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

Get smarter about the day’s news in tech, media and finance by following Silicon Valley’s most-read executive newsletter.

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Recent Editions

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Creator Economy

Snap’s Ad Slowdown Overshadows Video Gains

By Kaya Yurieff · Aug 5, 2025 3:31pm PDT

Snap’s bleak second-quarter results were a letdown after a parade of upbeat reports from Meta Platforms, YouTube and Reddit. The Snapchat owner’s revenue rose 9% to nearly $1.35 billion during the second quarter, a slowdown from the 14% to 15% growth Snap saw in recent quarters. Snap’s bleak second-quarter results were a letdown after a parade of upbeat reports from Meta...

Partner Content

The Most Overlooked Constraint on AI

By The Information Partnerships · Aug 5, 2025 1:17pm PDT

By 2030, fresh water demand is projected to outstrip the global water supply by nearly 56%, according to the World Resources Institute. At the same time, the growing development of artificial intelligence infrastructure—which depends on water for cooling systems and throughout its energy supply chain—is projected to consume 1.1 trillion to 1.7... By 2030, fresh water demand is projected to outstrip the global water supply by nearly 56%,...

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How Chatbots Are Eating the M&A Advisory Business

By Aaron Holmes · Aug 5, 2025 10:30am PDT

In the M&A industry, bankers’ most important asset has historically been their rolodex. But the proliferation of AI chatbots appears to be changing that.When the boards of companies look to sell the business, they turn to M&A advisors to scope out suitable buyers. In the past, junior bankers assembling lists of potential buyers would... In the M&A industry, bankers’ most important asset has historically been their rolodex. But...

Art via Mike Sullivan

AI Agenda: Andreessen Horowitz Backs Property Management and Healthcare Voice Agent Startup at $2 Billion Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Sri Muppidi and Cory Weinberg · Aug 5, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art via Mike Sullivan

AI Agenda: Andreessen Horowitz Backs Property Management and Healthcare Voice Agent Startup at $2 Billion Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Sri Muppidi and Cory Weinberg · Aug 5, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Earlier this year, we wrote about investors’ growing interest in startups building AI-powered voice agents for various industries, from hospitality to construction.If you want a sign of just how interested investors are, look no further than EliseAI, which is building AI for the property management and healthcare industries, including voice... Earlier this year, we wrote about investors’ growing interest in startups building AI-powered...

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Advertisers Can’t Quit Google, Despite Complaints About Traffic and Ads

By Catherine Perloff · Aug 5, 2025 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

No matter how annoyed publishers and advertisers get with Google, they just can’t seem to quit it. Some publishers complain that Google searches are directing less traffic to their sites lately. Some advertisers say Google search ads aren’t showing up next to the terms they paid for, but rather against other terms. And yet both groups say they’... No matter how annoyed publishers and advertisers get with Google, they just can’t seem to quit...

Reflection.AI founders Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou. Photo via Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Reflection AI Targets $1 Billion to Take on Meta, DeepSeek in Open Source

By Kevin McLaughlin, Stephanie Palazzolo and Natasha Mascarenhas · Aug 4, 2025 7:05pm PDT · 4 comments

Reflection AI, a one-year-old startup co-founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, is in talks to raise more than $1 billion to fund its efforts to develop open-source large language models to compete with the likes of China’s DeepSeek, France’s Mistral and U.S-based Meta Platforms, according to two people with direct knowledge of the... Reflection AI, a one-year-old startup co-founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, is in...

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Is Tesla Musk’s AI Company—or is xAI?

By Martin Peers · Aug 4, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Here’s a question: Which of Elon Musk’s companies is his most AI-focused business? The answer might seem obvious: xAI, developer of Grok. But it’s not that simple, as a letter from two Tesla directors to company shareholders on Monday demonstrates. The letter, explaining the board’s decision to grant Musk a new stock award valued at $23.7... Here’s a question: Which of Elon Musk’s companies is his most AI-focused business? The answer...

At Big Tech, Cloud Revenue Growth Is Catching Up to Capex

By Aaron Holmes · Aug 4, 2025 12:09pm PDT

At Big Tech, Cloud Revenue Growth Is Catching Up to Capex

By Aaron Holmes · Aug 4, 2025 12:09pm PDT

The big tech firms pouring tens of billions into capital expenditures for new data centers and servers for their cloud services are beginning to see revenues catch up. Growth in capex spending by Microsoft, Google and Amazon dramatically outpaced their cloud revenue expansion between 2023 and 2024, our analysis shows. But in the past year, that... The big tech firms pouring tens of billions into capital expenditures for new data centers and...

Cognition CEO Scott Wu

Cognition Offers Buyouts to Newly Acquired Windsurf Staff

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Kalley Huang · Aug 4, 2025 11:51am PDT · 2 comments

Cognition, a two-year-old artificial intelligence coding startup last valued at $4 billion, has offered buyouts to the roughly 200 employees it acquired in a takeover of rival Windsurf three weeks ago, saying they will receive nine months of salary in return, according to an e-mail seen by The Information. The development comes after... Cognition, a two-year-old artificial intelligence coding startup last valued at $4 billion, has...

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Why ‘Universal Verifiers’ Are OpenAI’s Secret Weapon

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Rocket Drew · Aug 4, 2025 7:00am PDT

One reason why reinforcement learning—a technique for improving AI models—has become so popular is because researchers can quickly scale it up by using AI to automate writing lots of examples of questions and answers in tough domains like biology, software programming and medicine. RL works best when researchers can quickly verify whether... One reason why reinforcement learning—a technique for improving AI models—has become so popular...

From left: Michael Kratsios, Donald Trump and David O. Sacks onstage at the All‑In Podcast and the Hill & Valley Forum on July 23. Photo by Getty

Behind the White House’s Mixed Messages on AI Copyright

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan · Aug 4, 2025 6:00am PDT · 3 comments

Before the White House released its AI Action Plan in July, people involved with drafting the document weighed whether to include recommendations that could have impacted the contentious relationship between artificial intelligence companies and copyright holders. Publishers, authors, film and music companies have filed more than 40 lawsuits in... Before the White House released its AI Action Plan in July, people involved with drafting the...

Joby's electric air taxi over New York City. Photo: Courtesy Joby

The Electric: A Surprising Acquisition Lets Electric Taxi Startup Joby Commercialize Early

By Steve LeVine · Aug 4, 2025 4:00am PDT

Joby's electric air taxi over New York City. Photo: Courtesy Joby

The Electric: A Surprising Acquisition Lets Electric Taxi Startup Joby Commercialize Early

By Steve LeVine · Aug 4, 2025 4:00am PDT

Joby Aviation, a maker of electric flying taxis, is coming to the skies of New York sooner than expected, only with fuel-powered aircraft to start with. Joby said today it is buying Blade Air Mobility, known for its helicopter flights to the city’s airports and the Hamptons on Long Island. Joby Aviation, a maker of electric flying taxis, is coming to the skies of New York sooner than...

Art by Mike Sullivan

The Whiz-Bang AI That Hollywood Hates

By Abram Brown · Aug 2, 2025 7:00am PDT

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Microplastics are Silicon Valley’s new big worry• Media: Beehiiv, the next billion-dollar newsletter startup?• Plus, our Recommendations: “Camp Shame,” “Algospeak” and “KPop Demon Hunters”Leave it to Las Vegas to stir up tensions between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. The Sphere, the orblike... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Microplastics are Silicon Valley’s new...

Art by Clark Miller

Media and Entertainment

Is Beehiiv the Next Billion-Dollar Newsletter Startup?

By Jessica Roy · Aug 2, 2025 6:00am PDT · 3 comments

Last August, when CNN’s Oliver Darcy decided he wanted to leave the network and launch Status, an email newsletter focused on the media industry, he cast about for a platform that would allow him to customize the look and feel of his new venture so it didn’t resemble every other media newsletter. There was Substack, the leader in the... Last August, when CNN’s Oliver Darcy decided he wanted to leave the network and launch ...

An Amazon data center in Virginia. Photo via Getty.

Why Big Tech’s Cloud Shift Threatens Microsoft and Google’s Margins

By Martin Peers · Aug 1, 2025 3:00pm PDT

Don’t count out Amazon. This was not the commerce cloud giant’s week, to be sure. When it comes to the great artificial intelligence cloud race, which now overwhelms all else in tech, Microsoft and Google appear to be ahead. Both companies posted accelerating growth in their cloud units for the June quarter, unlike Amazon. But one element is... Don’t count out Amazon. This was not the commerce cloud giant’s week, to be sure. When it comes...

Pro Weekly: The Week in The Information Pro

Pro Weekly: The Week in The Information Pro

By The Information Staff · Aug 1, 2025 11:00am PDT

Pro Weekly: The Week in The Information Pro

Pro Weekly: The Week in The Information Pro

By The Information Staff · Aug 1, 2025 11:00am PDT

This week, the tech world is buzzing with major news, from the financial milestones of leading AI companies to a lively IPO market. In generative AI, OpenAI and Anthropic are showcasing explosive revenue growth, while Figma's successful debut has injected new life into the IPO landscape. Klarna's has renewed plans to go public and a... This week, the tech world is buzzing with major news, from the financial milestones of leading AI...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Art by Mike Sullivan

Inside OpenAI’s Rocky Path to GPT-5

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Aug 1, 2025 10:58am PDT · 9 comments

OpenAI made waves across the industry in December when it published the results from its tests of artificial intelligence that performs better on tasks when it gets more time and computing power to process them. The results implied ChatGPT customers were about to be blown away by what the new AI could do. But the euphoria was short-lived. When ... OpenAI made waves across the industry in December when it published the results from its tests of...

Art by Clark Miller

How Microplastics Became Silicon Valley’s Big New Worry

By Ann Gehan · Aug 1, 2025 9:00am PDT · 1 comment

Lee Jacobs, co-founder of Long Journey Ventures, thought he had seen it all among his friends and acquaintances in Silicon Valley: the continuous glucose monitors, the cortisol tests, the frequent bloodwork to monitor hundreds of biomarkers and maximize longevity. Recently, another wellness obsession took him by surprise. “I didn’t know the... Lee Jacobs, co-founder of Long Journey Ventures, thought he had seen it all among his friends and...

Zhipu CEO Zhang Peng. Photo via YouTube.

Chinese AI Developer Zhipu’s First Half Revenue Grew Fourfold

By Qianer Liu and Juro Osawa · Aug 1, 2025 6:00am PDT

Chinese artificial intelligence model developer Zhipu AI, whose progress has attracted Washington’s scrutiny and caught OpenAI’s attention, increased revenue as much as fourfold in the first half of the year, the Beijing-based startup’s CEO, Zhang Peng, said in an interview this week. Zhipu’s business remains relatively small—revenue last... Chinese artificial intelligence model developer Zhipu AI, whose progress has attracted Washington...

Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic. Photo by Getty

Anthropic Revenue Pace Nears $5 Billion in Run-Up to Mega Round

By Sri Muppidi · Jul 31, 2025 5:55pm PDT

Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic. Photo by Getty

Anthropic Revenue Pace Nears $5 Billion in Run-Up to Mega Round

By Sri Muppidi · Jul 31, 2025 5:55pm PDT

This year’s torrid deal-making pace is definitely not taking a pause for summer. On Wednesday, I reported that OpenAI is months ahead of schedule in raising money for its $40 billion megaround. Investors are pouring in money at a moment when OpenAI is generating $12 billion in annualized revenue and hitting 700 million weekly active users... This year’s torrid deal-making pace is definitely not taking a pause for summer. On Wednesday, I...