THE DAILY BRIEF

Reuters reports Meta explored cutting roughly 60% of staff to pivot toward an AI-native operation but reversed course after employee backlash and internal testing showed AI agents were ineffective at core tasks.

► The retreat exposes a gap between AI hype and current capabilities, signaling even deep-pocketed giants can't automate away human talent yet.

Apple is cutting jobs across Vision Pro, Siri, and Intelligent Systems Experiences teams to redirect resources toward new AI-focused devices and infrastructure, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

► Apple's reallocation signals that consumer AI integration, not spatial computing, is now the priority—reshaping where the tech giant sees near-term product opportunity.

Lambda Inc., an AI cloud-computing provider backed by Nvidia, is in talks to raise up to $3 billion in a pre-IPO round that could position it for a public offering next year.

► Heavy pre-IPO valuations for compute providers show investor conviction that AI infrastructure, not just models, will generate durable revenue streams.

Tested on Semianalysis’s InferenceX benchmark, Jalapeño registered both more tokens per user and more throughput per kilowatt than the currently available state-of-the art.