Trending Thursday #19

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This week proved that the AI platform wars aren't about tech; they're about control. OpenAI weaponized 800M users to force Spotify and Zillow to build inside ChatGPT. Meanwhile, West Virginia discovered it's involuntarily subsidizing Virginia's data centers to the tune of $440M.

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OpenAI just transformed ChatGPT from a chatbot into an OS, launching an SDK that lets devs embed their apps (Spotify, Zillow, Canva, etc.) directly into conversations:

The Playbook: Get massive distribution first, then force every service to come to you. If you're Spotify, you can't ignore 800M potential customers who can create playlists without opening your app. If you're Expedia, you watch users book trips in ChatGPT or lose them.

Translation: OpenAI just declared itself the iOS of AI. The question isn't whether to build for ChatGPT; it's whether you can afford not to.

Google watched Anthropic launch Claude's computer control and responded with Gemini 2.5 Computer Use: an AI that controls browsers through pure visual understanding:

Unlike Anthropic's desktop ambitions, Google's positioning this as dev infrastructure. You build the agent logic; they provide the eyes and hands. It's the difference between selling a car and selling an engine, as Google wants to power everyone else's automation dreams.

Why This Matters: Every tech giant is racing to become the execution layer for AI agents. The winner won't just power assistants; they'll control how millions of automated workflows interact with the web.

While everyone fights over user interfaces and automation, Google and Anthropic also are quietly building the infrastructure that determines which AI agents enterprises will actually trust and therefore deploy.

Google's Security Play with CodeMender: Google DeepMind unveiled CodeMender, an AI agent that autonomously identifies root causes, generates patches, and then deploys AI "critique" agents for peer review before human approval. The numbers are impressive: 72 security fixes upstreamed to open-source projects, 4.5M+ lines of code analyzed, combining fuzzing, static analysis, and theorem provers.

Anthropic's Safety Layer with Petri: Anthropic released Petri, an open-source AI agent that conducts safety audits on other AI models. It automates what currently requires armies of human red-teamers, deploying agents to probe models for dangerous behaviors across many scenarios. What’s crazy is that during testing, some models attempted to report their own safety vulnerabilities to external parties, essentially trying to blow the whistle on themselves.

Translation: While OpenAI and others fight over who gets to be the ChatGPT of enterprise, Google and Anthropic are becoming the Verisign and PwC of AI: boring, essential, and impossible to displace. The agent platform war isn't just about building cool demos; it's about owning the trust infrastructure that makes deployment possible.

West Virginia residents are finding the true cost of being neighbors to "Data Center Alley," and they're paying $440M for transmission lines they didn't ask for, can't refuse, and won't use:

The Sad Truth: PJM (the regional grid operator) allocates transmission costs across its 13-state footprint. When Virginia rolled out tax breaks for hyperscalers, West Virginia ratepayers ended up with the infrastructure bill. Coal country is literally subsidizing the cloud.

Translation: One state's economic development strategy becomes another state's mandatory electricity surcharge. Nothing says "equitable infrastructure" like forcing Appalachia to bankroll AI training runs.

Texas just passed the most aggressive data center regulations (Senate Bill 6) in the nation:

While Virginia's 40 GW pipeline faces a patchwork of local resistance:

The Philosophy Divide: Texas treats data centers as a flexible industrial load that must contribute to grid stability. Virginia treats them as job creators despite minimal employment. Guess which state's residents are angrier about their power bills?

OpenAI's new 1-GW facility with AMD will consume the annual electricity of approximately 5M US households, and that's just the beginning:

The Perspective: OpenAI is building infrastructure that demands continuous power equivalent to a significant slice of the national grid, not to keep hospitals running or homes warm, but to train models that might help you write better emails.

The Hidden Transfer: Someone has to build that generating capacity, upgrade transmission lines, and absorb costs. That "someone" is state regulators approving rate hikes and communities that never asked to subsidize Sam Altman's AGI dreams.

🎮 Netflix's Living Room Gaming Push: Launched video games on smart TVs and Roku devices for the first time, with smartphones serving as controllers via QR code pairing. Because the one thing your TV was missing was the ability to turn your phone into a knockoff Nintendo controller.

💊 Amazon's Doctor-to-Drugs Pipeline: Launching pharmacy kiosks at five LA One Medical offices in Dec 2025 to dispense medications minutes after appointments, addressing the 50% of prescriptions that aren't filled promptly. Turns out the secret to healthcare access was just treating medicine like Prime delivery.

💼 Google Cloud's $30 Enterprise AI Tax: Google Cloud launched Gemini Enterprise at $30/user/month, an AI platform that automates tasks and generates content by connecting organizational data across systems like Salesforce, Jira, and Confluence. Nothing says innovation like charging $30/month to be the middleware between the apps you already pay for.

🪑 Verizon's Board Seat Promotion: Former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman jumps from lead independent director (since 2018) to CEO effective immediately, replacing Hans Vestberg, who's sticking around until Oct 2026 for "transition." Nothing says confidence in your new CEO like having the old one shadow him for two years.

🔄 xAI's CFO Carousel Continues: Former Morgan Stanley banker Anthony Armstrong becomes CFO of both xAI and X, replacing Mike Liberatore (xAI, 3 months) and Mahmoud Reza Banki (X) to manage the $113B merged entity. One CFO for two companies sounds efficient until you realize he's Musk's third xAI finance chief in under a year.

💸 X's Severance Bill Comes Due: Musk settled with fired Twitter execs Parag Agrawal, Vijaya Gadde, and others over $128M+ in unpaid severance from the 2022 takeover. Turns out "fired for cause" only works if you can actually prove it in court.

Here's a roundup of this week's trending startup activity:

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This week crystallized the AI economy's fundamental bargain: Silicon Valley builds the platforms, captures the value, and sends the infrastructure bill to everyone else. Whether it's West Virginia subsidizing data centers or OpenAI forcing every app to rebuild for ChatGPT, the pattern is clear: control the chokepoints, externalize the costs, and let someone else worry about sustainability.

Forward to a friend or hit reply to let me know what you're seeing in your world.

Till next time!

Forward to a friend and hit reply to let me know what you're seeing in your world.

Till next time!

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