Good Morning. IBM is bundling a number of its supply-chain management tools into a single platform enhanced with artificial-intelligence capabilities, writes Pro AI's Jared Council.

The offering rolled out today, called the Sterling Supply Chain Suite, builds on existing IBM tools that allow companies to manage communications and transactions with suppliers and customers. 

The services include anomaly-detection tools that can predict how a fast-moving hurricane or storm might disrupt deliveries and recommendation engines that can identify the next-best supplier options if the regular supplier is temporarily unavailable.

“That information is not at the fingertips of the supply-chain manager at this point,” said Bob Lord, IBM's senior vice president of cognitive applications.

The new product can help managers navigate a supply-chain landscape that has gotten incredibly complex due to globalization and the rise of e-commerce, Mr. Lord said.

Research and advisory company Gartner says many supply chains lack advanced automation technologies. “There are certainly companies who are early leaders,” said Christian Titze, a vice president and analyst at Gartner, “but when you look at the breadth of supply chain-organizations, then we are at an early stage.”

U.K. startup helps regulators on health-care AI governance. The technology that drives AI applications is developing faster than people's ability to understand it. As a result, there are efforts across the public and private sector to put stronger controls in place. 

London startup Sensyne Health PLC is helping U.K.-based medical regulators develop a framework for governing the use of machine-learning in healthcare. “We believe that it’s important that AI isn’t seen as a black box. We have to understand it,” said Paul Drayson, chief executive for Sensyne Health. “Only by understanding it can we control it.”

The collaboration, scheduled to conclude April next year, is intended to help the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency set out appropriate rules for algorithms that use artificial intelligence or machine learning.

• Join the conversation. Is your company grappling with governance problems associated with AI and machine learning? If so, please send us an email and let us know how it’s going.

New York lawmakers look to regulate facial recognition. City council members are considering three bills that would impose guidelines on landlords and businesses using facial-recognition software and other biometric-data systems. Building owners using the technology would have to register with the city, which would maintain a public database on the city’s website. Business owners would be required to post signs alerting customers that the technology is being used. Landlords who install electronic-entry systems would also have to give tenants manual keys.

• Some want a ban. Many residents who testified said they support the legislation but would prefer to see the technology banned outright. Samar Katnani, a lawyer at Brooklyn Legal Services’ Tenant Rights Coalition, said landlords could use facial-recognition software to harass or surveil rent-stabilized tenants, share the data they gather with law enforcement or sell it to private companies.

California moves to curtail AI-based video forgeries. Last Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 730 into law, making it “illegal to distribute manipulated videos that aim to discredit a political candidate and deceive voters within 60 days of an election," CNET reports. Deepfakes use AI to manipulate video and audio, creating the illusion that people said or did things that they didn’t say or do. Federal lawmakers, increasingly concerned about the danger of deepfakes so close to the 2020 election, scheduled a hearing in June on their national-security risks.

Egypt's crackdown fuses digital surveillance, police dragnets. Egyptian authorities are combining cyberattacks with random searches of phones and laptops on the street, as part of a campaign to thwart online dissent fueling rare protests against President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, according to the WSJ.

The intensified policing of social media has added a new dimension to the government’s sweeping clampdown, in which more than 3,000 people have been arrested since protests began on Sept. 20, according to the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, a Cairo-based rights group.

Aware of the tactics, Cairo residents say they are deleting political posts and any incriminating messages from their phones before heading downtown or near Tahrir Square, the center of the protests that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Google has held discussions about acquiring a video-sharing startup that could help it counter fast-growing TikTok, people familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal.

Google is weighing a deal for Firework, a free smartphone app for users to share 30-second homemade videos with strangers, the Journal reports. Like TikTok, Firework tries to surface viral, edited videos from unlikely sources, though Firework aims for an older audience. 

Firework, based in Redwood City, Calif., was valued at more than $100 million in a fundraising round earlier this year. Google and Firework haven’t yet discussed pricing, the people say. The discussions may not lead to a deal and also include conversations about other ways to partner.

Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, has also expressed interest in Firework, though discussions haven’t moved as far along as those with Google, according to people familiar with the matter.

Write to Enterprise Technology Editor Steven Rosenbush and Pro AI Deputy Editor John McCormick.

Follow us on Twitter: @JaredCouncil, @jaymac59 and @Steve_Rosenbush