Google Ads updated its Performance Max product level reporting back on June 15th. This report now uses data from all Performance Max networks, rather than the subset it previously pulled from.

Google sent out an email to those who use the Google Manufacturer Center to remind them that the ability to manually add or update products directly in Manufacturer Center has been removed. Instead, Google said use the Manufacturer Center API or upload a product file.

Gary Illyes from Google said that you are better off not using a lastmod date in your XML Sitemap if those dates are wrong. He said on Bluesky, "probably better off without the lastmods. at least you save a few bytes."

Google announced it will consolidate and merge the Shopping ads and free listings policies into a single Shopping policy sometime in September 2026. Keep in mind, there may be specific ads or free listing policies listed in that consolidated policy document, where some policies only apply to ads and some only to free listings but it will be in a single policy document.

Google just sent out an email to Google Ads advertisers noting that it will turn on local inventory ads by default in your Shopping campaigns. Google added that you can change this setting by August 31st by using the "inventory filter" instead of the "Local products" setting.

We want teens to have age-appropriate experiences with AI and to keep parents informed if we become aware that their teen may be in distress. Today we’re announcing additional protections to help make sure that, when it comes to sensitive conversations related to suicide and self-harm, we’re responding in the right way. This means acknowledging teens’ feelings while helping them get the offline support they need — whether that’s from a parent, a professional helpline, or the emergency services. 

Alerting Parents if Their Teen Discusses Suicide or Self-Harm With Meta AI

When a teen suggests they may be thinking about suicide or self-harm, Meta AI already directs them to crisis helplines and encourages them to reach out to a parent or another trusted adult like a counselor. Now, we’ll also proactively alert supervising parents if their teen’s Meta AI chat suggests they may be at risk, based on signals developed with experts. We’ll share expert resources to help parents approach these conversations with their teens. 

We worked with parents and experts to understand which AI conversations warrant an alert — such as those where a teen makes a clear reference to hurting themselves, even if that reference is subtle. We then built a dedicated AI system to identify these conversations.

We understand how distressing these alerts may be for a parent to receive. That’s why, as we continue to improve our detection, all chats flagged by our AI will be manually reviewed before an alert is sent. If a teen’s intent is ambiguous, we’ll err on the side of caution and alert the parent. While that means we may sometimes notify parents when there may not be real cause for concern, we feel this is the right starting point, and we’ll continue to monitor to help make sure we’re in the right place.

These alerts are live now for parents using Instagram parental supervision in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, and will be available for supervising parents globally by the end of the year. They build on the alerts we already send supervising parents if their teen repeatedly searches for suicide or self-harm terms on Instagram within a short space of time. 

Alerting the Emergency Services to Possible Suicide Risks

We’re building the ability to contact emergency services if someone’s conversation — whether an adult or a teen — with Meta AI suggests that they may be at imminent risk of taking their own life. This builds on the work we already do across Facebook and Instagram: when we become aware of a post suggesting a credible risk of suicide, we alert emergency services. Last year, we made over 19,000 such referrals around the world, helping first responders perform wellness checks on people who may be at risk of suicide. 

Working With Experts to Improve Meta AI’s Responses on Suicide and Self-Harm

In addition to ongoing consultation with our AI Wellbeing Expert Council, Suicide and Self-Harm Advisory Group, and Youth Advisors, we sought feedback from over 75 mental health clinicians on how Meta AI responds to teens’ prompts about suicide and self-harm. These clinicians, who all specialize in teen mental health, reviewed AI responses to hundreds of prompts and provided feedback on whether they were appropriate for teens, what worked well, and how they could be improved. 

We’re using that feedback to further improve how Meta AI interacts with teens on these sensitive topics — for example by making sure that Meta AI acknowledges the teens’ feelings when directing them to support resources, and doesn’t shut the conversation down too abruptly.

“I was struck by the rigor of Meta’s clinical review process. It examined not only immediate responses to suicide and self-harm concerns, but also the broader conversational context, appropriate follow-up, and the varying levels of risk that can exist even within high-risk situations. This kind of expert-informed, scenario-based refinement is essential to making AI experiences safer for teens.”

– Dr. Ji-yeon Lee, Licensed Psychologist (USA) and Professor of Counseling Psychology at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (S. Korea)

Launching the Stricter Limited Content Setting for Meta AI Chats

Teen Accounts are automatically placed into a 13+ content setting, which also applies to conversations with Meta AI. In this default 13+ setting, Meta AI is designed to give age-appropriate responses and not comply with sensitive prompts. For example, Meta AI is trained not to engage in sexual or romantic conversations with teens or provide recipes for alcoholic drinks, directing teens to safer topics instead.

In October, we announced Limited Content as a stricter content setting for parents who prefer a more restrictive experience for their teens on Instagram — and now that stricter setting will apply to AI experiences too. This means that when parents opt their teens into the Limited Content setting on Instagram, it will also further limit the kinds of conversations teens can have with Meta AI. In the Limited Content setting, Meta AI will decline to respond to a broader range of prompts, further reducing the chance of potentially inappropriate conversations.

The post Alerting Parents if Teens Show Signs of Distress in Conversations With Meta AI appeared first on Meta Newsroom.

The U.S. granted the UAE license-free access to advanced AI chips and servers after upgrading its export status, reshaping AI partnerships and export controls.

The post UAE Wins License-Free AI Chip Access After Backing U.S. Security Efforts in Iran Conflict appeared first on TechRepublic.

Google Cloud has partnered with Parallel Web Systems to natively integrate Parallel's search infrastructure as a web grounding provider on the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. This integration enables developers to anchor their AI agents in verifiable, real-time web results, significantly improving factual accuracy for complex enterprise workflows. Additionally, the partnership offers expanded architectural flexibility, allowing users to programmatically extract, permanently cache, and process web data alongside other large language models.

Publishers and author Scott Turow sued Google, alleging it used copyrighted books and articles to train Gemini without permission.

The post Google Hit With New Copyright Lawsuit Over Gemini AI Training appeared first on TechRepublic.

Ramp and Brex are leading spend tools. Compare features, rewards, and tools to see which platform is better suited for your business needs.

The post Ramp vs Brex 2026: Best Spend Management Platforms Compared appeared first on TechRepublic.

Find the best AI project management tools for planning, scheduling, automation, and risk analysis. Choose the right option for your team.

The post 7 AI Project Management Tools I Trust for Real Work in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.

Building AI agents often leaves developers uncertain if prompt tweaks to fix single errors will accidentally cause widespread regressions in production. To bridge this gap, Google has introduced a new developer skill for coding agents that automates a five-stage evaluation flywheel: preparing data, running inference, grading with adaptive AutoRaters, analyzing failure clusters, and executing targeted optimizations. Running continuously against production traffic or on-demand via synthetic scenarios, this tool allows developers to describe testing goals in plain language while an independent evaluation service safely validates and counts actual performance improvements.

The Agent Development Kit (ADK) for Go 2.0 has been released, introducing a first-class, graph-based workflow engine to help developers compose complex, multi-agent applications. This update adds built-in primitives for human-in-the-loop (HITL) orchestration, dynamic execution using plain Go code, and automated resilience features like exponential backoff retries. By unifying the execution model, both single-agent applications and intricate graphs now run on the same runtime, simplifying telemetry and state persistence.

This post introduces three architectural patterns designed to integrate Model Context Protocol (MCP) Apps and Agent-to-User Interface (A2UI) to solve the tradeoff between highly custom iframe environments and native, declarative rendering. By combining these approaches, developers can serve native-feeling UIs directly over MCP servers, embed complex and stateful iframe apps securely inside declarative views, or inject generative UI components into legacy systems. Ultimately, these hybrid frameworks empower engineering teams to deliver secure, performant, and brand-consistent agentic user experiences tailored to their specific project constraints.

An open specification for finding and verifying tools, skills, and agents across the web.Agents are ...

Leaked Pixel Watch 5 renders reveal every color, both case sizes, and Google's familiar design ahead of the Made by Google event on August 12.

The post Google Pixel Watch 5 Renders Leak Ahead of Launch appeared first on TechRepublic.

Microsoft is redesigning Windows Search with improved local results, fewer promotional elements, better file previews, and more control over web-based search.

The post Windows Search Gets a Major Revamp Focused on Usability appeared first on TechRepublic.

Project: Drupal coreDate: 2026-July-15Security risk: Moderately critical 13 ∕ 25 AC:Basic/A:User/CI:Some/II:Some/E:Theoretical/TD:DefaultVulnerability: Cross-site scriptingAffected versions: <10.6.13 || >=11.3.0 <11.3.14 || >=11.4.0 <11.4.4 || 11.0.* || 11.1.* || 11.2.*CVE IDs: CVE-2026-55805Description: 

The Layout Builder module doesn't sufficiently sanitize block labels in certain scenarios, which can lead to a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability.

This is mitigated by the fact that both the attacker and the targeted user need to be using the Layout Builder editing interface.

Solution: 

Install the latest version:

Drupal 11

• If you use Drupal 11.4.x, update to Drupal 11.4.4.
• If you use Drupal 11.3.x, update to Drupal 11.3.14.
• Drupal 11.2.x and below are end-of-life and do not receive security coverage.

Drupal 10

• If you use Drupal 10.6.x, update to Drupal 10.6.13.
• Drupal 10.5.x and below are end-of-life and do not receive security coverage.

Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 have both reached end-of-life.

Reported By: 

• haii haii (hai27ii2o)

Fixed By: 

• danielveza
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Mingsong (mingsong) provisional member of the Drupal Security Team
• James Gilliland (neclimdul) of the Drupal Security Team

Coordinated By: 

• Greg Knaddison (greggles) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Dave Long (longwave) of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team

Project: Drupal coreDate: 2026-July-15Security risk: Moderately critical 14 ∕ 25 AC:Basic/A:User/CI:Some/II:Some/E:Theoretical/TD:AllVulnerability: Cross-site scriptingAffected versions: >=11.3.0 <11.3.14 || >=11.4.0 <11.4.4 || 11.2.*CVE IDs: CVE-2026-15917Description: 

Drupal core 11.2 and above integrate the HTMX JavaScript library.

Drupal core's XSS filter does not sufficiently sanitize certain HTMX attributes, which can lead to a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability.

The vulnerability is mitigated by the fact an attacker must be able to insert HTML with specific attributes.

Solution: 

Install the latest version:

Drupal 11

• If you use Drupal 11.4.x, update to Drupal 11.4.4.
• If you use Drupal 11.3.x, update to Drupal 11.3.14.
• Drupal 11.2.x and below are end-of-life and do not receive security coverage.

Drupal 10

• Drupal 10 core is not affected. However, certain contributed modules may be affected, so a Drupal 10.6 fix is included as hardening.

Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 have both reached end-of-life.

Reported By: 

• Pierre Rudloff (prudloff) of the Drupal Security Team

Fixed By: 

• Shawn Duncan (fathershawn)
• Pierre Rudloff (prudloff) of the Drupal Security Team

Coordinated By: 

• catch (catch) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Dave Long (longwave) of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team

Project: Drupal coreDate: 2026-July-15Security risk: Moderately critical 10 ∕ 25 AC:Complex/A:None/CI:Some/II:None/E:Theoretical/TD:UncommonVulnerability: Information disclosureAffected versions: <10.6.13 || >=11.3.0 <11.3.14 || >=11.4.0 <11.4.4 || 11.0.* || 11.1.* || 11.2.*CVE IDs: CVE-2026-15916Description: 

The Image module allows you to define and configure image fields.

The module doesn't sufficiently check access to image style derivatives when those files are served via a file stream other than private://.

This vulnerability is mitigated by the fact that Drupal must be configured to use a contributed (non-core) file scheme to serve private derived images.

Information disclosure issues like this one are not generally given security advisories (as described in PSA-2023-07-12)). This fix is provided as a hardening. Contributed modules implementing custom stream wrappers may need to add similar hardenings.

Solution: 

Install the latest version:

Drupal 11

• If you use Drupal 11.4.x, update to Drupal 11.4.4.
• If you use Drupal 11.3.x, update to Drupal 11.3.14.
• Drupal 11.2.x and below are end-of-life and do not receive security coverage.

Drupal 10

• If you use Drupal 10.6.x, update to Drupal 10.6.13.
• Drupal 10.5.x and below are end-of-life and do not receive security coverage.

Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 have both reached end-of-life.

Reported By: 

• offensive-ai

Fixed By: 

• Benji Fisher (benjifisher) of the Drupal Security Team
• Kim Pepper (kim.pepper)
• Mohit Aghera (mohit_aghera)

Coordinated By: 

• Benji Fisher (benjifisher) of the Drupal Security Team
• catch (catch) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Juraj Nemec (poker10) of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team