Lower-Value Human Capital
On May 19, two companies eliminated 16,000 workers to deploy AI while one lab paid $100M for 20 researchers and Anthropic landed an OpenAI co-founder. The same technology that made one kind of worker disposable made another kind priceless. The AI labor market didn't get cheaper or more expensive — it split in two.
Musk v. Altman: the jury unanimously rejects Elon Musk's claims against OpenAI and Sam Altman, as he filed them outside of a three-year statute of limitations
After less than two hours of deliberations, a jury on Monday rejected Elon Musk's claims against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman …
In a town hall, PlayStation studio business CEO Hermen Hulst told staff that the company's narrative single-player games will now be PlayStation exclusives
SCOOP: PlayStation studio business CEO Hermen Hulst told staff in a town hall Monday morning that the company's narrative single-player games …
A recording of the Google I/O 2026 keynote
It's time to I/O! Tune in to learn the latest news, announcements, and AI updates from Google. To watch this keynote interpreted in American Sign Language (A...
Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic to help launch a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pre-training research; he helped found OpenAI and worked at Tesla
Andrej Karpathy, one of the best-known AI researchers in the world and a founding member of OpenAI, announced Tuesday that he's joining rival AI lab Anthropic.
A CISA contractor maintained a now-offline GitHub repo that exposed credentials to AWS GovCloud accounts and CISA systems; CISA is investigating the situation
Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository …
Internal memo: Meta reassigns 7,000 workers to four new units focused on building AI tools, as it prepares to cut 10% of its staff, or ~8,000 jobs, on May 20
The company announced the changes two days before it plans to lay off 10 percent of its work force, or about 8,000 employees.
Cursor releases Composer 2.5, built on Kimi K2.5, and says it is better at sustained work on long-running tasks and follows complex instructions more reliably
Composer 2.5 is now available in Cursor. — It's a substantial improvement in intelligence and behavior over Composer 2.
Blackstone announces a joint venture with Google to create a US company that will offer customers Google TPU access, and makes a $5B initial equity commitment
Investment firm to put $5 billion toward venture using Google's chips — Alphabet's Google and Blackstone plan to create …
Apple unveils Apple Intelligence-powered accessibility features, subtitles generated on device, a Vision Pro feature for controlling power wheelchairs, and more
In what I expect will be an overarching theme at WWDC 2026, Apple's Accessibility group took the wraps off an impressive collection of features coming later this year.
Google's web-based AI Studio now lets users build native Android apps; Google says the apps are for personal use only for now and publishing is on the roadmap
The AI coding boom is now coming directly for Android app development. On Tuesday, Google announced new native Android app creation capabilities …
Anthropic says last week it began letting Mythos users responsibly share cybersecurity threats with others who face similar vulnerabilities, changing its stance
How to restrict access while still allowing users to share threat information is a major challenge facing AI companies
Andrej Karpathy says he has joined Anthropic as the “next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative”
Personal update: I've joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply pa...
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation's first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state; the CFTC has sued Minnesota in response
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation's first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state …
Procurement records: the FBI seeks a vendor that can provide access to automated license plate readers nationwide; Flock and Motorola are among the few options
Only a couple vendors could likely fulfill what the FBI is after, namely Flock and Motorola. — The FBI wants to buy access …
Anthropic acquires NYC-based Stainless, which generates SDKs from APIs, and plans to wind down its hosted products, after reportedly discussing a $300M+ deal
Anthropic announced Monday it has acquired Stainless, a startup founded by former Stripe engineer Alex Rattray whose software …
Microsoft unveils Intel-based business laptops: a 13" Surface Pro for $1,950+, a 13.8" or 15" Surface Laptop for $1,950+, and a 13" Surface Laptop for $1,300+
Every IT leader and partner we work with is navigating the same challenges: AI is changing the demands of how teams work …
Threat actors published 600+ malicious versions to npm as part of the Shai-Hulud supply chain campaign; most of the affected packages are in the @antv ecosystem
Threat actors earlier today published more than 600 malicious packages to the Node Package Manager (npm) index as part of a new Shai-Hulud supply-chain campaign.
Sources: Analog Devices, one of the largest analog chipmakers, is in talks to buy Empower, which makes chips used to regulate voltage, for $1.5B in cash
Analog Devices Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire closely held Empower Semiconductor for $1.5 billion in cash, according to people familiar with the matter.
NYC Health + Hospitals says hackers accessed its network from November 2025 to February 2026, stealing 1.8M+ people's data, medical records, and fingerprints
New York public health provider NYC Health and Hospitals says a months-long data breach that allowed hackers to steal personal data …
Epic says Fortnite has returned to Apple's App Store globally, after its US relaunch in 2025, signaling confidence in a favorable outcome in an ongoing lawsuit
Epic Games said on Tuesday its popular shooter title “Fortnite” has returned to global App Stores, as the videogame maker signaled confidence …
Vitalik Buterin says AI-assisted “formal verification” could help secure blockchain networks, smart contracts, and cryptographic systems against software flaws
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that mathematically verified software is becoming essential to protecting Ethereum …
Hands-on with Google and Samsung's Android XR smart glasses from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, and with XReal's Project Aura, all set to arrive this fall
Here's your first look at smart glasses coming from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, powered by Google and Samsung's XR platform.
Google unveils Pics, an AI image editor in Workspace that lets users edit specific elements and modify text, rolling out this summer to AI Pro and Ultra users
It's not Photoshop, but it could be better than what's in Google Photos. — Alongside an array of updates across its Workspace apps …
A deep dive into Meta's Hyperion data center campus in Louisiana, expected to reach 5 GW of compute capacity; source: Meta plans to spend $200B+ on the project
Dustin Morris steers his propeller plane over farmland shrouded in a ghostly morning mist. From 900 feet up, Richland Parish …
Sony is hiking PlayStation Plus subscriptions' one-month and three-month starting prices in “select regions”, due to “ongoing market conditions”, from May 20
One-month and three-month PlayStation Plus subscriptions are getting more expensive.
Google teases Android Halo, which makes an AI agent's status visible via “subtle communication” at the top of the phone screen, coming later this year
At Google IO, we were given a tease of an upcoming “Android Halo” feature that, at least on first glance, isn't clear how or what it will do.
Google adds a conversational search feature to YouTube and rolls out the new Gemini Omni model in YouTube Shorts Remix and the Create app
Seriously, who is asking for all these tools? … What you need to know — Ask YouTube now supports conversational searches instead of relying only on simple keywords.
At a hearing, two of three judges of a federal appeals court appeared skeptical of Anthropic's bid to block the DOD from designating it a supply-chain risk
A federal appeals court appeared skeptical of Anthropic's bid to block the Pentagon from declaring that the company poses …
Sources: AI chip designer Tenstorrent is drawing early takeover interest, including from Intel and Qualcomm, and could be valued at $5B+ in a potential deal
Artificial intelligence chip startup Tenstorrent Inc. is drawing early takeover interest from prospective buyers at a moment …
Google unveils Universal Cart, a shopping assistant that works “across merchants”, built on the Universal Commerce Protocol, rolling out in the US today
At I/O on Tuesday, Google introduced Universal Cart, its so-called agentic hub for managing shopping in one place.
Monzo reports FY 2026 revenue up 39% YoY to £1.7B, pretax profit up 44% YoY to £87.3M, users up 3M to 15M+, and deposits up 55% to £25.7B, as it expands lending
Monzo Bank Ltd. reported a 44% jump in profit in the year through March, as growth in lending lifted interest income.
Polymarket partners with Nasdaq to launch markets tied to private company milestones, including IPO timing, valuations, earnings, and secondary market activity
Quick Take — Early offerings focus on AI, fintech, and crypto unicorns, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Kraken.
Plex says the price for the Lifetime tier of its Plex Pass plan will increase from $249.99 to $749.99 in July
Plex has announced a massive price increase for the Lifetime tier of its Plex Pass plan. Starting in July, Plex says that the Lifetime Plex Pass price will increase from $249.99 to a whopping $749.99...
A live blog of the Google I/O 2026 keynote, where the company is set to announce the “latest AI breakthroughs and updates” in Gemini, Android, and more
I/O 2026 kicks off today as Google's biggest event of the year to showcase what's new for users and developers.
Standard Chartered plans to cut nearly 8,000 back-office positions by 2030, a 15%+ reduction in support functions in hubs like Bengaluru, amid growing AI usage
Bill Winters says new strategy focuses on replacing ‘lower-value human capital’ in drive for ‘sustainable growth’
Mistral acquires Austria-based Emmi AI for an undisclosed sum to boost its industrial offerings in Europe; Emmi raised €15M in Austria's largest round in 2025
Europe's leading artificial intelligence firm, France's Mistral AI, said on Tuesday it has acquired Vienna-based Emmi AI …
Spotify launches a “Verified by Spotify” badge for podcasts to help “authenticate creator identity”, after releasing it for music in April
The platform recently did something similar for music. — Spotify is launching verification badges for podcasts to help “authenticate creator identity and likeness.”
Uber ups its stake in Berlin-based Delivery Hero from 7% in April to 19.5% and says it “has no intent to acquire 30% or more” of Delivery Hero's voting rights
Uber Technologies Inc. has increased its stake in German food delivery company Delivery Hero SE, underscoring its ambitions …
Musk v. Altman: Elon Musk says the judge and jury “never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality” and he will file an appeal
Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality. There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & B...
Google announces Gemini Spark, a “24/7 personal AI agent” that is powered by Gemini 3.5 and supports integrations with Google Workspace apps, including Gmail
The AI agent is rolling out to testers this week. — Google has announced a “24/7 personal AI agent” …
An overview of macro tech trends: a capex explosion, unprecedented chip demand growth, supply chain bottlenecks, model commoditization, AI automation, and more
Twice a year, I produce a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. — New in May 2026, ‘AI eats the world’.
Milan-based legal AI company Lexroom raised a €42.9M Series B led by Left Lane, after raising a €16M Series A in September 2025, taking total funding to €62.7M
Lexroom, a Milan-based LegalTech startup focused on civil law jurisdictions, today announced a €42.9 million …
NextEra's $67B deal for Dominion, the largest utility acquisition in US history, signals an era of utility consolidation to accommodate AI-driven power demand
Meta begins laying off 8,000 employees, or 10% of staff, in a push to become an AI-first company; another 7,000 workers will be reassigned to AI initiatives
Meta told employees last month that it would carry out mass layoffs on May 20, as the Silicon Valley giant tries to transform into an A.I.-first company.
Cloudflare tests Mythos against 50+ of its repositories, highlights its ability to chain bugs into one exploit, and details its vulnerability discovery harness
Grant Bourzikas /Cloudflare:
Radar, which helps retailers like American Eagle manage inventory and cut back on theft and lost merchandise, raised a $170M Series B at a $1B+ valuation
Radar, a startup backed by American Eagle CEO Jay Schottenstein that helps retailers manage in-store inventory and cut back on theft …
Modular data center maker Armada raised a $230M Series B co-led by Overmatch, 8090 Industries, and BlackRock at a $2B valuation, and plans a new Arizona factory
Armada, which builds modular data centers that are becoming increasingly popular with customers in defense, energy and the military sector …
Sources: Apple Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji is reorganizing hardware development to integrate silicon teams with product creation and speed up their work
Apple Inc. Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji is reorganizing hardware development and shifting oversight of key functions …
Chinese flash memory chipmaker YMTC says it started a prelisting tutoring process with two local brokers, marking the first formal step toward an IPO
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. has begun the process for a long-awaited initial public offering, tapping red-hot demand …
Unframe, which customizes AI apps for enterprises via pre-built modular components, raised a $50M Series B led by Highland Europe, for $100M in total funding
Unframe, which customizes AI applications for enterprises, raised a $50 million Series B led by Highland Europe …
The Vatican says Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah will join Pope Leo on May 25 to launch the pope's first encyclical, setting out his views on the AI age
Google says the Gemini app has 900M+ MAUs across 230 countries, up from 400M at I/O 2025, and launches Neural Expressive, a new design language for Gemini
a ‘24/7 personal AI agent’Nate Berg /Fast Company:Google redesigns Gemini AI to break down the ‘giant wall of text’Sanuj Bhatia /Android Central:Planning a wedding? Google's new Gemini Spark AI agents...
Roku launches a creator hub with licensed creator content and programming from partners like Peacock and HBO Max, alongside new FAST channels from top creators
Roku will also expand its licensing of creator content, its content chief tells THR. — Roku is making a big bet on creator content …
Viktor, which is developing an AI agent that operates like a virtual coworker embedded inside Slack or Microsoft Teams, raised a $75M Series A led by Accel
Fryderyk Wiatrowski, CEO and co-founder of Viktor, joined Meta with the aim of finding a co-founder.
Google overhauls its search box, letting users ask longer queries, upload photos and videos, and use Gemini 3.5 Flash-powered agents to automate searches
Powered by a new Gemini A.I. model, the tech giant is overhauling its search box to answer longer queries, introducing a video-generation …
X quietly limits users who don't pay for verification to 50 original posts and 200 replies per day, down from 2,400 posts per day, angering some longtime users
Sources: Chinese AI startup Moonshot told investors it would revamp its corporate structure to pave the way for a Hong Kong IPO and comply with Beijing's rules
Moonshot AI has informed its investors it will revamp its corporate structure to pave the way for an initial public offering in Hong Kong …
Seagate closed down 6.87% on May 18, leading a group-wide sell-off after CEO Dave Mosley's comments raised concerns it won't be able to meet demand fueled by AI
Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin Depot, North America's largest bitcoin ATM operator, files for bankruptcy, blaming states' “increasingly stringent compliance obligations”
Amazon's Alexa+ now produces AI-generated “podcasts” on various topics in the US, featuring chats between two AI “co-hosts”, using content from media outlets
KPMG partners with Anthropic to embed Claude into its tax and advisory platforms; KPMG's tax and legal services unit saw revenue grow ~8% YoY to $9.3B in 2025
The Big Four firm will embed Claude on a platform that will house the majority of its nonaudit services
Google launches the Gemini Omni multimodal model, saying it can “create anything from any input”, starting with video generation, for Google AI subscribers
Although it was already discovered by intrepid AI power users weeks ahead of the official unveiling today at Google's annual …
Relay, which builds banking and money management software for small businesses, raised $50M; it previously raised ~$51.5M, including a $32.2M Series B in 2024
Relay, which builds banking and money management software for small businesses, raised $50 million, CEO Yoseph West tells Axios exclusively.
Yahoo Finance launches AlphaSpace, a customizable research dashboard with an AI assistant, for subscribers of its $479.40/year or $39.95/month Gold plan
Any finance professional who has used the Bloomberg Terminal's brightly colored keyboard knows a secret: if you figure out the right question to ask, data is at your fingertips.
NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange partners with financial infrastructure company Ornn to launch USD-denominated futures contracts for computing power
Intercontinental Exchange Inc., owner of the New York Stock Exchange, is adding futures contracts for computing power as the market …
Iranian media: Iran launches “Hormuz Safe”, a Bitcoin-backed insurance service for shipping companies transiting the Strait of Hormuz; ~1,500 ships are trapped
Sources: Intel asks its leading PC partners, including those in the US, China, and Taiwan, to use more 18A CPUs, citing better supply than chips on older nodes
Sigma, which sells a cloud-native analytics platform that sits on top of data warehouses, raised an $80M Series E led by Princeville Capital at a $3B valuation
Demis Hassabis says companies looking to replace developers with AI may be due to a “lack of imagination and a lack of understanding” of the future
Google unveils conversational features for Gmail, Docs, and Keep, letting users ask natural language questions, rolling out to AI Pro and Ultra subs this summer
all with your voice. Just speak what's on your mind, and let Gemini do the rest. These new conversational features in @Gmail, @GoogleDocs and Keep are rolling [image]
Sundar Pichai says Google is now processing 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month, up from 480T tokens per month a year ago and 9.7T tokens per month two years ago
and Doesn't Need You AnymoreSanuj Bhatia /Android Central:Google's new YouTube AI tools could make AI slop impossible to escapeAlistair Barr /Business Insider:Google's latest AI numbers are huge. Here...
Ocean, which uses AI agents to detect email attacks, raised a $20M Series A led by Lightspeed, following an $8M seed in 2024
The cybersecurity startup says its platform replaces legacy phishing defenses with AI agents that analyze intent, not just patterns.
CertiK: physical attacks on crypto holders rose 75% YoY to 72 confirmed cases and $41M in known losses in 2025; Coinbase spent ~$7.6M to protect Brian Armstrong
After a year of kidnappings, assaults and armed home invasions targeting cryptocurrency holders, the industry is racing to harden its defenses.
Internal chats: in March, xAI offered employees $420 in exchange for completed tax filings as training data for Grok, but the bonuses haven't been paid out
Sources: Demis Hassabis was an angel investor in Anthropic; PitchBook and Dealroom say ex-DeepMind researchers founded 12+ companies since 2021, raising $14B+
OpenAI adds support for Google's SynthID watermarks in AI images, and previews a public portal to let users verify if an image was generated by OpenAI's tools
Jess Weatherbed /The Verge:
Google overhauls its search box, letting users ask longer queries, upload photos and videos, and use Gemini 3.5 Flash-powered agents to automate searches
The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over.Michael Nuñez /VentureBeat:Google just redesigned the search box for the first time in 25 years — here's why it matters more than you think.Elyse Bet...
Google introduces Antigravity 2.0, featuring an updated desktop app that lets users orchestrate multiple agents, alongside an Antigravity CLI tool and SDK
Ivan Mehta /TechCrunch:
Strategy acquired 24,869 bitcoin for ~$2.01B at an $80,985 average price from May 11 to May 17, taking its holdings to 843,738 BTC, or 4%+ of the total supply
Akamai is seeking to raise $2.6B in a convertible bond offering, and plans to use $350M of the offering to buy back its common stock from buyers of the bonds
Roblox authorizes its first share buyback program, aiming to repurchase up to $3B of its stock, including $1B over the next year; RBLX is down ~45% YTD
Google rolls out Gemini 3.5 Flash, its “strongest agentic and coding model yet”, for tackling long-horizon agentic tasks, in the Gemini app and Search's AI Mode
Gemini 3.5 is built to help you execute complex, agentic workflows. — Today, we're introducing Gemini 3.5 …
OpenAI introduces Guaranteed Capacity, a new offering that lets customers guarantee access to OpenAI's compute through one- to three-year commitments
Sources: competition for Google's TPUs among its employees and researchers intensified as it prioritizes cloud customers and flagship AI products over research
OpenAI's win against Elon Musk leaves it free to continue its IPO plans, but it still faces many issues, like rising competition and dozens of other lawsuits
A jury's rejection of Elon Musk's $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI was a major hurdle crossed. But the maker of ChatGPT faces a list of other problems.
Arkham: Iran's largest crypto exchange, Nobitex, processed $2.3B+ since 2023 via Tron and BNB Chain, including $23M+ since the Iran war started in February
Analog Devices agrees to buy Empower Semiconductor, which makes chips used to regulate voltage, for $1.5B in cash
Google restructures its AI plans, introducing a $100/month AI Ultra plan for developers and cutting the top-tier Ultra subscription from $250 to $200/month
ZDNET's key takeaways — Google has introduced a cheaper AI Ultra plan at $100 a month. — The full Ultra Plan is now $50 cheaper at $200 a month.
Elon Musk's OpenAI loss is set to speed up the AI juggernaut amid rising opposition; the case offered a rare glimpse into tech's workings, ending with a whimper
New York Times:
Sources: Google DeepMind has reached a ~$100M deal to hire 20+ researchers from Contextual AI, including CEO Douwe Kiela, and license its technology
Microsoft says it plans to bring Snapdragon X2 chips to the new Surface Pro and Laptop later in 2026; sources say the delay is due to component availability
Although not available today, the company has confirmed that customers will be able to buy its new Surface devices with Snapdragon X2 chips later this year.
Sources detail growing concerns inside SoftBank over Masayoshi Son's $60B+ bet on OpenAI, which some fear concentrates too much capital into a single company
Decart, which offers real-time generative video and GPU optimization tech, raised $300M at a ~$4B valuation, up from $3.1B after raising $153M in August 2025
Google says it is expanding access to CodeMender, an “AI agent for code security” it debuted in October, by inviting select groups of experts to test the API
The company is marketing its CodeMender tool as a way to “help secure the world's code bases.”
Sources: Zyphra, which trains and runs inference for its open-weight models on AMD hardware, is raising a $500M Series B at a valuation of at least $5B
Google debuts Gemini for Science, a set of experimental tools that help researchers generate hypotheses, conduct testing, and understand scientific literature
Jackson Chen /Engadget:NEW
Sources: SpaceX expects to proceed with its acquisition of Cursor 30 days after its public trading debut, which is expected to occur on June 12
Sundar Pichai announced at Google I/O that Gemini 3.5 Pro will launch next month; attendees groaned at the model coming out later than they expected
Charles Rollet /Business Insider: