Big Technology Podcast - OpenAI’s $50 Billion Fundraise, AI Advertising Game Theory, Apple’s AI Wearable Pin

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) What happened at Davos 2) OpenAI’s planned $50 billion funding round 3) Does the money set expectations too high for OpenAI? 4) Will OpenAI ever turn a profit? 5)) How many funding rounds does OpenAI have left? 6) Does OpenAI’s shrinking lead bode poorly for its inevitable IPO 7) OpenAI introduces ads to ChatGPT 8) Why is Google waiting to bring ads to Gemini? 9) Apple is building a wearable AI Pin 10) Wait, is Alexa Plus good?  --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack + Discord? Here’s 25% off for the first year: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b --- Take back your personal data with Incogni! Go to incogni.com slash bigtechpod and Use code bigtechpod at checkout, our code will get you 60% off on annual plans. Go check it out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Open AI is raising $50 billion. What happens if the funding runs out? Ads, meanwhile, are coming to generative AI, and Apple is developing an AI pin? That's coming up on a Big Technology Podcast Friday edition right after this. This episode is brought to you by Qualcomm. Qualcomm is bringing intelligent computing everywhere. At every technological inflection point,

Qualcomm has been a trusted partner helping the world tackle its most important challenges. Qualcomm's leading edge AI, high performance, low power computing, and unrival connectivity solutions have the power to build new ecosystems, transform industries, and improve the way we all experience the world. Can AI's most valuable use be in the industrial setting? I've been thinking about this question more and more after visiting IFS's Industrial X Unleashed event in New York City and getting a chance to speak with IFS CEO Mark Muffett. To give a clear example, Mufford told me that IFS is sending boss.

Austin Dynamics spot robots out for inspection, bringing that data back to the IFS nerve center, which then with the assistance of large language models can assign the right technician to examine areas that need attending. It's a fascinating frontier of the technology, and I'm thankful to my partners at IFS for opening my eyes to it. To learn more, go to IFS.com. That's IFS.com. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday edition, where we break down the news in our traditional, cool-headed and nuanced format. We have a big show for you today. We're going to talk all about the massive fundraising that OpenAI is reportedly engaged in.

They want to raise $50 billion. Also, right after we went off the air last week, Open AI said, guess what? It's advertising time. So we'll discuss the implication of ads in generative AI chatbots. We also have an idea of what those ads are going to look like. And then finally, we'll spend a bunch of time at the end talking about Apple, developing a new AI wearable, according to reports, an AI pin. Are they going to bring the U-Main team in?

I don't know. We'll find out. Joining us, as always on Fridays to do it is Ron John Roy of Margins. Ron John, great to see you. Welcome back to the show. It's good to see you. I'm very excited to talk about Siri and all these other things. But first, I have to ask, where are you in the world right now, Alex?

So I am in my hotel room in, or really a kind of an apartment in Davos. I've just wrapped a massive week. This is the seventh podcast I've done in four days. Six of which are actually going to end up on the big technology feed, three of which, or yeah, three of which, including this one, are already there, including the Cristiano Amman, Qualcomm CEO episode, the Demis Asabas episode,

which just went up and now weird talking. It's been a busy week. It's been a weird, weird Davos. I would say for our purposes, really the most interesting thing is that Davos is basically a tech conference right now. And you walk down the promenade and you basically see houses set up by every single tech company. Amazon is here. Facebook is here.

Google is here. It's where I did the Demas conversation. LinkedIn is here. Anthropic is here. Not too much of a presence from OpenAI, but they're certainly here as well. And then, you know, there's a big presence from the Gulf states here as well. So Qatar has a big house. The Emirates has a big house.

Have you been to the Qatar house? I don't know. what's going on in the Qatar house, but that's where I want to go. I think they are, they are very interested in investing in tech. Maybe Sam Altman is not even in the Qatar house, but he's going to make a stop there because he's definitely on a fundraising kick right now. But a fun fact, I did go to Qatar over the summer last year. I spent a day there, basically as a stopover on Qatar Airlines between Nepal and Germany and got a chance to take a tour. Yeah, I would say so. Listen, Qatar is a small enough country. Was it over 24 hours? In that range. Yes. Qatar is a small enough country.

You can see a lot of it in a day. And in fact, we saw a good chunk. We took a tour of the north, which is a lot of empty desert and some ruins. And actually a defunct fishing industry that they had to shut down by and large. There's still a couple fishing boats. because they found natural gas in the ocean. And that was that. And that's one of the main sources of wealth. So yeah, their house here actually was the colors of their flag, which was very interesting. Well, I'll tell you one Davos observation. So we got some questions in the discord. Who did you see and, you know, rub shoulders with? And honestly, I was really focused on the podcast. I didn't go to any parties. I got a chance to meet with a lot of great people here. That's kind of how I like to do things. But the most interesting thing to me here is it's one. sidewalk. So as you walk up and down, you're just bumping into people as you go. And sometimes that means meeting people that you know from, you know, the work world or friends from different lives.

And sometimes that means literally bumping into people because some countries have people walking on the right side of the sidewalk as their custom. And some people have, you know, some countries have people walking on the left side of the sidewalk as their custom. So you have way too many people here on a very narrow sidewalk and there's no agreed upon direction to walk back and forth on. So you're literally like slamming into people all day long and half of the people as you imagine in a place like this are on their phones. So that to me has been the big takeaway. We need a universal left and right way of passage. This is why globalization was never meant to be because people couldn't all agree which side of the sidewalk to walk on. So actually on that,

What is the globalization vibe right now? Is it, has everyone just moved on to AI right now? Or is like the World Economic Forum in Davos still selling the dream of a integrated, hyper-connected world? Well, remember, that was a, that dream was largely sold and orchestrated by a man named Klaus Schwab, who has plenty of detractors and people who don't like this move towards globalization. But anyway, and he doesn't seem like he was a very. nice person at all. And he actually ended up resigning because of a nasty scandal. So this is now effectively like the Larry Fink Davos. So that and Elon Musk is here today. I think Zelensky's made his way here. So he, I think there's, there's talk that Davos might be held in a different city like Dublin or Detroit or Jakarta in the future, which, you know, that would be welcome because there's way too many people in such a small ski town. It's overwhelmed without a doubt. But like I said at the

beginning, the vibe is weird. And one last thing. I think the sidewalk problem is an argument for globalization, maybe the best argument for globalization. Because if the world can come together as one, at least we might be able to agree on which side of the sidewalk or street to drive on, walk on or drive on. I believe. It's not over yet, folks. Globalization and world harmony are still in year shut as long as we all learn to walk on the same side of the sidewalk. Okay. One last, one last note. Then we can go and talk about opening eyes fundraising. A lot of snipers and a lot of machine guns being moved, moved about military vehicles moved about this one block. Yes. Wait, wait. Wait. Wait. Like there's just snipers on the rooftops just hanging out? Yes. Yes. See, many?

Yeah, when I'm hanging out at the guitar house, I want to make sure I have my own personal sniper, just up on the roof, just keeping an eye on me. That's all. You might need one because your criticism of Siri is really not making you many friends. We'll get to that at the end. Tim Cook is out for you. He's upper blood. He's a powerful man, Ron John. Don't cross the guy. Do you think Sam Altman has a sniper as he tours the Middle East as part of this fundraise? and that'll be my segue. I think there's certainly some security involved, for sure.

And if he makes this fundraising deal go through, there's going to be a need for even more security. So now that we've done our Davos prelude, let's talk about what's actually happening in the world. All right, Bloomberg says OpenAI's Altman meets Middle East investors, mid-east investors for $50 billion round. Open AI chief executive Sam Altman has been meeting with top investors in the Middle East to line up funding for a new investment round.

that could total at least $50 billion. Altman recently visited the region where he spoke with investors, including some of the leading state-back funds in Abu Dhabi. The chat GPT maker is looking to raise $50 billion or more in the round at a valuation of about $750 billion or $830 billion. I mean, there's two reactions to this that I have right away. First of all, I wonder if the company can keep raising money, like they're at the final boss, which is the Gulf states.

that's you don't really have many places to go until after you tap the sovereign wealth fund. So it looks like he's doing that. So that's one question. Are they going to be able to keep fundraising? And the other question is, do these, do the size of these rounds put expectations on this company that will never be able to be met? What do you think, Ron, John? I don't think the size is going to be any more of an issue that it, than it already has. again, like 50 billion at a 800 billion-ish valuation. I mean, for the amount of money they have been

raising, this almost feels like a not unreasonable amount of money. I think more importantly, though, is what you're saying in terms of like really focused on the Middle East and sovereign wealth funds. As you said, that's always been a very specific type of fundraising strategy, you know, when it's, when you've tapped out of a lot of other sources. So on that side, I think, it can be indicative of is there, or at least raises the question, is there fatigue among all of those early investors or more traditional sources of funding? But by the same token, like, I mean, MGX and all these other funds have been really focused on modernizing the economies and overall strategies and bringing tech to the Middle East. So I think, I think on that side,

it's not unexpected at all. What do you think the signals? This is the thing. They're going to eventually have to make enough. money to justify this type of valuation. I mean, think about it. I think Saudi Aramco was the largest IPO ever. And they brought in 40 billion in that IPO. And man, they legitimately are printing money. Their oil comes out of the ground. So we're really going to have to see Open AI be able to make the money to justify this. And we're going to get into that in a moment. in terms of where that money is. You know what, actually, screw it.

Let's go right to it right now because this is important. As they're going through this fundraise, very interesting thing happens. They put a blog post out by Sarah Fryer, their CFO. She writes, Open AI, a business that scales with the value of intelligence. She writes this, looking back over the past three years, our ability to serve customers as measured by revenue,

directly tracks available compute. Compute growth 3x year over year or 9.5x from 2023 to 2025, while revenue followed the same curve, growing 3x year over year or 10x from 20203 to 2025. This is never before seeing growth at such scale, and we firmly believe that more compute in these periods would have led to faster customer adoption and monetization. So basically the argument is we will make more money if we have more compute because the limit right now is not interest on behalf of customers to use the technology. It's our ability to serve it. And we've talked a lot about how, you know, there are these rate limits and people have been frustrated by them.

And maybe they would use the products more if they weren't rate limited. And Open AI is basically saying, look, you follow our compute, our revenue tracks directly with it. therefore adding, you know, many, you know, $50 billion potentially, they haven't, I don't think they've confirmed that number is a good bet that we will make the money, although the money, of course, you know, it would be funny if they also had another chart what they paid for that compute, because the money is certainly still a drop in the bucket compared to the compute they're buying. So what do you think about this? Obviously, it's time to the fundraise. I think it was an incredibly well-crafted corporate communication because it laid out this

really clear story, like one-to-one ratio of growth in compute to revenue in terms of like nine-xing. And on face, I agree, it sounds nice. It sounds really good. It's saying like we're actually scaling compute in parallel with revenue. But you're right. We know they're losing ungodly amounts of money. Even this week we saw, Anthropic.

I think it was $5.8 billion. They're on pace to loot. 5.6 billion last year is now confirmed. is what was lost. So like, and we, everyone has knows this and has been talking about it, that these companies have been burning ungodly amounts of cash. So when you dig in one level deeper, I think it doesn't really answer the question, but it still, I thought was a pretty kind of craftily put together argument of why they actually are okay. But yeah, it doesn't, it still doesn't add up overall. Right. I mean, eventually they're going to have to start making money, right? That's the thing.

Like how many times can they go back and fundraise? They can have this. Okay, let's say they get this round from the Gulf states. They could probably go back to the Gulf states one more time for a mega round, right? So let's say 100 billion if the Gulf states are happy with the investment that, because they have that money, that maybe values them at one trillion, one point two five, one and a half. And then eventually you have to go to the public markets. Right. So how many? So it sounds like maybe they're looking at being able to raise

ballpark 250 billion more. You know, what happens if they're not able to, like, and then eventually you got to start making money, right? Like, eventually you have to be a business. As businesses go, that does seem to be the case. And actually, I will be in Abu Dhabi next week myself, not raising $50 billion, but speaking at the Shop Talk Lux conference. And I wish maybe I'll finally somehow go to the Abu Dhabi house, if not the guitar house, and get some kind of fundraising interest. But I think in terms of this, like, yeah, having to make money monetization, the interesting part is it's clear that Dave made that a much bigger part of the conversation. We've heard the story, enterprise, personal devices, AI cloud.

They just made a big announcement. I forget his name, but the guy who came over from thinking. machines under these cloudy Barzzov. He is actually going to be heading Enterprise, which has been stated as one of their big priorities of 2026. So I think it's clear that all the kind, I mean, actually, it's funny almost, like the idea that we just get to ADGI and it all figures itself out, they are trying to present themselves as a proper business this year.

So in 2026, we're going to see, is it real or not? And I think it's going to have to be for this to actually kind of continue as it is. I disagree, Ron John. I think it's, you know, 2026, they're still going to skate by on fundraising. But maybe I'm crazy. Eventually they're going to have to make a profit, right? Like, even if you are okay to make a loss, you don't have infinite sources of money. They're going to have to eventually make a profit.

I don't, you know, it's a question right now. Obviously, they have this belief that if they're, you know, their revenue is limited by compute, then they should get more compute. So they raise money to buy it. But, you know, they have to, let's say demand continues to go up. I mean, you're going to still, you know, serve more people, make more money, but lose more money. Like, eventually the math has to work, right? I mean, yes. You're trying to bring a little rationality to a conversation that has not had any in a long time. So I mean, this doble. Davos has changed you, man. Davos has changed you. But I think actually separate, so there's the actual, like, can open AI make money based on like all these kind of peripheral business models. But even from a competitive standpoint, I just saw a stat that Gemini is now at 22% of consumer AI usage up from 13 and a half just a quarter ago, which was their code red. I mean, we all know Claude Code has gotten a lot more. more hype and excitement reasonably so than Open AI. Open AI has not, we've talked a lot about this. This is my own, the company I worked for a writer, like kind of autonomous knowledge work,

Claude Code, Manus. To me, this is the biggest, most important part of trend in 2026. They don't really have an offering in this. So I'm actually almost more interested in how they're planning to address all this competitive pressure versus on a straight chat GPT level. can they make money or even chat GPT pro subscriptions, maybe a little enterprise, whatever else. Like they, I don't know, they have to land or show promise in one of these

additional business models very quickly, I think, for them to raise that next $250 billion round or whatever you're saying. Like they have to show something. User numbers is one thing, right? We always knew that Google would be able to juice its user numbers, because it can bolt on its AI products and its standard products. But usage is the set that you cited. That's the problem, right?

Because as soon as Open AI, you know, for a long time, far and away had the most usage of any AI bot. And now it seems like, you know, they're still far in the lead, but that is being cut. It's not like a Google Bing situation, right? Google's making real headway here. And again, they have the distribution. So just take us to 2027. they have their, let's say they're IPO in. They're going to have to still have the product lead.

And the lead is shrinking. I was just on CNBC a couple minutes ago. I was speaking with the anchor, Kelly Evans, about this. I was like, the product is in the lead. And she said it's shrinking. And, you know, that lead is. It is shrinking. And of course, like, as AWS's lead is shrinking, but AWS is still, you know, far

in a way, the leading cloud provider. They're doing great. They're underpinning Amazon's entire valuation. So having the lead matters. but it's it's far from the like one horse game and consumer that it was not long ago. So what do you think that means as they try to IPO? Is that going to cloud their story? Oh, definitely, which is why again, I think, and I think what were we saying last week before it's, is it the foundation model or the product?

And then we introduced, is it actually the business model? They have to figure something out because it's like again, from a user person, perspective, the switching costs are so low in any of these chatbots so far. Now, everyone is talking about memory and context, and that's going to be the moat. But right now, there is no moat. Like, from an actual user experience, just consumer grade chat AI is all pretty good. Like, I mean, people have different uses for different chatbots if you're an avid user. Otherwise, maybe.

And as you said, Google has distribution. So I think user perspective is dangerous. So they have to show we can make a lot of money doing drug development and pharmaceutical development and launching their own. I think it was rumored they're going to be launching an AirPods type device. We're going to get into the pin from Apple in a bit. But did you see that? I did see that. Yeah, that's the rumor that it's going to be their first wearable.

So that will be interesting. And yeah, we'll talk about the wearable side. we get to Apple in the second half. But one thing about this, I don't think memory is a moat. Remember, it's largely text. So here's a question for you. Let's say I'm in chat chippy T. I want to switch to Gemini. What if I just said print out everything you know about me, use as many characters as you need? And I copied that and I pasted that right into Gemini and be like, this is your memory. Let's go. I was just about to say, you know, like, are they going to have some very defensive lack of export functionality in order to remain defensible, but it's a chat bot. It has very big context

windows. We can drain their compute, too. We can just use up all the just every word I've written to you, ChachyPT, print out, and please put it in a format that will be legible, maybe mark down for Gemini. And I'm trying that after this. I'll be honest. I've done it before. I mean, I have asked it to print its memory, but I also used, I think I used Claude. as a diet coach. And then I copied and I copied and pasted the entire discussion. And I dropped it into Open AI because I thought Open AI's memory would be interesting to experiment with.

And then I made Open AI the diet coach. And guess what? It picked up on my tendencies. It picked up on the advice it should give right away. Yeah. So it's very difficult. No, no, I mean, you're right. You're right.

It's not, it can't be like singular part of your life context in memory. it has to be like knowing you inside and out and your companion and maybe lover, but it's got to be, it's got to get to that level. Otherwise, switching costs are too easy. The chatbot being your love partner is the only moat. I'm convinced. Is the only moat. Love is the only moat.

Memory is not a moat. Only love is. Love is that honestly, another great tagline that we've produced here on the Friday show. All right. So it has to get its business in order. And here come the ads. Last week, we left off advertising. You know, who's going to be the company that gets advertising right?

You said OpenAI. I said Google. Immediately after we signed off, OpenAI started to experiment with advertising in ChatGPT. This is from Wired. Ads are coming to ChatchipT. Here's how they'll work. Open AI plans to start testing ads inside chat GPT in the coming weeks, marking a significant shift for one of the world's most widely used AI products.

Open AI says the ads will not influence chat GPT's responses and that all ads will appear in separate, clearly labeled boxes directly below the chatbot's answer. For instance, if a user asks chat GPT for help planning a trip to New York City, they will get a standard answer from the chatbot, and then they might also see an ad for a hotel in the area. and these are going to initially go to the free users and the $8 a month go tier, which is a new thing. The opening I gave an interesting example of what the ad could look like. You're looking up some information about Santa Fe and then underneath in a clearly labeled sponsored section,

they pop in an ad for a cottage rental in Santa Fe. Here's the cool thing about this ad. you can then tap the ad and start talking with the ad to help book your trip. So it sparked this notion, but then you can use generative AI to go even deeper. That's very engaging ad. So first of all, Ranjan, is this kind of what you expected? Because you predicted that they were going to go out first. And what do you think about the way that they're structuring this?

Yeah, I think, and the reason I've been confident in this is because I work deeply in a gentic commerce and trying to understand like what this is going to look like. like chat-based suggestions like this that can have like a sponsorship basis make all the sense in the world. I do think someone will nail this model and I think everyone will be following and whether it will be Gemini or OpenAI will see. But but again, like I use a chat GPT all day long for travel planning for suggestions on where to eat and whatever else, like those kind of things. So there's so much commercial opportunity there. I think they recognize it. Even like, you know, Fiji Simo had said, like people trust ChachyPT for many important and personal tasks. It's crucial we preserve what makes ChachyPT valuable. They have to get it right. Because the moment

they feel interruptive, it's a problem. Oh, and actually last week we said meta potentially is in the best position to get it right because meta has proven that they can just, shove ads throughout the feed and everyone's happy and they can make really good ads. So I think ChatsyPT has to nail that experience. Otherwise, it's actually another competitive pressure on their user growth because it's not going to be, it's going to make the product less useful and sticky. And so here's the question is, you know, is the thing that I saw, the thing that I saw on social media that made me laugh after we saw this news.

With someone tweeted that if OpenAI really believed AI was around the corner, why would they be bothering? Why would they be using ads? Like, they're clearly going to be much more disruptive and useful forms of this technology. So why do advertising? And I brought this up to Demis Havas this week at Davos. This was one, his comments on Open AI were pointed, much more pointed than I anticipated. He said, I think those are tells.

I think actions speak louder than words. Going back to the original conversation, because we started this way, going back to the original conversation we were having about Sam and others claiming AGI is around the corner. Why would you bother with ads then? And I pressed him. I say, well, you know, Demis, how about you? Right? Because there's been some discussion that Google is going to do ads.

He said, we have no plans at the moment to do ads. If you're talking about the Gemini app specifically, I think we're obviously going to watch very carefully the outcome of what ChachyPT is saying, they're going to do, I think that has to be handled very carefully. Yeah, I do kind of find it a bit rich that Demis is saying this, when Gemini is ad funded, is just not showing ads. It's just that you are living on top of a massive advertising monopoly and are able to actually fund the entire project and not have to show ads just yet. But I think I actually, I'm surprised he was so aggressive about it too, because, remember,

Google's biggest challenge is the disruption to their monopolistic advertising model. And they have to figure out some way to actually turn what existed in search into what's going to be existing in GEO or LM search or whatever you want to call it. So, like, I was surprised he kind of was taking that stance. It actually made me curious or think, again, organizationally. Like, is he so sheltered from the business pressure for now? and it's solely a user story and usage story. What do you think?

Do you think he's just not, no one's, Sundar's not tapping him on the shoulder and saying, make sure you're going to have to make a bit of money at a certain point. My guess would be that there is some sort of debate going on within Google, that there is a group that really wants to roll ads out. In fact, and I brought this up to Demas on a recent earnings quarter,

Sundar talked about how they have some ideas about how you want to do advertising in generative AI application. So clearly it's a discussion within the company. And I think the product side is probably just like, let's hold off as long as we possibly can. And especially think about this, maybe if open AI goes and loses trust because of the advertising. And then people copy and paste their memory and drop it into Gemini. Yeah, as we're all going to do after this episode. Yeah.

God. Well, you don't know. Anyway, I'm not advocating for this. But, you know, then that's a real advantage for Gemini, right? On the product side, and remember, they're in this product battle. Like, all the time, in tech, you have companies that sort of compete based off of what they can offer to users, whether that's incentives or, you know, the best possible product experience. And then once the battles won, then they kind of muck it up with ads and they raise their prices. And I think Google's been in these battles a couple of times, and I think that must be the strategy.

I disagree, though, because I actually think. To get to, no one knows what advertising is going to look like exactly in AI. And I genuinely believe there will be a new format on par with what search advertising was, what social platform advertising was. Each of these were like complete transformations of what advertising is. And I think it's going to be the same within an AI chat experience. And I guess either you just watch what others are doing and follow once someone figures it out, but it can be too late.

And I think I actually would take Open AI's approach here of starting small, experimenting, getting it right versus the idea that you're going to just wait it out for everyone else to do it. Because I think like Facebook invented social platform. I remember they, they mastered it. Like they didn't wait. They led the way and that's what gave them dominance.

Google did that with search. So I think I would rather be testing experiment and figuring, it out versus just trying to pretend it's not going to be a thing. But it wasn't the business model. Like Facebook didn't win social media because it created the social odds platform. It won because its products were the most sticky. And it found a very effective way then to monetize. I think that this idea and Demas said it like very, very clearly.

And by the way, this is all from my end. We didn't talk about this other, anything other than what he told me in the conversation. So I don't have any like deep insights about this. or reporting. This is all speculation on my end. But he said, like, we are going to watch and learn what Open AI is doing. And I don't think Google will pay a big penalty for being late because, remember, they can copy the format and they're Google. They have better data than almost anybody. And they can apply that and copy the format. And maybe the better example here is what Facebook did to Snapchat, right? It's you watch your smaller competitor or your competitor, and then you copy the best stuff. and let them make the mistakes. No, but see, I would actually, again, push back. Like, I, and maybe it's like, it's the business person in me, but it's like, I think the Facebook innovating on the business model within advertising, like in feed sponsored content,

kind of like ad bidding systems related to in feed sponsored ads, like that whole system that they built, I think is what made them truly powerful. Because again, when they IPO, remember, there was like a lot of worry about losing money. And there was like, they could have been in a position where imagine Mark Zuckerberg acquires Instagram, but they're not making any money. And there's a massive investor backlash. Like there's so many kind of like historical moments that not having a cash machine kind of underneath the business would have meant a great product would not work. And actually talking about Snapchat, they have shown that you. You can't just replicate a business model even if you have massive user engagement and growth.

So I think I'm going to go with, I'm still taking Open AI in the ad battle. You sound like you might be leaning Gemini in the end. Yeah, I mean, that's the way I was, that's where I was last week and that's where I am this week. So let me ask you. Yeah. Yeah, well, this will be a running, this is our new product and model debate. it's Google and Open AIs ad. It's less exciting, I'll admit.

Okay, let me ask you one last question on this segment. Then we'll go to break. Open A.I, Sam Altman in particular, has said that advertising is sort of the last resort for a company. Put it into context. This is a company, again, trying to build AGI. And, you know, if Sam believed that at one time, what do you think it says about the company that is doing this now? I think it should, again, as per the earlier conversation, I think 2026, they have to show promise on the revenue side and beyond subscription. So I think he has to.

I think like all the AI cloud personal devices and whatever else is going to take time. So this is the most direct way. But I genuinely think if you're Sam Altman and next time he's on the pod, you should, I hope you ask him. like, I think I would believe that my AI system can deliver great ads better than anyone else. And that will bring value to people's lives. And that will bring value to businesses. And it will kind of keep just thinking about travel and hospitality like hotels got to find you. You find the right hotel.

You book with them. They make money on you. They pay OpenAI to help find the customer. Everyone's happy. So if you truly deliver great personalized advertising, which potentially I think they can, like, I'm surprised he's so kind of cavalier about like it's, you know, last resort. It's not like a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I want him to come out and just frame it as we're going to deliver you the best goddamn ads you've ever seen and you're going to be thanking us for more ads. And again, Instagram has certainly shown that's possible. I think if I was him, I would start taking that kind of line of thinking on the public or public speaking on this. So the best argument that I heard in favor of OpenAI's ad plan came from Brett Taylor, the OpenAI chair,

whose episode I recorded here at Davos, it'll be live on the feed in a couple of weeks. But I'll spoil this part for people because I think it's pertinent and worth talking about. But he basically said when you're a company like OpenAI, people are going to get a lot of benefit out of it. And you're not necessarily cut in on the benefit all the time. Somebody uses GPT 5.2 Pro to like solve some major business problem. Maybe they paid you $20 a month for it. So you got to find ways to make money. You know, and this is one way that's surefire and has proven itself.

So I think that's a pretty good argument. Yeah. I think it has to be diversified. some way, especially on the consumer side. But yeah, I think we're going to, this is going to be a bigger topic. I think we're all going to be seeing ads. This isn't going to be a Netflix pay five bucks extra to avoid ads. I think it's too valuable an opportunity for them to actually try to gate or like tier it out, maybe at the $200 level or something like that. But I think we're all going to be getting sponsored recommendations from our digital companions.

very soon. Okay, well, let's go to break. And after the break, I definitely want to talk a little bit about Apple because Apple, I predicted, just like, so your big prediction this year was that, you know, the agent thing is going to break out. My big prediction this year was that Apple's going to have its best year ever. And it's certainly looking like that's the case. So let's talk a little bit more about Apple's revived AI strategy right after this. Here's the problem. Your data is exposed everywhere. Personal data is scattered across hundreds of websites, often without your consent. This means data brokers buy and sell your information, address, phone number, email,

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And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast Friday edition with Ron John Roy of margins, Ranjan. Big news. Apple. Apple's going to pin. Okay, maybe they won't. Maybe they will. But let's talk about the story.

The information says Apple is developing an AI wearable pin. The pin is going to be the size of an air tag that is equipped with multiple cameras. Wow. A speaker, microphones, and wireless charging. The device could be released as early as 2027. Such a product would position Apple to compete more effective. with OpenAI, which is planning its own AI-powered devices, and meta, which is already selling smart classes that offer access to its AI assistant. Do you think this is a good sign for Apple? I will give them credit that they're trying new things and experimenting with AI, even though the pin has been an object of much mockery and derision given its early flameouts in a couple of different formats.

Humane pin fell so Apple could rise is what the story will be. Because we've talked about this. Even during the humane pin conversation, I think both of us at least acknowledged it was interesting. For me, the most exciting part of this is, I mean, I've been saying this for years, like the form factor of a phone that's a square in your hand as kind of like the be all end all of devices has gotten really boring.

So anything that innovates it, I think it's why the meta raybans have been so interesting and exciting for me. So I'm team pin. Someone's going to make a useful pin. I actually was looking at there's like a something called Plod. It's like a card size dictation thing. I don't know. Like I dictate all day long on my AirPods with my iPhone.

But I think the camera side, what exactly it's going to try to be doing? it's all interesting to me. So I am excited for the pin. All right. Here is the thing that really stood out to me. Of course, you know, the information story says Apple's development is in the very early stages and could still be canceled. And it's planning to manufacture roughly 20 million units at launch.

Guess how many lifetime meta-rayband glasses, the most successful, quote-unquote, AI wearable ever has sold. Guess how many units it sold? Two million. So Apple is believing that 10 times the amount of people that have bought Meta Raybans lifetime will want to buy this pin. I don't think it's unreasonable though, 20 million. Again, you call it, call it $199 or something. I don't think this is going to be like the $7 million Apple Fold folding phone that I will still try to buy.

But it's, you know, like this is going to be probably like an entry level. Yeah. So that's what I'm here. here in seven million. I'm sarcastic. Standing by that reporting. I think if it's an entry level price, again, and it's why my love-hate relationship with Apple extends beyond Siri. Like ecosystem capture is Apple is mastered. So like here's this new device. If it's pretty good at a reasonable entry price, I think they're going to get a lot of people trying it. 20 million is high.

But I think it could be, I think it could be a winning device. I mean, I like that Apple is trying, right? This is the thing that you want to see from Apple. You want to see initiative. And the story actually was very interesting because it shared a number of different AI products that Apple is working on. And just seeing it all in context was interesting. So it says Apple's PIN joins a growing portfolio of AI powered products. The tech giant has under development, including AirPods equipped with enhanced sensors,

a security camera, smart glasses, and augmented reality glasses. Apple is also working on a home product featuring a small display, speakers, and a robotic swiveling base. A designed with a heavy emphasis on AI features, that device could be released as soon as this spring. Man, like Apple, the company that once seemed to like ship like one product every bunch of years, starting to sound like Amazon now, the throw spaghetti at the AI device wall and just try to make it. make it work. Yeah, you're right. Do you know I'd forgotten that there are Alexa glasses?

Like, Amazon really just stuffed Alexa wherever it could find. And like, I mean, once they put me, the Alexa wall clock, it was all over. Yeah. And refrigerator and microwave. But, but in reality, though, like, I think Apple still got to prove it can make an AI-enabled device. And we're going to get into what that actually is looking like at the company. but I have been slowly switching back to Alexa across my house.

I had made the switch to home pods in Siri a couple of years ago. And now I bought the Echo Show after actually, I think it was his name from Amazon listening to your episode. Phanos Penet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, listen to that. Got one of the Echo Show 5, I think, the wall photo frame looking thing. So it's just the, it's night and day versus where it is today. So make the AI work is going to be critical to any of these. Because could you imagine you get your pin and it functions at the level of what Siri does today?

And you're just like, now what? Now what? Right. Are you down with Alexa Plus? It's getting pretty good. I have it in my kitchen. I actually talk to it more. It's gotten, it's really good at pulling up YouTube videos I found. which is really cool when you're cooking, like, you know, give it a request, music video of something, some really specific Patriots highlights, whatever,

and it nails it, it gets a right video, starts playing it. You can tell it to stop, get something else. So that asking questions in general, it's getting there. It still hallucinates sport scores very weirdly, which should be the most solvable problem. But other than that, I'm liking it.

Yeah, it's working well for me too. I integrated my calendar with it, so I say, hey, what am I doing today? And it answers. I think the thing is just getting people to understand what they can do with these assistants is going to be the hard thing. Because, you know, I often just fall back on play some music. And we'll see. Actually, do you think Alexa Plus can be the dark horse for digital companion? I feel people had their first, oh, my God.

Listeners, Alexa, as Ron John's, Alexa said, I'm flattered to be considered for the digital companion. Alexa, stop, please. Digital companion derby. Well, I mean, there you go. Clearly it would be, it sounded very eager to help you. That was pretty good. That was pretty good. Yeah, I got to be careful on any of those kind of prompts right now.

But, but yeah, overall. I think in terms of like new devices, I'm excited Apple's at least trying. I don't know what they're going to do, but I'm excited they're trying. Yeah. And I was going to say the thing that I really think is important is the assistant inside, right? And this is sort of what this was what Demis told me about glasses. That was like I went into this interview basically saying, I think the headline here is going to be AI glasses. And I felt that Demis really answered this somewhat conclusive.

about the size of Google's bet on AI glasses because it's massive. He talked about the various attempts to make smart glasses, and he goes, the thing it was missing was a killer app. And I think the killer app is a universal digital assistant that's with you, helping you in your everyday life and available to you on any surface, on your computer, on your browser, on your phone, but also on devices like glasses when you're walking around the city. And I think it needs to be seamless and knows each of those contexts and understands each of those context around you and I think we're close now. He says it's one of the most exciting projects

we're working on and it's one of the things I'm personally working on making smart glasses really work. That to me was basically a full-throated endorsement of the smart glasses as the form factor here. And you know, you talked about what happens if the pin doesn't have a, you know, it has like modern day Siri in it. It's not going to work. And so what Demis is saying is like, Yeah, we can make this work. I think the news is that it's going to ship this year, Google's AI glasses, and they believe they have the assistant there. So that can be a determiner. Are you team glasses or team pin in the end?

What is the winning form factor? I don't know. It's really hard for me to want one of these things. Maybe I'm team AirPods. I like AirPods a lot better than anything else, which makes me excited for open AI's device, actually. Yeah, that's true. I mean, they're the, but we're also used to them and they're natural. But I remember when AirPods first came out, it was actually not common to constantly see people just walking around with kind of like wireless earbuds.

And then they just made it totally normal. So I think there's, I don't know, I'm team pin, even though I currently enjoying my glasses, but I don't wear prescription glasses either. So at a certain point, I would either have to be wearing sunglasses indoors or have to have. have just kind of like fashion glasses. So I think maybe that's what makes me lean team pin. What happens if Apple's pin takes off because it just makes a cool pin. And the assistant inside is Siri, but Siri as a container for Gemini. So Apple creates the killer app, but it's Google's assistant or based off of Google's assistant.

Which is what's happening, isn't it? Yes. Although we did get, we got a good reader email that pushed back a little bit on what I said last week about how like this is Google getting user behavior from Apple. You know, it's possible that Apple just uses Gemini as like a backbone to build its own app and then walls off that data from going back to Google. And I overlooked that last week. So I thought that was really good listener feedback. back and just wanted to mention that this week. I think the one thing about the announcement this week around kind of enhancements to Siri,

which I would say the winning part of it is it's codenamed Campos, which I don't know. Talk a little bit about what they're doing. Yeah. So again, like let's move beyond what is powering it, even though it's reportedly Gemini, but it's more what it will be doing. And again, being able to, one of the big things that this reporting lean into is that again, that idea of like tapping into data across your phone, tapping into apps across your phone to try to leverage that context,

that actually worried me a bit. Because as we've all seen and remember the, what's her name from Last of Us who did the ad, Bella Ramsey ads that were like supposed to do all this a year and a half ago, I think now. I think that was this last, or a year ago at the Super Bowl, none of it worked.

That is a hard problem to solve. Like going through all these disparate datasets and trying to like understand or like vectorize them properly to be able to make them accessible is difficult. So like just making one standalone basic experience that just answer some questions for you. Like start there, guys. Just just make it work. This worried me. I'd been getting excited after last week and this actually kind of got me a little nervous. No, but this is, if I read it right,

they're actually going to turn Siri into a chatbot. Right. So I think that is actually the foundation experience that all these companies have been able to build. And you'll be able to chat with them. Well, no, no. But that part, it already is theoretically a chatbot. Like you're supposed to be able to have kind of turns and instructions back and forth. So to me, I saw it a few places again here, the exact is like add features.

including the ability to analyze on-screen content and tap into personal data. And they keep talking about this universal search that right now when Siri kind of does a little bit of web results or pulls up relevant apps or starts, like it does it a little bit, getting all of that and doing it very well. But again, I think that's like a pretty hard problem to solve versus just making, just getting on par with JATGPT and Gemini. and Claude and everything else at the consumer level, just making all that work. I think trying to say, again, I think when is my flight is going to be the question. Everyone will ask first, and it better damn get it right otherwise. Like, they're going to have some serious problems.

That is a question that I do not have the answer to right now, whether it's with Siri or any app where when is my flight? because looks like mine is going to head right into this massive snowstorm we have hitting New York. So start with Davos and with Davos. I think I'm now a permanent resident here. So I think I'll just be filming our podcasts and recording them from the Davos and situation. Should be fun. What is Davos like?

Do you have any idea when it's not quote unquote Davos? Yeah, it's a beautiful ski town. the beautiful ski town there. That sidewalk that I talked about is actually, you know, you can take it between two lifts onto two different mountains that, you know, the town that is on either end of the town city, whatever it is. And I did manage to get out to one of the mountains on Wednesday morning. You know, you can do this half-day ski pass. And I did that. And it was really lovely and beautiful.

and the only hiccup was I thought I was going down the red, which is in between the blue and the black diamond or the black, the black trail. And it was one of those things where I was like, all right, just go, don't think about it, you know,

let your body take you. And then I, like, realize that I was on a black trail and pinwheeled my way down that slope. So. AI could not help you navigate that one. No,

no. No. AI or my legs. Well, I think the ultimate flex is going to Davos when it's not World Economic Forum time and definitely dropping that you're in Davos at that time. Because that's when the real Davos people go. So maybe I'll try to schedule that. Yeah, one of the nice things on the slope was it was all locals because they're like,

this is like the one week where the slopes are free because all the tech and, you know, policy people have taken the hotels in there. They're down there. like a bunch of dummies. And meanwhile, we have our local mountain empty. So it was really, it was some of the best king I've done for sure. All right. I'm going to need to try that. Off season, not off season, but off conference Davos. That's the goal other than Qatar House. That's still number

one. Yeah. Let's have the first big technology summit in Davos, off season. Not off season. Off conference. Off conference. Off conference. And just call it the real Davos. I think we could start a movement. Get the entire harness hive out for a great meet and greet. Someone on YouTube comments said we should call it the harness horde, which I also like.

I like that better than hive. That's kind of a more aggressive kind of like getting out into the world. So harness horde. That's right. We see you. We see you. All right. Ron John, thank you so much for joining as always.

Great speaking with you. All right, see you next week. Hope your flight gets back in. It's highly unlikely, but I think I have the nice plan B. So, all right. Thank you, Ron John. Thank you, everybody, for listening and watching. We'll be back on the feed on Wednesday.

Likely with Joel Pino, the chief AI officer at Cohere. We had a great conversation here about the cutting edge of AI research, where the biggest problems are, how the industry is tackling them, and then how the AI field's putting current applications, current technology into practice. I think you're going to like it a lot. And again, if you've missed the Demis conversation, it's only a half hour.

Definitely recommend you check that out. That's on the feed. Thank you so much for listening and watching, and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.