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- đ¨ Apple CEO: AI is 'bigger than the internet'
đ¨ Apple CEO: AI is 'bigger than the internet'
Also: Big Techâs $400B AI spending surge

Welcome, AI enthusiasts
If the massive AI spending at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, along with the record salaries for top AI talent, didnât already make the big tech AI race clear, Appleâs CEO has now erased any doubt. Letâs dive in!
In todayâs insights:
Tim Cook says Apple âmustâ figure out AI and âwill make the investment to do itâ
Big Techâs $400B AI spending surge
Amazon invests in startup dubbedâNetflix of AIâ
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
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 âmodernâ 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 Appleâs Cupertino campus, Tim Cook told employees that Apple âmustâ figure out AI and âwill make the investment to do it.â He said the company is âopenâ to mergers and acquisitions as it âsignificantlyâ increases its investment in AI. He drew parallels to past Apple products that werenât first to market but became the standard, like the iPhone. Appleâs 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:
Cookâs team has spent the past year buying AI firms, reorganizing staff, and launching over 20 âApple Intelligenceâ features. But Siriâs delay into 2026 shows theyâre still far behind in how consumers actually use AI. Appleâs 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
đ° Big Techâs $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 yearâs 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:
Theyâre pouring hundreds of billions into AI hardware, from data centers and chips to massive power and cooling systems, and itâs 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
đ˝ď¸ Amazon invests in startup dubbedâNetflix of AIâ
Introducing Showrunner: the Netflix of AI
From our South Park AI experiment to today weâve believed AI movies/shows are a playable medium.
We just raised a round from Amazon & more and the Alpha is live today
Comment for an access code to make with all our shows.
â The Simulation (@fablesimulation)
4:11 PM ⢠Jul 30, 2025
Evolving AI: Amazon invests in AI startup Showrunner, or the âNetflix of AIâ.
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 âNetflix of AI.â 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 Fableâs 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.
QUICK HITS
đ°ď¸ At $250 million, top AI salaries dwarf those of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race.
đ° AI model in ad sparks backlash at VogueVogueâs latest issue includes a Guess ad with AI-generated models, prompting some readers to cancel subscriptions and call for a boycott.
đ¤ AI models may be accidentally (and secretly) learning each otherâs bad behaviors.
đď¸ Chairman Hill introduces Bipartisan bill to promote artificial intelligence in financial services.
đ¨ Adobe's new AI features make complex Photoshopping effortless.
đŤ Anthropic cuts off OpenAIâs access to its Claude models.
đ Trending AI Tools
đ¤ NexusâŻAI â A newer AI assistant combining writing, research, design, and communication tools in one platform (link)
đĽ Clueso â Helps software teams auto-create video guides and docs from screen recordings (link)
đ§ Manus â Autonomous agent that can complete web tasks end-to-end like coding, planning, deploying (link)
đ§Š DevinâŻAI â Autonomous dev assistant. It can write, debug, plan code and even generate docs all by itself (link)
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