Tech Brew Ride Home - Microsoft Pledges To Pay Its Own Way

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Microsoft tries to calm data center buildout backlash. Layoffs come to the Metaverse. Apple has a new creator subscription package. More implications from that Apple/Google AI deal from yesterday. And is Cowork for Claude the personal AI agent we’ve been waiting for? Microsoft responds to AI data center revolt, vowing to cover full power costs and reject local tax breaks (GeekWire) Meta Begins Job Cuts as It Shifts From Metaverse to AI Devices (Bloomberg) Apple debuts ‘Apple Creator Studio’ subscription, here’s what you get (9to5Mac) Google Gemini Partnership With Apple Will Go Beyond Siri Revamp (MacRumors) Anthropic’s new Cowork tool offers Claude Code without the code (TechCrunch) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Welcome to the TechBrewrite Home for Tuesday, January 13th, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough today. Microsoft tries to calm data center buildout backlash. Layoffs come to the Metaverse. Apple has a new creator subscription package, more implications from that Apple slash Google AI deal from yesterday, and is co-worked for Claude, the personal AI agent we've been waiting for? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Attackers don't even need exploits when they can use your allowed tools against you. That's why Threat Locker, forces default deny at execution, stopping unknown software scripts and ransomware the moment it tries to run. No signatures, no guesswork, just control. Threat Locker takes zero trust from theory to practice by blocking any unauthorized application or behavior from ever running in the first place. Generative AI has lowered the barrier to malware creation, so Threat Locker prevents AI-generated polymorphic and file-less attacks by shutting down unknown behavior automatically, even if it's never

been seen in the wild. Threat Locker gives you tight control without the noise, meaning fewer alerts, and a cleaner, predictable operational posture. Learn more at Threatlocker.com slash tech brew ride home. That's Threatlocker.com slash tech brew ride home. Microsoft has announced it is changing its data center approach, pledging to pay its own power costs, reject tax breaks, and replenish more water than it uses going forward amid the growing local opposition to data center buildouts that we've discussed recently, quoting Geekwire. The new plan announced Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C. includes pledges to pay the company's full power costs, reject local property tax breaks, replenish more water than it uses, train local workers, and invest in AI education and community

programs. This sector worked one way in the past and needs to work in some different ways going forward, said Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and vice chair in an interview with Geekwire. He later described the shift as both the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. President Trump made headlines Monday night with a truth social post in advance of the news, saying his administration has been working with tech companies, quote, to secure their commitment to the American people. He called Microsoft, quote, first up and said it would, quote, make major changes to ensure that Americans don't pick up the tab for their power consumption, end quote. This new initiative by Microsoft comes at a critical juncture for tech. Amazon, Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and others

are betting hundreds of billions of dollars on AI, but those ambitions hinge on their ability to build out the infrastructure to support them, a prospect that depends increasingly on the cooperation of local communities that have grown skeptical of the costs and tradeoffs. Smith said Microsoft has been developing its initiative since September. He described it as a response to shifting public sentiment, which he witnessed firsthand during visits to his home state of Wisconsin for Microsoft's data center expansion. Back in 2024, local residents wanted to talk about jobs. By last October, the big topics were electricity prices and water use. We saw this catch fire to a degree for many other companies and many other places around the country,

as each month unfolded, he said. In data center hubs such as Virginia, Illinois, and Ohio, residential power prices jumped 12 to 16 percent over the past year, noticeably faster than the U.S. average, according to U.S. government data, as grid operators' scrambled to add capacity for large new facilities. The issue has drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Last month, three Democratic senators launched an investigation into whether tech giants are raising residential power bills, sending letters to Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta. An Amazon-funded study found that the company more than covers the utility costs associated with its electricity use in some regions. Microsoft's new approach, as outlined in a post by Smith, is a clear

departure from its own past practices. The company has previously accepted tax abatements for data centers in states including Ohio and Iowa, and its identity was kept under wraps in a Michigan township until recently. In the interview Smith promised new levels of transparency. He acknowledged that the traditional approach in the industry was for companies to buy land under non-disclosure agreements to avoid driving up prices, giving them a competitive edge, but leaving communities in the dark about who was moving in and how they would operate. That is clearly not the path that's going to take us forward, he said. The companies that succeed with data centers in the long run, he added,

will be the companies that have a strong and healthy relationship with local communities, end quote. Asked if Microsoft hopes to inspire or compel others to follow suit, Smith stopped short of positioning Microsoft as the sole leader, crediting Amazon for really good and well-executed work in this space, while adding that the industry is going to need to set a higher bar for itself, end quote. The company's other commitments include a 40% improvement in water efficiency by 2030, plus a pledge to replenish more water than it uses, in each district where it operates. Microsoft cited a recent $25 million investment in water and sewer upgrades

in Leesburg, Virginia, as an example. Also a new partnership with North America's Building Trades Union for apprenticeship programs and expansion of its Data Center Academy for operations training, full payment of local property taxes with no requests for municipal tax breaks and AI training through schools, libraries, and chambers of commerce plus new community advisory boards at major data center sites, end quote. morning confirmed it is laying off more than a thousand reality labs staff and will quote reinvest the savings into wearables. Quoting Bloomberg. Affected employees will be notified of the layoffs starting Tuesday morning, according to an internal post from Chief Technology Officer Andrew

Bosworth that was reviewed by Bloomberg News. The cuts are expected to hit roughly 10% of employees within the Reality Labs group, which has about 15,000 workers, Bloomberg reported earlier this week. As part of the reduction, meta is pivoting its Metaverse efforts to focus on mobile devices, according to Bosworth's memo. The company is also planning to cut back on its virtual reality investments to make the business more sustainable, Bosworth wrote. We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward wearables, a company spokesperson said this is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year. Underscoring Meta's increasing focus on AI, the tech company and Esselor Luxottica,

S.A. are discussing potentially doubling production capacity for AI-powered smart glasses by the end of this year, people familiar with the matter said. Meta has suggested increasing annual capacity to 20 million units or more by the end of 2026, said the people asking not to be named because the deliberations are private. In December, top executives discussed budget cuts as deep as 30% for the Metaverse group aiming to adjust budgets and funnel more money toward other projects like AI glasses. Meta has partnered with Esselor Luxottica to develop a number of AI-powered spectacles with brands like Rayban and Oakley. Mark Zuckerberg has said those glasses are performing better than expected, and they remain a key part of his plans to increase adoption of Meta's AI assistant.

Meta will continue to develop the Metaverse, but with a focus on mobile phones instead of the fully immersive VR headsets that the company initially imagined. The team building Metaverse software experiences now called Horizon will, quote, double down on bringing the best horizon experiences and AI creator tools to mobile, Bosworth wrote, with the larger potential user base and the fastest growth rate today, we are shifting teams and resources almost exclusively to mobile to continue to accelerate adoption there. Meta will also keep investing in VR headsets and features, but less aggressively. Starting today, VR will operate as a leaner, flatter organization with a more focus

roadmap to maximize long-term sustainability, Bosworth wrote, end quote. Hmm. I'm starting to wonder when. or even if we'll ever see a meta-quest four. Apple this morning unveiled Apple Creator Studio, a quote groundbreaking collection of creative apps like Final Cut, Logic Pro, and PixelMetor Pro for $1299 a month or $1229 a year. This is a subscription and services play, but it's also an AI play. Central to this is the debut of PixelMetor Pro for iPad,

which has been rebuilt from the ground up for a touch-first experience, with full Apple pencil support, allowing users to transition projects seamlessly between mobile and desktop. Video editors might be chuffed by significant intelligence upgrades to Final Cut Pro, such as transcript search, which enables users to locate specific sound bites by typing phrases, and visual search for identifying specific objects or actions within raw footage. The addition of beat detection, powered by Logic Pro's AI models, allows for the automatic alignment of video cuts to a musical grid. On the iPad, the new montage maker further simplifies social media content creation by automatically

reframing horizontal clips to vertical and intelligently editing highlights based on the best visual moments. Music producers gain access to an expanded AI session player lineup with the new synth player and chord ID, the latter of which can convert any audio or MIDI recording into a functional chord progression. Logic Pro also introduces natural language search for its sound library, letting creators describe the vibe of a loop to find a match. Beyond dedicated creative apps, the subscription unlocks advanced generative capabilities within pages, numbers, and keynote.

A new content hub provides a curated library of high-quality graphics and illustrations, while integrated AI models allow for text-to-image generation and the upscaling of low-resolution assets via super-resolution. Keynote users can now generate entire presentation drafts from simple text outlines, and numbers subscribers gain access to magic field. fill, which uses pattern recognition to automate complex formulas and table population.

Together, these features represent a massive infusion of AI and high-end assets into Apple's creation and productivity ecosystem, which, let's face it, has never exactly been the most popular platform out there, but we might look back on this announcement as the beginning of Apple's AI Foundation. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get The best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal, everything you need, to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

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celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Speaking of coming back to yesterday's news, Apple and Google had an announcement yesterday saying that Apple Foundation models based on Gemini will help power not only a more personalized series, but also quote, future Apple intelligence features. In other words, it looks like Apple, at least for the near future, is building its entire Apple intelligence on top of Gemini, quoting Mac rumors. The deal isn't a one-for-one swap of Apple Foundation models for Gemini ones, but instead a system that will let Apple keep using its proprietary models while providing zero data to Google. The limited and

deliberately obscure statements from Apple and Google are clear about one thing. Gemini will be involved in building the updated Apple Foundation model. This is occurring due to a previously reported $1 billion per year payment made by Apple to Google. As that initial rumor pointed out, Gemini is not being waved into Apple's operating systems. Instead, everything will remain Apple Foundation models, but Gemini will be the foundation of that. When you buy an iPhone, it is built with chips manufactured by TSM, a display from Samsung, and various other parts sourced from all over the world. However, no one makes the claim that Samsung is powering the iPhone. LLMs and generative models, what we colloquially refer to as artificial intelligence,

are powerful tools when used correctly, and Gemini's $1.2 trillion model is being leased to Apple as the perfect example of that. It is a tool that will help train Apple Foundation models to be more useful in the tasks Apple sets for them. While Gemini will be used in training, what the press release refers to as a foundation that will power Siri and Apple intelligence features for the foreseeable future, Apple is clear that Gemini is not what will be running on your iPhone. Instead, the use of Apple Foundation models and Apple's approach to privacy will be maintained in this agreement. Google allegedly will get $1 billion a year as long as this practice continues, and it may continue for some time yet. Apple is working to create its own

$1 trillion parameter model due out in 2027 or so, but even when that is available, Apple will likely want to keep Gemini around for reinforcement, comparison, and further training. The result will be a set of on-device AI tools that give users access to the new, more personalized Siri and Apple intelligence systems that rely on app intents. On the surface, everything will operate normally, and in the back end, Apple Foundation models will be pulling the strings. Users won't need to worry about what is Google versus what is Apple because the final shipping product is all Apple. There isn't any data being passed to Google or its servers, and Gemini won't be loaded onto iPhones. It's a win for Apple, a win for privacy-conscious

consumers and a win for Google. The only real losers here are the ones that wish this AI stuff would all go away because of how they came to be via scraping the web of its information. Of course, there's always the chance that Gemini will get a similar function to chat GPT by being addressable via Siri. Google's image search tools are already a part of visual intelligence, but implementing Gemini for more broad queries is possible, though no word has been shared on this front. The deal is fundamentally different from the Google search one, as it is completely obfuscated from the end user. Talking to Siri won't produce some kind of Gemini logo, nor should it. To reiterate, everything the end user interacts with will be Apple technology

hosted on Apple controlled server hardware or on device and not seen by Apple or anybody else at all, period, end quote. Finally today, something that I think I might need to test out for myself soon. Have you heard the stories online about how you can basically hack Claude Code to do anything for you, basically turning it into your own bespoke AI agent. Well, Anthropic definitely heard those stories too because they have now debuted Co-work for Claude, built on top of Claude code for automating complex tasks with minimal prompting as a research preview for CloudMax subscribers. Quoting TechCrunch, built into the Clodd desktop app, the new tool lets users designate a specific folder where Claude can read or modify files with further instructions,

given through the standard chat interface. The result is similar to a sandboxed instance of Claude Code, but requires far less technical savvy to set up. Currently in Research Preview, co-work is only available to max subscribers, with a waitlist available for users on other plans. The new tool is inspired in part by the growing number of subscribers using Claude Code to achieve non-coding tasks,

treating it as a general-purpose agentic AI tool. Co-work is built on the Claude Agent SDK, which means it's drawing on the same underlying model as ClaudeCode. The folder partition gives an easy way to manage what files' co-work has access to, and because the app doesn't require command line tools or virtual environments, it's less intimidating for non-technical users. That opens up a new world of potential use cases. Anthropic gives the example of assembling an expense report from a folder of receipt photos,

but ClaudeCode users have also put the system to work managing media files, scanning social media posts, or analyzing conversations. Similar to Claude Code, Co-work is designed to take strings of actions without user input, a potentially dangerous approach if the tool is given vague or contradictory instructions. In a blog post announcing the new tool, Anthropic explicitly warns about the risk of prompt injection or deleted files, recommending that users make instructions as clear and unambiguous as possible. Those risks aren't new with co-work, the post reads, but it might be the first time you're using a more advanced tool that moves beyond a simple

conversation. Launched as a command line tool in November 2024, Claude Code has become one of Anthropics' most successful products, leading the company to launch a string of new interfaces in recent months. A web interface launched in October, followed by a Slack integration just two months later, end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals, because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.