In hopes of dodging threatened fines for giving preference to its own services, Google has unveiled a plan for vertical search services (VSS). VSS, selected on a non-discriminatory basis, would appear in a dedicated box at the top of the search results page matching Google’s own search in format and function, and featuring three direct links to services such as hotels, airlines or restaurants. Google is not conceding, of course, that there’s anything wrong with what it currently does.

A federal moratorium on state regulation of AI systems moved closer to passage last week when the Senate parliamentarian ruled it could be included in the Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill. The bill needs only a majority vote to pass, although it could still be modified. If the risks aren’t clear: Anthropic released a new report finding that most major AI will resort to blackmail to save themselves.

The web search tool Perplexity looks like it’s taking on Google with its latest release, a web browser named Comet. Comet claims to move “from browsing to thinking,” surfacing information and search results in response to natural language queries. Comet is available immediately to Perplexity Max subscribers; others can join a wait list.