The Information's TITV Meta Buys Manus for $2B, Apple’s 2026 Rebirth, Elon Musk’s Failed Goals | Dec 30, 2025
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Dec 30, 2025 Join AI reporter Stephanie Palazzolo as she unpacks Meta's $2 billion acquisition of Manus, an innovative browser-controlling AI agent. Willy Lee discusses the rise of neoclouds like CoreWeave, highlighting their potential in AI infrastructure. Aaron Tilley predicts how Apple plans to rebound from its AI slump in 2026, including a Siri overhaul using external models. Theo Waite delves into Elon Musk's ambitious 2025 targets, assessing where Tesla and other ventures fell short. A spirited discussion on the future of AI and tech investments awaits!
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DeepSeek Pivoted Attention To Open Source
- The DeepSeek moment showed Chinese open-source models could compete and forced global attention on open-source AI.
- That led to a proliferation of Chinese open-source models and more developer choice across the year.
Resources + Distribution Fueled Google's Rise
- Google’s 2025 gains boiled down to resources and distribution: vast compute and product reach.
- That combination let Gemini appear across daily Google touchpoints even without replacing core search.
Big Circular Financing Is An Extension, Not New
- Circular, large-scale financing (cloud credits, equity) has accelerated and scaled earlier patterns from 2019.
- Those deals will likely continue into 2026 unless data-center delays or backing-out events disrupt them.