticket to a stable, well-paid, future-proof life.
But in 2025, the glow has dimmed. “Learn to code” now sounds a little like “learn shorthand.” Teenagers still want jobs in tech, but they no longer see a single path to get there. AI seems poised to snatch up coding jobs, and there aren’t a plethora of AP classes in vibe coding. Their teachers are scrambling to keep up.
“There’s a move from taking as much computer science as you can to now trying to get in as many statistics courses” as possible, says Benjamin Rubenstein, an assistant principal at New York’s Manhattan Village Academy. Rubenstein has spent 20 years in New York City classrooms, long enough to watch the “STEM pipeline” morph into a network of branching paths instead of one straight line. For his students, studying stats feels more practical.
Forty years ago, students inspired by NASA dreamed of becoming physicists or engineers. Twenty years after that, the allure of jobs at Google or other tech giants sent them into computer science. Now, their ambitions are shaped by AI, leading them away from the stuff AI can do (coding) and toward the stuff it still struggles with. As the number of kids seeking computer science degrees falters, STEM-minded high schoolers are looking at fields that blend computing with analysis, interpretation, and data.
Rubenstein still requires every student to take computer science before graduation, “so they can understand what’s going on behind the scenes.” But his school’s math department now pairs data literacy with purpose: an Applied Mathematics class where students analyze New York Police Department data to propose policy changes, and an Ethnomathematics course linking math to culture and identity. “We don’t want math to feel disconnected from real life,” he says.
It’s a small but telling shift—one that, Rubenstein says, isn’t happening in isolation. After a long boom, universities are seeing the computer-science surge cool. The number of computer science, computer engineering, and information degrees awarded in the 2023–2024 academic year in the US and Canada fell by about 5.5 percent from the previous year, according to a survey by the nonprofit Computing Research Association.
At the high school level, the appetite for data is visible. AP Statistics logged 264,262 exam registrations in 2024, making it one of the most-requested AP tests, per Education Week. AP computer-science exams still draw big numbers—175,261 students took AP Computer Science Principles, and 98,136 took AP Computer Science A in 2024—but the signal is clear: Data literacy now sits alongside coding, not beneath it.
“Students who see themselves as STEM people will pursue whatever they think makes them a commodity, something valued in the workplace,” Rubenstein says. “The workplace can basically shift education if it wants to by saying, ‘Here’s what we need from students.’ K–12 will follow suit.”
Amid all this, AI’s rise leaves teachers in a difficult position. They’re trying to prepare students for a future defined by machine learning while managing how easily those same tools can short-circuit the learning process.
Yet Rubenstein believes AI could become a genuine ally for STEM educators, not a replacement. He imagines classrooms where algorithms help teachers identify which students grasp a concept and which need more time, or suggest data projects aligned with a student’s interests—ways to make learning more individualized and applied.
It’s part of the same shift he’s seen in his students: a move toward learning how to interpret and use technology, not just build it. Other educators are starting to think along similar lines, exploring how AI tools might strengthen data literacy or expand access to personalized STEM instruction.
At the University of Georgia, science education researcher Xiaoming Zhai is already testing what that could look like. His team builds what he calls “multi-agent classroom systems,” AI assistants that interact with teachers and students to model the process of scientific inquiry.
Zhai’s projects test a new kind of literacy: not just how to use AI but how to think with it. He tells the story of a visiting scholar who had never written a line of code yet used generative AI to build a functioning science simulation.
“The bar for coding has been lowered,” he says. “The real skill now is integrating AI with your own discipline.”
Zhai believes AI shouldn’t be treated as an amalgamation of STEM disciplines but as part of its core. The next generation of scientists, he says, will use algorithms the way their predecessors used microscopes—to detect patterns, test ideas, and push the boundaries of what can be known. Coding is no longer the frontier; the real skill is learning how to interpret and collaborate with machine intelligence. As chair of a national committee on AI in science education, Zhai is pushing to make that shift explicit, urging schools to teach students to harness AI’s precision while staying alert to its blind spots.
“AI can do some work humans can’t,” he says, “but it also fails spectacularly outside its training data. We don’t want students who think AI can do everything or who fear it completely. We want them to use it responsibly.”
That balance between fluency and skepticism, ambition and identity, is quietly rewriting what STEM means in schools like Rubenstein’s. Computer-science classes aren’t going away, but they’re sharing the stage with forensics electives, science-fiction labs and data-ethics debates.
“Students can’t think of things as compartmentalized anymore,” Rubenstein says. “You need multiple disciplines to make good decisions.”
AI isn’t coming—it’s here. Today’s STEM students aren’t fighting it; they’re learning to read it, question it, and use it. The new skill isn’t coding the machine, but understanding its logic well enough to steer it.
This holiday season, rather than searching on Google, more Americans will likely be turning to large language models to find gifts, deals, and sales. Retailers could see up to a 520 percent increase in traffic from chatbots and AI search engines this year compared to 2024, according to a recent shopping report from Adobe. OpenAI is already moving to capitalize on the trend: Last week, the ChatGPT maker announced a major partnership with Walmart that will allow users to buy goods directly within the chat window.
As people start relying on chatbots to discover new products, retailers are having to rethink their approach to online marketing. For decades, companies tried to game Google’s search results by using strategies known collectively as search engine optimization, or SEO. Now, in order to get noticed by AI bots, more brands are turning to “generative engine optimization,” or GEO. The cottage industry is expected to be worth nearly $850 million this year, according to one market research estimate.
GEO, in many ways, is less a new invention than the next phase of SEO. Many GEO consultants, in fact, came from the world of SEO. At least some of their old strategies likely still apply since the core goal remains the same: anticipate the questions people will ask and make sure your content appears in the answers. But there’s also growing evidence that chatbots are surfacing different kinds of information than search engines.
Imri Marcus, chief executive of the GEO firm Brandlight, estimates that there used to be about a 70 percent overlap between the top Google links and the sources cited by AI tools. Now, he says, that correlation has fallen below 20 percent.
Search engines often favor wordiness—think of the long blog posts that appear above recipes on cooking websites. But Marcus says that chatbots tend to favor information presented in simple, structured formats, like bulleted lists and FAQ pages. “An FAQ can answer a hundred different questions instead of one article that just says how great your entire brand is,” he says. “You essentially give a hundred different options for the AI engines to choose.”
The things people ask chatbots are often highly specific, so it’s helpful for companies to publish extremely granular information. “No one goes to ChatGPT and asks, ‘Is General Motors a good company?’” says Marcus. Instead, they ask if the Chevy Silverado or the Chevy Blazer has a longer driving range. “Writing more specific content actually will drive much better results because the questions are way more specific.”
These insights are helping to refine the marketing strategies of Brandlight’s clients, which include LG, Estée Lauder, and Aetna. “Models consume things differently,” says Brian Franz, chief technology, data and analytics officer at Estée Lauder Companies. “We want to make sure the product information, the authoritative sources that we use, are all the things that are feeding the model.” Asked whether he would ever consider partnering with OpenAI to let people shop Estée Lauder products within the chat window, Franz doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely,” he says.
At least for the time being, brands are mostly worried about consumer awareness, rather than directly converting chatbot mentions into sales. It’s about making sure when people ask ChatGPT „What should I put on my skin after a sunburn?“ their product pops up, even if it’s unlikely anyone will immediately click and buy it. “Right now, in this really early learning stage where it feels like it’s almost going to explode, I don’t think we want to look at the ROI of a particular piece of content we created,” Franz says.
To create all of this new AI-optimized content, companies are, of course, turning to AI itself. “At the beginning, people speculated that AI engines will not be training on AI content,” Marcus says. “That’s not really the case.”
There are hundreds of prepaid phone plans, but they all borrow from the same few mobile networks. Here’s what you need to know when shopping for cell service in the US.
Prepaid phone plans are for more than just setting up a burner phone. Instead of getting locked into a contract and indefinitely paying for a phone you may never actually own, prepaid phone plans promise lower prices while delivering the same coverage and speed as the major networks like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. What’s not to love?
Although prepaid phones sometimes get a bad rap, they make a lot of sense for some customers, particularly if you’re partial to buying unlocked phones and owning them outright. By cutting out contracts that stipulate several lines, financing on phones like the iPhone 17 that can climb well over $1,000, and extras you may not need, like mobile hot spot coverage, prepaid phone services end up much cheaper than major carriers without big performance losses. Still, they aren’t made equally. Most prepaid phone providers tap into an existing cellular network, but they have different limitations on how much access you have to that network. Here’s everything you need to know.
What Are Mobile Virtual Network Operators?
Prepaid phone plans used to be easy to sort out, but after decades of mergers and acquisitions, the lines have gotten a little messy. The best place to start is the difference between mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and mobile network operators (MNOs). MNOs own and operate a mobile network, and they include T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon. MVNOs use an existing network. For example, Cricket Wireless uses AT&T’s network, while Google Fi relies on T-Mobile.
The lines between MNOs and MVNOs have blurred in recent years. Previously independent MVNOs like TracFone have been gobbled up by larger carriers (in this case, Verizon). Other brands used to operate mobile networks but now serve as MVNOs. A good example of that is MetroPCS, which merged with T-Mobile in 2012 and eventually became Metro by T-Mobile in 2018.
With how intertwined MVNOs and MNOs are these days, it’s hard to separate them based purely on infrastructure. The more important distinction is whether your phone plan is prepaid or postpaid: With a prepaid plan, you pay for your data and time up front. With a postpaid plan, you’re billed for the data you’ve used after you’ve already used it.
Beyond when you pay, there are a few other aspects that separate MVNOs from traditional MNOs:
Unlocked phones. The idea of a “carrier-locked” phone doesn’t exist with MVNOs. You’ll need an unlocked phone to use with an MVNO.
Bring your own phone. MVNOs generally don’t force you to lease (or finance) a phone as part of your service, bringing down the price. Ideally, you’ll buy a phone outright and bring it to an MVNO.
No contracts. Because MVNOs are prepaid, you don’t have to sign a contract. You pay for your service upfront.
Lower prices. MVNOs are almost universally less expensive than a major carrier. Some of the reasons are obvious, like the fact that you need to buy a phone outright, but others are hidden away, such as congestion speeds (more on that later). Regardless, you’ll spend less with an MVNO in almost every case.
Those are the broad differences, but you’ll find smaller distinctions within MVNOs themselves. For instance, Tello Mobile is what you’d call a “full MVNO,” managing everything from marketing to billing and customer service. Boost by T-Mobile is a lighter MVNO, where aspects of service like support are more closely tied to a major carrier (in this case, T-Mobile).
Downsides of MVNOs and Prepaid Mobile Plans
It’d be great if prepaid MVNOs were cheaper than major carriers without any downsides, but that’s not the case. For MVNOs, the devil’s in the details. MVNOs are treated somewhat as second-class citizens on the network, at least when push comes to shove. That means you might experience slower or even throttled speeds in some cases.
MVNOs aren’t forthcoming about these limitations, but you can find them spelled out in policy documentation. Let’s look at Mint Mobile’s network management policy as an example.
The first hurdle is deprioritization. “Other brands may be prioritized higher on the T-Mobile network,” reads Mint’s network management policy. “For all Service plans, T-Mobile may also reduce speeds during times of network congestion.” These policies aren’t clear about how severe the slowdown is, but generally, if a network has a lot of congestion, MVNOs will see slower speeds before those on major carriers.
In most parts of the country, this isn’t a problem. However, you’ll likely experience slower speeds in major cities and at large events. If you’re at a concert and everyone is trying to post Instagram stories and TikToks, you’ll probably notice a significant slowdown.
Another downside with most MVNOs is throttling. You’ll be able to purchase an “unlimited” data plan, but there are usually soft caps to the amount of data you can use before speeds slow. Again using Mint as an example, it classifies “heavy data users” as those who use more than 35 GB of data in a month, and it says these users will “have their data usage prioritized below the data usage (including tethering) of other customers at times and at locations where there are competing customer demands for network resources, which may result in slower data speeds.”
Those are the two big drawbacks, but some smaller limitations pop up depending on the provider you look at. Mint, for instance, uses “video optimization,” which basically means video streams are capped at standard definition when using mobile data (480p). This happens automatically on the network, even if you’re trying to stream a higher resolution.
I’m using Mint as a touchstone here, but these practices are common among most MVNOs. Cricket has similar data restrictions and video limitations as does Optimum Mobile. Major carriers that have direct prepaid plans, like T-Mobile, generally have higher data limits before reducing speeds.
Outside of those limitations, some MVNOs don’t offer additional cellular features like roaming or a mobile hot spot. Those limitations aren’t universal, but they’re some good things to look out for when you’re looking at providers and plans.
Can You Use the Same Number With a Prepaid Mobile Plan?
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determined decades ago that phone providers don’t own phone numbers. Broadly, you’re allowed to keep your number when transferring to a new carrier, regardless of whether that’s a prepaid or postpaid carrier. In fact, since 2009, the FCC requires carriers to transfer—or, more properly, “port”—your number within one business day.
Under the FCC’s rules, a carrier can’t deny porting your number, even if you refuse to pay a porting fee. However, porting fees are allowed. Some carriers, such as T-Mobile, don’t have any fees for porting your number. Others charge anywhere from a few dollars to $20.
There are situations where you can’t port your number—for instance, if you’re moving to a different region. Most MVNOs allow you to check if you can bring your own number over. Visible by Verizon, for example, features a portability checker on its website, along with a detailed guide on transferring your number.
Is T-Mobile an MVNO?
T-Mobile is a mobile network operator, or MNO, so it wouldn’t fall under the category of an MVNO. However, T-Mobile owns several MVNOs, including Metro by T-Mobile and Mint Mobile.
Do Prepaid Phone Plans Need a Credit Check?
You generally don’t need a credit check with prepaid phone plans. Virtual carriers like Metro by T-Mobile use prepaid service instead of postpaid service. You pay for your calls, texts, and data up front, while traditional carriers use a postpaid model where you’re billed at the end of your billing cycle.
Although prepaid phone services don’t need a credit check for the service itself, you may need a credit check if you want to finance or lease a phone. Many prepaid phone services allow you to bring your own device if you’re unable to finance or lease a new phone.
Can I Bring My Own Phone to an MVNO?
Nearly all MVNOs allow you to bring your own phone. That’s one of the big advantages of using an MVNO over a major carrier, in fact. You’ll need an unlocked phone, however.
T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T all allow you to unlock devices that are locked to their networks, with some stipulations. For instance, Verizon keeps your device locked for 60 days from the purchase date. Regardless of the particular policy, you’ll need to own the device outright before you can unlock it.
MVNOs and the Networks They Use
There are a ton of MVNOs, and I don’t use “a ton” lightly. There are dozens and dozens of prepaid providers, absolutely, but also smaller, niche MVNOs. For instance, Secure Phone is an MVNO largely focused on selling its own GPS-tracking phone and app; the cellular service isn’t the main draw. There are also plenty of MVNOs that aren’t really around anymore. GoSmart Mobile, for example, still allows you to sign up for a plan on its website, but it doesn’t offer anything beyond 3G speeds. I’ve excluded those providers.
Here’s a list of MVNOs mainly focused on providing prepaid cellular service, separated by network. Most MVNOs only use a single network, but some tap into multiple networks. You’ll see those names listed multiple times. I haven’t included providers that use other networks for roaming. Boost Mobile, for example, uses its own network, but it taps into the T-Mobile and Verizon networks when roaming.
MVNOs on the T-Mobile Network
Astound Mobile
boom! Mobile
Flex Mobile
Fliggs Mobile
Gen Mobile
Google Fi
Helium Mobile
Infimobile
Jethro Mobile
Kroger Wireless
Metro by T-Mobile
Mint Mobile
Mobi
Noble Mobile
Optimum Mobile
Patriot Mobile
RedPocket Mobile
SpeedTalk Mobile
Tello Mobile
Teltik
Ting Mobile
Ultra Mobile
US Mobile
MVNOs on the Verizon Network
Affinity Cellular
boom! Mobile
Cox Mobile
Credo Mobile
Infimobile
MobileX
Page Plus Cellular
Patriot Mobile
RedPocket Mobile
Simple Mobile
Spectrum Mobile
Straight Talk Wireless
Ting Mobile
Total Wireless
TracFone
US Mobile
Visible by Verizon
Walmart Family Mobile
Xfinity Mobile
MVNOs on the AT&T Network
AirVoice Wireless
Consumer Cellular
Cricket Wireless
H2O Wireless
Klarna Mobile
Patriot Mobile
PureTalk
RedPocket Mobile
Ting Mobile
Unreal Mobile
US Mobile
Be Picky With Prepaid Plans
There’s nothing wrong with a prepaid phone, especially today. Although prepaid plans sprang up as an alternative for customers who couldn’t pass the credit checks to lease or finance a phone, that’s not the case today. There are budget phones that carriers will (almost literally) give away for free, and most carriers own a handful of prepaid services for customers who don’t want a contract.
You should be careful when browsing MVNOs, though. It takes little more than some startup money, a graphic designer, and a bit of promotion to spin up an MVNO—just look at Trump Mobile. MVNOs are all using existing infrastructure, so performance actually isn’t as important as it seems. It’s more important to pay attention to the limitations of service and customer service. That’s what MVNOs provide.
OpenAI said it will allow users in the U.S. to make purchases directly through ChatGPT using a new Instant Checkout feature powered by a payment protocol for AI co-developed with Stripe.
The new chatbot shopping feature is a big step toward helping OpenAI monetize its 700 million weekly users, many of whom currently pay nothing to interact with ChatGPT, as well as a move that could eventually steal significant market share from traditional Google search advertising.
The rollout of chatbot shopping features—including the possibility of AI agents that will shop on behalf of users—could also upend e-commerce, radically transforming the way businesses design their websites and try to market to consumers.
OpenAI said it was rolling out its Instant Checkout feature with Etsy sellers today, but would begin adding over a million Shopify merchants, including brands such as Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori “soon.”
The company also said it was open-sourcing the Agentic Commerce Protocol, a payment standard developed in partnership with payments processor Stripe that powers the Instant Checkout feature, so that any retailer or business could decide to build a shopping integration with ChatGPT. (Stripe’s and OpenAI’s commerce protocol, in turn, supports the open-source Model Context Protocol, or MCP, that was originally developed by AI company Anthropic last year. MCP is designed to allow AI models to directly hook into the backend systems of businesses and retailers. The new Agentic Commerce Protocol also supports more conventional API calls too.)
OpenAI will take what it described as small fee from the merchant on each purchase, helping to bolster the company’s revenue at a time when it is burning through many billions of dollars each year to train and support the running of its AI models.
How it works
OpenAI had previously launched a shopping feature in ChatGPT that helped users find products that were best suited to them, but the suggested results then linked out to merchants’ websites, where a user had to complete the purchase—analogous to the way a Google search works.
When a ChatGPT user asks a shopping-related question—such as “the best hiking boots for me that cost under $150” or “possible birthday gifts for my 10-year old nephew”—the chatbot will still respond with product suggestions. Under the new system, if a user likes one of the suggestions and Instant Checkout is enabled, they will be able to click a “Buy” button in the chatbot response and confirm their order, shipping, and payment details without ever leaving the chat.
OpenAI said its “product results are organic and unsponsored, ranked purely on relevance to the user.” The company also emphasized that the results are not affected by the fee the merchant pays it to support Instant Checkout.
Then, to determine which merchants that carry that particular product should be surfaced for the user, “ChatGPT considers factors like availability, price, quality, whether a merchant is the primary seller, and whether Instant Checkout is enabled,” when displaying results, the company said.
OpenAI said that ChatGPT subscribers, who pay a monthly fee for premium features, would be able to use the same credit or debit card to which they charge their subscription or store alternate payment methods to use.
OpenAI’s decision to launch the shopping feature using Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Protocol will be a big boost for that payment standard, which can be used across different AI platforms and also works with different payment processors—although it is easier to integrate for existing Stripe customers. The protocol works by creating an encrypted token for payment details and other sensitive data.
Currently, OpenAI says that the user remains in control, having to explicitly agree to each step of the purchasing process before any action is taken. But it is easy to imagine that in the future, users may be able to authorize ChatGPT or other AI models to act more “agentically” and actually make purchases for the user based on a prompt, without having to check back in with a user.
The fact that users never have to leave the chat interface to make the purchase may pose a challenge to Alphabet’s Google, which makes most of its money by referring users to companies’ websites. Although Google may be able to roll out similar shopping features within its Gemini chatbot or “AI Mode” in Google Search, it’s unclear whether what it could charge for transactions completed in these AI-native ways would compensate for any loss in referral revenue and what the opportunities would be for the display of other advertising around chatbot queries.
The CMG Active Listening scandal involves Cox Media Group (CMG), a major American media company, which admitted to using „Active Listening“ technology that allegedly captures conversations through smartphone microphones and smart devices to target users with hyper-specific advertisements[1][2][3]. This revelation has sparked significant controversy and prompted responses from major American tech companies.
American Tech Companies Listed in CMG’s Presentations
Companies Named as Partners
According to leaked CMG pitch decks obtained by 404 Media, the following American tech giants were explicitly identified as CMG partners or clients in their Active Listening program[4][5][6]:
Google (including Google Ads and Bing search)
Meta (Facebook’s parent company)
Amazon (Amazon Ads)
Microsoft (including Bing search engine)
Tech Company Responses and Denials
Google’s Response:
Google took the most decisive action, removing CMG from its Partners Program immediately after the 404 Media report was published[1][4][5]. A Google spokesperson stated: „All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action“[6].
Meta’s Response:
Meta denied any involvement in the Active Listening program and announced an investigation into whether CMG violated Facebook’s terms of service[7][4]. A Meta spokesperson told Newsweek: „Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads, and we’ve been public about this for years. We are reaching out to CMG to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data“[8][9].
Amazon’s Response:
Amazon completely denied any collaboration with CMG on the Active Listening program[4][6]. An Amazon spokesperson stated: „Amazon Ads has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so“[9][10].
Microsoft’s Response:
While Microsoft was mentioned in the pitch deck as a partner through its Bing search engine[4][11], the company has not provided a public response to the allegations at the time of these reports.
Apple’s Response:
Although not directly implicated as a CMG partner, Apple responded to the controversy by clarifying that such practices would violate its App Store guidelines[12]. Apple emphasized that apps must request „explicit user consent and provide a clear visual and/or audible indication when recording, logging, or otherwise making a record of user activity“[12].
How the Active Listening Technology Allegedly Works
According to CMG’s marketing materials, the Active Listening system operates by[1][13][14]:
Real-time voice data collection through smartphone microphones, smart TVs, and other connected devices
AI analysis of conversations to identify consumer intent and purchasing signals
Data integration with behavioral data from over 470 sources
Targeted advertising delivery through various platforms including streaming services, social media, and search engines
Geographic targeting within 10-mile ($100/day) or 20-mile ($200/day) radius
CMG’s pitch deck boldly stated: „Yes, Our Phones Are Listening to Us“ and claimed the technology could „identify buyers based on casual conversations in real-time“[14][15][9].
Legal and Privacy Implications
The scandal has raised significant legal and privacy concerns[16][17]. Senator Marsha Blackburn sent letters to CMG, Google, and Meta demanding answers about the extent of Active Listening deployment and requesting copies of the investor presentation[17].
CMG initially defended the practice as legal, claiming that microphone access permissions are typically buried in the fine print of lengthy terms of service agreements that users rarely read thoroughly[14][18]. However, privacy experts note that such practices would likely violate GDPR regulations in Europe and potentially face legal challenges in various US jurisdictions[19][16].
Current Status
Following the public backlash, CMG has:
Removed all references to Active Listening from its website[3][20]
Claimed the presentation contained „outdated materials for a product that CMG Local Solutions no longer offers“[7][8]
Stated that while the product „never listened to customers, it has been discontinued to avoid misperceptions“[8]
The scandal has reignited long-standing consumer suspicions about device surveillance and targeted advertising, with many users reporting eerily accurate ads that seemed to reflect their private conversations[13][21][22].
Scientists were able to create a bespoke treatment for KJ Muldoon’s rare genetic disorder within six months. It could be a blueprint for potentially life-saving, gene-editing Crispr therapies.
Last August, KJ Muldoon was born with a potentially fatal genetic disorder. Just six months later, he received a Crispr treatment designed just for him.
Muldoon has a rare disorder known as CPS1 deficiency, which causes a dangerous amount of ammonia to build up in the blood. About half of babies born with it will die early in life. Current treatment options—a highly restrictive diet and liver transplantation—aren’t ideal. But a team at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine was able to bypass the standard years-long drug development timeline and use Cripsr to create a personalized medicine for KJ in a matter of months.
Science Newsletter
Your weekly roundup of the best stories on health care, the climate crisis, new scientific discoveries, and more. Delivered on Wednesdays.
“We had a patient who was facing a very, very devastating outcome,” says Kiran Musunuru, professor for translational research at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who was part of the team that made KJ’s treatment.
When KJ was born, his muscles were rigid, he was lethargic, and he wouldn’t eat. After three doses of his custom treatment, KJ is starting to hit developmental milestones his parents never thought they’d see him reach. He’s now able to eat certain foods and sit upright by himself. “He really has made tremendous strides,” his father Kyle Muldoon says.
The case is detailed today in a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine and was presented at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy annual meeting in New Orleans. It could provide a blueprint for making customized gene-editing treatments for other patients with rare diseases that have few or no medical treatments available.
When the body digests protein, ammonia is made in the process. An important enzyme called CPS1 helps clear this toxic byproduct, but people with CPS1 deficiency lack this enzyme. Too much ammonia in the system can lead to organ damage, and even brain damage and death.
Since KJ’s birth, he has been on special ammonia-reducing medicines and a low-protein diet. After receiving the bespoke Crispr drug, though, KJ was able to go on a lower dose of the medication and start eating more protein without any serious side effects. He’s still in the hospital, but his doctors hope to send him home in the next month or so.
Both KJ’s parents and his medical team stop short of calling the Crispr therapy a cure, but they say it’s promising to see his improvement. “It’s still very early, so we will need to continue to watch KJ closely to fully understand the full effects of this therapy,” says Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, director of the Gene Therapy for Inherited Metabolic Disorders Frontier Program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Penn Medicine, who led the effort with Musunuru. She says the Crispr treatment probably turned KJ’s severe deficiency into a milder form of the disease, but he may still need to be on medication in the future.
Ahrens-Nicklas and Musunuru teamed up in 2023 to explore the feasibility of creating customized gene-editing therapies for individual patients. They decided to focus on urea cycle disorders, a group of genetic metabolic conditions that affect the body’s ability to process ammonia that includes CPS1 deficiency. Often, patients require a liver transplant. While the procedure is possible in infants, it’s medically complex. Ahrens-Nicklas and Musunuru saw an opportunity to find another path.
When KJ was born, the researchers used genome sequencing to determine the specific genetic mutation driving his disease. It turns out KJ had actually inherited two different mutations in the CPS1 gene—one from each parent. The team decided to target the mutation that had been reported before in an unrelated patient known to have severe CPS1 deficiency; the other hadn’t been seen before.
KJ’s team turned to Crispr, the Nobel Prize-winning technology that can precisely edit DNA. So far, only one Crispr-based medicine is commercially available. Approved in late 2023, it treats sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. Other Crispr-based therapies are in development for more common diseases that affect tens or hundreds of thousands of patients.
The allure of Crispr is its potential to directly address the underlying genetic cause of a disease rather than simply treat symptoms, as the vast majority of current medicine does. The approved Crispr therapy, Casgevy, is given as a one-time treatment. But the Philadelphia-led team specifically designed KJ’s therapy to be redosable out of safety concerns, starting with a low dose to ensure there were no adverse effects. Terry Horgan, a 27-year-old with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, passed away in 2022 shortly after receiving the first known custom Crispr treatment. His death was likely due to a reaction to the virus used to deliver the Crispr molecules.
For KJ’s treatment, researchers used a version of Crispr called base editing that can change one “letter” in a DNA sequence to another. They packaged the base-editing components in tiny bubbles called lipid nanoparticles, which were then delivered via an IV infusion.
Before it could be given to KJ though, it was tested for safety in mice and monkeys. Since the drug was unapproved, the team needed permission from the Food and Drug Administration to use the experimental treatment in an individual patient. The researchers applied to the FDA on February 14 and received approval on February 21. They gave KJ his first dose on February 25.
“The clinical responses described are impressive,” says Timothy Yu, a neurologist at Boston Children’s Hospital who wasn’t involved in making KJ’s treatment. He says the Philadelphia team’s approach was a “very thoughtful and comprehensive end-to-end process.”
Yu’s lab has been working on customized genetic medicines based on antisense oligonucleotides, or ASOs—short molecules that block the production of proteins. Yu developed a personalized ASO in 10 months for a young girl with Batten disease, a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder. The treatment was dubbed milasen, after the patient, Mila. It was the first medicine that was tailor-made to treat a single patient’s genetic mutation. The treatment temporarily improved Mila’s condition and quality of life, but ultimately, she died in February 2021 at 10 years old.
“The superpower of Crispr base editing is its broad applicability to many types of genetic mutations. Its kryptonite is that we are in the very early days of demonstrating efficient and safe Crispr delivery to many different organs,” Yu says. ASOs, meanwhile, are well vetted for use in the brain, spinal cord, and eye, which are more difficult to address with Crispr.
Crispr could potentially address a variety of genetic diseases and types of cancer, but getting it to the right place in the body remains a challenge. The approved Crispr medicine, Casgevy, involves removing a patient’s cells and editing them outside the body, an arduous and expensive process. A drug given directly to the body would be much more practical. The liver is an easy first target because lipid nanoparticles naturally gravitate there, but only some diseases can be treated in this way.
Since urea cycle disorders primarily originate in the liver, they could be a prime target for custom Crispr medicines. “We’ve just written a new playbook,” says Fyodor Urnov, scientific director at the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley, who collaborated on the paper.
Urnov says KJ’s case demonstrates that bespoke genetic treatments can be made quickly and used successfully to treat critically ill patients. “This could have failed in so many ways,” he says. “Nothing was a given.” Every day, he worried that KJ would pass away before they could finish making the therapy.
The team did not say exactly how much the therapy cost to produce, but Musunuru says it was comparable to the cost of a liver transplant, around $800,000. The companies involved in manufacturing—Aldevron, Danaher, and Integrated DNA Technologies—made in-kind contributions.
“Though it will take a lot of work to get there, my hope is that someday no rare disease patients will die prematurely from misspellings in their genes, because we’ll be able to correct them,” Musunuru says.
Die lange geltende Steuerbefreiung für Elektrofahrzeuge in Österreich endet bald. Ab dem 1. April 2025 werden auch Elektroautos der motorbezogenen Versicherungssteuer (mVSt) unterliegen, was für Besitzer dieser Fahrzeuge eine jährliche Mehrbelastung von mehreren hundert Euro bedeuten wird. Diese Änderung betrifft sowohl bereits zugelassene Elektrofahrzeuge als auch Neuzulassungen und stellt eine bedeutende finanzpolitische Wende dar. Im Folgenden wird die Berechnungslogik der neuen Steuer erläutert und für die gängigsten Elektroautomodelle in Österreich berechnet.
Die Berechnungslogik der neuen KFZ-Steuer für Elektroautos
Die motorbezogene Versicherungssteuer für Elektroautos wird auf Basis von zwei wesentlichen Fahrzeugmerkmalen berechnet: der Dauerleistung (30-Minuten-Nennleistung) und dem Eigengewicht des Fahrzeugs. Beide Werte sind im Zulassungsschein vermerkt und bilden die Grundlage für die Steuerberechnung. Anders als bei Fahrzeugen mit Verbrennungsmotor, bei denen die Steuer anhand der Motorleistung und des CO₂-Ausstoßes berechnet wird, wurde für Elektrofahrzeuge eine spezielle Berechnungsmethode entwickelt.
Die Steuerformel beinhaltet Freibeträge für beide Komponenten, die vor der eigentlichen Berechnung abgezogen werden. Bei der Dauerleistung werden 45 kW abgezogen, beim Eigengewicht sind es 900 kg. Nach Abzug dieser Freibeträge erfolgt die Berechnung anhand einer gestaffelten Formel.
Leistungskomponente (pro Jahr)
Die Berechnung der Leistungskomponente erfolgt nach dem Abzug des Freibetrags von 45 kW in drei Stufen:
Für die ersten 35 kW: 3 Euro pro kW (mindestens jedoch 30 Euro)
Für die nächsten 25 kW: 4,2 Euro pro kW
Für jedes weitere kW darüber: 5,4 Euro pro kW
Gewichtskomponente (pro Jahr)
Nach Abzug des Freibetrags von 900 kg wird die Gewichtskomponente ebenfalls in drei Stufen berechnet:
Für die ersten 500 kg: 0,18 Euro pro kg (mindestens jedoch 36 Euro)
Für die nächsten 700 kg: 0,36 Euro pro kg
Für jedes weitere kg darüber: 0,54 Euro pro kg
Die Gesamtsteuer ergibt sich aus der Summe der Leistungs- und Gewichtskomponente. Da die Steuer über die Kfz-Haftpflichtversicherung eingehoben wird, wird sie in der Regel gemeinsam mit der Versicherungsprämie bezahlt.
Die 20 gängigsten Elektroautos in Österreich und ihre Steuerbelastung
Auf Basis der verfügbaren Zulassungsstatistiken für das Jahr 2024 und ergänzender Daten zu Gewicht und Leistung der einzelnen Modelle kann die zu erwartende Steuerbelastung berechnet werden. Insgesamt wurden in Österreich im Jahr 2024 etwa 44.622 Elektroautos neu zugelassen, was einem Rückgang von 6,3 Prozent im Vergleich zu 2023 entspricht. Dabei entfielen lediglich 23,5 Prozent der Neuzulassungen auf Privatpersonen, während der Rest auf Firmenfahrzeuge entfiel.
Tesla Model Y – Spitzenreiter bei den Zulassungen
Das Tesla Model Y mit einer Dauerleistung von 153 kW und einem präzise dokumentierten Eigengewicht von 1.997 kg muss künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 780 Euro rechnen. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 469 Euro (basierend auf der 30-Minuten-Leistung) und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 311 Euro. Als meistverkauftes Elektroauto in Österreich sind von dieser Steueränderung viele Fahrzeugbesitzer betroffen.
BYD Seal – Der Newcomer auf Platz 2
Der BYD Seal hat sich als Überraschung auf dem zweiten Platz der meistverkauften Elektroautos positioniert. Mit einem Leergewicht zwischen 2.055 und 2.185 kg (je nach Ausführung) und einer geschätzten Dauerleistung von etwa 105 kW muss dieses Modell mit einer Steuerbelastung zwischen 714 und 760 Euro rechnen. Die chinesische Limousine hat 2024 einen bemerkenswerten Markteintritt in Österreich hingelegt und zeigt die zunehmende Akzeptanz von Marken aus Fernost im europäischen Markt.
Škoda Enyaq – Etablierter Favorit auf Platz 3
Der Škoda Enyaq 85x mit einer Dauerleistung von 77 kW und einem beachtlichen Eigengewicht von 2.384 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 574 Euro belastet. Davon entfallen rund 96 Euro auf die Leistungskomponente und etwa 478 Euro auf die Gewichtskomponente. Der hohe Gewichtsanteil an der Gesamtsteuer wird bei diesem Modell besonders deutlich. Der Enyaq, für den Škoda 2024 ein Facelift eingeführt hat, fiel vom zweiten auf den dritten Platz zurück, blieb aber mit 2.310 Neuzulassungen eines der beliebtesten E-Autos in Österreich.
BMW iX1 – Starker Zuwachs auf Platz 4
Der elektrische BMW X1 (BMW iX1 xDRIVE30) mit einer Dauerleistung von 104 kW und einem Eigengewicht von präzise 1.940 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 493 Euro belastet. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 206 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 287 Euro. Mit 2.291 Neuzulassungen im Jahr 2024 konnte der X1 ein beachtliches Wachstum verzeichnen.
BMW i4 – Stabiler Mittelklasse-Favorit
Der BMW i4, der mit 2.086 Neuzulassungen Platz 5 der meistverkauften Elektroautos in Österreich belegte, hat ein Leergewicht von 2.125 kg und eine 30-Minuten-Leistung von 105 kW (beim i4 eDrive40). Die jährliche Steuerbelastung wird sich auf etwa 567 Euro belaufen, wovon 210 Euro auf die Leistungskomponente und 357 Euro auf die Gewichtskomponente entfallen. Trotz des relativ hohen Gewichts bleibt der i4 aufgrund seiner ausgewogenen Verhältnisse ein beliebtes Modell in der elektrischen Mittelklasse.
Tesla Model 3 – Der Klassiker auf Platz 6
Das Tesla Model 3 mit einer Dauerleistung von 153 kW und einem genauen Eigengewicht von 1.851 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 686 Euro belastet. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 469 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 217 Euro. Mit 2.077 Neuzulassungen und einem Plus von 6,7 Prozent konnte das Model 3, das im Herbst 2023 ein Facelift erhielt, seine Position auf dem österreichischen Markt festigen. Im Vergleich zum schwereren Model Y ist die Gewichtskomponente hier deutlich niedriger.
Audi Q4 e-tron – Premiummodell mit zunehmender Beliebtheit
Der Audi Q4 e-tron landete mit 1.599 Neuzulassungen auf Platz 7 der beliebtesten Elektroautos in Österreich. Mit einem Leergewicht von 2.145 kg und einer geschätzten Dauerleistung von etwa 90 kW wird die jährliche Steuerbelastung bei etwa 493 Euro liegen. Davon entfallen etwa 135 Euro auf die Leistungskomponente und 358 Euro auf die Gewichtskomponente. Als Premium-SUV positioniert, zeigt der Q4 e-tron, dass auch in höheren Preissegmenten die Nachfrage nach Elektrofahrzeugen wächst.
VW ID.4 – Der elektrische Tiguan-Nachfolger
Der VW ID.4 schaffte es mit 1.527 Einheiten auf Platz 8. Mit einem Leergewicht von mindestens 1.966 kg und einer geschätzten Dauerleistung von 85 kW wird die jährliche Steuerbelastung etwa 425 Euro betragen. Davon entfallen etwa 120 Euro auf die Leistungskomponente und 305 Euro auf die Gewichtskomponente. Als einer der ersten elektrischen Volumenhersteller im SUV-Segment hat der ID.4 eine wichtige Rolle in der Elektrifizierungsstrategie von Volkswagen.
Cupra Born – Sportlicher Ableger mit Designanspruch
Der Cupra Born, der im Vorjahr noch besser platziert war, rutschte mit 1.497 Neuzulassungen auf Platz 9 ab. Mit einem Leergewicht zwischen 1.811 und 1.946 kg (je nach Ausführung) und einer geschätzten Dauerleistung von 80 kW wird die jährliche Steuerbelastung zwischen 358 und 391 Euro liegen. Die sportliche Ausrichtung und das markante Design des Born sprechen besonders jüngere Käuferschichten an.
Volvo EX30 – Der Überraschungserfolg aus Schweden
Der Volvo EX30 schaffte es als Neueinsteiger mit 1.112 Zulassungen auf Platz 10. Mit einem Leergewicht von 1.850 kg (Single Motor) bzw. 1.960 kg (Twin Motor) und Dauerleistungen von 80 kW bzw. 105 kW wird die jährliche Steuerbelastung zwischen 374 und 517 Euro liegen. Als kompaktes Elektro-SUV mit Premium-Anspruch hat der EX30 eine interessante Nische besetzt und konnte trotz seines erst kürzlichen Markteintritts bereits viele Käufer überzeugen.
Weitere beliebte Elektroautomodelle und ihre Steuerbelastung
Für einige weitere beliebte Modelle, die zwar nicht unter den Top 10 rangieren, aber dennoch in Österreich verbreitet sind, können ebenfalls präzise Steuerbelastungen berechnet werden:
Der VW ID.3 mit einer Dauerleistung von 70 kW und einem dokumentierten Eigengewicht von exakt 1.934 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 362 Euro belastet. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 75 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 287 Euro. Als kompakter Elektrowagen bleibt der ID.3 eine wichtige Säule im Elektrofahrzeugangebot von Volkswagen.
Der VW ID.5 Pro mit einer Dauerleistung von 89 kW und einem präzisen Eigengewicht von 2.117 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 463 Euro belastet. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 132 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 331 Euro. Als Coupé-Version des ID.4 bietet der ID.5 eine sportlichere Alternative mit ähnlicher technischer Basis.
Der VW ID.7 Pro mit einer Dauerleistung von 89 kW und einem genauen Eigengewicht von 2.172 kg wird künftig mit einer jährliche Steuerbelastung von etwa 482 Euro belastet. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 132 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 350 Euro. Als Flaggschiff der elektrischen ID-Familie von Volkswagen positioniert sich der ID.7 im oberen Mittelklassesegment.
Besondere Fälle: Extreme im Preisspektrum
Interessant ist auch ein Blick auf Fahrzeuge, die besonders hohe oder niedrige Steuerbeträge aufweisen werden:
Der Audi Q8 e-tron mit einer Dauerleistung von 158 kW und einem beachtlichen Eigengewicht von exakt 2.724 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 1.234 Euro belastet – eine der höchsten Steuerbelastungen im Elektroautosegment. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 496 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 738 Euro. Als Luxus-SUV im Premium-Segment ist der Q8 e-tron jedoch für eine wohlhabende Kundschaft konzipiert, für die diese zusätzliche Steuerbelastung vermutlich keine entscheidende Rolle spielen wird.
Am anderen Ende des Spektrums steht der Hyundai Inster mit einer Dauerleistung von 28 kW und einem Eigengewicht von präzise 1.503 kg, der mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von lediglich 144 Euro rechnen muss. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus dem Mindeststeuerbetrag für die Leistungskomponente von 30 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 114 Euro. Als eines der leichtesten und leistungsschwächsten Elektroautos auf dem Markt profitiert der Inster besonders von den Freibeträgen bei der Steuerberechnung.
Der Renault Zoe mit einer Dauerleistung von 51 kW und einem Eigengewicht von 1.577 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 153 Euro belastet. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 30 Euro (Minimumbetrag) und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 123 Euro. Als eines der ersten massentauglichen Elektroautos bleibt der Zoe auch mit der neuen Steuer eine verhältnismäßig günstige Option.
Der kompakte BMW i3 mit einer Dauerleistung von 80 kW und einem erstaunlich geringen Eigengewicht von nur 1.345 kg wird künftig mit einer jährlichen Steuerbelastung von etwa 185 Euro belastet. Diese setzt sich zusammen aus einer Leistungskomponente von etwa 105 Euro und einer Gewichtskomponente von rund 80 Euro. Obwohl die Produktion des i3 bereits 2022 eingestellt wurde, sind noch viele Exemplare auf Österreichs Straßen unterwegs. Dank seiner innovativen Karbonkarosserie bleibt der i3 eines der leichtesten Elektroautos und profitiert entsprechend von der gewichtsabhängigen Steuerkomponente.
Auswirkungen und Kritik der neuen Steuer
Die Einführung der motorbezogenen Versicherungssteuer für Elektroautos wird in der Öffentlichkeit kontrovers diskutiert. Durch diese Maßnahme erhofft sich die Regierungskoalition nach Angaben des Verkehrsclubs ÖAMTC Mehreinnahmen von rund 65 Millionen Euro jährlich. Für das Jahr 2026 rechnet die Regierung sogar mit Einnahmen von 130 Millionen Euro, da die Zahl der E-Auto-Zulassungen kontinuierlich steigt.
Die Entscheidung stößt insbesondere bei Umweltverbänden und der Automobilwirtschaft auf Kritik, da sie die Attraktivität der Elektromobilität in einer ohnehin schon herausfordernden Marktphase weiter verringern könnte. Brancheninsider befürchten, dass sich vor allem Privatkäufer wieder verstärkt Verbrennungsfahrzeugen zuwenden könnten.
Allerdings bleibt der steuerliche Vorteil von elektrischen Firmenwagen unangetastet, was angesichts der Tatsache, dass rund 80 Prozent der Elektroautos in Österreich Firmenfahrzeuge sind, von Bedeutung ist. Zudem plant die Regierung Verbesserungen im Bereich der Ladeinfrastruktur, insbesondere an Autobahn-Raststätten, wo zusätzliche Schnellladestationen vorgesehen sind.
Fazit: Eine neue Ära für Elektromobilität in Österreich
Mit dem Ende der Steuerbefreiung für Elektroautos ab April 2025 beginnt in Österreich eine neue Phase der Elektromobilität. Die jährliche Mehrbelastung von durchschnittlich 400 Euro pro Jahr, in manchen Fällen sogar bis zu 500 Euro, stellt für viele E-Auto-Besitzer eine spürbare finanzielle Veränderung dar. Besonders schwere und leistungsstarke Elektro-SUVs werden dabei deutlich stärker belastet als leichte Kompaktmodelle mit geringerer Leistung.
Diese steuerliche Änderung fällt in eine Zeit, in der der Elektroautomarkt in Österreich ohnehin leicht rückläufig ist. Mit einem Rückgang der Neuzulassungen um 6,3 Prozent im Jahr 2024 gegenüber dem Vorjahr kämpft die Branche bereits mit Herausforderungen. Ob die neue Steuer diesen Trend verstärken wird oder ob andere Faktoren wie verbesserte Ladeinfrastruktur und neue, erschwinglichere Modelle diesen Effekt ausgleichen können, bleibt abzuwarten.
Für Kaufinteressenten lohnt es sich jedenfalls, bei der Modellauswahl auch die künftige Steuerbelastung zu berücksichtigen und vor dem Kauf eines Elektroautos die zu erwartenden Kosten genau zu berechnen. Die Besteuerung von Elektroautos markiert jedenfalls einen bedeutsamen Schritt in Richtung fiskalischer Gleichbehandlung verschiedener Antriebsarten, auch wenn die ökologischen Vorteile der Elektromobilität weiterhin durch andere Maßnahmen gefördert werden sollen.
Tabelle: Steuerbelastung der gängigsten Elektroautos in Österreich
Modell
Dauerleistung (kW)
Eigengewicht (kg)
Leistungskomponente (€)
Gewichtskomponente (€)
Gesamtsteuer (€)
Tesla Model Y
153
1.997
469
311
780
BYD Seal
105
2.120
210
504
714
Škoda Enyaq 85x
77
2.384
96
478
574
BMW iX1 xDRIVE30
104
1.940
206
287
493
BMW i4 eDrive40
105
2.125
210
357
567
Tesla Model 3
153
1.851
469
217
686
Audi Q4 e-tron
90
2.145
135
358
493
VW ID.4
85
1.966
120
305
425
Cupra Born
80
1.878
105
253
358
Volvo EX30 (Single Motor)
80
1.850
105
240
345
Extreme Fälle: Höchste und niedrigste Steuerbelastungen
Höchste Steuerbelastungen
Audi Q8 e-tron: 158 kW, 2.724 kg, Gesamtsteuer: 1.234 Euro
Mercedes EQS 450+: 140 kW, 2.480 kg, Gesamtsteuer: 1.046 Euro
BMW iX xDrive50: 140 kW, 2.555 kg, Gesamtsteuer: 1.083 Euro
Tesla Model S: 155 kW, 2.240 kg, Gesamtsteuer: 1.011 Euro
Googles search engine and the Browser Google Chrome could have been far better products if it wasn’t beholden to Google’s other business interests:
They allege that Google blocked the introduction of user-friendly features because they would have harmed the company’s advertising revenue, which depends on people clicking ads in their search results. “Why isn’t autocomplete better? Why isn’t the ‘new tab’ page more effective? Why isn’t browser history better?” says the ex-leader, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. The answer: “There’s all these incentives to get users to search.”
Google Selling Chrome Won’t Be Enough to End Its Search Monopoly
To dismantle Google’s illegal monopoly over how Americans search the web, the US Department of Justice wants the tech giant to end its lucrative partnership with Apple, share a trove of proprietary data with competitors and advertisers, and “promptly and fully divest Chrome,” Google’s browser that controls more than half of the US market. The government also wants approval regarding who takes over Chrome.
The recommendations are part of a detailed plan that government attorneys submitted Wednesday to US district judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC, as part of a federal antitrust case against Google that started back in 2020. By next August, Mehta is expected to decide which of the possible remedies Google will be required to carry out to loosen its stranglehold on the search market.
AI Lab Newsletter by Will Knight
WIRED’s resident AI expert Will Knight takes you to the cutting edge of this fast-changing field and beyond—keeping you informed about where AI and technology are headed. Delivered on Wednesdays.
But the tech giant could still appeal, delaying enforcement of the judge’s order years into the future. On Wednesday, Google president Kent Walker characterized the government’s proposals as “staggering,” “extreme,” “a radical interventionist agenda,” and “wildly overbroad.” He wrote in a blog post that the changes being sought “would break a range of Google products—even beyond Search—that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives.” He also asserted the privacy and security of Google’s users would be put at risk.
Among people who have worked for Google or partnered closely with the company, there’s little agreement on whether any of the proposed remedies would significantly shift user behavior or make the search engine market more competitive. Four former Google executives who oversaw teams working on Chrome, Search, and Ads told WIRED that innovation by rivals, not interventions by the government, remains the surest way to unseat Google as the nation’s dominant internet search provider. “You can’t ram an inferior product down people’s throats,” says one former Chrome business leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships.
But a former Chrome engineering leader acknowledged that the search engine could have been a better product if it wasn’t beholden to Google’s other business interests. They allege that Google blocked the introduction of user-friendly features because they would have harmed the company’s advertising revenue, which depends on people clicking ads in their search results. “Why isn’t autocomplete better? Why isn’t the ‘new tab’ page more effective? Why isn’t browser history better?” says the ex-leader, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. The answer: “There’s all these incentives to get users to search.” Google didn’t respond to a request for comment on the assertion.
Still, competitors that stand to benefit from even a minor reduction in Google’s power are optimistic about the expected remedies. “I can see strong benefits in putting [Chrome] back in the hands of the community,” says Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, a company that develops tools for websites, many of which depend on search traffic and advertising revenue controlled by Google. “Moderating that relationship to the corporate overlords is always going to be a healthy thing,” Rauch says.
Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of the rival search engine DuckDuckGo, said in a statement that the government’s proposed remedies “would free the search market from Google’s illegal grip and unleash a new era of innovation, investment, and competition.”
Google’s antitrust battle with the Department of Justice began under the first Trump administration in 2020. The federal government, as well as a number of states, accused the tech giant of using anticompetitive tactics to dominate the search market, suppressing Americans’ access to other search providers. The Biden administration moved forward with the case and filed another of its own—accusing Google of illegally monopolizing advertising technologies that millions of websites and apps use to generate revenue. Closing arguments in that case are scheduled for Monday.
Both cases remain unresolved, and it’s unclear to what extent the Justice Department will keep up the pressure on Google after Donald Trump returns to the White House. On the campaign trail, Trump made mixed comments about the tech giant. In October, he expressed concerns about its power, but suggested that imposing onerous conditions on the company could hamper US efforts to achieve tech supremacy over China.
Judge Mehta has set aside nearly two weeks starting in April to hear arguments from the government and Google about the proposed punishments. The new Trump administration’s approach toward Google should become more apparent at that point, and it’s possible that government attorneys will be less willing to defend the proposals released Wednesday.
Walker’s blog on Wednesday highlighted possible ramifications of the proposals that Trump may view as concerning, including the chilling of AI investment and the appointment of a five-expert Technical Committee to monitor Google’s compliance with remedies. “And that’s just a small part of it,” Walker wrote about the proposed panel. “We wish we were making this up.”
The government is seeking to provide users with more choice over what search engines they use. It wants to end Google’s partnership with Apple, which receives tens of billions of dollars in search ad revenue for making Google the default search engine on iPhones. Google has similar deals with other companies, which also would be scuttled.
Google would also have to make changes to how it preferences its own services on Android or else sell, or be forced to sell, Android. The proposals call for Google to give advertisers a stream of data to help them study their purchases.
To give competitors a leg up, the government wants Google to share its search index and the data it collects about users when determining which results to show. The argument is that potential rivals would then be able to match the information advantage Google has amassed over decades studying the behavior patterns of its billions of users. In addition, Colorado’s attorney general proposed in Wednesday’s filing that Google fund “reasonable, short-term incentive payments” to users who opt for non-Google default search engines.
On top of having to divest of Chrome, Google would be banned from launching a new browser or investing in search, ad tech, and AI rivals for five to 10 years. The government says the restrictions would enable “fostering innovation and transforming the general search and search text ads markets over the next decade.”
Rauch, the Vercel CEO, believes that Google is unfairly using Chrome to direct people toward its AI chatbot, Gemini, as well as other services it owns, such as Google Docs, through a mix of nudges and incentives built into its search engine. “Google is stacking every advantage that they can by monopolizing this very important piece of software infrastructure,” Rauch says.
Turning over Chrome to a neutral steward like a nonprofit organization or an academic institution, Rauch says, would burst open the search box on the world’s most popular browser and give people access to a plethora of alternatives. Chrome already allows users to change their default search provider, but Google still nudges users back through alerts as they browse. “I could imagine, in a world where people are more equipped to choose rather than default, a lot of consumers might end up choosing Perplexity or ChatGPT, whereas today it’s a very roundabout thing,” Rauch says.
But financial and legal analysts have expressed doubts about how much the government’s proposals could really achieve. The former Google executives who spoke with WIRED are just as skeptical. Rajen Sheth, who oversaw parts of the Chrome business and now runs a software startup for building online courses, says users are gravitating toward what they are used to in what he believes is already an open marketplace. “Given the technology landscape and the different levers, are there things that will make a difference? It will be tough,” he says.
Getting access to Google’s proprietary data and having the opportunity to court iPhone users may help increase the odds that people turn to alternative search engines. But Google also has unmatched computing infrastructure, unique data from sibling services such as Maps, and more than a quarter-century of brand recognition with consumers. “No matter how much you level the playing field, people are going to go to the best product for the job,” the former Chrome business leader says.
Former Google executives say that what will supplant the company one day isn’t another traditional search engine, but something akin to ChatGPT that presents content to users in a more interactive way. That new technology isn’t fully developed yet, but it might be by the time the government’s lawsuit against Google is finally settled. That means Google’s place in the market could look vastly different before enforcement of the judge’s order even begins.
TheIdea – The Innovation Agency 