• Warner Bros. Discovery — the brainchild of media mogul David Zaslav — is splitting up.
• Wall Street had long questioned the wisdom of WBD, and Zaslav now seems to agree.
• While this spinoff was predictable, it sparks questions for other media companies.

The ill-fated marriage between Warner Bros. and Discovery is heading for divorce — and Wall Street is cheering.

Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday announced plans to split its declining TV networks from its growing streaming and studios business. This spinoff proposal comes three years after WBD's inception. If all goes well, the spinoff will happen in mid-2026.

WBD CEO David Zaslav will oversee the sexier streaming part, while CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels — known for delivering "synergies" — will be in charge of the shrinking networks. WBD isn't alone, as Comcast is also splitting from most of its cable assets.

By largely undoing the merger, Zaslav is acknowledging something Wall Street has been saying for a while: WBD's assets are better off apart.

WBD shares were up as much as 13% in early trading. (However, Comcast's stock also popped when its spinoff was announced last fall, and has since fallen more than 20%.)

"The decision to separate Warner Bros. Discovery reflects our belief that each company can now go further and faster apart than they can together," Zaslav said on a call with investors about the spinoff.

When asked for comment, a WBD spokesperson referred Business Insider to comments made by executives on the investor call.

Better late than never

Many media analysts were initially excited when Zaslav orchestrated the deal to form WBD. But they soon soured on the media conglomerate as cord-cutting accelerated and WBD's streamer — Max/HBO Max — missed lofty expectations and failed to truly challenge the likes of Netflix.

Zaslav and company took note. WBD executives telegraphed this spinoff by reorganizing the business late last year, separating the TV networks from its studios and streaming businesses.

Wall Street was pleased by this potential split, which was the key catalyst for WBD's stock's 16% rally in the past month, UBS media analyst John Hodulik told BI last week.

Others agreed.

"Investor excitement for a Warner Bros. Discovery spin-off of its Global Linear Networks is building by the day," Lightshed analysts led by Rich Greenfield wrote last week.

Bank of America's Jessica Reif Ehrlich wrote in an early-June note that a "spin of studios and streaming could be the best way to unlock the significant unrecognized value of the company."

So far, it seems like she's right.

A sign of the times?

WBD's announcement will likely spark more speculation about future reordering of the media and entertainment landscape.

It's long been the expectation among industry insiders that WBD's spun-off linear networks would combine with others, potentially Versant, the linear assets that Comcast is spinning off. Other ideas that have been floated in media circles are a combination with Paramount — assuming its Skydance deal ever gets approved — or with Fox's linear assets.

Reordering is also afoot across the advertising industry. Two giant holding companies, Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group, are in the process of combining. Their peer WPP is replacing its CEO, Mark Read.

One wild card in the mix with WBD is CNN, with President Donald Trump's general hostility to deals involving media companies.

Longtime ad industry analyst Brian Wieser remarked that the news network could be an asset and a liability, given its history and future ability to attract the ire of Trump, who has been aggressive in targeting the mainstream media.

Wieser wrote on Monday that CNN would "probably benefit" from being separated from all of WBD's other assets as it's "the one part of WBD that could tie up other parts of this transaction so long as any government approvals are required to facilitate its completion."

Another question is the fate of WBD's studio business, which has been dragged down. On a call Monday announcing the separation, Zaslav emphasized that the movie business was harder to project than TV. But he said that by leaning into well-known IP, he saw WBD's studios arm becoming a $3 billion business.

The separation also could put WBD's studios business in play, Bernstein's Lauren Yoon said.

The companies that could ingest such a business include Amazon, Disney, Netflix, and Comcast. However, most of the tech companies haven't historically been big acquirers, and the timing isn't ideal.

"No tech companies want to give the government any reason to be in their business," said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media, which specializes in digital media investments.

Also, expect Bob Iger to field new questions about what's ahead for Disney's linear and cable networks. He once floated the idea of selling them, though he then retreated from the idea.

Disney's line at the time was that it wouldn't get the price it wanted if it sold those properties and that it'd be too complex to separate them from the rest of the company. Iger and Trump have also sparred in the past, and Disney could look to avoid deals that need government approval.

• WPP CEO Mark Read plans to step down after seven years leading the advertising giant.
• The company faces challenges as the ad industry shifts to AI and tech-driven models.
• WPP's restructuring under Read saw brand retirements, office closures, and debt reduction.

Will the last ad exec leaving Madison Avenue please turn out the lights?

WPP CEO Mark Read said Monday that he plans to step down after seven years leading the advertising giant and more than 30 years at the company. He will continue as CEO until the end of the year to see through the transition to his successor, who hasn't been named.

The announcement comes at a fraught crossroads for WPP and the broader advertising industry. Read's exit follows that of famed ad veteran David Droga, who said last month he plans to leave Accenture Song, the consulting giant's marketing services division, at the end of this year. Several longtime WPP execs have also parted ways with the company in recent months.

Madison Avenue is grappling with upheaval as its profit centers shift from creating TV ads with catchy taglines and big branding ideas to trading media, integrating IT systems, and helping clients make sense of their customer data. The rise of artificial intelligence and its associated productivity gains also rips a hole through the traditional agency business model, where ad companies are generally compensated on the number of full-time equivalent employees devoted to an account. Add to that the threat from Big Tech giants like Meta, who want to cut out the advertising middlemen altogether using the power of their huge audiences and sophisticated ad targeting systems.

Under Read, WPP has attempted to respond to these forces. In recent weeks, WPP rebranded GroupM, the division responsible for managing around $60 billion in clients' media investments, to WPP Media. The company said the streamlined media offering is powered by WPP Open, an AI-powered platform that helps its employees do market research, spin up media plans, and create assets for campaigns using generative AI.

But WPP isn't fighting from a position of strength. The company's annual revenue declined last year, and WPP recently forecast another revenue drop for 2025, which it said reflected a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Once the biggest advertising holding company by most measures, WPP was displaced by Publicis as the largest ad company by revenue last year. Publicis currently trades at a market capitalization of around $27 billion to WPP's $8 billion. The industry is also awaiting the creation of an even bigger ad behemoth later this year once the proposed merger of Omnicom and IPG passes regulatory approval.

"The fundamental challenge is that an enormous amount of what the traditional holding companies do is commodity, and commodity can now be done using technology," said David Jones, the former CEO of the ad agency holding company Havas. Jones now leads the 10-year-old marketing and technology company The Brandtech Group, a WPP competitor.

"AI is going to give the traditional holding companies their Kodak moment," Jones said.

Read laid the groundwork for WPP's next era and its new CEO

While Read is a WPP veteran, the 58-year-old wasn't an ad man in the traditional sense.

He took a graduate job at WPP after getting an economics degree from Cambridge University in the UK. He left and became a cofounder of WebRewards, a digital coupons business he sold to the German publishing giant Bertelsmann in 2001, after the dot-com bubble burst. He rejoined WPP a year later, rising to become CEO of Wunderman, one of its digital agencies.

Read took over the reins of the entire company in 2018, after the acrimonious exit of its longtime CEO Martin Sorrell, who had built the company from a seller of "wire and plastic products" — WPP — into what was the world's largest advertising group.

While a fellow Brit, the similarities between Read and Sorrell largely ended there. Sorrell was famed for building WPP through a series of acquisitions, and still now at his new ad company, S4 Capital, is an archetypal "Davos Man," often seen on stage and TV offering commentary about macroeconomic issues. Read has kept a lower profile and has sought to simplify WPP's many agencies into a more uniform structure.

Sorrell did "empire building," while "Read has been an empire dismantler," the independent media analyst Alex DeGroote said.

Some industry analysts and insiders say this is to Read's credit. According to DeGroote's calculations, Read retired around 300 different agency brands, closed more than 800 offices, and realized around $5.1 billion for the company from disposals. WPP reduced its net debt to around $2.3 billion as of December 31 last year, down from about $3.4 billion in 2023.

But the Read era of restructuring and layoffs has hit morale within the rank and file — a mood that was further soured among some WPP employees when he instituted a four-day-a-week return to office policy this year. WPP has lost key accounts from clients like Pfizer and the Coca-Cola North America media account, though it has also won business from major advertisers including Amazon and Unilever. Toward the latter part of his tenure, some industry insiders said Read would need to take a bigger swing — anything from taking the company private to making a landmark acquisition — in order to return the company to growth.

Attention now turns to who might succeed Read.

Industry insiders told BI that internal candidates for the role would likely include newly appointed WPP Media CEO Brian Lesser; the CEO of WPP's specialist communications agency division, Johnny Hornby; WPP's chief operating officer, Andrew Scott; WPP's chief marketing and growth officer, Laurent Ezekiel; VML CEO Jon Cook; and Ogilvy CEO Devika Bulchandani. These execs either declined to comment or didn't respond to requests for comment from BI.

The search, led by the former British Telecommunications boss Philip Jansen, who became WPP's chairman in January of this year, is also considering external candidates.

"I don't think it will be internal, but I don't think it will be a radical hire either — WPP does not need more restructuring," media analyst Ian Whittaker said. "I would look for executives at one of the other agency groups who are well regarded."

One WPP insider told BI they expected and hoped the appointment would be made relatively quickly.

"At the end of the day, we've just got to get our mojo and momentum back," this person said.

• Amazon cut jobs in its Books business, according to an internal email.
• The company started by selling books online in the 1990s.
• This remains a large business for the e-commerce giant.

Amazon is cutting jobs in its Books business, according to an internal email viewed by Business Insider on Thursday.

"Today, we are taking the very difficult step of eliminating some roles on your team," a senior Amazon manager wrote in the email. "Unfortunately, your role has been eliminated. This decision was not made lightly, and Books leadership and the HR team are here to support you through this transition."

The email stated employees will receive full pay and benefits for the next 60 days, or 90 days for employees in New York or New Jersey, plus additional severance.

"As part of our ongoing work to make our teams and programs operate more efficiently, and to better align with our business roadmap, we've made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles within the Books organization," an Amazon spokesperson said. "We don't make these decisions lightly, and we're committed to supporting affected employees through their transitions."

The cuts affected fewer than 100 employees. The tech giant isn't reducing the size of its Books business because the roles will be repurposed for other parts of the company, according to Amazon.

Amazon got started by selling books online in the 1990s. While the company closed its physical stores in 2022, the online business remained big. Amazon sold $16.9 billion worth of books in the first 10 months of 2022, BI previously reported.

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Maroon 5's Las Vegas Residency and brief tour have come to a close for 2025, but it's not too late to see the band live if you're desperate for tickets. They still have one performance scheduled for the year, and we'll be keeping tabs on any new Maroon 5 tour details as they go live.

Originally formed in 1994, Maroon 5 celebrated 30 years together as they kicked off their Las Vegas residency in the summer at the Dolby Live at Park MGM in 2024. The new tour, referred to in shorthand as "M5LV: The Las Vegas Residency," is an extension of their 16-show residency from the previous year.

We've got you covered if you're looking for how to get tickets to Maroon 5's concert tour. Here's our breakdown of Maroon 5's show schedule, purchasing details, and original and resale ticket price comparisons. You can also browse ticket specifics at your leisure on StubHub and Vivid Seats.

• See also: Coldplay tickets | Dua Lipa tickets | Eagles tickets | Oasis tickets | Shakira tickets | Metallica tickets | Morgan Wallen tickets

Maroon 5 2025 tour schedule

Maroon 5's tour has come to a close so far for 2025, leaving only the band's summer appearance at Dick's Sporting Goods Open left to buy tickets for. We'll keep this story updated with new concert tour details as they go live.

• Follow our WhatsApp channel for more deals and buying guides. If you're planning to travel for Maroon 5's residency, be sure to check out our roundup of the best Airbnbs in Las Vegas to secure your stay.

How to buy tickets for the Maroon 5 2025 concert tour

You can buy standard original tickets for Maroon 5's 2025 concert tour on Ticketmaster and Live Nation. However, the quantity of remaining original tickets continues to decrease as each concert date approaches.

How much are Maroon 5 tickets?

With only the Dick's Sport Goods Open left for Maroon 5's 2025 schedule, the most affordable tickets for the band start at $116 from StubHub and $130 from Vivid Seats.

Who is opening for Maroon 5's tour?

Maroon 5 doesn't have any opening acts for its Las Vegas residency concert dates, and the band has not announced any opening acts for its international tour dates.

Will there be international tour dates?

Maroon 5's tour has concluded for 2025, leaving no international tour dates for fans to attend as of writing.

• Jamie Dimon has criticized the private equity industry's recruiting of its junior bankers.
• On Thursday, the firm warned incoming juniors not to accept future-dated jobs from buyout firms.
• Those who do will be terminated, the bank said in a memo.

JPMorgan is warning junior bankers against taking future-dated jobs with buyout firms — or even sneaking out of job training to take interviews.

On Wednesday, JPMorgan Chase's top investment banking brass sent a memo to incoming first-year IB analysts warning them against participating in the private equity industry's annual recruiting ritual. This whirlwind affair is known as "on-cycle recruiting" and promises young bankers lucrative jobs at the end of their investment banking analyst programs, which often last two or three years.

In the memo, John Simmons and Filippo Gori, co-heads of global banking, admonished analysts who accept "future-dated job offer" or "a position with another company before joining us" within their first 18 months of employment, saying they will be terminated if discovered.

"You will be provided notice and your employment with the firm will end," the executives wrote. They said such offers could constitute a conflict for junior bankers working on transactions for PE sponsors who could also be their future employers.

This year's memo appears to be an escalation of a long-simmering personnel issue important to the bank's high-profile CEO, Jamie Dimon.

"I think that's unethical. I don't like it, and I may eliminate it regardless of what the private-equity guys say," Dimon told college students at Georgetown University last year.

Last year, the firm warned incoming junior bankers against the practice, but stopped short of saying it would terminate those who participated.

This year's memo even vowed to terminate junior bankers who dare sneak out of job training to interview with private equity firms, as many did in 2023.

"To succeed in the Investment Banking Analyst Program, your full attention and participation are essential," wrote Simmons and Gori. "Attendance at all training sessions, meetings and obligations is required. Missing any part of the training program may lead to removal from the program and termination," they said.

The memo was first reported by ExecSum, a newsletter offshoot of the popular Instagram account Litquidity. A JPMorgan spokesperson confirmed its authenticity to BI.

As Business Insider has previously reported, private equity's annual recruiting of junior bankers is a frenetic affair that often starts without warning. Young bankers can be asked to drop everything to interview or miss out — resulting in middle-of-the-night interviews or missed vacations and proving a nagging source of disruption for bank bosses.

Dimon has railed against PE recruiting and its impact on his staff. "I think it's wrong to put you in the position," he said in the fall, adding: "You have to kind of decide the next career move before you have a chance to even decide what the company is like."

It remains to be seen how this new rule could impact the future of buyside recruiting. The industry insiders who spoke to BI expressed skepticism over the bank's ability to enforce the new rule.

"I imagine while some junior bankers will be scared off, many will continue to take the risk," Anthony Keizner, a partner at the headhunting firm Odyssey Search Partners, told BI on Thursday. "They always saw banking as a stepping stone, and won't want to be put off starting the next phase of their career."

A former junior banker who now works in private equity agreed.

"Analysts are going to recruit regardless," this person said, adding that young bankers will simply "shut their mouths about" it.

In what appears to be an acknowledge of the competitive pressures young people in the industry face, the bank said in the memo that it would shorten its analyst program from three years to two and a half, offering juniors "quicker advancement opportunities within the firm."

"All the mega funds already fill spots within the first six months," said the private equity professional, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her job. "They're not going to wait for JPM analysts."

• Ciroos builds AI agents that act as site reliability teammates to find and fix software errors.
• The startup just launched from stealth with $21 million in seed funding from Energy Impact Partners.
• Business Insider got an exclusive look at the pitch deck Ciroos used to raise its seed round.

A team of enterprise tech veterans just raised $21 million to introduce an AI fix to some of the most painful software engineering problems: middle-of-the-night outages and other critical system failures that require immediate attention.

Ciroos, a new startup founded by former Cisco, Amazon Web Services, and Gigamon executives, just launched from stealth with its seed funding round, led by Energy Impact Partners.

Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, Ciroos builds AI agents that act as site reliability engineering (SRE) teammates. Traditionally, it can take a long time and many people to keep software systems running — and to find a fix when something breaks. When a website breaks down overnight or during a holiday weekend, it's up to a team of unlucky, on-call engineers in triage mode to find a fix as quickly as possible.

Ciroos's agents work alongside a company's operations team to detect problems before a human is officially alerted, identify the root cause, and either fix them autonomously or help their human teammates fix them faster.

Considering that the median size of a seed funding round in the first half of 2024 was just $1.3 million, per Crunchbase data, Ciroos's $21 million round is staggering in comparison. The startup's CEO, Ronak Desai, told Business Insider that he and his co-founders connected with investors who agreed that enterprise operations needed a new approach, which AI agents could achieve.

"We saw deep curiosity from investors on the customer anecdotes we shared, and everybody noted our focus on cross-domain correlation as our point of differentiation," he said. "Investors also readily recognized our execution track record, our relentless customer focus, and the deep experience we had assembled — all necessary ingredients to build enterprise-class products."

Desai said that with its funding round completed, Ciroos will focus on hiring: the startup plans to staff up with AI engineers, full-stack engineers, and salespeople in the San Francisco Bay Area and India.

AI agents are booming in 2025, and Ciroos faces stiff competition from a multitude of enterprise tech startups that build AI teammates to help software and computer engineers. In May, no-code AI agent startup StackAI announced it raised $16 million from Lobby VC, and in April, AI debugging agent startup Spur announced it raised $4.5 million from First Round Capital and Pear.

Other startups offer general AI agents that can complete a variety of workplace tasks, including those traditionally handled by software and computer engineering teams. For example, the startup Artisan announced it raised $25 million in April, and Coworker announced a $13 million round in May.

Here's an exclusive look at the 11-slide pitch deck Ciroos used to raise $21 million in seed funding.

• Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are building a mystery ChatGPT device.
• The interwebs have come alive with gadget guesses, renders, and memes.
• OpenAI is trying to challenge Apple and Google by redefining AI interaction with new hardware.

Let's get something out of the way first: very few people really know what former Apple design chief Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are building.

That hasn't stopped the internet from bursting at the seams with wild guesses, gorgeous renders, speculative hot takes, and a healthy dose of meme-fueled imagination.

So, what is this mystery device that Ive is cooking up for OpenAI's ChatGPT? A screenless wearable? A next-gen smart assistant? A pocketable AI oracle? A glorified paperweight?

Here's our roundup of the best guesses — serious, speculative, satirical, and everything in between. Thank you to my Business Insider colleagues for contributing to this Friday's fun.

Serious Guesses: Industry Analyst Weighs In

OK fine. We'll start with some serious ideas.

TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is a credible source in the tech hardware and supply-chain space, especially when it comes to Apple. His take on the Ive-OpenAI gadget is valuable:

• Form Factor: Think small. Maybe iPod Shuffle-sized. Portable, minimal, and delightfully Ive-ish.
• Wearable: One of the use cases includes wearing it around your neck. Shades of sci-fi, Star Trek, or perhaps a Tamagotchi on steroids?
• No Screen: It will have cameras and mics for environmental awareness but no display. The idea is to not add another screen to our lives.
• Companion Device: It will connect to your smartphone or laptop for processing and visual output.
• Production Timeline: Mass production is expected in 2027, giving us plenty of time for more leaks, renders, and conspiracy theories.

Kuo suggested on X that the announcement was timed to shift attention away from Google I/O. OpenAI positioned this as a new hardware-software narrative, riding the trend of "physical AI."

He also referenced a great quote from former Apple fellow Alan Kay: "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware." That's exactly what Altman and OpenAI are trying to do here.

Clues from Altman and WSJ

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Altman offered OpenAI staff a preview of the devices he's building with Ive:

• The device was described as an AI "companion." Altman wants to ship 100 million of them on day one.
• It will be aware of its surroundings and fit in your pocket or sit on your desk.
• It's not a phone or smart glasses. Ive reportedly wasn't keen on a wearable, though the final design may still flirt with that concept.
• Altman said the device should be the third major object on your desk, alongside a MacBook and iPhone.
• There will be a "family of devices," and Altman even floated the idea of mailing subscribers new ChatGPT-powered computers.

They aim to shift away from screen-based interaction and rethink what AI companionship really means in a day-to-day human context.

Renders, memes, and vibes

The brilliant designer Ben Geskin imagined several cool form factors on X, including this circular disc.

Geskin's ideas blend Apple-grade minimalism with futuristic whimsy, perfectly on brand for Jony Ive.

• Some smart glasses, because of course.
• A dangly dongle, equal parts techie and jewelry.
• Square/rectangular objects with eerie elegance.

Echoing Geskin, another user on X proposed a disc-shaped device, sleek enough to pass as a high-end coaster or futuristic hockey puck. Think of it as an AI desk companion, quietly listening and gently glowing.

One BI colleague mentioned a smart ChatGPT lamp, possibly inspired by "The Sopranos" episode where the FBI bugs Tony's basement. Funny, but not impossible. After all, a lamp fits Altman's desk-friendly criteria.

Another X user joked that the device could resemble those emergency pendants worn by older adults — "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" — but with ChatGPT instead of a nurse. A brutal meme, but it raises a valid point: If the device is meant to be always-on, context-aware, and worn, why not market it to older users, too?

Although, if this is for the olds, should it use Google Gemini instead? Burn!

X user Peter Hu proposed an AI-powered nail clipper. Yes, it's absurd, and no, it doesn't make sense. But the design? Low-key fire.

Here's mocked up a vape pen with a ChatGPT twist. Inhale wisdom, exhale existential dread.

Some of the most surreal concepts look like direct plugs into your skull. There's a "Matrix" or "Severance" vibe here, suggesting a future where ChatGPT lives in your head like a helpful parasite.

This one below is cute!

I asked ChatGPT to take a guess. The answer was not impressive. No wonder OpenAI paid $6.5 billion for Ive's hardware design startup.

This last one is a Silicon Valley insider joke. It's also a warning that it's extremely hard to replace smartphones as the go-to tech gadget. It's a riff on the Humane pin, an AI device that bombed already.

Can OpenAI compete with Apple and Google?

This device matters beyond its shape because of what it represents. Right now, Apple and Google dominate the interface layer of computing through iOS and Android devices. If OpenAI wants to define how people interact with ChatGPT, it needs a hardware beachhead.

Humane's AI pin tried and failed. The Rabbit R1 got roasted. The jury's still out on Meta's Ray-Bans. Can Ive and Altman actually crack the code?

Knowing Ive, we'll probably be surprised no matter what. The real product could be something no one predicted.

The race to define the next major computing interface is officially on. With Ive and Altman teaming up, OpenAI is making a major bet that how we interact with AI is just as important as what AI can do.

When the curtain lifts, and Ive whispers "aluminium" in a design video, jaws will probably drop, and competitors will scramble.

Until then, keep your renders weird, your guesses wild, and your brain tuned in to BI. We'll be here to cover every hilarious, ambitious, and brilliant twist along the way.

See you in 2027.

• Harvey committed $150 million to Azure cloud services over two years.
• The startup, which builds software for lawyers, has partnered with Microsoft since at least 2024.
• Harvey's expansion includes clients like Comcast and Verizon, and new foundation model integrations.

Legaltech startup Harvey has agreed to a two-year, $150 million commitment to use Azure cloud services, according to an internal email seen by Business Insider.

Jay Parikh, who leads Microsoft's new CoreAI unit, included the deal in an internal memo, writing that his unit "announced expanded partnership with Harvey Al with a 2-year $150M MACC and $3.5M unified expansion." Parikh joined Microsoft in October to lead a new engineering group responsible for building its artificial-intelligence tools.

Microsoft declined to comment, and Harvey declined to comment on the agreement.

MACC, or Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment, is an agreement customers make to spend a specific amount on Azure for a period of time, often for a discount.

Harvey, which builds chatbots and agents tailored for legal and professional services, is scaling up and entering the enterprise market. It's adding legal teams at Comcast and Verizon as clients, while developing bespoke workflow software for large law firm customers.

It has raised more than $500 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and OpenAI Startup Fund, a Harvey spokesperson told BI.

Harvey has closely partnered with Microsoft since at least early 2024. That year, the company deployed its platform on Microsoft Azure, followed by a Word plug-in designed for lawyers. It also introduced a SharePoint integration, allowing users to securely access files from their Microsoft storage system through Harvey's apps.

For years, Harvey, founded in 2022, ran its platform on OpenAI models, primarily because they're hosted in Microsoft's data centers, Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg told BI last month. Law firms handle highly sensitive information and trusted Microsoft to keep it safe, Weinberg said.

"Law firms refused to use anything that wasn't through Azure," Weinberg said. That's now changing, he said, as vendors like Anthropic build the features enterprises require.

Last week, Harvey expanded its use of foundation models to Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude.

Still, Harvey's $150 million Azure deal signals it's not backing away from Microsoft anytime soon. The company's growing cloud footprint suggests that, while other partners are gaining traction with the legaltech start, Azure remains integral to Harvey's growth for now.

Have a tip? Contact Melia Russell via email at [email protected] or Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. Reach Ashley Stewart via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email ([email protected]).. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Wall Street banks are proving that generative AI is here to stay, and the tech is not just a fad.
• Business Insider has reported on how some of finance's biggest banks are approaching generative AI.
• See how giants like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are weaving the tech into the fabric of their firms.

Wall Street bank leaders say generative AI is here to stay, and they're weaving the technology throughout the fabric of their banks to make sure.

From trading to payments to marketing, it's hard to find a corner of the banking industry that isn't claiming to use AI.

In fact, the technology's impact, made mainstream by OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022, is becoming cultural. Generative AI is changing what it takes to be a software developer and how to stand out as a junior banker, especially as banks mull over how to roll out autonomous AI agents. The technology is even changing roles in the c-suite. But it's also presented new challenges — bank leaders say they are struggling to keep up with AI-powered cyberattacks.

From supercharging productivity via AI-boosted search engines to figuring out the best way banks can realize a return on their AI investments, here's what we know about how Wall Street banks are embracing AI.

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is a "tremendous" user of the bank's generative AI suite. We have the story of how he and other bank executives use AI.

• JPMorgan's AI rollout: Jamie Dimon's a 'tremendous' user and it's caused some 'healthy competition' among teams
• JPMorgan is making a big bet on AI. Here's how its private bankers are using it.

Dimon also laid out his vision for how America's largest bank will win the AI battle against fintechs through data. Meet the leaders of that mission.

• Jamie Dimon says he's out to win the AI arms race. See who he's put in charge of this critical mission.
• JPMorgan's Lori Beer just added 2 new tech leaders to her ranks. Meet the team behind the bank's AI future.

Mary Erdoes, the boss of JPM's asset- and wealth-management business, used these slides to outline how she wants to get her people ready for the "AI of the future."

• Here's how JPM boss Mary Erdoes wants to use AI to eliminate "no joy" work

It's not just JPMorgan's in-house tech teams that have been gearing up for an AI future. Cloud partners, like AWS, also play an important role.

• AWS is helping financial giants like JPMorgan and Bridgewater with their AI ambitions

Goldman Sachs

Is Goldman in its AI era? These real-world stories about employees using AI (in some cases daily) make it seem so. Take a look at how AI is being put to the test across the bank and seniority levels, from C-suites to analysts.

• 7 Goldman Sachs insiders explain how the bank's new AI sidekick is helping them crush it at work
• Goldman is assembling a growing arsenal of AI tools. Here's everything we know about 5.
• AI is doing 95% of the work on an IPO prospectus, Goldman Sachs CEO says

Goldman's top partners and CEO David Solomon are eager to see AI rev up their businesses. From realizing internal productivity gains to capturing more business as clients look to raise money in anticipation of AI development and acquisitions, here's what the top echelon is expecting.

• How AI will shake up Goldman Sachs, according to top partners and CEO David Solomon
• Inside Goldman Sachs' plans for AI, from helping non-tech workers do more with software to streamlining how code is documented

There is no AI without data, and there is no data strategy at Goldman without its chief data officer, Neema Raphael. Raphael gave BI an inside look at how his roughly 500-person team melds with the rest of the bank to get the most out of its data.

• Meet Neema Raphael, the data whiz key to Goldman's AI ambitions who's overseeing the bank's army of engineers and scientists

AI's impact has ripple effects that go far beyond technology. Goldman's chief information officer, Marco Argenti, predicts that cultural change will be critical to getting the bank to 100% adoption.

• Goldman Sachs CIO Marco Argenti says Wall Street's 'next big wave' in AI will come down to culture, not just technology

Many dollars are being spent on Wall Street's AI ambitions. But how do you measure the return on the investment? Argenti offers some tips on the calculus that can help firms prioritize where to invest.

• As AI usage ramps up on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs CIO details how the bank analyzes return on investment for the tech

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley wants to turn employees' AI ideas into a reality. Here's an exclusive look at that process.

• Morgan Stanley has 30 AI projects in the pipeline. Here's how the bank sources employees' ideas for inspiration.

See how AI is transforming Morgan Stanley's wealth division and the jobs of its 16,000 financial advisors.

• Morgan Stanley is betting on AI to free up advisors' time to be 'more human.' Nearly 100% of advisor teams use it, and here's how.

Thanks to its partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Morgan Stanley has ramped up its AI efforts. The exec in charge of tech partnerships and firmwide innovation opened up about how it all started.

• Morgan Stanley's new innovation head lays out his plan for more OpenAI-type partnerships
• A Morgan Stanley exec breaks down how the bank courts tech partners like OpenAI

Citi

Meet the new exec in charge of giving an AI facelift to Citi's lagging wealth business.

• Citi snags AI leader from Morgan Stanley to help turn around its wealth tech

Citi's top tech executive, Shadman Zafar, outlined the bank's four-phased AI strategy and how it will "change how we work for decades to come."

• A top Citi tech exec breaks down the 4 phases of the bank's AI strategy that will impact everyone from operations to wealth and product

Bank of America

Bank of America's chief experience officer, Rob Pascal, details how the bank's internal-facing AI assistant helps bankers collect, record, and review client data. Here are all the ways it's helping employees be more effective and efficient.

How Bank of America is using an AI-powered tool to help its bankers prep for client meetings more efficiently

AI hits the investment bank

Investment bankers are hopeful that corporate America's obsession with AI could kick off a new era of mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs. From execs stepping into recently created roles to accommodate the sector to industry veterans launching their own AI-focused M&A-advisory firm, meet 11 investment bankers poised to lead Wall Street's AI revolution.

• Wall Street is gearing up for an AI shopping spree. Meet 11 bankers poised to come out on top.

We spoke with four of those AI bankers about why 2025 is going to be all about AI pickaxes and shovels rather than pure-play AI deals.

• The deals 4 tech bankers think the 'AI arms race' could drive in 2025

AI could save junior bankers time by automating tedious tasks known all too well by Wall Street's youngest ranks. But it can also make it harder to break into the industry by shifting the skills required for entry.

• How AI will change the job of the junior banker and raise the bar to entry

A former Goldman Sachs managing director built an AI-powered networking tool to spur dealmaking. The budding startup, Louisa AI, already has a few clients, including Goldman Sachs, Insight Partners, and a global exchange.

• See the pitch deck that helped a former Goldman Sachs exec raise $5 million for an AI-powered networking startup that feeds deal ideas to bankers.

Here's how former investment bankers left their Wall Street jobs to build an AI startup to solve junior bankers' woes.

• See the pitch deck that helped former investment bankers raise a $7 million seed round for their generative 'AI consigliere' to bankers and analysts

• Running out of money in retirement is a big concern for many Americans.
• Economic uncertainty is making it even harder to afford retirement.
• These are the top states where your retirement nest egg will go the furthest.

As people live longer and spend more time in retirement, it's more important now than ever to plan for life after your job.

To make matters even more complicated, the ongoing trade war has created a tricky economic backdrop for older Americans to retire in, causing people to delay their retirements, wait to collect Social Security, or "unretire" and go back to work.

That's why being smart about where you live in your golden years can have far-reaching consequences, as housing costs — whether it be a mortgage, property taxes, or rent expenses — are typically the largest part of your monthly expenses.

Financial technology company Remitly compiled data on Americans' retirement savings across the country. How much you need in retirement varies, but the rule of thumb is that by the time you retire, you should aim to have around 10 times your salary saved. Remitly found that Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 have typically saved an average of $537,650 and a median of $185,000 — meaning there's high variability in the amounts that people have saved.

When calculating how much money you need for a comfortable retirement, take into consideration annual expenditures such as housing, utilities, transportation, and healthcare — and also factor in an additional 20% buffer for unexpected costs.

Depending on the state you retire in, the cost of living could fluctuate wildly. Remitly looked at the average retirement savings and expected annual expenditures for a comfortable retirement for each state to calculate how long a retirement nest egg lasts in different parts of the country.

While the annual expenditure to retire comfortably in many states hovered in the $60,000 to $80,000 range, a few states took the cake for sky-high costs of living. In Hawaii, Remitly found the average annual expenditure to be $129,296. California was the second-most expensive state, with annual retirement expenditures coming out to $100,687. In those states, retirement savings will only last 2.8 and 4.5 years, respectively.

On the other hand, Kansas takes first place for sustainable living costs in retirement — retirement savings last 7.5 years on average there.

Listed below are the top ten states where retirees can get the most bang for their buck. The average amount of savings at the time of retirement, the annual retirement expenditures, and number of years the retirement savings will last are also included.

Kansas

Average retirement savings: $452,703
Annual expenditures: $60,620
Years of comfortable retirement: 7.5 years

Iowa

Average retirement savings: $465,127
Annual expenditures: $62,565
Years of comfortable retirement: 7.4 years

Minnesota

Average retirement savings: $470,549
Annual expenditures: $65,828
Years of comfortable retirement: 7.1 years

Virginia

Average retirement savings: $492,965
Annual expenditures: $70,342
Years of comfortable retirement: 7 years

Pennsylvania

Average retirement savings: $462,075
Annual expenditures: $66,384
Years of comfortable retirement: 7 years

Illinois

Average retirement savings: $449,983
Annual expenditures: $64,787
Years of comfortable retirement: 6.9 years

Connecticut

Average retirement savings: $545,754
Annual expenditures: $78,605
Years of comfortable retirement: 6.9 years

South Dakota

Average retirement savings: $449,628
Annual expenditures: $64,856
Years of comfortable retirement: 6.9 years

Michigan

Average retirement savings: $439,568
Annual expenditures: $63,745
Years of comfortable retirement: 6.9 years

Kentucky

Average retirement savings: $441,757
Annual expenditures: $64,301
Years of comfortable retirement: 6.9 years

• Nvidia products, such as data center GPUs, are crucial for AI, making it the leader in the industry.
• Nvidia's CUDA software stack supports GPU programming, enhancing its competitive edge.
• Nvidia's automotive and consumer tech ventures expand its influence beyond data centers.

Nvidia products are at the heart of the boom in artificial intelligence.

Despite starting in gaming and designing semiconductors that touch many diverse industries, the products Nvidia designs to go inside high-powered data centers are the most important to the company today, and to the future of AI.

Graphics processing units, designed to be clustered together in dozens of racks inside massive temperature-controlled warehouses, made Nvidia a household name. They also got Nvidia into the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and put it in the position to control the flow of a crucial but finite resource: artificial intelligence.

Nvidia's first generation of chips for the data center launched in 2017. That first generation was called Volta. Along with the Volta chips, Nvidia designed DGX (which stands for Deep GPU Xceleration) systems — the full stack of technologies and equipment necessary to bring GPUs online in a data center and make them work to the best of their ability. DGX was the first of its kind. As AI has become more mainstream, other companies such as Dell and and Supermicro have put forth designs for running GPUs at scale in a data center too.

Ampere, Hopper, Blackwell, and Beyond

The next GPU generation designed for the data center, Ampere, which launched in 2020, can still be found in data centers today.

Though Ampere generation GPUs are slowly fading into the background in favor of more powerful models, this generation did support the first iteration of Nvidia's Omniverse, a simulation platform that the company purports as key to a future where robots work alongside humans doing physical tasks.

The Hopper generation of GPUs is the one that has enabled much of the latest innovation in large language models and broader AI.

Nvidia's Hopper generation of chips, which include the H100 and the H200, debuted in 2022 and remain in high demand. The H200 model in particular has added capacity that has proven increasingly important as AI models grow in size, complexity, and capability.

The most powerful chip architecture Nvidia has launched to date is Blackwell. Jensen Huang announced the step change in accelerated computing in 2024 at GTC, Nvidia's developers conference, and though the rollout has been rocky, racks of Blackwells are now available from cloud providers.

Inside the data center, Nvidia does have competitors, even though it has the vast majority of the market for AI computing. Those competitors include AMD, Intel, Huawei, custom AI chips, and a cavalcade of startups.

The company has already teased that the next generation will be called "Blackwell Ultra," followed by "Rubin" in 2026. Nvidia also plans to launch a new CPU, or traditional computer chip alongside Rubin, which it hasn't done since 2022. CPUs work alongside GPUs to triage tasks and direct the firepower that is parallel computing.

Nvidia is a software company, too

None of this high-powered computing is possible without software and Nvidia recognized this need sooner than any other company.

Development for Nvidia's tentpole software stack, CUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture, began as early as 2006. CUDA is software that allows developers to use widely known coding languages to program GPUs, since these chips require layers of code to work relatively few developers have the needed skills to program the chips directly.

Still "CUDA developer" is a skillset and there are millions who claim this ability, according to Nvidia.

When GPUs started going into data centers, CUDA was ready and that's why it's often touted as the basis for Nvidia's competitive moat.

Within CUDA are dozens of libraries that help developers use GPUs in specific fields such as medical imaging, data science, or weather analytics.

Nvidia began at home

Just two years after Nvidia's founding, the company released its first graphics card in 1995. For more than a decade, the chips mostly resided in homes and offices — used by gamers and graphics professionals.

The current generation includes the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080, which was released in May 2025. RTX 4090, 4080, 4070, and 4060, were released in 2022 and 2023. GPUs in gaming enabled the more sophisticated shadows, texture, and light to make games hyperrealistic.

In addition to the consumer work stations, Nvidia partners with device-makers like Apple and ASUS to produce laptops and personal computers. Though gaming is now a minority of the company's revenue, the business continues to grow.

Nvidia has also made new efforts to enable high powered computing at home for the machine-learning obsessed. It launched Project DIGITS, which is a personal-sized supercomputer capable of working with some of the largest large language models.

Nvidia in the car

Nvidia is angling to be a primary player in a future where self-driving cars are the norm, but the company has also been in the automotive semiconductor game for many years.

It launched Nvidia DRIVE, a platform for autonomous vehicle development, in 2015, and over time it developed or acquired technologies for mapping, driver assist, and driver monitoring.

The company designs various chips for all of functions in partnerships with Mediatek and Foxconn. Nvidia's automotive customers include Toyota, Uber, and Hyundai.

IPOs are making headlines again, which could mean Pat Healy's hopes for "hot and heavy" activity this year may not be completely quashed after all.

Healy is the founder and CEO of Issuer Network, which helps C-suite executives leading IPOs get multimillion-dollar marketing packages from prospective stock exchanges through "bake-off" bidding competitions. For the last 30 years, he's worked behind the scenes on some of the biggest IPOs and corporate spin-offs, including Facebook, Zillow, KraftHeinz, and 3M.

He's won praise from clients such as Jason Child, the CFO of the semiconductor company Arm (and the former CFO of Splunk), and Dick Grasso, a former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, who sat on opposite the deal table from Healy when he first started Issuer Network in 1995.

He's helped clients get everything from free advertising at Davos to NFL players attending their closing bell ceremonies.

Never heard of him? There's a reason for that. Healy, who appears to be a forefather of this type of bake-off, or contest between companies, runs his business largely by word of mouth. He also refuses to spend a dime on marketing. Just take a look at the company's website — the very picture of a mid-2000s web interface.

"I could make a big deal about some of these things, but that's not who I am," Healy, 74, told Business Insider in an interview. "I believe I do a really good job for people, and I shouldn't go around bragging about it. I just let my customers do the talking."

With IPOs back in the spotlight, thanks to the fintechs Chime and eToro, BI sat down with Healy and spoke to people who have worked with him. We wanted to understand the business and the man behind it, including how he got his start, how an exchange bake-off works, and what he's been occupied with since public offerings took a nosedive in 2022.

IPO activity has whipsawed this year with Trump's tariffs, and Healy saw several of the offerings in his docket pulled due to market volatility. Where things go next is anyone's guess, but Healy is bracing for a potential torrent of demand.

"Who knows when the sun's going to come out?" Healy said. "When it does, I expect all these guys to put their foot on the gas and come to market right away."

In the early '90s, after having held multiple CFO roles at DC-area banks, Healy started doing consulting work for Nasdaq. His job, he explained, was to disincentivize companies from leaving for the NYSE at a time when Nasdaq was a lesser-known exchange for new companies.

"I designed and helped build products that were useful to CFOs so that if they decided to leave Nasdaq, they'd have to give something up," he said. "They'd be less inclined to do so. And it created a stickiness."

That opened Healy's eyes to what he called an unfilled gap. Investment bankers advising on IPOs don't want to get caught in the crossfire between the exchanges, he said (and many banks are themselves listed in the NYSE). There are other professionals who help companies get listed on an exchange, including business consultants, but Healy's appears to have been the first to specialize in this competitive process for marketing perks.

"I discovered that CFOs really didn't have anybody to talk to when they had to make a decision about where they're going to list their stock," he said.

"There was no one else doing it. And there's still no one else doing it," he added.

Issuer Network's first client was AOL, the now (mostly) defunct internet and instant messaging service. Healy said he managed to get a meeting with the CFO and convinced him to let Healy negotiate a "co-branding package" on the company's behalf.

"I just hopped in my car and went over to Tyson's Corner," a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, where AOL was headquartered at the time. "I visited with the CFO. I said, 'Look, you're on the wrong exchange here.'"

In August 1996, AOL switched from the Nasdaq to the NYSE.

AOL was an example of a service Healy refers to as "switches." Today, most of his business involves advising companies about to go public on which exchange they should be listed. Beyond the trading style and fit of a given exchange, there are hidden levers that companies ccan pull, said Healy.

"Issuers are always focused on the listing fee," he said. "What they don't see is what the exchange is going to make off the listing."

Exchanges cannot technically buy a company's listing, but they can pick up the tab for co-branded advertisements or other marketing perks. That's where Healy comes in. He essentially creates a competition between the exchanges to see which one can offer clients the best package with their listing.

"We create pretty substantial co-branding packages and we literally bake it off," he said.

Typically, a company would contact the exchanges to say it's decided to make its listing decision "a competitive process." Then, Healy said, the company would lay out how it wants to reach customers, and the exchanges would come back with "a co-branding package commensurate with those defined outcomes." From there, it's a back-and-forth of negotiations and adjustments until the company (not Healy, as he emphasized) names a winner. The whole process typically takes about six weeks.

Healy wouldn't reveal how much these deals are worth — except for one, which is public. The package he got for Arm, a semiconductor company that went public in 2023, was worth $50 million.

"He understands exactly what the terms and conditions are for the market," Child, Arm's CFO, said. "So he can help you understand, as the issuing company, what is the benefit to the exchange? What is the value they can provide? What are the pros and cons?"

Child first hired Healy when he was Groupon's CFO for the tech company's 2011 IPO. He tapped Healy again in 2023 when Arm went public.

Arm's package with Nasdaq, for example, included several years of advertising at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland. As part of its deal, another Healy client, PNC, got NFL Hall of Famers, including Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith, to ring the closing bell at the NYSE with company employees in 2010.

There are moments when both sides are unhappy, said Healy, but it's all business — nothing personal.

"I maintain very good relationships with both exchanges," he said. "We have no agenda here other than the best deal for our client. And we don't favor anybody. The minute we do, we lose all credibility and we're out of business."

Of the IPOs that happened during the early days of Healy's business, only a small percentage of his clients were large enough to be eligible for the NYSE. Those that were crossed Grasso's desk, the former NYSE chief told BI.

"Some of my marketing people, in the early days of Pat's business, were highly skeptical," said Grasso, who headed the exchange from 1995 to 2003. "But after a couple of sit-downs with me, I was very comfortable that Pat was going to be fair."

Healy also advises clients on what he refers to as "spins," when a company spins off a part of its business into its own company. Issuer Network has worked on more of these during the recent IPO downturn.

"You've got Comcast spinning, Honeywell spinning, FedEx spinning. You've got quite a lineup of spins out there," he said. "We've done a lot of spins in our day, and we expect to be active in the spin market here for the foreseeable future — through the summer, at least. A lot of these deals will bleed into '26, but their exchange selection decision I expect will be made in '25."

Healy said he couldn't disclose current clients, but noted he worked on a spin with 3M last year. He advised the company as it spun off its healthcare business, now called Solventum, and led a bake-off between exchanges for both the parent and spin company at the same time.

"The winner takes all," Healy said. "So instead of getting a $5 or $10 million co-branding package for 'Spinco,' you get many times that amount for the whole enchilada."

(3M stayed with the NYSE, and Solventum joined its listings.)

Healy declined to discuss his fees, but said he follows a "satisfaction guarantee" policy: He tells clients they can "tear up our invoice" if they aren't happy — something of an anomaly on Wall Street.

Child called Healy "an old soul."

"He basically just tells you, 'Pay me what you think it's worth' when it's over," Child said. "It's like the opposite of dealing with an enterprise software person."

Healy's humble upbringing might explain his aversion to the spotlight. Growing up, he was one of nine children. His father was a mailman in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park. The town was home to a Ford manufacturing plant, what Healy described as "an ugly scene" — not necessarily the kind of place you might expect someone who brokers deals on Wall Street for some of the largest corporations in the world to get their start.

"I'm just a hick from Ohio," Healy said. "People like talking to me. And I have something good to offer them. You build a momentum over time by just keeping your nose to the grindstone, delivering good results, and just shooting straight with people."

• Luis von Ahn envisions AI transforming education, making it more scalable than human teachers.
• Schools may focus mostly on childcare duties while AI provides personalized learning, he said.
• Regulation and cultural expectations may slow AI's integration into education systems.

What happens to schools if AI becomes a better teacher?

Luis von Ahn, CEO of Duolingo, recently shared his vision for the future of education on the No Priors podcast with venture capitalist Sarah Guo, and it centered on AI transforming the very role schools will play.

"Education is going to change," von Ahn said. "It's just a lot more scalable to teach with AI than with teachers."

That doesn't mean teachers will vanish, he emphasized. Instead, he believes schools will remain, but their function could shift dramatically. In von Ahn's view, schools may increasingly serve as childcare centers and supervised environments, while AI handles most of the actual instruction.

"That doesn't mean the teachers are going to go away. You still need people to take care of the students," the CEO said on the podcast. "I also don't think schools are going to go away because you still need childcare."

In a classroom of 30 students, a single teacher can struggle to offer personalized, adaptive learning to each person. AI, on the other hand, will be able to track individual performance in real time and adjust lesson difficulty based on how well each student is grasping the material, according to von Ahn.

Imagine a classroom where each student is "Duolingo-ing" their way through personalized content, while a teacher acts as a facilitator or mentor. "You still need people to take care of the students," he noted, "but the computer can know very precisely what you're good at and bad at — something a teacher just can't track for 30 students at once."

Education is slow to change, so this may take many years, von Ahn explained, noting that regulation, legacy systems, and cultural expectations all serve as drag forces. Still, he sees a future where AI augments or even supplants parts of formal education, especially in countries that need scalable education solutions fast.

It's a provocative vision, one that raises deep questions about the future of learning and what we expect from education in an AI-driven world.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at [email protected].

• Hedra, a generative AI platform, creates images, video, and audio, with a focus on characters.
• Hedra raised $32 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz's Infrastructure fund.
• Read the pitch deck the startup used to raise its latest funding.

A video of a baby interviewing a dog on a podcast went viral last month.

No, it wasn't real. It was an AI-generated video created by comedian Jon Lajoie, who used Hedra, an AI video generation platform, to make the animation.

Hedra's platform allows users to generate images, video, and audio with its web-based content creation studio.

"Our model and technology focuses on the most controllable, compelling characters, whether that's a hyperrealistic human or an animated character or even an animal," Hedra's CEO, Michael Lingelbach, told Business Insider.

On Thursday, Hedra announced that it raised a $32 million Series A fundraising round led by Andreessen Horowitz's Infrastructure fund. The round included returning investors such as A16z Speedrun, Abstract, and Index Ventures.

Since its launch in 2024, the AI video startup has rapidly raised capital. In August, it announced a $10 million seed investment round. In March, Amazon's Alexa Fund announced that it invested in the startup and several other AI companies. Hedra said it has raised a total of $44 million but has not disclosed a valuation.

Competition in the generative AI is hot, with buzzy companies like Captions, HeyGen, Synthesia, and Runway building tech around video and avatars (Hedra specified that it is not an avatar company).

"We're not trying to compete with Google Veo, we're not trying to compete with Sora," Lingelbach said. "We're focusing really firmly on building the best character models, and that's something that with this additional capital we can make another step function in doing."

Hedra's Character-3 "omnimodal" model combines images, text, and audio to generate video. Creating a character with Hedra begins by uploading an image and then uploading audio that they've either already recorded (like a podcast) or generated using text-to-speech models like ElevenLabs.

"Both voice and video are seeing rapid evolution right now," Lingelbach said. "We took a big leap forward on naturalness of expression with our current model."

Hedra's platform is also users to integrate outside models like ElevenLabs, Google Veo, and Flux "all in one workflow," Lingelbach said.

Expanding beyond the creator economy

Hedra's core user base has been professional creators and marketers, Lingelbach said.

"We're already seeing a massive influx of AI-generated content," Lingelbach said. "My Instagram and TikTok feed are filled with various memes and also more serious content now that's AI-generated."

From comedy skits to faceless creator content to … talking babies, Hedra's already seen a wide range of use cases. Podcast content, particularly, has been a popular application of Hedra's tech.

"It's not really something that we anticipated initially, but it definitely has been driving a lot of our usage," he said.

In addition to the viral trend of AI baby-hosted podcasts that people have been creating using Hedra, others have used Hedra to create Studio Ghibli-style videos of the classic podcast interview clip.

With its recent raise, Hedra plans to expand into more enterprise marketing applications, expand its team, and open an office in New York City.

Read the pitch deck Hedra used to raise its Series A:

Note: Some slides have been redacted in order to share the deck publicly.

Hedra is focused on storytelling and characters.

Here's what the slide says:

Every good story is crafted around characters.
But until now, creating compelling characters has been the most challenging part of content creation.

The deck explains Hedra's 'omnimodal foundation model' that lets people quickly generate digital characters.

Here's what the slide says:

At Hedra, we've built the world's best character performance model that uniquely combines video, voice, motion, and emotion in a way never before possible.

• Hedra's Character-3 model is the world's first omnimodal foundation model in production.
• The only model that supports human, animated, and animal characters. And it works with any angle or framing.
• Built to prioritize efficiently scaling unified models
• The entire model was developed with a budget of under $2 million

Hedra's customers range from everyday consumers to creators and marketers.

Here's what the slide says:

We've seen three key customer segments rely on Hedra for their various character performance needs.

Consumers

Consumers love the fun content they can create on Hedra — ranging from memes to music videos to short films.

Prosumers

Prosumers are using Hedra for use cases such as video podcasts, social media, and developing IP.

Marketing Teams

Marketing teams are using Hedra to create UGC, product tutorials, and other content to drive sales conversions.

Hedra has plans to expand into more enterprise offerings.

Here's what the slide says:

And we've already gotten heavy inbound interest from businesses for professional use and have signed notable early enterprise customers.

Upcoming Enterprise Features:

• Teams management
• IP Guards
• Enterprise-level security

The deck highlights Hedra's research team and its proprietary tech.

Here's what the slide says:

Hedra is poised to be the first company to shatter the "uncanny valley."

• We have a best-in-class research team that enables us to train proprietary omnimodal models that no competitor can develop
• We're a product focused company that builds foundation models for real world applications, listens to our users, and ships frequently.
• We're a capital efficient team that built Character-3 on under $2M in capital and a small research team.

Then the deck introduces the team.

Here's what the slide says:

We've assembled the best team to own this category — marrying deep research with AI-Native product design.

Key Leadership Team:

Michael Lingelbach: Founder / CEO

• Stanford PhD student of Fei-Fei Li and Jiajun Wu. Senior author of 3 real-time diffusion papers. Recipient of prestigious Stanford Graduate Fellowship.

Hongwei Yi: Head of Research

• Former PhD Student of Michael Black, principal researcher behind first audio to video diffusion model to hit the market in the US.

Wei Li: Research Lead

• Core contributor to Google Bard/Gemini, PaLM-2 and T5, with 8+ years experience at Google Brain/Deepmind.

Jason Wilson: Head of Engineering

• Previously led engineering at Nava Benefits (Thrive-backed Series B startup) and engineering manager at Descartes Labs.

Alan Guo: Chief of Staff

• MBA from Harvard Business School. Previously worked in growth & strategy at Disney, Jubilee Media, and Firework.

Ramin Keene: Principal Engineer

• Former CTO at StockX and two-time founder.

Hedra concludes its deck by saying 'we're just getting started.'

Here's what the slide says:

We're on a mission to build the world's best end-to-end storytelling platform. And we're just getting started.

• We've already built the world's leading character performance model on just a $2M budget.
• Prosumers, consumers, and enterprise marketers love and depend on us for their content.
• We're now working on even larger feature releases that will reinvent creation workflows.

It ends with a thank you slide.

This includes contact information for its CEO.

• Google stock tumbled after Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue said Safari searches had dropped.
• A filing reveals another reason Google watchers worry about search: slowed growth in paid clicks.
• Some analysts are split over whether Google's Search empire is under threat.

Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue set alarm bells ringing on Wednesday after dropping a bombshell at Google's antitrust trial: Google searches through Safari dropped in April for the first time ever.

While his comments triggered a frenzied sell-off in Google stock, it might not be the only reason the company's watchers should be concerned about Google's ability to keep full control over the search market.

A little-noticed number in Google's latest financial disclosure may be the realest sign yet that investors have reason to worry.

After reporting blockbuster Q1 earnings last month, Google revealed in a 10-Q filing with the SEC that paid clicks for the quarter grew 2%, down from 5% growth in the same quarter a year ago. That's the slowest growth rate since the company began reporting the metric.

Paid clicks are exactly what they sound like: people click on ads across Google Search and other services such as Google Play and Gmail. Each click translates to money in Google's pocket.

Why those paid clicks are down, exactly, Google hasn't said.

"It's possible macro played a role, or searches with AI overviews delivered better results, requiring fewer 'paid clicks' to get to conversion," Bernstein analysts wrote in a note published Wednesday. "But mostly, it's a worrying KPI."

The analysts said they believe the timing of the dip, combined with Cue's comments and surging numbers of ChatGPT and Meta AI users, suggests that Google's control of the search market may be lower than previously believed.

"Combined, we estimate Google's search share is closer to 65-70% vs. the 90% we often hear," they wrote.

Google declined to comment.

Google's slice of pie

Google insists that it's seeing more searches than ever.

Since the 2000s, the company has managed to harvest vast amounts of searches by paying Apple a fee to make its search engine the default on Apple's Safari web browser. As recently as 2022, Google had paid Apple at least $20 billion —  a massive fee that signals how much value Google sees in having Apple users turn to its search engine for all their queries.

It maintains that this partnership continues to drive growth in searches. Cue's comments were provocative enough to prompt the search giant to issue a public statement stating that it continues to see "overall query growth" in Search, including an increase in total queries coming from Apple.

There's little doubt among industry watchers that the overall search pie is growing — though figures from research firm Statcounter suggest Google's control of the global search has fallen slightly. The big question is whether Google's slice of that pie is shrinking relative to rivals.

According to Statcounter, Google's share of global search traffic fell to 89.71% in March 2025, down from about 91% in March 2024 and about 93% in March 2023.

Meanwhile, competing search products are growing. In April, OpenAI said that around 10% of the world uses ChatGPT, which would be at least 800 million users. Meta also said that about 1 billion people use AI across its various products.

The search market expands with AI as chatbots and generative tools expand the definition of search. Google could reap the rewards here, though this also creates an opening for competitors charging as fast as possible to stay ahead of the search giant.

Bernstein analysts estimated that generative AI queries that run through chatbots such as ChatGPT are reaching volumes close to 15% of the queries processed by Google and other traditional search engines.

Analysts are split

Other analysts are divided on just how much of a threat Google's search business faces.

For instance, longtime Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo took to X on Wednesday to explain why he felt it was a mistake to think generative AI would not affect Google's advertising business.

He said that despite the "continued growth of Google's advertising business," the company hasn't had much competition yet.

"GenAI service providers have not launched advertising businesses, so Google Ads remains the best choice for online advertisers," Kuo wrote.

Kuo likened Google's situation to the one Yahoo faced during the 2000s. The company's advertising business, launched in 1995, only started declining in 2008, despite newfound competition from Google's AdWords business arriving back in 2000.

Analysts at investment bank Jefferies have a different view. In a research note on Wednesday, the analysts had a particular word to describe the roughly $155 billion sell-off in Google's stock following Cue's comments: "overblown."

While they acknowledged that Google's AI-powered "Overviews" feature may act as a headwind right now as it is resulting in "fewer searches," they said Google will "be able to ramp monetization" of its AI summary feature over the long run.

They also don't see a scenario where Apple shifts away from Google and causes as much harm as investors might think.

"While Safari is significant, it does not represent the entirety of search activity; iOS accounts for 18% of operating systems, and Safari holds 17% of the browser market share compared to Chrome's 66%," the analysts wrote.

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• Amazon Web Services recently issued guidance to staff on tariffs and data sovereignty concerns.
• AWS aims to reassure customers amid uncertainty over tariffs and other geopolitical issues.
• Amazon previously hinted that third-party sellers might raise prices on its site due to tariffs.

As tariffs spark growing uncertainty across Amazon's retail operations, the company's cloud division is quietly moving to head off similar concerns from business customers.

According to an internal document obtained by Business Insider, Amazon Web Services has issued new guidance to frontline sales and technical staff, instructing them on how to respond to customer questions about tariffs, data sovereignty, and potential restrictions tied to US government policy.

Among the talking points: If an AWS customer asks about possible price increases due to tariffs, employees are told to avoid direct answers and instead reaffirm pricing terms for those covered under existing Private Pricing Agreements (PPAs).

"In the event that AWS does increase prices, these increases will not change any agreed upon discounts, credits or service-specific rates in your PPA," the internal document stated.

While AWS may be less directly impacted by tariffs than Amazon's e-commerce business, the document reveals the company is concerned enough to prep staff with answers to potential tough customer questions.

The document covers questions ranging from potential price hikes and data-privacy concerns. It even broaches the possibility that US President Donald Trump might ban foreign companies from using AWS.

In a recent CNBC interview, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged the situation remains fluid and emphasized efforts by the company's e-commerce business to keep consumer prices low. Still, he hinted that some third-party sellers might raise prices in response to tariffs. He also noted that, despite the uncertainty, Amazon continues its data center expansion.

Amazon, whose stock has dropped about 15% this year, is set to report first-quarter earnings on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the company referred BI to a statement from the internal document:

"We're closely monitoring the situation, and we are working to assess the impact on our business. As we navigate the evolving trade policy landscape, our focus remains on delivering value to our customers and innovating on their behalf."

Do not 'speculate'

Tariff-driven price hikes have already become a flashpoint in Amazon's retail division.

As BI previously reported, internal teams have struggled with forecasting, and vendors say Amazon has offered cost relief in exchange for strict margin guarantees. Meanwhile, third-party sellers say they're being forced to raise prices due to rising import costs.

What this means for AWS pricing remains unclear. Internal guidance tells employees not to "speculate," citing the rapidly evolving nature of trade policy.

Some cloud industry experts suggest tariffs could squeeze AWS more than the company lets on.

AWS relies heavily on high-end computing gear, much of it manufactured in China or Taiwan. While some semiconductor components were recently exempted from tariffs, other critical data center parts may still be affected. Trump has paused most new tariffs for 90 days, but a 145% tariff on Chinese goods remains in effect.

"AWS and other hyperscalers could choose to absorb the cost or pass it on to customers," said Travis Rehl, CTO of cloud consultancy Innovative Solutions. "I'm unsure which direction they'd take."

Ben Schaechter, CEO of cloud cost optimization firm Vantage, said tariffs could force AWS to tighten future discounts or slow infrastructure growth due to higher hardware costs.

The bigger threat, some say, is reduced cloud spending.

Randall Hunt, CTO of cloud advisory firm Caylent, told BI that customers are already cutting back in broad spending in anticipation of slower growth and rising costs.

Data sovereignty and Trump-era fears

The growing uncertainty over Trump's actions has pushed Amazon to prepare for even more extreme scenarios, including potential US government demands for cloud customer data or a move to block non-US users from accessing AWS.

Those concerns over privacy and data access have grown recently as Trump's tariff-driven trade war increased tensions between the US and European countries.

If asked about potential US government data requests, Amazon instructed employees to emphasize that AWS does not disclose customer information unless legally required and that all requests are thoroughly reviewed.

The guidance also clarifies AWS's position on the CLOUD Act, or Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act. The CLOUD Act, passed in 2018, gives US law enforcement agencies the authority to access data held by US-based companies, even if stored abroad.

AWS has not provided enterprise or government customer data stored outside the US since at least 2020 and it will challenge any "over-broad" or unlawful requests, the document stated.

"The CLOUD Act does not provide the U.S. government with unfettered access to data held by cloud providers," the document added.

On the question of whether Trump could block foreign access to AWS, the document stops short of addressing whether the president has the authority, but notes there's no indication such action is imminent.

In fact, it argues that doing so would contradict the administration's stated goal of supporting US tech companies abroad.

"AWS is closely plugged into US policy and this Administration's efforts, and can confirm we have heard nothing about restricting cloud services to non-US customers in response to addressing trade imbalances or unfair trade barriers, and expect their focus to continue to be on tariffs as the 'rebalancing' mechanism," the document said.

Sanctions and 'Buy Canada'

AWS also addresses fears that US sanctions could restrict access to its services in certain countries. The guidance notes that full country-wide sanctions are rare and that in the past, companies have been given time to wind down operations when sanctions do occur.

"US country-wide sanctions or services restrictions are exceedingly rare," the document said. "But in the theoretical case that such sanctions ever came to pass, AWS would do everything practically possible to provide continuity of service."

Finally, AWS is preparing for patriotic backlash in some markets, such as a potential "Buy Canada" movement. Employees are told to clarify that AWS's Canada office is a registered Canadian corporation headquartered in Toronto, and that customers can choose to store their data locally and encrypt it.

Still, the guidance urges caution. Employees should be careful framing AWS as a "Canadian business," given the complexity of the term.

"Whether AWS is a 'Canadian business' will depend on how that is defined in particular circumstances," the document concludes.

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• Google has quietly launched a film and TV production initiative called 100 Zeros.
• Google wants to promote its products and a positive image of tech, particularly to young people.
• The goal is to sell projects to studios, not put them on YouTube.

Google wants to use Hollywood to upgrade its cool factor.

The tech giant has quietly launched a new film and TV production initiative, Business Insider has learned.

The effort, called 100 Zeros, is a multiyear partnership with Range Media Partners, the talent firm and production company whose notable films include "A Complete Unknown" and "Longlegs." It's tasked with identifying projects that Google can help fund or produce. The goal is to get behind an array of scripted and unscripted films and TV shows. (The companies wouldn't comment on a number or timeframe.)

Google has a few goals with 100 Zeros. The company sees it as a way to get the creative community to adopt its newer tech products and services, like its Immersive View feature that lets you see things in 3D, spatial tools that blend the physical and virtual worlds, and AI.

Google also wants to promote a positive view of its products — and tech generally — through entertainment to young audiences by helping shape pop culture.

Last year, 100 Zeros quietly dipped a toe in the water, putting some marketing dollars behind an indie horror film from Neon, "Cuckoo." In exchange, 100 Zeros' logo was prominently shown in the opening credits. Google didn't seek any publicity for the move, but it was indicative of the alignments it wants: A celebrated indie studio ("Parasite," "Anora") and a movie aimed at Gen Z and starring Hunter Schafer, known for "Euphoria" and the "Hunger Games" franchise.

In another step in that direction, Google and Range announced a partnership this spring called "AI On Screen" to commission short films about AI, with the goal of making two into feature films. Here's how it described one of the shorts, "Sweetwater": "When the son of a late celebrity visits his childhood home, a piece of fan mail reveals a startling AI, forcing him to reconcile his mother's legacy."

"Through our continued partnership with Range, we aim to collaborate with the Hollywood creative community in a thoughtful and productive way, upkeeping our ongoing commitment to responsibly support creative expression and explore the possibilities of technology through storytelling," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

Google wants to make Android cool

In projects where Google is involved early on, the company wouldn't mind if characters clutched Android phones instead of iPhones and used its features like "Circle to Search." That's provided the integration isn't forced. Product placement isn't 100 Zeros' main focus, however. Google has a separate effort with United Talent Agency for marketing partnerships like its recent ones with "The White Lotus" and "Wicked" to promote the Pixel.

One of the ways Google will judge the success of the initiative is how it impacts popular sentiment around the company's products and services. Google dominates the global mobile phone market, but is outsold by Apple in the US. Apple has gained a strong following with Gen Z with its luxury image and blue text bubbles that can make Android users feel left out. Its phones have become entrenched in pop culture, appearing in buzzy titles like "Succession" and "Knives Out." Piper Sandler's spring survey found 88% of US teens owned an iPhone.

Beyond Android, Google search is losing its hold on young people, who are increasingly going to AI or other platforms like Amazon and TikTok for answers to their questions.

Google isn't looking at YouTube as a distributor

Consumer brands are increasingly using Hollywood-style entertainment to spread their messages, as it's gotten harder to get people's attention with traditional ads. The interest is welcome in cash-strapped Hollywood.

A common approach by brands is to lean on established filmmakers and agencies to develop or produce projects. A handful of brands like Procter & Gamble and WeTransfer have gone further and hired in-house expertise. Google's efforts are similar to those of Waffle Iron Entertainment, a studio Nike set up to make original entertainment that aligns with the company's goals while operating at arm's length.

100 Zeros has a small dedicated staff: Penny Lin, a film producer at Range, and development execs Casey Durant and Tony Nguyen. Rachel Douglas, partner and manager at Range, oversees the relationship with Google. On the Google side, the point person is Jonathan Zepp, the managing director of emerging content experiences.

"This initiative is different in that it's staffed by full-time people who come out of Hollywood and are housed at and supported by Range," Douglas said of 100 Zeros.

Consumer brands' flirtation with films isn't guaranteed to last. Some have been halting or slowing film projects amid President Donald Trump's tariffs and attacks on DEI. Even before the tariff news hit, some corporations that had made commitments to the space — including Starbucks, Marriott, and Southwest Airlines — laid off marketers who worked in filmed entertainment as a part of larger corporate cuts, a reminder of the tenuous nature of the work.

One aspect of 100 Zeros that people might find surprising is that it's not looking to leverage YouTube as a primary distribution platform. YouTube has become a TV juggernaut and has been working to make itself a home for premium programming. But 100 Zeros isn't trying to recreate YouTube Originals, the platform's onetime stab at making original shows, or even use YouTube as the first stop for these projects. Instead, the goal is to sell projects to traditional studios and streamers like Netflix.

• Google Cloud executive Jerry Dischler told staff on Monday he plans to leave the company.
• Dischler was leading cloud applications at Google.
• Dischler previously ran Google's powerful ads business and spent nearly 20 years at the company.

Jerry Dischler, a Google veteran who spent several years steering the company's crucial advertising business, plans to depart Google.

Dischler, who has been at Google for almost 20 years, announced his departure in a memo to staff on Monday, which was seen by Business Insider. A Google spokesperson confirmed the departure.

Dischler was most recently president of cloud applications, overseeing Google's Workspace office software product and integrating AI tools into customers' businesses. He joined Google in 2005 and worked on technology that eventually became Google Pay. He later ran Google's entire ads operations.

"The most difficult aspect of my decision was stepping away from the incredible opportunity we have before us," he wrote in the email, adding that he did so with "immense confidence" in the teams.

Dischler's exit marks another notable departure for the teams working on Google Workspace, a critical product for Google in generative AI that competes with Microsoft's productivity tools.

Aparna Pappu, former vice president and general manager of Google Workspace, announced late last year she would step down and hand over the reins to Dischler.

In his departing note, Dischler wrote that senior managers on Workspace will report to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, effective May 9, until a new leader is named.

Dischler wrote that it was time for him "to explore something new," although he did not say if he was leaving for a new opportunity.

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• Meta launched its text platform Threads as a stand-alone app in 2023.
• Leading up to its launch, Meta created a deck to detail the app's potential and strategy.
• The deck was used as evidence in the FTC's antitrust lawsuit against Meta.

An internal Meta deck reveals the company's original plans for its text-based platform Threads, and how it would compete with X, formerly Twitter.

The deck was revealed in court this month during the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust trial against Meta.

Meta officially launched Threads in 2023, and 10 million users signed up in its first seven hours, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

Internally, Meta employees pitched Threads as a better Twitter.

"Twitter is experiencing instability and may continue to falter, though its network is strong and established," the deck said.

Threads' initial goal was to "build the most engaging online space for public conversation, enabling people to talk about their interests, come together over cultural moments, and connect directly with creators," according to the deck.

The launch strategy for Threads, code-named Project 92, or P92, included:

• Using what Meta has learned about social media from its other platforms to create a foundation for users, including sharing best practices for using the platform with users on day one.
• Using Instagram as a funnel to direct users to sign up. At its launch, users could sign into Threads with their existing Instagram logins.
• Introducing innovative features like a Mastodon integration and other tools that could make posting "fresh and fun."
• Targeting Instagram creators to create conversation that's less news and politics-focused content than what can already be found on X.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Read the deck below. Some slides have been redacted:

• Microsoft is trying to simplify AI sales, according to slides from an internal presentation.
• The current approach slowed sales, confused customers, and affected cost and quality, insiders say.
• Microsoft plans to slash the number of "solution areas."

Microsoft is trying to simplify its many AI offerings by streamlining how the products are pitched to customers, according to internal slides from a recent presentation.

The software giant has a bunch of different AI tools called Copilot. There's Copilot for its Teams chat app, Copilot for its PowerPoint presentation tool, Copilot for its Outlook email service — just to name a few.

These products are often split into different "solution areas," as Microsoft calls them. Having Copilot tools in many different buckets can slow down sales, confuse customers, and affect cost and quality of the tools, people in the organization told Business Insider. They asked not to be identified discussing private matters.

Microsoft has sales teams focused on each solution area, which will now be consolidated.

Microsoft Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff this week unveiled plans for addressing these issues in the company's upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July. BI obtained copies of slides from his presentation.

According to one of the slides, three major changes include:

• Consolidate Microsoft's solution areas.
• Accelerate regional skills at scale.
• Align teams working with small, medium, and corporate customers with those working with outside channel partners who market and sell Microsoft products.

The organization currently has six solutions areas: Modern work, Business Applications, Digital & App Innovation, Data & AI, Azure Infrastructure, and Security.

Beginning in July, these areas will be combined into three: AI Business Solutions, Cloud & AI Platforms, and Security.

AI Business Solutions will include tools such as Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot for Teams, Copilot for Outlook, plus a data visualization product called Power BI, according to a person who attended a Thursday all-hands for Althoff's organization. This person asked not to be identified discussing private matters.

"We are evolving the commercial solution areas within our sales organization to better reflect the era of AI and support the growth of our customers and partners," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "This evolution reflects the shift in how customers and partners are buying and will better serve their needs."

The other changes include expanding training for salespeople and a reorganization to Small, Medium Enterprise & Channel (SME&C) team, which was announced internally earlier this year.

The changes come as Microsoft is trying to figured out how to make money from its significant AI investments. It has mulled changes including new software bundles with Copilot. The company earlier this year said it plans to spend $80 billion on expanding its network of AI data centers.

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