🚨 Apple CEO: AI is 'bigger than the internet'

Welcome, AI enthusiasts

If the massive AI spending at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, along with the record salaries for top AI talent, didn’t already make the big tech AI race clear, Apple’s CEO has now erased any doubt. Let’s dive in!

In today’s insights:

• Tim Cook says Apple ‘must’ figure out AI and ‘will make the investment to do it’

• Big Tech’s $400B AI spending surge

• Amazon invests in startup dubbed“Netflix of AI”

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

APPLE
🧠 Tim Cook says Apple ‘must’ figure out AI and ‘will make the investment to do it’

Evolving AI: Tim Cook says Apple will invest big in AI, comparing its importance to the internet and smartphones.

Key Points:

• Tim Cook told staff AI is as big or bigger than the internet, smartphones, and cloud computing.

• Apple has delayed its AI-powered Siri upgrade to rework its architecture for higher quality.

• Tim Cook says Apple has rarely been first, but aims to create the “modern” version of AI.

Details:

Well, there we go. Tim Cook telling his staff that he thinks AI is as big or bigger than the internet really marks a shift in tone coming out of Apple. In a rare all-hands meeting at Apple’s Cupertino campus, Tim Cook told employees that Apple “must” figure out AI and “will make the investment to do it.” He said the company is “open” to mergers and acquisitions as it “significantly” increases its investment in AI. He drew parallels to past Apple products that weren’t first to market but became the standard, like the iPhone. Apple’s AI rollout has been slower than rivals, with a delayed Siri overhaul due to a shift from a hybrid architecture to a new system powered fully by LLMs. The company is also working to keep key engineers in place as Meta continues to lure away top AI talent for its superintelligence team.

Why It Matters:

Cook’s team has spent the past year buying AI firms, reorganizing staff, and launching over 20 “Apple Intelligence” features. But Siri’s delay into 2026 shows they’re still far behind in how consumers actually use AI. Apple’s slow, careful pace keeps it lagging while competitors push bold releases. A major move, like acquiring Anthropic, could flip the dynamic overnight… but until then the gap keeps growing.

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BIG TECH
💰 Big Tech’s $400B AI spending surge

Evolving AI: Tech giants have spent $155B on AI this year. That number is set to jump to over $400B next year, outpacing US government spending on education, jobs, and social services in 2025 so far.

Key Points:

• Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet reported massive capex increases to fund AI infrastructure.

• Next year’s AI spending will exceed $400B, with Microsoft and Amazon each planning around $100B.

• Investors are rewarding these huge bets, pushing market caps to record highs.

Details:

Meta has doubled its capital expenditure to $30.7B this year, with $17B in the last quarter alone. Alphabet has spent $40B so far, Amazon $55.7B, and Microsoft plans more than $30B this quarter alone. Looking to 2026, the four companies expect combined AI investments to top $400B, mainly on data centers, chips, and infrastructure to power AI services. Even Apple, often quiet on AI, plans a major increase in spending. Smaller players like OpenAI are also raising billions to keep pace.

Why It Matters:

They’re pouring hundreds of billions into AI hardware, from data centers and chips to massive power and cooling systems, and it’s changing the game. Analysts expect Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon to spend well over $350B in 2025, with some estimates topping $400B next year. That kind of spending is reshaping entire sectors. It is fueling the cloud economy, driving a boom in data center construction, creating huge energy demands, and boosting chipmakers like Nvidia. AI has shifted from a software focus to an infrastructure race that is rewriting economic and competitive rules.

SHOWRUNNER
📽️ Amazon invests in startup dubbed“Netflix of AI”

Evolving AI: Amazon invests in AI startup Showrunner, or the “Netflix of AI”.

Key Points:

• Showrunner lets users generate shows, episodes, and insert themselves into scenes.

• Launch title Exit Valley satirizes tech billionaires in animated form.

• Revenue-sharing model rewards creators when others build on their content.

Details:

Showrunner, the startup behind viral South Park AI episodes, calls itself the “Netflix of AI.” Backed by Amazon, the platform combines pre-made seasons with tools to remix or expand them. Launching with the animated Exit Valley, users can generate scenes, explore stories, and join narratives. Built on Fable’s SHOW-2 model, the service adds a revenue-sharing model where creators profit when others build on their work.

Why It Matters:

Amazon backing Showrunner signals a shift in entertainment from passive watching to active creation, but the Black Mirror comparisons show how uneasy some people feel. Fans are excited about making their own episodes, yet critics worry it could flood platforms with generic or low-quality content. The excitement is real, but so is the tension over how far this kind of participatory media can go before it runs into resistance.

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QUICK HITS

💰️ At $250 million, top AI salaries dwarf those of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race.

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🤖 AI models may be accidentally (and secretly) learning each other’s bad behaviors.

🏛️ Chairman Hill introduces Bipartisan bill to promote artificial intelligence in financial services.

🎨 Adobe's new AI features make complex Photoshopping effortless.

🚫 Anthropic cuts off OpenAI’s access to its Claude models.

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