This Week in Tech (Week Ending Dec 12, 2025)
TL;DR - ✂️ The Fed cut interest rates; 🐭Disney and OpenAI; 🛠️AI tool debuts; ⭐️Bidding for Warner Bros.
Hey folks!
Happy Friday 😎! Lot of headlines this week. Tech news below:
TL;DR -
✂️ The Fed cut interest rates for the third time this year, amid significant internal dissent and pressure from Trump.
🐭Disney signed a deal with OpenAI to allow Sora to generate AI videos featuring its characters while also getting $1bn of equity in OpenAI.
🇨🇳The Trump administration will let Nvidia sell a relatively advanced set of artificial intelligence server chips to China.
A number of AI tool debuts: Anthropic launched Claude Code in Slack; OpenAI launched GPT-5.2; Google debuted ‘Disco,’ a Gemini-powered tool for making web apps from browser tabs
⭐️Bidding for WBD: Late last week, Netflix announced it was acquiring Warner Bros Discovery’s studio and streaming operations for $82.7 billion but on Monday, Paramount Skydance launched a hostile, $108.4 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Conversations are still ongoing.
🚀SpaceX is reportedly planning a 2026 IPO with $1.5T valuation target. The company is looking to raise $30 billion, which would make it the biggest IPO ever.
🌎 Macro (Economic) and Trends
✂️ The Fed cut interest rates for the third time this year, amid significant internal dissent and pressure from Trump.
⁉️ Marco Rubio banned Calibri font at State Department for being too DEI.
🌧️The Pacific Northwest was drenched this week, prompting warnings of potentially catastrophic flooding. Schools closed, public transit shut down and more than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate from their homes in western Washington State.
📉American consumer sentiment is ending 2025 in a worse place than where it started, as households struggle to digest the price increases of recent years.
🏡Over half of U.S. homes (53%) lost value in the past year, based on Zillow data. Why it matters: That’s the most since 2012 — but the vast majority of homeowners still “have plenty to feel good about,” according to Zillow.
📈Copper is trading in record territory, extending a sky-high run. Trade war jitters and investor enthusiasm for commodities useful for artificial intelligence have the metal on a run for the ages.
Advertising analysts have revised their 2025 forecasts to reflect more optimism in the market, thanks to less trade policy volatility and more AI-fueled expansion.
Women in corporate America are falling behind — getting less support from employers and reporting lower ambition than men. The factors include: Return-to-office mandates are pushing some women out of the workforce, 🤨 “trad wife” influencers glorify a model of work where only men leave the home.
🔮 2026 predictions: from Digital Native - includes: OpenAI leans hard into ads; Anthropic is the most acquisitive startup in 2026; 🎶There’s a big music scandal when a top-charting song is revealed to have been made with AI and more.
🔬 Micro (Tech Companies)
🤡X has cut off the advertising account of the European Commission days after the agency imposed a €120 million fine on the platform for breaching the Digital Services Act, a set of regulations governing internet companies.
🇨🇳The Trump administration will let Nvidia sell a relatively advanced set of artificial intelligence server chips to China, ending a debate in Washington about whether to let a geopolitical adversary access state-of-the-art technology from the U.S. Why it matters: If Chinese companies start using Nvidia chips, it’ll make Chinese companies potentially reliant on American companies and complicates Beijing’s goal to become technologically self-sufficient.
Amazon plans to invest additional $35B in India by 2030, taking total planned spending to $75B.
Meta announced plans to redesign Facebook in hopes of reversing a decade-long collapse in teen engagement. Marketplace, which is used daily by one in four young adult DAUs in North America, will be moved “front-and-center” in the tab bar, and the home feed will shift to an Instagram-style grid with double-tap likes, full-screen photos, and grid-based search results.
💸Oracle shares fell more than 11% in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the company said it burned roughly $10 billion in the November quarter due to spending on data centers for artificial intelligence customers such as OpenAI. The cash burn, unprecedented in Oracle’s history, has prompted the firm to borrow heavily for such projects.
🛒All about groceries
Instacart made its app available through ChatGPT, including the ability for shoppers to make purchases through OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature.
Amazon now offers same-day delivery of perishable groceries in 2,300 US cities, with more to come in 2026.
👓All about glasses
🐦🔥Meta Platforms has postponed the launch of its next-generation mixed-reality glasses, code-named Phoenix, from the second half of 2026 to the first half of 2027.
Google expects to launch its first AI glasses, including an audio-focused model and one with a built-in display screen, in 2026.
The Free Press has seen a notable audience boost since being acquired by Paramount in October. Next year, the company plans to start meaningfully capitalizing on the massive platform offered by CBS News and Paramount to fuel its growth.
Layoffs: VSCO lays off 24 staff as its consumer business suffers
🤖 AI News
“The secret behind gemini’s performance is a good harness. Think of a harness as the app/system where the ai model is plugged in. In this case, the harness provides gemini raw data in addition to images from the game…
The harness is built by the developer based on the “game you want to play” (task to be completed) and makes the ai model significantly more powerful at that game.” (Ben’s Bites)
President Donald Trump said on Monday he plans to ink an executive order this week that would limit states from enacting their own regulation of AI technology.
OpenAI released new data Monday showing enterprise usage of its AI tools has surged dramatically over the past year, with ChatGPT message volume growing 8x since November 2024 and workers reporting they’re saving up to an hour daily. A week earlier, Sam Altman declared a 🔴 “code red” internally to combat the competitive threat from Google and other competitors.
🚀Launches
Anthropic launched Claude Code in Slack, letting developers delegate coding tasks from chat threads. It’s part of a shift toward AI-embedded collaboration that could reshape software workflows.
OpenAI launched GPT-5.2 on Thursday, a frontier model aimed at developers and professionals, pushing reasoning and coding benchmarks
Google debuts ‘Disco,’ a Gemini-powered tool for making web apps from browser tabs
While Google’s Gemini has taken a slightly higher share of weekly mobile app downloads since its latest model, Gemini 3, launched in mid-November, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has maintained its dominance in terms of usage and return users on mobile apps. Gemini’s share of weekly downloads on mobile apps rose to 33% for the week of Nov. 24, up from 29% during the prior two weeks. ChatGPT’s weekly share fell to 42% for the week of Nov. 24 from 46% and 45% during the prior two weeks.
Mistral launched Devstral 2, a new generation of its AI model designed for coding
📸Amazon’s Ring rolled out a controversial, AI-powered facial-recognition feature to its video doorbells. The feature lets you identify the people who regularly come to your door by creating a catalog of up to 50 faces.
OpenAI shared a report on the State of Enterprise AI. Key findings included:
Enterprise usage is scaling, with deeper workflow integration: ChatGPT message volume grew 8x and API reasoning token consumption per organization increased 320x year-over-year, demonstrating that more enterprises are using AI and their intensity of usage has increased.
Enterprises that leverage AI are experiencing measurable productivity and business impact. Enterprise users report saving 40–60 minutes per day and being able to complete new technical tasks such as data analysis and coding.
TIME names ‘Architects of AI’ its Person of the Year
🤝 Select M&A, Fundraises, IPO, Partnerships
M&A
⭐️Bidding for WBD: Late last week, Netflix announced it was acquiring Warner Bros Discovery’s studio and streaming operations for $82.7 billion in cash and stock, combining the world’s biggest streaming service with one of Hollywood’s iconic film studios and the HBO Max service. But then on Monday, Paramount Skydance launched a hostile, $108.4 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount is arguing its all-cash, $30-per-share offer is better for WBD shareholders, and would face fewer regulatory hurdles. As of Thur Dec 11, Paramount Skydance is considering raising its takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery by as much as 10% to $33/share.
IBM agreed to acquire data streaming firm Confluent for around $11 billion in cash. Confluent provides technology that helps companies manage real-time data streams used in AI models, making it a logical fit for IBM as it looks to boost its software, cloud and AI offering.
Fundraising
Skild AI, which develops AI foundation models to power robots to perform a variety of tasks, is in talks to raise over $1 billion at a valuation around $14 billion from SoftBank and Nvidia.
Yoodli, an AI-powered communication training startup, raised a $40mill Series B round and reached a valuation of $300mill.
Harness hit a $5.5B valuation with its $240M Series E fundraise to automate AI’s ‘after-code’ gap
Partnerships
⭐️Disney signed a deal with OpenAI to allow Sora to generate AI videos featuring its characters while also getting $1bn of equity in OpenAI. Disney will also “become a major customer of OpenAI,” as it will use its APIs to build new products, tools, and experiences, including for Disney+. Why it matters: It’s a huge endorsement of AI-created content from one of the biggest media companies in the world.
In contrast, Disney hit Google with a cease-and-desist claiming ‘massive’ copyright infringement. Disney accused Google of unauthorized distribution of its copyrighted characters without permission via Gemini AI.
Anthropic and Accenture signed a multi-year AI strategic partnership. The two companies are launching the Accenture Anthropic Business Group to bring Anthropic’s AI to Accenture’s employees.
Meta on Friday said it has struck several commercial AI data agreements with news publishers, including USA Today, People Inc., CNN, Fox News, the Daily Caller, Washington Examiner and Le Monde.
Adobe and OpenAI partnered to bring Photoshop, Express and Acrobat features to ChatGPT.
IPO
🚀SpaceX is reportedly planning a 2026 IPO with $1.5T valuation target. The company is looking to raise $30 billion, which would make it the biggest IPO ever.
⚱️ Gold Panning - For those who reached the bottom
🎁 The NYT holiday gift guide is really jazzy this year!
🎄 Trending - vintage holiday decor: Searches for antique Christmas decor jumping 102% in September and October compared with a year ago. Sounds like people want a “Ralph Lauren Christmas” - Think real trees, plaid tablescapes, vintage cookie jars, silver bells, velvet bows and other decorations echoing the brand’s classic style that’s been making a comeback with Gen Z.
🎥 I enjoyed watching this interview w Kristen Stewart (video version here). She has some interesting observations about male/female actors that I think is conveyed a little better in the video version (14:20 to 19:40)
Gen Alpha influencer to know: Alan Chikin Chow’s YouTube series, “Alan’s Universe,” has about 100 million subscribers — 35 million more than Taylor Swift. His videos are viewed, on average, more than one billion times a month. Personally I don’t get the appeal but i’m also old 👵🏻
🔮 2026 Trend predictions, according to Pinterest’s annual report
👗 Opulent fashion: searches for “80s luxury” and “Midnight masquerade” spiked.
📮 Letter writing: Searches for “snail mail gifts” and “penpal ideas” rose.
🏡 Afrohemian, Funhaus and Neodeco home decor
🩵👖Signature colors next year will be cool blue and khaki.
“It’s not niche if it’s no. 1”: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 stunned Hollywood with a $63 million opening weekend across 3,400 screens, blowing past its $30 million projections and beating Zootopia 2.
🎭 Robert Pattinson and Zendaya faked an engagement announcement to promote their new movie, “The Drama”, in a A24 marketing stunt.
Do you have any feedback? I’d love to hear from you! Just hit reply to this email