Business — page 29
Uber president says AI spending is getting 'harder to justify'
The company exhausted its annual AI budget four months into 2026 with no clear link between token usage and feature delivery.
AI startups inflate ARR by 70% using contracted revenue as VC kingmaking tactic
Legal AI founder exposes pervasive practice of reporting committed but undeployed contracts as annual recurring revenue.
The Gulf's AI boom depends on 7 undersea cables through the Strait of Hormuz
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are building AI infrastructure, but regional cable concentration threatens their compute-export ambitions.
OpenAI hires Clinton crisis vet to rebuild AI's public image
Chris Lehane, the political operative behind Airbnb's regulatory fights and crypto's super PAC, now runs OpenAI's global affairs.
SpaceX pitches $26.5T AI market as Grok lags OpenAI and Anthropic
The company's IPO filing projects orbital data centers while Grok holds 0.174% paid consumer share.
Google DeepMind launches Asia Pacific climate AI accelerator
A three-month program for startups, research teams, and nonprofits using frontier AI to solve environmental challenges.
Spotify and Universal Music strike deal for fan-made AI covers and remixes
The tool launches as a paid Premium add-on with artist opt-in and revenue share; pricing and launch date undisclosed.
Spotify launches ElevenLabs-powered audiobook creation tool for self-publishers
The streaming platform will let authors generate audiobooks in-app starting June 2026, with no exclusivity required.
The Path raises $14.3M for AI therapy app co-founded by Tony Robbins
The startup scores 95 on mental health safety benchmarks, 30 points above consumer chatbots.
Hark raises $700M Series A at $6B valuation for AI personal assistant
Brett Adcock's secretive consumer AI lab has 70 employees and plans to ship multi-modal models this summer.
Amp and Sortera bet AI-powered sorting on 20% aluminum price spike
Rising aluminum prices and critical mineral status drive recycling startups to scale AI-powered metal recovery.
Google pitches AI agent ecosystem but keeps it paywalled
Information agents, Spark, Halo, and Daily Brief launched at I/O—all behind a $100/month Gemini Ultra subscription.
Meta lays off 8,000 employees to offset AI investments
The cuts amount to 10% of Meta's workforce as the company doubles 2025 capital spending.
AMD commits $10B to Taiwan's AI chip ecosystem as shares double
The investment targets advanced packaging and manufacturing for Helios, AMD's AI server system shipping in H2 2026.
Anthropic expects first profitable quarter with $10.9B in Q2 revenue
The AI startup told investors it will more than double quarterly revenue, though profitability may not last the year.
Nvidia claims Vera CPU opens $200B agentic AI market, sells $20B this year
Jensen Huang positions the new CPU as purpose-built for agents, not traditional cloud cores.
SpaceX commits $2.8B to gas turbines for xAI data centers as IPO filing reveals energy bet
The investment covers turbines through 2029 as xAI faces lawsuits over unpermitted generators at Colossus 2.
xAI burned $6.4B in 2025 as SpaceX IPO filing reveals widening losses
Musk's AI unit lost twice its revenue last year; capex hit a $30.8B annualized run rate in Q1 2026.
Anthropic will pay xAI $1.25B per month for compute through May 2029
The deal secures 300 megawatts from xAI's Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, potentially $40B in total revenue.
Nvidia posts $81.6B quarter, reveals $43B in private startup stakes
Data center revenue hit $75.2B, but next-quarter guidance projects a slowdown to 12% growth.
OpenAI targets September IPO, may file paperwork within weeks
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are prepping the offering as the Musk lawsuit clears.
IrisGo raises $2.8M seed to build a proactive AI desktop automation agent
Andrew Ng's AI Fund leads the round for a desktop companion that learns workflows once and automates them without prompts.
OpenAI targets September IPO with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley
Sam Altman aims for a fall public offering just as SpaceX prepares its own blockbuster debut.
Google embeds AI-generated product descriptions inside Search ads
Gemini now writes custom ad copy for sponsored products, and AI Mode surfaces chatbot-driven ads inline with results.
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