The Briefing by Martin Peers, Jessica Lessin and the team at The Information

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The Briefing

By Martin Peers, Jessica Lessin and the team at The Information

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Recent Editions

Mike Krieger from Anthropic. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Figma’s Apple Moment; Allbirds’ AI Pivot

By Martin Peers · Apr 15, 2026 5:00pm PDT

AI really is transforming the world! The latest example: Dying shoemaker Allbirds is turning itself into an AI chip firm called NewBird AI. Its stock rocketed 600% in response. But before we dig into that bizarre story, we should highlight what may be today’s more meaningful news: Anthropic executive Mike Krieger’s departure from the board of... AI really is transforming the world! The latest example: Dying shoemaker Allbirds is turning...

Art by Mike Sullivan/Shutterstock

Apple Sends Siri Staffers to Coding ‘Bootcamp’ in Latest Shakeup For Organization

By Aaron Tilley and Amir Efrati · Apr 15, 2026 12:44pm PDT · 2 comments

Apple is sending a portion of its Siri programmers back to coding school just two months before the company is expected to unveil a major, AI-powered revamp of the voice assistant, people familiar with the team said. The company plans to send a significant chunk of people working on Siri—a group that totals in the hundreds—to a... Apple is sending a portion of its Siri programmers back to coding school just two months before...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Q&A

The Hidden Costs of AI Shopping Payments

By Ann Gehan · Apr 15, 2026 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

Shoppers using AI are seeking refunds and disputing credit card charges at an elevated rate, highlighting the financial risks of AI-powered shopping, according to Carlo Bruno, vice president of product at payments firm Adyen. Companies must figure out how to handle that risk before AI can reliably tackle online purchases, Bruno said. The... Shoppers using AI are seeking refunds and disputing credit card charges at an elevated rate,...

SpaceX’s Hawthorne, Calif. facility. Ethan Swope/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

I Helped Pick Stocks for the Dow. I’m Watching the SpaceX IPO Carefully

By Ken Brown · Apr 15, 2026 8:00am PDT · 6 comments

SpaceX’s Hawthorne, Calif. facility. Ethan Swope/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

The Information Finance

I Helped Pick Stocks for the Dow. I’m Watching the SpaceX IPO Carefully

By Ken Brown · Apr 15, 2026 8:00am PDT · 6 comments

Please join The Information at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, April 27, for our “Financing the AI Revolution” forum. Hear from top executives and investors on how the rapid build-out of AI is reshaping tech, finance and capital markets. Learn more here.SpaceX’s financial challenges have become clearer in the past week, thanks to new... Please join The Information at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, April 27, for our “...

Art by Mike Sullivan

China’s Probe of Meta’s Manus Purchase Sends Startups Scrambling

By Jing Yang and Juro Osawa · Apr 15, 2026 7:00am PDT

China’s AI startup founders are jittery. The Chinese government’s investigation of Manus’ sale to Meta Platforms has cast a shadow over a popular exit path for startup founders. And it has caused some startups to consider moving out of China or to shift some operations to Singapore.While some AI startups are happy to stay in China, relying on... China’s AI startup founders are jittery. The Chinese government’s investigation of Manus’ sale to...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

OpenAI Plans New Pricing for ChatGPT Ads, Explores Other Upgrades

By Ann Gehan · Apr 15, 2026 6:00am PDT

OpenAI plans to start pricing some ChatGPT ads based on whether people click on the ads rather than just how many people see them, an agency executive who spoke with OpenAI employees and works with ChatGPT advertisers said. At the same time, OpenAI has also indicated it plans to introduce ads aimed at getting people to take a specific action,... OpenAI plans to start pricing some ChatGPT ads based on whether people click on the ads rather...

Photo via Globalstar

What Amazon’s Globalstar Purchase Means for SpaceX

By Martin Peers · Apr 14, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Every now and then we get a reminder that big tech’s pockets are as deep as the Mariana Trench. Amazon’s purchase of satellite firm Globalstar offers one of those reminders. Despite spending $200 billion this year on capital expenditures for its AI expansion and committing $50 billion on an OpenAI investment, Amazon can still find a few loose... Every now and then we get a reminder that big tech’s pockets are as deep as the Mariana Trench....

Jared Siskin/Getty Images.

Billion Dollar Grüns Sale Gives Consumer Investors Hope

By Katie Roof · Apr 14, 2026 4:18pm PDT

Jared Siskin/Getty Images.

Billion Dollar Grüns Sale Gives Consumer Investors Hope

By Katie Roof · Apr 14, 2026 4:18pm PDT

When Unilever last week announced its $1.2 billion acquisition of Grüns, a three-year-old brand of gummy vitamins, I had a flashback to a decade ago when Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for almost the same price. That earlier deal marked the heyday of venture-backed consumer exits, which have been few and far between more recently. The... When Unilever last week announced its $1.2 billion acquisition of Grüns, a three-year-old brand...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use as Demand Jumps

By Kevin McLaughlin and Aaron Holmes · Apr 14, 2026 3:10pm PDT · 7 comments

Businesses whose employees are heavy users of Anthropic’s Claude products are likely to pay significantly more for them after the company changed its pricing model to charge business customers based on the amount of AI they use. The shift, which which some customers started to notice in recent weeks, is the latest indication of... Businesses whose employees are heavy users of Anthropic’s Claude products are likely to pay...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Crypto Firms Seek Access to Anthropic’s Mythos While Shoring Up Defenses

By Yueqi Yang · Apr 14, 2026 11:48am PDT

Major crypto exchanges and custodians including Coinbase and Binance are racing to prepare for powerful AI models like Anthropic’s Mythos, which the AI firm says could be dangerously good at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities. Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, has been in “close communication” with Anthropic about Mythos,... Major crypto exchanges and custodians including Coinbase and Binance are racing to prepare for...

Praveen Neppalli Naga. Photo by Big Event Media/Getty Images

Uber CTO Shows How Claude Code Can Blow Up AI Budgets

By Laura Bratton · Apr 14, 2026 10:33am PDT · 3 comments

Uber’s surging use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic’s Claude Code, has maxed out its full year AI budget just a few months into 2026, according to chief technology officer Praveen Neppalli Naga.“I'm back to the drawing board because the budget I thought I would need is blown away already,” Neppalli Naga said in an interview.Neppalli... Uber’s surging use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic’s Claude Code, has maxed out its...

Art via Getty Images

The Enigma of the Data Labeling Startup Explosion

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 14, 2026 7:52am PDT

Art via Getty Images

The Enigma of the Data Labeling Startup Explosion

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 14, 2026 7:52am PDT

If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the explosion of data labeling and reinforcement learning environment startups with a mix of confusion and awe. These companies, which hire experts in fields like medicine, law and software engineering and build fake copies of apps like Salesforce and Excel to produce training data for AI models, are... If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the explosion of data labeling and reinforcement learning...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Polymarket Reverses Course on Startups That Piggyback on Insider Trades

By Michael Roddan · Apr 14, 2026 6:00am PDT

Polymarket was already under pressure to curb insider trading when it launched a program late last year to support startups that sent trades to its prediction market. Those companies quickly began handing suspected insider trading accounts to their own customers, letting them copy those trades. Now Polymarket has launched an audit of those... Polymarket was already under pressure to curb insider trading when it launched a program late...

Elon Musk. Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

What SpaceX’s Numbers Do and Don’t Tell Us

By Martin Peers · Apr 13, 2026 5:00pm PDT

The mysteries of SpaceX are no more. My colleague Cory Weinberg today wrote the second of two stories in four days that pulled back the curtain on the finances of Elon Musk’s space company, which is planning to go public in a couple of months. You don’t have to wait for the formal IPO filing to get the dirt on SpaceX.The bottom line is that... The mysteries of SpaceX are no more. My colleague Cory Weinberg today wrote the second of two...

Ethan Swope/Bloomberg/Getty.

New SpaceX Numbers Show Reliance on Starlink

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 4:12pm PDT · 1 comment

A new set of numbers for Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes it clear that the success of its potential initial public offering will depend on investors embracing the growth of the company’s Starlink satellite internet business. The other two businesses inside SpaceX—rocket launches and AI—are burning cash and not generating the kind of growth... A new set of numbers for Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes it clear that the success of its potential...

Garrett Lord, Co-Founder and CEO of Handshake. Image via YouTube

Handshake, Mercor Revenue Surges on Demand for Human Contractors to Train AI

By Julia Hornstein and Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 2:13pm PDT · 1 comment

Garrett Lord, Co-Founder and CEO of Handshake. Image via YouTube

Handshake, Mercor Revenue Surges on Demand for Human Contractors to Train AI

By Julia Hornstein and Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 2:13pm PDT · 1 comment

AI firms’ voracious appetite for more data has lifted sales for obscure startups doing the industry’s unglamorous work: contracting with lawyers, PhD holders and medical doctors who grade the answers AI models generate. The latest is Handshake, a 12-year-old startup that began as a job site for college graduates. Handshake’s gross... AI firms’ voracious appetite for more data has lifted sales for obscure startups doing the...

Chery says it will release the premium Exeed EX7 SUV late this year, powered by a semisolid battery. Photo: Courtesy MIIT.

The Electric: In the U.S. and China, Exaggerated Claims of Solid State Batteries

By Steve LeVine · Apr 13, 2026 9:00am PDT

In a livestreamed event last month, China’s Chery Automobile said it had made a breakthrough in solid-state batteries and would deploy them next year in a luxury electric SUV that would have a whopping 560 miles of range. In a livestreamed event last month, China’s Chery Automobile said it had made a breakthrough in...

Microsoft’s data center project Mount Pleasant, Wis. in late 2025. Joe Timmerman/Wisconsin Watch via Getty Images

AI Infrastructure

Microsoft Slowed AI Spending. Now It’s Playing Catchup

By Ann Davis Vaughan · Apr 13, 2026 8:00am PDT · 1 comment

Microsoft is playing catch-up in the AI power race by grabbing big sites in Texas and West Virginia for data centers fired by natural gas. It wasn’t long ago that the company had a big lead.In the early days of the AI boom, Microsoft’s in-house energy team amassed a 9-gigawatt war chest of grid-powered data center sites that was the envy of the... Microsoft is playing catch-up in the AI power race by grabbing big sites in Texas and West...

Art by Mike Sullivan

‘Reinforcement Learning Gym’ Startup, Buoyed by Labs’ Appetite For Training Data, Reaches $750 Million Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 13, 2026 7:00am PDT

AI developers are getting more creative in how they acquire data to train AI models. For instance, they’re paying startups to develop copies of popular apps, like Salesforce or Excel, to teach models how to use the apps—otherwise known as reinforcement learning environments or gyms.One beneficiary of this trend is Fleet, a two-year-old startup... AI developers are getting more creative in how they acquire data to train AI models. For...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Getty Images.

Microsoft Plots New Copilot Features Inspired by OpenClaw

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 13, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Getty Images.

Microsoft Plots New Copilot Features Inspired by OpenClaw

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 13, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

As Microsoft faces growing competition for business customers from Anthropic, it is developing new features that would make its AI assistant Copilot function more like OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent that has taken the AI industry by storm in recent months. A newly created team under Microsoft corporate vice president Omar Shahine is “... As Microsoft faces growing competition for business customers from Anthropic, it is developing...