Top signals in AI, education, and the future of work.
Palantir demoed its Maven Smart System at AIPCon — an AI-powered strike targeting interface where you can select targets with "Left click, right click, left click." The US Dept of War's CDAO presented it as a feature. The video is circulating. This is no longer abstract AI ethics discourse. It's a product demo.
BuzzFeed leaned fully into AI-generated content. The result: $57.3M loss in 2025, stock at $0.70. CEO Jonah Peretti is still committed to "new AI apps." The market verdict on AI-for-content-at-scale is in — audiences rejected it. Execution without editorial judgment is a death sentence.
Meta's next flagship LLM (codenamed Avocado) pushed from March to at least May. Performance falls short of Google and OpenAI despite billions spent. Post-Alexandr Wang hire, the pressure is enormous. The AI arms race has a clear gap at the top.
After 18 years, Narayen exits with a statement about AI reshaping creativity. The torch passes as AI rewrites every creative workflow Adobe owns. Who leads Adobe's AI pivot matters enormously for the creative industry — SORRYWECAN's entire operational world.
Affleck's production-adjacent AI company acquired by Netflix. A Hollywood name + AI + streaming giant = signal that entertainment-meets-AI M&A is accelerating. The immersive/AI-creative economy is attracting capital fast.
The AI credibility gap is splitting open. BuzzFeed collapsed chasing AI output. Palantir turned targeting into a UX demo. Adobe's 18-year architect steps aside. The companies that treated AI as a shortcut are paying — the ones building with judgment (Research Lab included) have the right architecture. The market is now distinguishing between AI as a tool and AI as a replacement for thinking. ---