Hey folks!
Happy Friday! 😎 Tech news below:
🌎 Macro (Economic) and Trends
📉 AI stocks stumbled after AI leaders called for a slower frontier race: Nvidia fell 3.4%, SoftBank lost 10.7% in Tokyo, and Brent crude settling at $105.68 kept bond yields and inflation anxiety very much awake.
🏦 The Fed raised rates by a quarter point for the first time in three years, and 16 of 18 officials expect at least one more hike this year as inflation and $100 oil refuse to take the hint.
🧊 The Arctic - European leaders met in Finland over thawing shipping routes, Russian buildup, China trade ambitions, and EU plans for a new Arctic policy.
🌊 Nepal’s catastrophic flooding was likely worsened by climate-driven glacier thinning and thawing permafrost that destabilized the Himalayan slope,
🏭 The EPA eliminated power-plant greenhouse-gas limits and moved to block future regulation, a major energy-policy shift arriving just as AI data centers are eating the grid.
💼 CEO confidence reached a four-year high, with the Business Roundtable’s outlook index climbing to 94, well above its historical average of 83, as hiring plans finally joined the optimism.
✈️ The FAA is spending $875M over 12 years on SMART, an AI system that predicts traffic conflicts using flight schedules, weather, airport capacity and airspace conditions, beginning around Washington, D.C.
🔬 Micro (Tech Companies)
📱 Apple released iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate 27, bringing Siri AI to supported devices.
🍎 Apple is reportedly developing M8 Ultra-powered AI servers for 2029 and considering Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion for connectivity, extending its AI ambitions from Siri-equipped devices to inference racks.
👓 Meta plans to ship camera-free “Luna” smart glasses in October, swapping surveillance anxiety for six microphones, speakers and one-button access to Meta AI and Muse.
🕵️ Google Pixel owners were targeted through a zero-click modem vulnerability that could escape into broader phone data; Google says the actively exploited bug is now patched.
🏠 Google Home opened early access to an MCP server that lets ChatGPT, Claude and other agents operate Nest and Matter devices, review camera summaries and inspect household activity.
🎰 Waymo opened invite-only robotaxi rides in Las Vegas, starting with dozens of Ojai minivans around the Strip as Nevada authorizes up to 7,000 combined robotaxis from Waymo, Tesla, Uber/Motional, and Zoox.
📺 Prime Video added free short-form local and national news clips, joining the streamer stampede toward TikTok-shaped attention spans.
💳 Mastercard will let consumers issue restricted virtual cards to AI agents, allowing bots to make purchases within preset budgets and merchant limits without requesting approval each time.
🤖AI News
🧯 Trump vs. AI safety became the week’s policy brawl after Trump called AI-risk warnings a “hoax” while Altman, Amodei, Musk, and Hassabis backed calls to pace frontier development.
⚖️ OpenAI is still facing Musk’s antitrust suit after X and xAI dropped Apple from the case over iPhone ChatGPT integration.
🧑💼 Anthropic launched Claude for Financial Advisors with connectors to BlackRock, Schwab, Addepar, Envestnet, iCapital, Orion, Vanguard, Wealthbox, Wealth.com, and Zocks.
🧬 OpenAI’s GPT-Rosalind moved out of research preview for eligible life-sciences organizations, with trusted-access availability and published pricing beginning October 5.
📑 Cooley and OpenAI launched GO Public, a legal agent that uses the firm’s internal expertise to draft and revise S-1 filings in minutes instead of days.
📰 Microsoft and OpenAI privately acknowledged the publisher threat now haunting their copyright defense: unsealed filings say Copilot cut some NYTimes.com click-through rates by as much as 93%, while training datasets contained more than two million Times documents.
🪤 Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and GitHub Copilot shared a flaw that could silently replace a trusted coding skill with malicious code; three providers patched it, while Microsoft had not confirmed a Copilot fix.
🤝 Select M&A, Fundraises, IPO, Partnerships
M&A
📸 OpenAI reportedly bought Glass Imaging for more than $300M, adding former Apple camera talent to its Jony Ive-era hardware stack.
📝 Superhuman (productivity software) bought Fathom, which has 400,000+ monthly active users and 1M+ recorded meetings.
Fundraising
💸 OpenAI is reportedly discussing a new funding round at roughly a $1.2T valuation, while its ad business is already being tested in 50+ countries and projected around $1B in annualized revenue.
🛡️ Exein raised $270M at a $1.7B valuation to secure “physical AI” devices, claiming its technology already protects 2B+ connected machines across aerospace, autos, energy, healthcare, and semiconductors.
🚁 Zipline is discussing a $1B raise at roughly $20B, more than double its previous $7.6B valuation, as its Uber partnership targets one million drone deliveries per day by 2029.
🔎 Profound raised $180M at a $1.8B valuation, with 1,000+ enterprise customers paying to understand how brands show up inside AI answers instead of old-school search pages
⚱️ Gold Panning - For those who reached the bottom
🪄 Practical Magic 2 opened at No. 1 with $30M domestic and $46M global, proving the spellbook still works nearly 28 years later.
Love Widow’s Bay! 🏆 The Emmys gave Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay” a record 14-win night, while “The Pitt” took best drama and Jean Smart went five-for-five for “Hacks.”
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