What we're reading, in the order we're reading it.
Anthony and Harry's working stream — links, charts, tweets, and short takes. The unprocessed inputs behind the briefings.
Apple acquires secretive Q․ai startup for $2 billion
Apple has acquired an Israeli-based AI startup called Q.ai, according to a new report from the Financial Times. The report…
20VC x SaaStr This Week: The $5 Billion Exit That Felt Weird, Why Inference Costs Are the Final Nail for Mid Growth SaaS, and Andreessen’s 2/3 AI Domination
The latest from the 20VC x SaaStr collaboration with Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin, and Rory O’Driscoll The TL;DR Brex sold for $5.15 billion—a heroic outcome by any rational standard, yet...
New OpenAI tool renews fears that “AI slop” will overwhelm scientific research
New “Prism” workspace launches just as studies show AI-assisted papers are flooding journals with diminished quality.
Napster’s back — and its new AI-first app wants you to help create the music, not just listen to it
Just don’t tell Metallica
😺 🎙️ We’re live NOW w/ Microsoft testing open models
Talking Fara-7B & hosting your own AI w/ Ece Kamar
Which AI Stack Is Right For Customer Success Teams
Build a customer success AI stack that connects data, playbooks, agents, and workflows—so teams act faster, cut sprawl, and improve retention.
Google drops Chrome auto browse for AI Pro and Ultra users
What’s new? Chrome auto browse uses Gemini 3 for multi-step online tasks like vacation planning and shopping; opt in feature remembers past topics and gives full app control.
Google prepares Jules to become always-on AI SWE Agent
Google Jules introduces a CI fixer and new integrations, including Stitch and Linear, aiming to automate deployment and improve development team collaboration.
With ‘Auto Browse’ on Google Chrome, Gemini Can Search the Internet for You
Paid Google AI subscribers can ask Gemini to complete tasks, like shopping for party supplies or making an appointment.
Apple buys Israeli start-up Q.AI as it races Meta and Google on AI devices
Deal worth close to $2bn for secretive group that creates technology that analyses facial expressions
Mozilla is building an AI ‘rebel alliance’ to take on industry heavyweights OpenAI, Anthropic
Mozilla is looking to deploy its roughly $1.4 billion in reserves to support “mission driven” companies and nonprofits, and is particularly focused on AI.
An AI Toy Exposed 50,000 Logs of Its Chats With Kids to Anyone With a Gmail Account
AI chat toy company Bondu left its web console almost entirely unprotected. Researchers who accessed it found nearly all the conversations children had had with the company’s stuffed animals.
Into the Omniverse: Physical AI Open Models and Frameworks Advance Robots and Autonomous Systems
By providing access to critical infrastructure — from simulation frameworks to AI models — NVIDIA is enabling collaborative development that accelerates the path to safer, more capable autonomous systems.
Labour’s gamble to turn AI threat into opportunity
Also in this week’s newsletter: Mahmood’s far-reaching police reforms
Moltbot is a security nightmare: 5 reasons to avoid using the viral AI agent right now
Handing your computing tasks over to a cute AI crustacean might be tempting – but before you join the latest viral AI trend, consider these security risks.
Nvidia’s Campaign to Sell AI Chips to China Finally Pays Off
Beijing reportedly approved the sale of hundreds of thousands of Nvidia H200 chips to Chinese AI companies—the culmination of a dramatic shift in US tech policy.
Benchmarking OpenTelemetry: Can AI trace your failed login?
A lot of vendors pitch AI SRE. We tested 14 models across 11 programming languages; even the best ones struggle with instrumenting code with the leading open-source standard, OpenTelemetry.
ServiceNow’s AI Strategy Fuels Strong Q4 Earnings As Enterprise Adoption Accelerates
ServiceNow beat Q4 earnings expectations as subscription revenue climbed 21%, intensifying its fight with Microsoft and Salesforce for control of enterprise workflows.
What is Nick Shirley?
Slop doesn’t need to be AI-generated
Deezer opens its AI music detection tool to other platforms
Deezer is helping other platforms find AI-generated music.
Factify Raises $73M to Build a New Intelligent Document Standard
Factify, creators of the post-PDF document standard, today announced a $73M seed round to build a new foundation for documents. The round was led by Valley Capital Partners, with participation...
‘Not an auto company’: Elon Musk is pivoting to AI and robots. Wall Street analysts have their doubts
Wall Street analysts called Tesla’s pivot toward AI and robotics and away from automobiles the most important takeaway from its latest earnings report.
Software stocks enter bear market on AI disruption fear with ServiceNow plunging 11% Thursday
The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF is on pace for its biggest one-day decline since April 4 during the tariff-triggered downturn.
Does Anthropic believe its AI is conscious, or is that just what it wants Claude to think?
We have no proof that AI models suffer, but Anthropic acts like they might for training purposes.
How Portable Ultrasounds Keep Astronauts Healthy
In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at how a new discovery could lead to unsinkable ships, the billions invested in AI “neolabs” and more.
The AI Economy Needs Chutzpah, Not Compliance
In the AI economy, routine work gets automated first. To thrive, schools must shift from factory-model compliance to chutzpah, judgment, and critical thinking.
Wayfair Lessons In Driving Millions Of Dollars In Savings With AI
Nirmal Jingar, an executive at Wayfair, shares lessons in driving millions of dollars in savings with AI in supply chain
ICONIQ’s Latest State of AI Report: The 10 Most Important Data Points for SaaS Founders
ICONIQ just released their January 2026 “State of AI” report surveying ~300 software executives building AI products. Here are the 10 metrics that matter most. 1. Just About Even Mix...
Claude Code Opus 4.5 Performance Tracker
Track Claude Code’s daily performance on SWE-Bench-Pro. Monitor for degradation with statistical significance testing.
Google Maps just got a major AI upgrade — and it’s finally hands-free for walkers and cyclists
Pedestrians and cyclists, your commute just got easier
Google Just Put an AI Agent in Your Browser
Chrome will now browse the web for you. Auto Browse, powered by Gemini 3, is an agentic feature that navigates websites, fills out forms, compares options, and completes multi-step tasks...
I tried local AI on my M1 Mac, and the experience was brutal
My not-so-quick experiment with Ollama taught me a hard lesson.
The real promise of AI isn’t fewer jobs, it’s cheaper thinking
I founded one company that sold for $1.5 billion, and another with $150 million in funding, and I see the AI ROI debate as a leadership failure.
Lloyds boss warns bankers must ‘reskill themselves’ amid impact of AI
Charlie Nunn said banks would be hiring staff with different skill sets as customer experience will ‘radically change’
Constellation’s Ray Wang on OpenAI investment strategy, state of the AI race and AI impact on jobs
Ray Wang, Constellation Research founder and chairman, joins ‘Squawk Box’ to discuss news of Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft in talks to invest up to $60 billion in OpenAI, state of...
Blackstone President Jon Gray on Q4 results, state of the AI boom
Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray joins ‘Squawk Box’ to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings results, investing in AI, dealmaking environment, state of the AI boom, real estate market, and...
Preparing Your Brand for Agentic AI
AI agents are transforming brand-consumer relationships. The authors explore how brands must adapt to a new retail environment in which consumers increasingly rely on generative AI for product research, recommendations,...
ByteDance, Alibaba to Launch New Models in Race for AI Supremacy in China
The battle for AI dominance in China is reaching new heights. Tech giants ByteDance and Alibaba Group are both poised to release their next flagship AI models around the Lunar...
Robotics Market to Worth Over US$ 199.50 Billion by 2035
The global robotics market is entering a new era of strategic importance, expanding from a niche automation tool to an operational necessity across industries. Industrial deployments now dominate with over...