AI: Weekly Summary. RTZ #708

Michael Parekh AI: Reset to Zero

4 weeks ago

4 MIN READ

Apple results amidst herculean moves to source beyond China: Apple reported strong Q2 quarterly results, with services revenues reaching new all-time highs. This despite tariff headwinds on its global manufacturing supply system. The company reasserted its commitment to invest $500 billion in the US over the next four years. And to source billions in US made chips. Not to mention sourcing its US bound iPhones from India, while diversifying other products outside China. This issue remains the key issue for Apple this year and beyond. Other headwinds of course are the ongoing regulatory issues surrounding its App Store strategies. All this as the company continues to hone its AI strategy vs peers. More here and here.

Microsoft results: Microsoft reported positive Q3 results, with a lot of AI momentum news, and the stock seeing positive reactions, along with Nvidia, Meta and others. AI continues to drive the Azure cloud business, with ongoing AI capex investments by the company. The results showed opportunities despite the market’s broader tariff concerns. And investors noted the modest ‘tapping on the brakes’ on AI spending after 10 consecutive quarters. However, Microsoft reaffirmed their $85 billion AI capex spending plans for the fiscal year ending June 2025. And CEO Satya Nadella emphasized strong customer demand for Cloud and AI products and services. Also, both Microsoft and OpenAI continue to chart independent paths on AI, while working on their core partnership. More here.

Meta results and AI Llamacon: Meta reported strong Q1 results, and hosted its first developer conference Llamacon. AI was a highlight through both events, with AI capex and AI ad monetization key elements of the former, and Meta’s open source Llama LLMs being optimized for enterprise use, a key feature of the latter. Meta has an opportunity on the AI enterprise front, with a lot of wood left to chop. The stock reacted positively to these developments, as did Microsoft after its results. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was on stage with Meta founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg, talking positively about the merits of blending open source LLMs with closed source models by its partner OpenAI. Both Microsoft and OpenAI continue to chart independent paths on AI, while working on their core partnership. More here.

Google’s Antitrust challenges and AI future: As noted last week, while Google also reported strong quarterly results, and the stock reacting positively, the company had more headwinds on the antitrust front. Google parent Alphabet remains deeply enmeshed in multiple antitrust fights targeting both its advertising and search businesses. CEO Satya Nadella testified with candor on the potential implications for Alphabet/Google in the teeth of the worst case remedies. The company continues to show AI driven momentum across its core businesses, with continued AI capex and innovation efforts underway. Its Deepmind unit continues to lead the charge on keeping Gemini in the forefront vs peers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and others globally.. More here.

The challenges of human Internet for AI Agents : AI companies and investors continue to be focused on the ‘level 3’ opportunity for AI Agents across the internet. For everything from enterprise and end user applications, to helping consumers shop across the internet. Increasingly, the hurdle seems to be an internet designed more for humans than ‘AI Agent Bots’. Most websites are optimized to keep bots out, rather than let algorithmic ‘machine to machine’ (m2m) AI Agents peruse their websites and engage in compute driven services. There are multiple paths to chart a path through these challenges in the short-term, while more robust long-term technologies and strategies are devised at scale . More here.