Weekly#637

  • OpenAI launches Codex, an AI coding agent, in ChatGPT
  • Klarna CEO: We’re Giving AI More Customer Service Work, Not Less.”…“Our agent, that we launched about a year ago, is still dealing with about 1.3 million errands per month,” Siemiatkowski told me, “which is the equivalent of what previously was done by about 800 people on a monthly basis…”
  • Vibe-coding startup Windsurf launches in-house AI models
  • An AI start-up behind a chatbot that replicates an investment banker has raised $50mn
  • According to the last poll by Ofcom, four out of five 13-17 year olds in the UK are using generative AI
  • FBI: US officials targeted in voice deepfake attacks since April
  • Netflix will show generative AI ads midway through streams in 2026
  • Meta Is Delaying the Rollout of Its Flagship AI Model
  • “…If you have an agent that really knows you, because it has kept this memory of conversations, it makes the whole service more sticky, so that once you’ve signed on to using [one product] you will never go to another one,” said Pattie Maes, a professor at MIT’s media lab and specialist in human interaction with AI…”
  • Apple’s new CarPlay Ultra is ready, but only in Aston Martins for now
  • “…Your Tesla has better AI than any US aircraft.Your Roomba has better autonomy than most of the Pentagon’s weapons systems. And your Snapchat filters,they rely on better computer vision than our most advanced military sensors…”
  • AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
  • Netflix ad tier now has 94 million monthly active users

Weekly#636

  • “…Apple Inc. is “actively looking at” revamping the Safari web browser on its devices to focus on AI-powered search engines, a seismic shift for the industry hastened by the potential end of a longtime partnership with Google…”
  • In 2020, Apple’s share of App Store commissions was approximately $4.76 billion, growing to over $10.1 billion by 2024
  • OpenAI names Instacart leader Fidji Simo as new CEO of Applications
  • RSAC 2025: Why the AI agent era means more demand for CISOs
  • 37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions
  • ‘AI is already eating its own’: Prompt engineering is quickly going extinct
  • Linux kernel is leaving 486 CPUs behind, only 18 years after the last one made
  • Alibaba’s ‘ZeroSearch’ lets AI learn to google itself — slashing training costs by 88 percent
  • Apple is planning smart glasses with and without AR
  • Figma’s big AI update takes on Adobe, WordPress, and Canva
  • Ontario modular reactor to be first in “Western world,” GE predicts
  • Apple’s Eddy Cue: ‘You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now’
  • Uber Autonomous Vehicles (AV) approximately 100 vehicles are now busier than over 99% of all drivers in Austin in terms of completed trips per day.
  • Don’t need much sleep? Mutation linked to thriving with little rest

Weekly#635

  • Apple reports Q2 revenue up 5% YoY to $95.4B, vs. $94.6B est., Q2 revenue from Services, which includes the App Store, Apple TV+, and Apple Music, up 12% YoY to $26.65B
  • Apple updates App Store Guidelines to allow links to external payments
  • Apple says Trump import tariffs will increase its costs by $900 million this quarter
  • Amazon CEO says 100,000 users now have Alexa+
  • Uber Launches Product for Seniors, With Rival Lyft Following Suit
  • NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Begins Capturing Entire Sky
  • “…Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are pitching a vision of AI chatbots as an extension of your friend network and a potential solution to the “loneliness epidemic…”
  • An Interview with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg About AI and the Evolution of Social Media
  • Google funding electrician training as AI power crunch intensifies…will bring more than 100,000 sorely needed electricians into the trade to meet the demands of an AI-driven surge in data centers and power generation
  • “Microsoft…after 10 consecutive quarters of increased spending for artificial intelligence, the company has tapped on the brakes, according to financial results released Wednesday…”
  • Microsoft CEO says up to 30% of the company’s code was written by AI
  • Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence KPMG
  • Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects
  • Visa and Mastercard unveil AI-powered shopping

Quarter Results AI Summary

Company (Ticker)Revenue (Value, YoY Growth %)Key Segment GrowthKey Notes
Apple (AAPL)$95.4B, +5%Services +12%Strong quarter with record Services revenue and significant capital returns ($100B buyback, dividend hike). However, results overshadowed by $900M projected Q3 tariff impact and strategic supply chain shift, moving significant iPhone/iPad production to India/Vietnam.
Amazon (AMZN)$155.7B, +9%AWS +17%, Ads +18%Beat Q1 estimates driven by strong Ad growth and steady AWS, though AWS growth rate slowed. Issued cautious Q2 operating income guidance below consensus, explicitly citing potential tariff risks as a headwind.
Microsoft (MSFT)$70.1B, +13% Azure +33% (+35% cc)Delivered a very strong quarter, beating estimates significantly, fueled by accelerating Azure growth (+33%/35%cc) driven by AI demand outpacing supply. AI business surpassed $13B run rate; reaffirmed massive $80B FY25 infrastructure investment plan.
Alphabet (GOOGL)$90.2B, +12% Cloud +28%Reported strong Q1 results beating estimates, driven by resilient Search/YouTube Ads and robust Cloud growth (+28%) fueled by AI. Announced first-ever dividend and $70B buyback, signaling maturity while continuing huge AI infrastructure investments (~$75B CapEx in 2025).
Meta Platforms (META)$42.3B, +16%Ads: Impressions +5%, Price +10%Beat Q1 estimates with strong revenue/EPS growth and raised FY25 CapEx guidance ($64-72B) for AI infrastructure. Faces significant EU regulatory risks impacting its ad model and a major copyright lawsuit over AI training data.

Weekly#634

  • Apple aims to source all US iPhones from India in pivot away from China (FT)
  • Gemini to Arrive On-Premises with Google Distributed Cloud
  • Alphabet reports Q1 revenue up 12% YoY to $90.2B, net income up 46% to $34.54B, Services revenue up 10% to $77.3B, and Other Bets revenue down 9% to $450M
  • AI Overviews is now used by more than 1.5 billion users monthly across over 100 countries
  • In the age of AI, we must protect human creativity as a natural resource
  • UK’s Deliveroo gets $3.6 billion buyout proposal from DoorDash
  • Waymo reports 250,000 paid robotaxi rides per week in U.S.
  • 2025: The Year the Frontier Firm Is Born
    • You can buy intelligence on tap
    • Human-agent teams will upend the org chart
    • Every employee becomes an agent boss
  • Quantum messages travel 254 km using existing infrastructure for the first time
  • AI is changing how software companies charge customers. Welcome to the pay-as-you-go future
  • Apple to Strip Secret Robotics Unit From AI Chief Weeks After Moving Siri
  • Google Gemini has 350M monthly users
  • OpenAI Forecasts Revenue Topping $125 Billion in 2029 as Agents, New Products Gain

Weekly#633

  • Citing recent comments by James Cameron, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he hopes AI can make films “10% better,” not just “50% cheaper.”
  • OpenAI is in advanced talks to buy coding assistant company Windsurf for more than $3 billion…OpenAI looked at buying Cursor creator before turning to AI coding rival Windsurf
  • Microsoft researchers say they’ve developed a hyper-efficient AI model that can run on CPUs, hugging face link
  • Amazon’s secret Vega OS inches closer to launch
  • Video: Stanford CS229 I Machine Learning I Building Large Language Models (LLMs)
  • Meta blocks Apple Intelligence on Facebook and its other iOS apps
  • Overcoming React Development Hurdles: A Guide for Developers
  • Google DeepMind Is Hiring a ‘Post-AGI’ Research Scientist
  • Cognitive Load is what matters
  • OpenAI is working on its own X-like social network, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter
  • Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for 3 days

Weekly#632

  • James Cameron: AI Could Help Cut VFX Costs in Half, Saving Blockbuster Cinema
  • Apple chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tons of iPhones, or as many as 1.5 million, to the United States from India
  • CEO Andy Jassy’s 2024 Letter to Shareholders
  • “…electricity demand from data centres worldwide is set to more than double by 2030 to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh), slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today…”
  • “…The drug discovery market is expected to reach $71 billion in value by 2025 as AI continues to change the industry.On average, it can take anywhere between 10 and 15 years — and sometimes more than $2 billion — for a drug to make it from the bench to final approval from the Food and Drug Administration…”
  • Google introduces Firebase Studio, an end-to-end platform that builds custom apps in-browser
  • Agent Development Kit: Making it easy to build multi-agent applications…A2A Protocol
  • OpenAI gets ready to launch GPT-4.1
  • Anthropic Education Report: How University Students Use Claude
  • Walmart executives tell Axios the new Trend-to-Product, a “trend-sensing design tool,” shortens the production timeline for fashion items by as much as 18 weeks
  • AI models still struggle to debug software, Microsoft study shows

Weekly#631

  • YouTube Could Be Worth $550 Billion as Analyst Crowns Platform ‘New King of All Media’
  • Gmail is making it easier for businesses to send encrypted emails to anyone
  • Amazon’s new AI agent will shop third-party sites for you
  • Amazon Kindle’s new feature uses AI to generate recaps for books in a series
  • How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence
  • Midjourney releases V7, its first new AI image model in nearly a year
  • No Uploads Needed: Google’s NotebookLM AI Can Now ‘Discover Sources’ for You
  • “..DeepMind suggests developers use techniques like amplified oversight, in which two copies of an AI check each other’s output, to create robust systems that aren’t likely to go rogue..”
  • 70% of the 20,000 satellites ever launched remain in space today
  • “…Amazon said next week’s mission — known as Kuiper-1 or KA-1 (for Kuiper Atlas 1) — will put 27 Kuiper satellites into orbit at an altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometers)…”
  • Microsoft leaders, past and present, on the company’s legacy and impact
  • The Art of Postmortem
  • Bloomberg Has a Rocky Start With A.I. Summaries

Weekly#630

  • Assassin’s Creed maker Ubisoft reverses gains after Tencent-backed spinoff move
  • OpenAI rolls out image generation powered by GPT-4o to ChatGPT
  • CoreWeave prices IPO at $40 a share
  • OpenAI Close to Finalizing $40 Billion SoftBank-Led Funding
  • Google Maps can soon scan your screenshots to plan your vacation
  • China’s deep space exploration laboratory starts operation
  • More electricity — and more electricians
  • GitHub Copilot Can Now Run in Windows Terminal
  • JPMorgan Chase & Co. has generated and certified so-called truly random numbers using a quantum computer, in a world-first that the bank hopes will have applications for security and trading
  • Turning round Rolls-Royce: ‘If you don’t score quickly, you lose people’
  • Latest Memo: The role of developer skills in agentic coding
  • Google will develop the Android OS fully in private, and here’s why
  • AI-Powered Databases Boost the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Process
  • Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks
  • DBS: Transforming a banking leader into a technology leader

Weekly#629

  • Nvidia’s GTC 2025 Keynote
  • AI-driven weather prediction breakthrough reported
  • Apple loses $1B a year on prestigious, minimally viewed Apple TV+: report
  • Nvidia says ‘the age of generalist robotics is here’
  • Italian newspaper says it has published world’s first AI-generated edition
  • Meta spotted testing AI-generated comments on Instagram
  • Volkswagen’s cheapest EV ever is the first to use Rivian software
  • Mark Zuckerberg says that Meta’s Llama models have hit 1B downloads
  • Severance brought everything together in its season 2 finale
  • Product Playbooks

Weekly#628

  • Talk, Draw, Generate: 10 Ways for Creating Software with AI
  • 9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2025 and Beyond
  • Where Humans Still Have the Edge on AI
  • SXSW Sessions
  • 2025 Tech Trends Report by Future Today Institute
  • Klarna, 93 million active consumers and to work with over 675,000 merchants in 26 countries, files for U.S. IPO
  • China’s AI frenzy: DeepSeek is already everywhere — cars, phones, even hospitals
  • Gemini replacing Google Assistant on Android phones later in 2025
  • AI summaries are coming to Windows Notepad
  • Apple Plans AirPods Feature That Can Live-Translate Conversations
  • Man survives with titanium heart for 100 days – a world first
  • Google claims Gemma 3 reaches 98% of DeepSeek’s accuracy – using only one GPU
  • Carmakers Are Reinventing the Gear Shifter and Drivers Are Lost (WSJ)
  • Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino
  • Malware’s AI time bomb
  • How the Four Seasons Hit a Marketing Jackpot With HBO’s ‘The White Lotus’ (WSJ)