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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The Information Finance

The Bull Case for AI Just Got Stronger

By Guest · Mar 25, 2026 8:00am PDT · 2 comments

Please join The Information at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, April 27, for The Information’s “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.There’s supply and demand for AI computing power and there’s supply and... Please join The Information at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, April 27, for The...

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Apple Can ‘Distill’ Google’s Big Gemini Model

By Jessica Lessin, Amir Efrati and Erin Woo · Mar 25, 2026 7:00am PDT

Before we get to today’s column, we wanted to flag OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s major reorg, the company’s new "Spud” model and its decision to shut down the Sora video app and application programming interface, which we scooped on Tuesday. (For what the company’s organizational structure looks like now after the changes, check out our updated OpenAI... Before we get to today’s column, we wanted to flag OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s major reorg, the...

Photo via Getty Images

Meta Platforms to Lay Off Hundreds

By Jyoti Mann · Mar 25, 2026 6:36am PDT

Meta Platforms will lay off a few hundred people across the company on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter, part of a broader effort to overhaul the company for work in the AI age. The cuts will affect staffers in Reality Labs — the division behind its hardware platforms and wearables — as well as across its... Meta Platforms will lay off a few hundred people across the company on Wednesday, according to...

Vultr CEO J.J. Kardwell. Screenshot via YouTube/Vultr.

AMD-Backed Vultr Seeks $1 Billion for AI Cloud Push

By Miles Kruppa, Anissa Gardizy and Valida Pau · Mar 25, 2026 6:00am PDT

Vultr CEO J.J. Kardwell. Screenshot via YouTube/Vultr.

AMD-Backed Vultr Seeks $1 Billion for AI Cloud Push

By Miles Kruppa, Anissa Gardizy and Valida Pau · Mar 25, 2026 6:00am PDT

Vultr, one of the oldest independent cloud providers, is seeking to raise at least $1 billion in new capital so it can compete with a growing list of startups scrambling for cash to meet the surging demand for AI computing power. The company, which is backed by chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, was founded in 2014 and didn’t raise any outside... Vultr, one of the oldest independent cloud providers, is seeking to raise at least $1 billion in...

Art by Mike Sullivan

The Math Behind Anthropic’s Mad Revenue Growth

By Sri Muppidi · Mar 24, 2026 5:49pm PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI and Anthropic’s remarkable revenue growth has invited scrutiny of how the AI startups are tallying the headline-making figures they have privately or publicly disclosed.Last month, OpenAI’s annualized revenue jumped to $25 billion, nearly four times higher than a year earlier. Anthropic has grown even faster: At the end of last month,... OpenAI and Anthropic’s remarkable revenue growth has invited scrutiny of how the AI startups are...

Spacex CEO Elon Musk. Photo by Getty Images

SpaceX Aims to File for IPO as Soon as This Week

By Katie Roof and Valida Pau · Mar 24, 2026 5:15pm PDT · 3 comments

SpaceX is aiming to file its initial public offering prospectus with regulators later this week or next week, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans. The confidential filing will formalize the IPO plans for Elon Musk’s rocket and telecom company as it targets a June public listing. The offering will test investor appetite... SpaceX is aiming to file its initial public offering prospectus with regulators later this week...

Photos via Getty Images

OpenAI Wrongfoots Disney

By Martin Peers and Ann Gehan · Mar 24, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Walt Disney Co. must be so glad it committed to investing $1 billion in OpenAI and becoming a customer of the ChatGPT creator. The theme park and entertainment firm agreed to both steps as part of a deal struck last December in which it licensed its characters for use on OpenAI’s Sora video-generation tool. On Tuesday, OpenAI decided to shut... Walt Disney Co. must be so glad it committed to investing $1 billion in OpenAI and becoming a...

An Oura smart ring. Photo by Angel Garcia/ Getty Images

Health Ring Oura Interviews Banks for IPO as Soon as This Year

By Katie Roof and Julia Hornstein · Mar 24, 2026 1:46pm PDT

An Oura smart ring. Photo by Angel Garcia/ Getty Images

Health Ring Oura Interviews Banks for IPO as Soon as This Year

By Katie Roof and Julia Hornstein · Mar 24, 2026 1:46pm PDT

Health ring maker Oura has been interviewing bankers to advise on an initial public offering that could take place as soon as this year, according to a person with direct knowledge of discussions. A public offering would follow fast growth at the company, which sells connected devices and a monthly subscription to an app that tracks the user’s... Health ring maker Oura has been interviewing bankers to advise on an initial public offering that...

Slack, Workday and LinkedIn Are Resisting Customers’ AI Agents

Slack, Workday and LinkedIn Are Resisting Customers’ AI Agents

By Laura Bratton · Mar 24, 2026 1:24pm PDT · 2 comments

Every day seems to bring new excitement—or in the case of Amazon employees, trepidation—around AI agents that aim to perform any white-collar task involving a computer. Monday night, for instance, Anthropic announced its latest march in this direction with a version of its Claude chatbot that can take over your computer and operate any... Every day seems to bring new excitement—or in the case of Amazon employees, trepidation—around AI...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

OpenAI CEO Shifts Responsibilities, Preps ‘Spud’ AI Model

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Amir Efrati · Mar 24, 2026 12:58pm PDT · 2 comments

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has relinquished direct oversight of the company’s safety and security teams so he can focus on raising capital, supply chains and “building datacenters at unprecedented scale,” he told staff on Tuesday. At the same time, he said the company had completed the initial development of its next major AI model, codenamed Spud,... OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has relinquished direct oversight of the company’s safety and security...

Getty Images

Why AI Coding Agents Need Multiple Personalities to Do Their Best Work

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 24, 2026 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Something curious is happening with AI coding agents. Developers have started telling me they’re asking these coding agents to take on different personas so they behave like more of a team than an individual programmer.For instance, a developer creating a software product feature will first tell their AI coding product—whether it be Gemini or ... Something curious is happening with AI coding agents. Developers have started telling me they’re...

Image via Getty

AWS Accelerates Internal AI Agents Following Staff Cuts

By Kevin McLaughlin · Mar 24, 2026 6:00am PDT

Image via Getty

AWS Accelerates Internal AI Agents Following Staff Cuts

By Kevin McLaughlin · Mar 24, 2026 6:00am PDT

Amazon Web Services is developing AI to automate functions in its sales, business development and other groups where it recently laid off hundreds of employees or even more. For instance, AWS has been developing an AI agent that helps its sales employees provide customers with fast answers to technical questions, according to two people who have... Amazon Web Services is developing AI to automate functions in its sales, business development and...

Zhang Weiguo/VCG/Getty Images.

Google’s Gemini Steals a March on OpenAI

By Martin Peers · Mar 23, 2026 5:00pm PDT

When invading a hostile territory or testing a new AI service, it’s best to move quietly and steal a march on your opponents. Google appears to have learned that lesson. It’s now possible, if you’ve got its latest Pixel or Samsung phones, to ask the Gemini app to order an Uber or a meal on DoorDash. I tried it today and it worked flawlessly, if... When invading a hostile territory or testing a new AI service, it’s best to move quietly and...

Nvidia's GTC conference earlier this week. Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images.

Nvidia’s New Server Rack Will Run AI Chips Made by Rivals

By Qianer Liu · Mar 23, 2026 8:00am PDT · 1 comment

Nvidia faces growing competition in the AI chip market. But the chip designer has found a way to make money even from its rivals’ chips. During its annual GTC developer conference last week, the company unveiled a new server rack designed to run chips made either by Nvidia or by its rivals. The new racks include networking technology that... Nvidia faces growing competition in the AI chip market. But the chip designer has found a way to...

Art via Getty Images

Claude Code and Codex Are Outpacing Cursor Among Notion's Engineers

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 23, 2026 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Software engineers embracing the AI coding revolution don’t have much loyalty to any particular coding tool, especially when a new, better one comes out. In the latest example of that, the growth of Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex is outpacing that of Cursor among hundreds of engineers at Notion, a maker of popular... Software engineers embracing the AI coding revolution don’t have much loyalty to any particular...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

OpenAI’s Shopping U-Turn Could Complicate Enterprise Playbook

By Ann Gehan · Mar 23, 2026 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Mike Sullivan.

OpenAI’s Shopping U-Turn Could Complicate Enterprise Playbook

By Ann Gehan · Mar 23, 2026 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI’s abrupt shopping pullback earlier this month didn’t just raise questions about its decision-making. It also affected several commerce and payments firms, including PayPal and Etsy, that have put in work to help the ChatGPT maker expand the high-profile shopping venture and are now in limbo as it sorts out what’s next. And in the case of... OpenAI’s abrupt shopping pullback earlier this month didn’t just raise questions about its...

Jeff Dahn in his Dalhousie University lab. Photo: Courtesy Dalhousie

The Electric: This Tesla Adviser's Batteries Could Last for Centuries

By Steve LeVine · Mar 23, 2026 4:30am PDT · 1 comment

What if batteries lasted forever? What if batteries lasted forever?

Joan Cros/Getty Images.

Stock Comp and Software’s Illusory Profits

By Martin Peers · Mar 22, 2026 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Memo to software executives: Now is the time to radically reduce the amount of stock you give employees. That would win you some favor with investors, who’ve generally gone off your sector thanks to worries about the threat posed by AI. Even if those concerns are overblown, cutting costs in the face of a major disruption is a smart idea.It’s no... Memo to software executives: Now is the time to radically reduce the amount of stock you give...

Sunday Insights

Data Center Deals Puncture Tech’s M&A Slump

By Valida Pau · Mar 22, 2026 8:06am PDT · 1 comment

This year hasn’t lived up to the high expectations of the bankers and lawyers that advise tech companies on acquisitions. One major culprit is fear of AI-driven irrelevance, which has paralyzed corporate CEOs, according to some bankers and lawyers gathered in New Orleans for the annual Tulane Corporate Law Institute conference. “I have a lot of... This year hasn’t lived up to the high expectations of the bankers and lawyers that advise tech...

Art by Mike Sullivan

OpenAI’s First Advertisers Can’t Prove ChatGPT Ads Work

By Catherine Perloff · Mar 21, 2026 9:00am PDT · 3 comments

Art by Mike Sullivan

OpenAI’s First Advertisers Can’t Prove ChatGPT Ads Work

By Catherine Perloff · Mar 21, 2026 9:00am PDT · 3 comments

As OpenAI prepares to open up ad sales to more marketers next month, it is trying to address what some advertisers say was lacking in the initial ad sales offering. Among other things, the ChatGPT creator is planning to streamline the process of ad buying, either in partnerships with ad tech firms or with its own ad management system. So far,... As OpenAI prepares to open up ad sales to more marketers next month, it is trying to address what...