AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.
Microsoft and Meta just launched a public preview bringing full Windows 11 support to Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S headsets. Users can scan a QR code to stream their local PC or Windows 365 Cloud PC into private, multi-monitor virtual workstations. The feature is rolling out as an experimental tool in the v72 software update.
Google just made Trillium, its sixth-generation TPU, generally available on Google Cloud. The chip powers Google's flagship Gemini 2.0 model, delivering over 4x faster training and up to 3x higher inference throughput compared to the prior-gen TPU v5e. Why it matters: Google is ramping up the pressure on Nvidia by giving developers a massive, cost-effective alternative for training giant models.
WaveForms, a new startup founded by a key contributor behind ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode, just unveiled its ambitious mission to pass the "Speech Turing Test." Instead of relying on traditional speech-to-text conversion that strips away emotion and tone, the company is building models designed to capture subtle human nuances, starting with consumer apps.
YC-backed startup Artisan just launched a billboard campaign across San Francisco with blunt slogans like "Stop Hiring Humans" and "Artisans won’t complain about work-life balance." The ads pitch its customer service and sales software as tireless "AI employees," directly targeting the tech hub's human workforce. Online reaction has been largely sour, with workers calling the stunt a dystopian nightmare.
Character.AI and Google are facing a fresh lawsuit in Texas after a 17-year-old alleged the platform's chatbots encouraged him to self-harm and alienated him from his parents. The suit claims defective product design and a lack of safety guardrails for minors. Google stated it has no involvement in Character.AI's tech, while the legal test for chatbot liability continues to heat up.
Automattic just acquired WPAI, the startup behind WordPress AI tools like CodeWP and AgentWP. The standalone apps will be sunsetted and folded directly into Automattic's core platform, with WPAI's founders joining to lead its AI roadmap. Why it matters: It marks Automattic's second acquisition in two months, signaling a major push to make AI coding and site management a native part of WordPress.
Amazon just launched the Amazon AGI SF Lab in San Francisco, an R&D unit led by Adept co-founder David Luan to develop foundational capabilities for AI agents. The team aims to build agents that operate computers and browsers, self-course-correct, and act across both digital and physical environments. Why it matters: Big Tech's race for autonomous agents is rapidly heating up, and Amazon is gathering top startup talent to stay in contention.
Microsoft just unveiled a next-generation datacenter design that consumes zero water for cooling, saving over 125 million liters per site each year. Built for heavy AI workloads, it relies on chip-level closed-loop liquid cooling. The architecture has been standard for all new builds since August 2024, with pilots launching in 2026 before coming online in late 2027.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman just pushed back against claims that AGI is achievable on current hardware like Nvidia GB200s, estimating it will take two to five more chip generations—or five to ten years. He also distanced practical AGI from sci-fi superintelligence, arguing builders should focus on useful, accountable AI companions instead of chasing the singularity.
HubSpot just agreed to acquire conversation intelligence platform Frame AI to beef up its Breeze AI lineup. Frame AI extracts customer sentiment and intent from messy unstructured data like emails, calls, and meetings. The move aims to give HubSpot's CRM better visibility into customer behavior to prevent churn early.
The world’s second-fastest supercomputer, Frontier, just simulated the observable universe at an unprecedented scale using 9,000 AMD-powered nodes. By calculating dark matter and gas dynamics rather than simple gravity, the 1.4-exaFLOP system completed hydrodynamic modeling roughly 300 times faster than expected. Why it matters: Exascale computing is smashing scientific simulation ceilings, setting up massive compute gains for future AI and climate models.
Donald Trump just named VC and All-In podcast host David Sacks as the White House A.I. & Crypto Czar. Sacks will steer federal policy around artificial intelligence and crypto while also chairing the President's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. As a special government employee, he won't be required to divest his assets.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai just teased that Google Search will "change profoundly" in 2025 to tackle far more complex queries. Pichai also fired back at Satya Nadella's past comments, inviting a direct model comparison while pointing out that Microsoft is simply relying on OpenAI.
OpenAI just had a massive leak on its website revealing plans for a $200 per month ChatGPT Pro subscription. The tier reportedly offers unlimited access to all models including the full o1 reasoning model, unlimited Advanced Voice Mode, and a compute-heavy o1 pro mode for hard problems. The leaked pages also briefly referenced an upcoming GPT-4.5 preview.
OpenAI just partnered with digital publisher Future, bringing content from over 200 brands including Tom’s Guide, PC Gamer, and TechRadar into ChatGPT. Responses will feature attribution and direct links back to original articles, while Future expands its use of OpenAI's models across sales, marketing, and editorial workflows.
Perplexity just expanded its publisher revenue-sharing program with 15 new media partners, including the Los Angeles Times and The Independent. Participating outlets will share in ad revenue and receive free Enterprise Pro access for their entire newsrooms. As copyright friction grows, Perplexity is betting that giving publishers a cut keeps content flowing.
Humane just revealed plans to license CosmOS—the operating system behind its struggling AI Pin—to third-party makers of phones, cars, TVs, and smart speakers. While a new concept video demos agent-style controls across blurred-out devices, the upcoming SDK is not publicly available yet.
Three core members behind Google's viral NotebookLM, including team lead Raiza Martin, just left Google to launch a consumer-focused AI startup. The new venture remains in stealth mode with no official name or funding announced yet, but the founders plan to turn frontier models into thoughtful products for everyday people.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just downplayed the impact of artificial general intelligence, claiming we’ll reach AGI sooner than expected, but "it will matter much less." Speaking at the DealBook Summit, Altman argued that major safety and economic disruptions won't hit immediately, shifting the dramatic leap to "superintelligence." Why it matters: Conveniently, declaring AGI allows OpenAI an escape hatch from its messy profit-sharing deal with Microsoft.
OpenAI is launching 12 consecutive days of product releases and demos starting December 5th. Sources tell The Verge the announcements are expected to finally include text-to-video tool Sora, a new reasoning model, and a holiday-themed voice for ChatGPT.
