Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Monday, December 29th. I'm Julie Chang for the Wall Street Journal.

SoftBank Group has agreed to buy all outstanding shares of Digital Bridge Group for $16 apiece.

The companies said the price represents a 15% premium to Digital Bridges' closing share price Friday,

and that the deal is valued at about $4 billion, including debt. Digital Bridge is an asset manager dedicated to investing in digital

infrastructure, including data centers, cell towers, fiber networks, and edge infrastructure.

SoftBanks said the buy will advance its mission to becoming a leading artificial

superintelligence provider. Top psychiatrists are increasingly agreeing that using AI chatbots

might be linked to cases of psychosis. In the past nine months, experts have seen or reviewed

the files of dozens of patients who exhibited symptoms following prolonged

delusion-filled conversations with the AI tools. A UCSF psychiatrist says he's treated 12

hospitalized patients with AI-induced psychosis and an additional three in an outpatient clinic.

And a Danish study released last month found 38 patients whose use of AI chatbots had, quote,

potentially harmful consequences for their mental health.

Finally, during what has been a challenging year for publishers,

audiobooks remain a relatively bright spot.

Digital audiobook sales have been on a tear in recent years. In fact, last year, sales jumped

by nearly 24% to over $1 billion. That's according to the Association of American Publishers.

Audio book sales growth did slow this year to nearly $88 million, but that's faring better than

print book sales, which through early December

were down 1% from the same period last year, according to BookTracker Sircona BookScan.

That's your TNB Tech Minute. Join us again this afternoon for more.