Kevin McLaughlin

NEW: There’s a growing tension between San Altman and his CFO, Sarah Friar. Privately, Friar has started speaking about her concerns about the firm’s massive spending on compute and Altman’s hopes to IPO this year. More details from me and @amir in @theinformation

Scoop: Gadi Hutt, an early employee from Amazon's server-chip design unit Annapurna Labs, has left the company. He has been one of the unit’s most visible spokespeople for Trainium, Amazon’s chips for training and running AI models. More here: theinformation.com/briefings/amaz…

Scoop: Microsoft has frozen hiring in major cloud and sales groups in an effort to reign in costs. Some senior executives now think headcount may not grow much in the years ahead, thanks to AI use and mounting pressure from rivals. w/ @KevKubernetes: theinformation.com/articles/micro…

👀AWS wants AI to handle 'solution architect' work involving technical expertise...

In most of these agent stories, part of me thinks “how cool” and part of me wonders why companies weren’t already doing this. From @KevKubernetes theinformation.com/articles/aws-a…

💸very unusual for a large enterprise software incumbent like Oracle to offer AI features to customers for free...

Exclusive: Ex-Google DeepMind researchers Danijar Hafner and Wilson Yan are raising $100 million+ for their new startup Embo, which is developing world models for robotics. One of the largest seed rounds to date for a robotics startup. More here: theinformation.com/briefings/excl…

🤖🫰Enterprise apps from Microsoft to HubSpot are plotting to extract fees from the AI agents that access their services.

Incredible reporting from @anissagardizy8 in @theinformation about OpenAI's struggle to get more computing power as Stargate—its $500B data center buildout—has floundered. theinformation.com/articles/insid… It includes this detail. We are in the dirt-eating phase of the AI hype cycle.

scoop with @KevKubernetes: Dylan Patel’s SemiAnalysis considering raising money to invest in startups. Talks are early stage. More here: theinformation.com/briefings/dyla…

news: Microsoft and other enterprise software firms are reacting as quickly as they can to new AI models & products that could become a threat

Exclusive: Microsoft's sales chief told staffers how they should respond to potential competition from an OpenAI product for automating white-collar work. Read more from @Kevkubernetes and @aaronpholmes 👇 thein.fo/3ZR7uK2

Initial details of the enterprise offering first reported in The Information last month! theinformation.com/articles/opena… @KevKubernetes

Finally, confirmation that C3ai is selling itself! @C3_AI

News: OpenAI confirms it has hired at least 7 staffers from AI coding startup Cline, says it was not part of an acquisition. The hires could help OpenAI improve Codex to compete with Anthropic's Claude Code. More here: theinformation.com/articles/opena…

Exclusive: C3.AI, founded by tech industry veteran Thomas Siebel, is in talks to merge with privately held startup Automation Anywhere. Read more from @PauValida and @Katie_Roof 👇 thein.fo/465axBQ

There may come a day when AI can replicate all of the features, functionality, compliance, and other key aspects of traditional enterprise apps like CRM and HR, but for now, some enterprise buyers are sticking with the experts

theinformation.com/articles/anthr… w/ @KevKubernetes

Can OpenAI win over the enterprise from Anthropic? "Enterprises like predictability, enterprises like boring…” “And by that I mean… not pulling things out every week to show people and just staying focused on a very specific set of products." — @KevKubernetes

If you think enterprise software battles are boring, you're probably right. But OpenAI vs Anthropic is interesting, as they're approaching the battle for business customers from different perspectives. @srimuppidi and I dig into OpenAI's strategy here: theinformation.com/articles/opena…