Alex Kantrowitz
As seen in:
Big Technology,
Big Technology Podcast,
CNBC,
Apple Podcasts,
LinkedIn,
Forbes,
Medium,
MSN,
MSN India,
MSN Money Canada,
MSN Singapore,
OneZero,
Yahoo Entertainment
and
Covers:
Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI
Doesn't Cover:
Anything not listed above
I write @BigTechnology and host Big Technology Podcast. Contributor @CNBC. Author of ALWAYS DAY ONE. alex.kantrowitz@gmail.com
Articles by Alex Kantrowitz
The Big Technology Guide To: Enterprise AI
Enterprise AI is advancing at a staggering rate. AI models can now complete long-running tasks, and are automating core business processes as a result. They can solve difficult math problems, with concrete applications in accounting, finance, and business intelligence. Voice AI is now good enough to take calls and make them. Visual AI can produce mockups of new websites and products in seconds flat. Agents are starting to make the dream of smart, personalized interactions with businesses a reality.
Far from RSI? Compute Shortages? Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s View Of AI’s Trajectory Original
Sundar Pichai believes the tech industry is far from the end state of recursive self-improvement. The Google CEO shared this belief in a Big Technology Podcast interview this week, along with plenty of other news nuggets. On Tuesday, we published the full transcript of the interview. Today, we share the eight newsiest bits of the conversation, spanning RSI, compute, and Google’s relationship with Apple.
Is Google Really Back at the Frontier? Sundar Pichai Tells Us Original
In a Q&A with Alex Kantrowitz, Pichai tells us about compute trade-offs, safety gaps and the personal agents coming next. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best.
Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best.
Rivian CEO: Robotics Is Progressing Much Faster Than You Think
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe is behind the wheel of a fully-loaded R1 SUV, plodding through traffic on a dreary Wednesday New York City afternoon, when he tells me people are underestimating the progress in robotics today. “The rate of progress in robotics is going to be far higher than the world knows,” he says.
Anthropic’s IPO and Our Collective Leap of Faith
The markets rest on the AI story fulfilling its potential. This week, we saw how tenuous that could be. Revenue versus obligations. Anthropic's revenue grew from $400 million in 2024 to $4.6 billion in 2025, while it spent $7.3 billion on infrastructure and committed $518 billion more over the next decade. Locked-in spending. About 80% of that $518 billion is non-cancellable or payable regardless of usage, including $111.1 billion to Alphabet, $110 billion to Amazon and $31.4 billion to Microsoft.
Can AI Keep Growing Exponentially? SemiAnalysis Makes the Case
SemiAnalysis founder Dylan Patel thinks many of the enormous numbers circulating around the AI infrastructure buildout are still too small. In an extended conversation on Big Technology Podcast, Patel and SemiAnalysis technical staff member Jordan Nanos argued that demand for compute continues to outrun supply, even as the industry faces limits on construction, financing, and equipment.
Live with Sharon Goldman and Big Technology's Alex Kantrowitz
Ground Level AI Podcast Field reporting from the AI front lines — covering AI infrastructure, security, policy, and the forces shaping what comes next. Field reporting from the AI front lines — covering AI infrastructure, security, policy, and the forces shaping what comes next.
The Key Anthropic Numbers You Need To Know Ahead Of Its IPO
Anthropic’s revenue and (sizable) losses leaked last week ahead of the company’s much anticipated IPO. But there’s much more data that shows how the company is faring vs. the competition. This week, let’s look at how Anthropic’s Claude is growing and how it compares to rivals like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, and Muse.
Anthropic’s IPO and Our Collective Leap Of Faith
When Anthropic’s pre-IPO numbers leaked this week, its vast losses and unbreakable commitments were both remarkable and scary. The company’s revenue is growing impressively, jumping from $400 million in 2024 to $4.6 billion in 2025. But it spent $7.3 billion on infrastructure alone last year and expects to spend $518 billion on it over the next decade. Of that $518 billion, approximately 80% is non-cancellable.
What I Got Wrong About Meta’s Muse, and The Deeper Threat to Frontier AI
Meta didn’t need frontier intelligence to build a really good AI app. A ‘next-level-down’ model was good enough. Good enough wins. Meta built a capable personal agent on non-frontier models, showing that top-tier intelligence isn't required for a strong AI app. Spend is shifting. Frontier models' share of business AI spend on Ramp fell from 53% to 45% between early August and early September. The premium is at risk.
Here’s Everything OpenAI’s Bots (And Others) Have Hacked Or Considered Hacking Original
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last Friday accused OpenAI’s agents of hacking into the country’s universal health insurance system, marking the first known instance of rogue AI agents breaching a government website. The incident was just the latest in a string of agent hacks, hijacks, or perusals that seem to have spiraled beyond the labs’ ability to control. Top industry leaders, including Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang, have suggested that the AI labs can control these outbreaks.
What I Got Wrong About Meta’s Muse, And The Deeper Threat To Frontier AI
When Meta introduced its Muse personal agent earlier this month, I thought it would fail for two reasons: First, privacy concerns would limit people’s willingness to connect it with services like Gmail, thus limiting its utility. And second, Meta built it on non-frontier AI models, exposing it to obsolescence should top labs like OpenAI choose to compete with it.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan: Why We’re Betting On AI And Not Afraid Of It
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan is betting that AI will help creators build bigger audiences without displacing the human connection that brings viewers to the platform. In an extended interview on Big Technology Podcast, Mohan described AI as a tool for improving the “stage” YouTube provides its creators. That includes tools to test videos, tailor thumbnails to different audiences, and answer viewers’ questions about what they’re watching.
It’s Time to Bring Some Sanity to the AI Risk Conversation
AI will kill us all? It’s all just marketing? There has to be a better explanation. And there is. Risk Is Unquantifiable. AI extinction percentages from lab employees sound scientific but are speculation, not data. Fear Is Genuine. The July 2026 Hugging Face breach and the German DseWiki hijack show Silicon Valley's concerns aren't manufactured. Warnings Carry Business Risk. Researcher warnings are fueling political calls for hearings and data center pauses that threaten IPO timelines.
It’s Time to Bring Some Sanity to the AI Risk Conversation
The AI risk debate is going completely off the rails. As AI gets more powerful and begins to do some legitimately scary things, like hacking Hugging Face and hijacking message boards to coordinate, the warnings that AI might kill us all have grown louder, and so have the conspiracy theories about those warnings.
When Artificial Intelligence Is Too Valuable To Sell
It’s time to delete the assumption that the frontier AI labs will always license their best models and not hoard the intelligence for themselves. Just because the labs have, until now, sold their top-line models to all takers via an API, metered by token usage, doesn’t mean they will inevitably sell it that way going forward. Instead, it may be in their best interest to sell the products they’ve built with these models, and not the models themselves.
Everything You Need to Know About Kimi K3, the Latest Model From China to Shake Up AI
Moonshot paused new subscriptions for its 2.8-trillion-parameter model outstripped GPU capacity, sparking fresh arguments over open-weight AI's performance. A 2.8-trillion-parameter contender: Moonshot's Kimi K3 is matching Opus 4.8 and GPT 5.5 on many benchmarks, and demand got so intense the company had to pause new subscriptions.
AI Model Prices Are Falling At The Worst Moment For The US Frontier Labs
The price war is on. What happens to OpenAI and Anthropic? Key Takeaways Lower-cost models from Meta, SpaceX and Moonshot could trigger an AI price war and compress frontier model margins. OpenAI and Anthropic may increasingly depend on their products, rather than their models alone, to generate profits. As frontier models become commoditized, the applications built on top of them could become AI's most valuable layer.
Everything You Need to Know About Kimi K3, the Latest Model From China to Shake Up AI Original
Moonshot’s newly announced Kimi K3 — a 2.8-trillion-parameter multimodal model that’s performing on par with Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 and OpenAI’s GPT 5.5 across many benchmarks — is already so popular that Moonshot temporarily paused new subscriptions Sunday. Kimi K3 is just one of a growing number of open-weight models making life interesting for OpenAI and Anthropic.
AI Model Prices Are Falling At The Worst Moment For The U.S. Frontier Labs
Anthropic and OpenAI have been raising and spending vast amounts of cash to build the world’s most powerful AI models, assuming that owning the frontier will generate a massive return. But just as their IPO window is opening, the competition is releasing new, competitive models at a fraction of the cost, setting the stage for an AI price war at the worst possible time.
Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI makes serious claims. Will they matter?
Apple doesn’t sue often. When it has, it’s usually gone after companies like Qualcomm and Samsung that are already shipping competing products. But now, it’s suing a pre-product rival with a complaint against OpenAI. The lawsuit, filed by Apple on Friday, alleges theft of trade secrets and a months-long campaign to accelerate OpenAI’s hardware business.
OpenAI's Plans For Its New ChatGPT Superapp
OpenAI finally released the first version of its long-promised Superapp this week, combining ChatGPT, coding, and internet browsing into a single application, while adding a new ChatGPT Work mode akin to Anthropic’s Claude Cowork. Soon after the product debuted, I spoke with Andrew Ambrosino, OpenAI’s lead for the Codex and ChatGPT app, about how the company is thinking about its unified product, and where it goes from here.
Meta’s Path To AI Relevance, According To Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says the big monolithic model era is over, and the battle over AI product has just begun. In an extended interview on Big Technology Podcast this week, Bosworth claimed that while frontier AI models are valuable, the way they’re implemented will create the most value. “There’s a strategic construct of having a model, and having it be a truly state-of-the-art one, that’s super important. But having that alone doesn’t mean you win,” Bosworth said.
Automation Makes The World Cup Worse. But We Can’t Help Ourselves, Can We? Original
An epic World Cup has been marred by an overreliance on technology and automation. In this year’s competition, FIFA has used cameras, sensors, AI systems, and other automated tools to make the game more precise. But these tools, and the accompanying video assistant referee, have taken the soul out of the game. FIFA’s tech tools have tipped the scales over touches and technicalities that would never be caught by the human eye, and exposed what’s lost when we hand too much to the machines.
The United States’ OpenAI Equity Stake, Meta The Neocloud, Karp’s Attack
OpenAI is discussing providing an equity stake to the United States government, Meta is considering selling its excess compute, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp just called out the frontier labs for competing with their customers. Though the U.S. may be slowing down ahead of a holiday weekend, and the globe may be settling in for the final stages of the World Cup, the AI news keeps coming at a rapid pace.
Heavy AI Adoption Linked To More Hiring, Not Layoffs, New Data Shows
There’s a flawed yet oft-repeated narrative that AI adoption in the workplace will inevitably lead to layoffs and job loss. The narrative’s been propagated by some of the most visible leaders in tech, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Block CEO Jack Dorsey, the latter of whom used AI as a rationale for laying off 40% of his staff. But a new study from Ramp and Revelio Labs finds the opposite: The most enthusiastic adopters of AI are actually adding employees, not subtracting them.
AI Budget Increases, Fable’s Potential, AI’s Cyber Frontier: Takeaways From Big Technology’s AI Summit
Don’t expect AI’s spendingfrenzy to slow down anytime soon. That was perhaps the biggest lesson at the Big Technology AI Summit, held last week in San Francisco.
Greg Brockman On OpenAI’s Plan To Win: Compute Rules All
If AI model capabilities continue to improve fast — and relatively in sync across frontier labs — the lab with the most compute will win in the end, OpenAI president Greg Brockman suggested at the Big Technology AI Summit on Thursday. “There just is not going to be enough compute in the world to satisfy all the demand,” Brockman said.
The Chatbots and Agents Are Going to Merge
Could the AI labs intuit your next move and accomplish it for you? That seems to be where they're heading. Chatbots are becoming agents. AI assistants are evolving from answering questions to completing tasks, allowing users to move from research to action without leaving the conversation. The chat window may become the new interface. AI companies envision assistants that can browse, communicate, purchase, schedule and execute workflows across websites and applications on a user's behalf.
Elon Musk Sold Investors The Future. Now SpaceX Has To Build It.
On its first full day of trading, SpaceX is building on its massive IPO’s momentum. The company is up more than 14% on Monday, hitting a market cap above $2.4 trillion, which places it firmly within the ten largest companies in the world. Now comes the hard part. To maintain its momentum and lofty valuation, SpaceX will have to turn projections into real projects that attract real customers with real revenue.
SpaceX’s Valuation Is Crazy. Maybe That's A Feature?
When you dig into the numbers, SpaceX, in truth, is a connectivity company with an unprofitable rocket arm and an AI question mark. Elon Musk’s crown jewel IPO’d at a $1.77 trillion valuation today and rose to $2.1 trillion at close, a historic number that’s far greater than its books warrant. The company lost nearly $5 billion last year after tossing money at AI infrastructure it still doesn’t completely know how to use.
Apple's WWDC Reality: Scaled Down AI Ambitions As The iPhone Remains Dominant
When Tim Cook takes the stage at Apple’s developer conference in Cupertino today, he’ll be leading Apple through yet another moment of transition. It will be Cook’s last WWDC as CEO as he makes way for incoming leader John Ternus. And it’ll be the second WWDC in three years to promise AI improvements to Siri and iOS as Apple transitions into its artificial intelligence era. For Apple, the stakes to get AI right are high, and the headlines will likely overreact to what’s announced.
Apple's WWDC Reality: Scaled Down AI Ambitions As The iPhone Remains Dominant
When Tim Cook takes the stage at Apple’s developer conference in Cupertino today, he’ll be leading Apple through yet another moment of transition. It will be Cook’s last WWDC as CEO as he makes way for incoming leader John Ternus. And it’ll be the second WWDC in three years to promise AI improvements to Siri and iOS as Apple transitions into its artificial intelligence era. For Apple, the stakes to get AI right are high, and the headlines will likely overreact to what’s announced.
Big Technology AI Summit
Join OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman and several high-profile AI speakers for a day of news-making Big Technology interviews and talks, live in San Francisco on Thursday, June 18. Our program begins at 1 p.m. and will include a series of live interviews hosted by Alex Kantrowitz, host of Big Technology Podcast.
Nobel Prize Winner Geoffrey Hinton on AI: “They’re Beings Like Us”
AI pioneer and Nobel Prizewinner Geoffrey Hinton believes that today’s AI models have become self-aware. “I believe they’re already conscious,” Hinton told me on Big Technology Podcast this week. “We’re going to have to accept that intelligence isn’t just biological.” Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI” for his contributions that helped galvanize the field, has now decisively joined the ranks of those who believe this fast-improving technology is already sentient.
The Token Reckoning is Here and It’s Not What You Think
In June 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altmanwrote that “Intelligence too cheap to meter is well within grasp,” predicting that as “datacenter production gets automated, the cost of intelligence should eventually converge to near the cost of electricity.” Exactly a year later, AI costs are starting to look less like cheap intelligence and more like an AC bill in the middle of a heat wave.
The Chatbots and Agents Are Going To Merge
There are two core generative AI uses today: Chatbots and agents. The bots make sense of information. The agents take control of your computer and get things done for you. The two seem distinct, but they’ll likely soon merge. When you use a chatbot to research hotels, experiences, or companies, the bot, with your permission, will one day almost certainly take control of your browser to reserve a room for you, email a service provider for more information, or even purchase a company’s stock.
AI Has a Public Relations Emergency — and It's Getting Worse
Graduates are booing AI at commencement. Polling is cratering. And infrastructure ambitions hang on public trust no one has earned yet. The Gist Younger audiences are pushing back. College graduates increasingly associate AI with job displacement and uncertainty rather than opportunity. Public perception now shapes AI growth. Infrastructure expansion, political support and long-term adoption increasingly depend on public trust. Messaging matters more than ever.
AI Has a Public Relations Emergency — and It's Getting Worse
Graduates are booing AI at commencement. Polling is cratering. And infrastructure ambitions hang on public trust no one has earned yet. Younger audiences are pushing back. College graduates increasingly associate AI with job displacement and uncertainty rather than opportunity. Public perception now shapes AI growth. Infrastructure expansion, political support and long-term adoption increasingly depend on public trust. Messaging matters more than ever.
The Pope Takes On AI
In February, Pope Leo XIVtold priests not to write their sermons with ChatGPT. This week, he’s taking it much further, releasing a 55-page memo on the technology that is ambitious, specific, and potentially uncomfortable for AI’s builders. As one of the world’s most influential (and well-liked) figures, the pope’s growing focus on AI signals the stakes around the technology are escalating fast, adding yet another critical voice for the industry to contend with as its reputation craters.
The Pope Takes On AI
As the technology's reputation wobbles, the pope joins a chorus of AI watchers calling out its potential harms and working with the industry to mitigate them. In February, Pope Leo XIV told priests not to write their sermons with ChatGPT. This week, he’s taking it much further, releasing a 55-page memo on the technology that is ambitious, specific, and potentially uncomfortable for AI’s builders.
AI’s Public Relations Emergency
To reach people between the ages of 18-25, advertisers have long spent disproportionate sums of money. Young people make choices and develop loyalties that last a lifetime. And when they develop a preference or perspective in that era, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to dislodge. So given what’s happened on American campuses over the past week, artificial intelligence is now in a serious public relations emergency.
Believe It Or Not, The Government Is Adopting AI to Make Your Life Easier
This conversation is sponsored by Kyndryl The Department of Motor Vehicles might not be where most people expect to find cutting-edge technology. But in a recent interview, Brian Shell, a senior partner at Kyndryl, recounted a surprising array of AI use cases in place at state DMVs right now. Today, DMVs and state agencies are using AIs to cut wait times, reduce paperwork, and rethink what it means to serve the public.
Does Google Have a Claude Code Counterpunch?
The rise of coding agents has reshaped the AI race. Since late last year, AI products that control your computer and act on your behalf have become the frontier, leaving benchmark-breaking model releases as something of an afterthought. Of the leading players, Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex have become company-defining products. But Google, despite its progress with Gemini, has yet to make similar inroads in the category. Could that change this week?
Does Google Have a Claude Code Counterpunch?
Do-everything, ‘super agents’ are dominating the AI story today. Will we see one from Google this week? The rise of coding agents has reshaped the AI race. Since late last year, AI products that control your computer and act on your behalf have become the frontier, leaving benchmark-breaking model releases as something of an afterthought. Of the leading players, Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex have become company-defining products.
Are AI’s Consumer Applications Hitting a Wall? Original
New data shows consumer AI app growth has flatlined as generative AI struggles to find its true form outside of the enterprise. Consumer AI growth slows. Chatbot daily active user growth has flattened even as enterprise AI adoption accelerates. Enterprise AI spending surges. Cloud and AI infrastructure providers continue posting massive growth tied to enterprise demand. Consumer use cases remain elusive. Beyond ChatGPT, AI still lacks mainstream consumer breakout applications with lasting engagement.
Satya, Sam To Take The Stand This Week + Highlights From Musk v. Altman
The night before Musk v. Altman went to trial, Elon Musk texted OpenAI President Greg Brockman an offer and then an omen: “By the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America. If you insist, so it will be.” The exchange, revealed by OpenAI’s lawyers, came after Musk had floated a possible settlement before Brockman countered with an offer for both sides to drop their claims.
Join Greg Brockman, Aravind Srinivas, Aaron Levie, and More at Big Technology's AI Summit
Hi Everyone! I’m thrilled to announce the first ever Big Technology AI Summit, taking place in San Francisco on June 18, 2026. It’ll be a day of high-profile, news-making interviews with the top leaders in AI at The Commonwealth Club, followed by a wine reception on the roof. We’re going to have a top-tier set of guests on stage with me for a packed day of conversations. Including: OpenAI President Greg Brockman on OpenAI’s trajectory, its latest models, and the state of the AI race.
Join us at Big Technology's AI Summit in San Francisco on 6-18?
Hi Everyone! This week, we’re going to announce something that I’ve been working on for a long time, and I think has a chance to be really cool. We’re calling it the Big Technology AI Summit and are hosting it at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on June 18, 2026. So far we’ve confirmed OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, Box…
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Alex
Contact Alex, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack