Another Crazy Day in AI: Privacy at Scale in a Complex Regulatory World
- Wowza Team
- Oct 9
- 4 min read
Hello, AI Enthusiasts.
Thursday’s winding down, but the world of tech is wide awake.
Meta leaders talk about how tech, regulation, and automation are reshaping data protection — and why privacy is everyone’s job now. It’s a reminder that trust, once a policy issue, is now a technical one too.
Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Developer Day spotlighted a new era of agentic, modular tools ready to plug straight into business workflows.
And Google’s AI Works initiative wants to make sure small businesses don’t get left behind... rolling out funding and new tools to make AI adoption a little less daunting.
The week’s almost done, but AI’s still clocked in.
Here's another crazy day in AI:
Rebuilding compliance for the age of automation
Building businesses on modular AI systems
Google backs small business innovation with $5M AI initiative
Some AI tools to try out
TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: The New Privacy Playbook for Global Companies
Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram)
Can companies realistically keep up when privacy regulations are being written faster than products can launch?
In an episode of Privacy Conversations on Meta’s YouTube Channel, Erin Egan, Meta’s Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer for Public Policy, sits down with Susan Cooper, Meta’s Global Data Protection Officer, and Bojana Bellamy, President of the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL). Their discussion centers on the evolving relationship between technology, regulation, and trust—and how large organizations navigate compliance in a fast-changing digital landscape.
The conversation offers a look into how global data protection standards have expanded since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), influencing privacy frameworks across countries and industries. It also explores how automation and AI are increasingly woven into risk management, helping teams identify and respond to regulatory changes more efficiently.
Topics explored in the conversation:
GDPR's influence beyond Europe, inspiring similar privacy regulations in Brazil, South Korea, India, and several U.S. states
Integrated accountability frameworks that bring together privacy, security, AI compliance, and safety considerations under one operational structure
Meta's experience restructuring its privacy program after GDPR and an FTC settlement, moving toward centralized product risk management
Using automation for routine compliance work like data flow mapping and privacy impact assessments, which frees up teams to handle more complex issues
Privacy-aware infrastructure that embeds regulatory requirements into code, reducing reliance on manual compliance checks at each stage
How AI helps analyze new regulations, scan code for compliance gaps, and spot patterns across large numbers of products
The ongoing importance of human expertise for interpreting unclear regulations and addressing risks that don't fit existing patterns
Questions about whether these technology-driven approaches can work for organizations with fewer resources
Bellamy makes an observation early in the conversation that sets the tone: companies today aren't just navigating data protection laws—they're juggling requirements across AI governance, cybersecurity, content moderation, and children's privacy, often with conflicting timelines and regional variations. When a new regulation might give companies only a few months to comply, the traditional methods of spreadsheets and manual reviews start showing their limitations. This isn't just a theoretical problem. It's something compliance teams deal with regularly.
Cooper describes how Meta approached this by embedding compliance directly into their technical infrastructure. Rather than reviewing each feature against a checklist, they built systems that automatically enforce policies like data deletion schedules. It's an engineering-heavy solution that works for them, but it also requires significant investment—both in the technology itself and in the people who can build and maintain it. Not every organization has that capacity, which raises legitimate questions about whether this becomes the standard approach or remains limited to companies with substantial technical resources. There's also the practical matter of keeping these systems updated as regulations change, which they inevitably do.
Both speakers are careful to point out where automation works well and where it doesn't. Repetitive tasks, routine assessments, parsing large amounts of regulatory text—these are areas where AI and automation can handle the heavy lifting. But when it comes to interpreting unclear legal language, or figuring out how to apply existing rules to a completely new type of product, that still requires people who understand the context. The conversation doesn't paint a picture of compliance becoming fully automated. Instead, it suggests that organizations are figuring out how to divide the work between what technology handles efficiently and what genuinely needs human judgment. As both regulations and technology continue to develop, that division of labor will likely keep changing.
Watch it on YouTube here.
OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:
Building Businesses on Modular AI Systems
/Eric Sheng, Partner, Silicon Valley, on Bain & Company
OpenAI’s 2025 Developer Day marks a turning point for enterprise AI, ushering in a modular, platform-driven era. From app ecosystems inside ChatGPT to agentic systems like AgentKit and new multimodal tools such as Sora 2, the focus is on making AI integral to how businesses operate. Bain & Company’s Eric Sheng notes that AI is evolving from a set of tools to a living business platform where apps, agents, and models collaborate across workflows. For organizations, success now depends on redesigning systems around modular AI services with strong governance and clear measurement.
Read more here.
Google Backs Small Business Innovation with $5M AI Initiative
/Lisa Gevelber, Founder, Grow with Google, on Google Blogs - The Keyword
Google announced new funding and training to help small businesses thrive in the AI era. Through its AI Works initiative, Google.org will provide $5 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to launch Small Business B(AI)sics, a national program that will train 40,000 businesses in essential AI skills. Alongside the grant, Google introduced a new short course, Make AI Work for You, offering step-by-step guidance and real-world examples on using AI for marketing, operations, and productivity. These efforts aim to make AI more accessible, equipping local entrepreneurs to innovate and grow with confidence.
Read more here.
SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:
Tasklet – Automates workflows and connects AI to your apps, no flowcharts needed.
Easy-Peasy – All-in-one AI tool for creating videos, images, music, and text effortlessly.
Opal – Lets you chain AI steps visually and build mini-apps using natural language.
That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.
Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉
EXCITING NEWS:
The Another Crazy Day in AI newsletter is on LinkedIn!!!
Leveraging AI for Enhanced Content: As part of our commitment to exploring new technologies, we used AI to help curate and refine our newsletters. This enriches our content and keeps us at the forefront of digital innovation, ensuring you stay informed with the latest trends and developments.
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