FTI Consulting News Bytes – 16 May 2025

FTI Consulting News Bytes

This week’s Newsbytes has an AI flavour.  We start by looking at Saudi Arabia’s launch of HUMAIN, a new AI company aiming to realise Saudi Arabia’s goal of becoming a global AI hub. We then turn to news of Apple’s new iOS 19 update, which will reportedly use AI to enhance the battery life of iPhones. We also look at setbacks faced by the UK’s Data Bill, as peers backed an amendment requiring AI companies to reveal which copyrighted material they have used. Elsewhere, moving away from AI, Pinterest deals with the fallout from an ‘internal error’ which caused hundreds of accounts to be accidentally deactivated. Finally, Netflix’s advertising-supported tier has hit 94 million subscribers, up from 70 million in November, as the company and its peers increasingly lean on advertising to boost the profitability of their streaming products. 

This week’s news

Saudi Arabia launches new AI venture HUMAIN

The Financial Times reported on Saudi Arabia’s launch of HUMAIN, a Public Investment Fund-owned company, that will operate and invest across the AI value chain as a unified operating company. Chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, HUMAIN will provide a comprehensive range of AI services, products and tools, including next-generation data centres, AI infrastructure and cloud capabilities, and advanced AI models and solutions. The Saudi venture already secured partnerships with global technology players, including AMD, AWS, Cisco, NVIDIA and Qualcomm. The announcement coincided with President Donald Trump’s visit in Riyadh at the US-Saudi Investment Forum, during which the White House announced Saudi Arabia’s commitment to invest $600 billion in a series of deals with the US, including in AI. 

Apple to use AI to help extend your iPhone’s battery life

Apple is planning on using AI to enhance the iPhone’s battery life – which is expected to be welcome news for iPhone users everywhere. Bloomberg understands that the tech giant will be rolling out the battery management tool as part of its new iOS 19 update. The tool will reportedly use battery data collected from each individual users’ device to optimise their iPhone’s power consumption and extend battery life. The introduction of this new AI tool is another clear strategic step from Apple in its mission to integrate AI across its core features – forming part of its growing Apple Intelligence platform. It is reported that the company will likely introduce the iOS 19 update to developers during its Worldwide Developers Conference in June before releasing it to the public in September.

House of Lords demand AI copyright transparency for a second time

In another setback for the passing of the UK government’s Data Bill, the House of Lords has backed an amendment requiring tech companies to reveal which copyrighted material is used to train their AI models. Peers opposed the UK government’s current proposals to exempt tech companies from existing copyright laws, which would enable them to mine protected work unless creators explicitly ‘opt-out’. The amendment, passed by 272 votes to 125, marks the second time the House of Lords demanded the Data Bill require companies to clearly declare whether they have used copyright protected content without consent or remuneration. As the bill returns to the House of Commons next week, another parliamentary confrontation over the future of AI in the creative industry could be imminent, if the government decides to remove the Lords’ amendment. 

Oops! Pinterest’s mistaken mass bans

A few weeks ago, Pinterest users were angered by the sudden loss of their curated Pinterest boards as a wave of account bans swept across the social network platform. After widespread outrage, a viral Reddit thread, and even threats of legal action against the company’s executives, Pinterest finally posted a statement on X and Instagram this week, admitting the problem and apologising for the mass bans. The reason? An ‘internal error’ that led to mistaken deactivations. However, users were not satisfied with how Pinterest dealt with the blunder, accusing the platform’s AI tool of misidentifying their posts and over-enforcing content guidelines, as well as criticising the company for being too slow to help affected users. 

Netflix says ad-supported service has 94 million subscribers

Reuters reported that Netflix had a monthly active user base of 94 million subscribers using its advertising supported tier, recording a 24 million increase from November 2024. Since its 2022 launch, the platform’s cheaper ad-supported plan has seen strong support despite global economic conditions. President of advertising at Netflix, Amy Reinhard, said, “…members pay as much attention to mid-roll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves.” The streaming platform has more than 300 million global customers and has not experienced significant shifts in consumer spending, it said in April, and it is seeing robust spending across all streaming tiers. Netflix’s ad-supported plan costs $7.99 per month, in contrast to its alternative ad-free plan, priced at $17.99 per month.

Top Tweets of the Week

• Mark Gurman, Managing Editor at Bloomberg: NEW: Apple plans to add eye-scrolling to the Vision Pro this year with visionOS 3. This will let users scroll through apps by moving up and down their eyes. https://t.co/jteRjYMzTv
• Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge: RT @vitrupo Sam Altman says ChatGPT is splitting by generation. Older users treat it like Google. Millennials use it as a life advisor. “College students treat it like an operating system.” They’ve built workflows, memorized prompts, connected files. Now, with memory, it has full context on everyone in their life and everything they’ve talked about.
• Wired: The largest holders of Donald Trump’s memecoin have secured spots at a private event with the US president himself. WIRED tracked how they did it. https://t.co/WMQk4atNvx 

Number of the week

$600bn The amount, according to CBS News, that Saudi Arabia has pledged to invest in the US and AI, reinforcing the economic partnership and relations between the two nations.