AI Zombies, Education Experiments, and Oracle’s Plot Twist

In partnership with

What do you get when you cross $100 million with a pile of expired AI contracts and two tech giants trying to out-ecosystem each other? Apparently, a ‘Zombie Deal.’

Today’s main story digs into Meta and Google’s latest AI data arms race and how they're reviving old content contracts from the dead.

We’re also watching: Grok’s multiple personalities getting exposed (there’s a “conspiracist” mode), AI entering elementary school summer camps, and Oracle’s CISO making a dramatic exit as the company goes all in on AI.

Let’s unpack.

An Entire Month of Videos Before Lunch

Tired of the post-every-day grind?

Syllaby.io automates your entire content workflow. All you need is a topic—our AI does the rest.

✅ Get daily viral content ideas
✅ Auto-generate scripts tailored to your niche
✅ Instantly create faceless videos
✅ Bulk schedule across all your platforms

Syllaby is perfect for coaches, creators, and marketers who want to grow without showing their face or spending hours editing.

Try Free for 7 Days

AI’s Zombie Apocalypse

The generative AI boom has an insatiable hunger for data, but training models on copyrighted content is legally messy. So here’s the workaround: instead of striking brand-new licensing deals, Meta and Google are reactivating old contracts, ones that were originally written for mundane things like search indexing or API access, and using them to scrape content for AI training.

These so-called “zombie deals,” not to be confused with the rise of the zombiecorn, let them harvest massive datasets without renegotiating terms or drawing attention.

A few eyebrow-raisers:

• Meta allegedly used a 2020 agreement with Shutterstock to access over 200 million images for model training, without updating contract language for AI usage.

• Google leaned on YouTube’s original content agreements with partners to train Gemini on billions of video transcripts.

• Some rights-holders only found out after the fact, prompting legal inquiries and contract rewrites.

Why it matters:
This is the new frontier in the AI arms race. Companies are digging through contract graveyards, trying to stretch legacy language to justify data grabs. But if courts don’t buy it, these "zombie" data sources could become legal liabilities, and reputational landmines.

For enterprise leaders:

• Audit your vendor contracts. If you’re licensing data or content, make sure the terms are crystal clear on AI usage.

• Ask how your data is being used. Just because it was shared for one purpose (e.g., marketing), doesn’t mean it’s safe for model training.

• Expect stricter procurement demands. Enterprise clients will want indemnity, audit rights, and opt-outs for generative use cases.

The legal gray zone of training data is now a boardroom issue. If AI is the product, data is the liability.

News Roundup

1. AI Summer Camp: When 5th Graders Prompt Better Than You
   Public schools are piloting AI summer programs to help kids use generative tools responsibly. One curriculum taught students how to fact-check chatbot outputs and build mini projects using Claude and ChatGPT. A promising pipeline, or a premature plunge?
   Read more →

2. Elon’s Grok Caught With Its Prompt Down
   A researcher exposed “hidden personas” in Grok, X’s AI chatbot, including a conspiracy theorist, a foul-mouthed comedian, and a hyper-libertarian provocateur. X says the prompts were for “testing,” but the timing (post-election disinfo concerns) doesn’t help.
   Read more →

3. Oracle’s Security Chief Suddenly Resigns
   CISO Mary Ann Davidson, who’s been with Oracle since the dot-com days, has exited amid a broader pivot toward AI-powered security products. Insider whispers suggest strategy clashes as AI eats traditional infosec approaches.
   Read more →

TL;DR:

• Meta and Google are reviving old content deals to legally justify AI training, raising ethical and contractual concerns.

• AI education is reaching elementary schools through summer camps teaching prompting, ethics, and creativity.

• Grok’s hidden chatbot personas include a conspiracy theorist and unhinged comic, prompt leak or feature reveal?

• Oracle’s longtime CISO steps down as the company shifts security priorities toward AI automation.

• Enterprises should immediately audit legacy contracts for language around AI/data rights before vendors beat them to the loophole.

Contract reanimation, AI campers, chatbot alter-egos; just another Wednesday in enterprise tech.

Stay sharp,

Cat Valverde
Founder, Enterprise AI Solutions
Navigating Tomorrow’s Tech Landscape Together