[AI DAILY NEWS RUNDOWN] In-Car Surveillance Is Coming, OpenAI Resets Microsoft Deal, Musk Trial Begins, and Google’s Pentagon Mutiny (April 28th 2026)

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Summary: In today’s briefing, we analyze OpenAI’s existential pivot. Missing internal revenue targets and facing an antitrust trial from Elon Musk, OpenAI has radically amended its partnership with Microsoft—killing the AGI clause and securing multi-cloud freedom ahead of a rumored IPO. We also explore the internal revolt at Google, where 600 employees are demanding the cancellation of a classified Pentagon AI contract. We discuss Apple’s upcoming “Ultra” hardware tier designed to squeeze revenue from a stagnant market, China’s official block of Meta’s $2B Manus deal, and David Silver’s new $1.1B lab, Ineffable Intelligence, which aims to achieve AGI without human training data.

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Important Topics Covered:

• OpenAI & Microsoft Pivot: OpenAI amends its Microsoft partnership, removing the AGI clause and gaining multi-cloud flexibility, while Microsoft retains a revenue share through 2030. This comes as OpenAI reportedly missed its 1 billion user target and Anthropic hits a $1T secondary market valuation.

• The Musk Trial: Jury selection begins in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the lab of abandoning its non-profit mission. Concurrently, Sam Altman publishes a manifesto on “democratizing” AI.

• Google’s Pentagon Mutiny: 600 Google workers sign an open letter demanding CEO Sundar Pichai abandon talks to supply Gemini AI for classified Pentagon operations.

• Apple “Ultra” Tier: Apple plans to expand its “Ultra” branding to foldable iPhones and OLED MacBooks to drive higher revenue per user.

• EU Orders Google: The European Commission uses the Digital Markets Act to order Google to open Android devices to rival AI services, challenging Gemini’s system-level dominance.

• Ineffable Intelligence: Former DeepMind researcher David Silver raises $1.1B for a new London lab focused on pure reinforcement learning, bypassing human training data entirely.

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⚗️ PRODUCTION NOTE: We Practice What We Preach.

AI Unraveled is produced using a hybrid “Human-in-the-Loop” workflow.

OpenAI missed its own revenue and user growth targets

• OpenAI fell short of its internal goals for ChatGPT users and revenue last year, never reaching its target of one billion weekly active users, while CFO Sarah Friar warned that rising compute costs could outrun incoming revenue.

• The company has committed roughly $600 billion to future data-center spending under Altman’s bet on compute scarcity, and board directors are now questioning why he keeps chasing more computing capacity despite the slowdown.

• Rival Anthropic has quietly passed OpenAI on Forge Global, trading at about $1 trillion versus OpenAI’s $880 billion, and Myriad users give Anthropic a 64% chance of carrying out its IPO first.

Google employees urge Pichai to reject Pentagon AI deal

• Roughly 600 Google workers have signed an open letter asking CEO Sundar Pichai to walk away from talks with the Pentagon that would let the Department of Defense use the company’s Gemini AI models in classified settings.

• The signatories argue that contract wording is not enough protection, pointing to how Anthropic was labeled a “supply chain risk” after refusing “all lawful purposes” language, while OpenAI revised its Pentagon deal to block mass surveillance of U.S. persons.

• The letter follows Google’s recent rewrite of its AI Principles, which in 2018 promised staff the company would not design or deploy AI for weapons or surveillance, language that employees say has since shifted.

Google is testing AI chatbot search for YouTube

• Google is trying out an AI Mode-style conversational search for YouTube, and the experiment is open now to YouTube Premium subscribers in the US who are 18 or older, with plans to expand it to other users.

• An “Ask YouTube” button in the search bar brings up a page that mixes summary text, bulleted milestones, timestamped longform videos, Shorts galleries, and suggested follow-up prompts related to what you searched for.

• In a test about Valve’s new Steam Controller, Ask YouTube got the basics right but incorrectly said the old Steam Controller had no joysticks, a reminder that these AI-built result pages can include factual errors.

Apple plans iPhone Ultra and MacBook Ultra

• Apple is preparing to expand its Ultra branding into new product tiers, with plans for a foldable iPhone Ultra and a touchscreen OLED MacBook Ultra that will sit above the existing Pro lineup through 2027.

• According to a Macworld report citing a source familiar with Apple’s plans, the Ultra name gives the company a place for new form factors without disrupting the Pro lineup, which has covered iPhone, iPad, and Mac for years.

• The Ultra tier lets Apple ship foldable displays and OLED touchscreen Macs in limited quantities at higher prices, fitting its shift toward raising revenue per user as global smartphone growth slows.

EU orders Google to open Android to AI rivals

• The European Commission has told Google it must open up Android so rival AI services can match what Gemini does on the phones, a decision that came out of a specification proceeding started in January.

• Gemini currently gets special treatment at the system level on any Google-powered Android phone, and the commission says too many Android experiences only work with Google’s AI, which must change.

• The order comes from the Digital Markets Act, which labels seven dominant firms as “gatekeepers,” and the commission may force Google to make the Android AI changes this summer despite Google calling it “unwarranted intervention.”

Altman reframes who controls AI’s future

Last month, The Deep View raised the red flag about the risks of AI power centralizing in the hands of too few companies. On Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a manifesto calling for the democratization of AI.

“Power in the future can either be held by a small handful of companies using and controlling superintelligence, or it can be held in a decentralized way by people,” Altman wrote in his essay titled Our principles. “We believe the latter is much better, and our goal is to put truly general AI in the hands of as many people as possible.”

This follows the publication of a policy document earlier this month when OpenAI researchers shared a set of “ideas to keep people first” that included ambitious thought-starters aimed at inviting policymakers and government officials to play a larger role in the development of AI. At that time, Altman emphasized that the public and governments should have an extended period to debate these ideas and make good decisions long before AI precipitates a potential crisis.

Others have recently struck a similar tone on democratization and wider participation:

• Greg Brockman (OpenAI president) told Alex Kantrowitz, “We need this broad conversation. We need lots of people to be aware that if this technology is going to come and change everything for everyone, people need to participate in that. It can’t be something that’s done off in secret by one centralized group.”

• Andrej Karpathy (former Tesla AI lead and early OpenAI cofounder) told Sarah Guo, “Centralization has a very poor track record in the past, in my view. There are a lot of pretty bad precedents [in economic and political systems]. So I want there to be a thing that’s maybe not at the edge of capability because it’s new and unexplored. But I want there to be a thing that’s behind and is a common working space for intelligences that the entire industry has access to. That seems to me like a pretty decent power balance for the industry.” Karpathy, of course, is talking less about policy and more about putting the benefits of open-source AI into the hands of a lot more people in the world, which will also help accomplish the democratization mission Altman and Brockman are extolling.

Beyond democratization, Altman’s statement also elevates several other principles: empowerment, universal prosperity, resilience, and adaptability. These are the pillars of what Altman lays out as a path for the industry to build AI safely, minimize harm, and maximize the benefits for the broader public.

OpenAI resets its cloud strategy beyond Microsoft

ChatGPT’s ascent boosted Microsoft’s AI strategy by providing access to OpenAI’s latest and greatest models. But what began as a tight-knit partnership has since loosened, and the relationship between the AI lab and its biggest investor just got less exclusive.

On Monday, OpenAI announced “the next phase of the Microsoft OpenAI partnership,” which involved an amendment to the agreement granting OpenAI greater independence from its lead investor.

The most notable changes are that OpenAI can now offer its product to customers on any cloud provider, with Microsoft remaining OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, and products shipping first on Azure unless the Microsoft chooses not to.

Other major changes include:

• Product access: Microsoft will continue to have a license to OpenAI IP for models and products through 2032, but it is now non-exclusive.

• Revenue share: Microsoft will no longer pay OpenAI a revenue share, while OpenAI will continue to pay Microsoft at the same percentage through 2030, subject to a total cap. Prior to this, Microsoft shared 20% of OpenAI’s model sales on Azure with OpenAI, while OpenAI shared 20% of its total revenue with Microsoft.

• Involvement: Microsoft “continues to participate in OpenAI’s growth as a major shareholder.”

The latest version of the agreement, amended in October 2025, was written so that Microsoft retained IP rights and Azure API exclusivity until OpenAI created AGI, or human-level intelligence. The blog post attributes “long-term clarity” as the motivator behind the amended agreement, and removing the AGI clause makes sense as a result.

That clause was controversial, as AGI itself is a nebulous concept, and its exact definition is highly contested; so much so that the agreement included a clause requiring AGI to be verified by an independent expert panel. The blog post attributes “long-term clarity” as the motivator behind the amended agreement, and removing the AGI clause makes sense as a result.

OpenAI rewrites Microsoft deal, removes AGI clause

OpenAI and Microsoft reworked their partnership terms, ending Microsoft’s exclusivity over OAI’s IP, killing the AGI clause, and freeing OpenAI to ship products on any cloud while Microsoft keeps a revenue share through 2030.

The details:

• OAI can now utilize rival clouds like Amazon Bedrock, with Microsoft still remaining a main cloud partner with Azure-first launch access through 2032.

• The agreement settles Microsoft’s reported lawsuit threat over the $50B Amazon-OpenAI deal that gave AWS exclusive rights to OAI’s Frontier platform.

• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement “very interesting”, coming after OpenAI CRO Denise Dresser’s memo talking up its Bedrock platform.

• Microsoft will stop paying revenue share to OAI, with both companies’ obligations now running on calendar dates instead of an AGI announcement.

Why it matters: It’s no secret that this relationship has gone sour, and these changes remove the exclusivity that Dresser said “limited” OpenAI’s ability to meet enterprises where they were. The AI giant now gets to date around in the cloud, while Microsoft locks in a six-year revenue stream without an ambiguous AGI clause hanging over it.

Beijing blocks Meta’s $2B Manus deal

China vetoed Meta’s $2B Manus acquisition and told the companies to withdraw the AI startup deal, turning a Singapore-based company with Chinese roots into a warning shot for founders trying to move talent and tech outside Beijing’s reach.

The details:

• Meta announced the $2B deal in December, with Chinese officials opening a January probe into export-control and foreign-investment rules.

• China’s National Development and Reform Commission said it would bar foreign investment in Manus, directing Meta and the startup to undo the deal.

• Meta said the two teams were already “deeply integrated” at its Singapore office, and Manus’s site already read “now part of Meta.”

• The order lands weeks before Trump’s planned May meeting with Xi in Beijing, with Manus executives reportedly barred from leaving China during the probe.

Why it matters: Beijing just made AI talent a national security asset, applying to startups the same type of export-control logic the U.S. uses on chips. With the two already intertwined and Meta saying “the transaction complied fully with applicable law”, it’s unclear how an unwind will even work — or if the tech giant will comply.

AlphaGo creator’s new $1.1B ‘superlearner’ lab

The Rundown: Ex-DeepMind researcher David Silver launched Ineffable Intelligence, a London lab that raised $1.1B at a $5.1B valuation to build an AI that learns from experience instead of training data, to “make first contact with superintelligence”.

The details:

• Silver led DeepMind’s reinforcement learning team for a decade, building acclaimed models AlphaGo, AlphaZero, AlphaStar, and AlphaProof.

• Ineffable’s models skip pre-training and human data, letting agents learn from experience in simulations — creating what Silver calls a “superlearner.”

• Silver framed human data as “a kind of fossil fuel” and his approach as “a renewable fuel, a model that can just learn and learn and learn forever.”

• The $1.1B is Europe’s largest seed ever, with Ineffable claiming success would “represent a scientific breakthrough of comparable magnitude to Darwin.”

Why it matters: Yann Lecun’s theory that LLMs are a dead end has gotten some powerful companies, with AMI Labs, Recursive Superintelligence, and now Ineffable ($1.1B) all raising on variations of the view. Silver’s track record speaks for itself, and the more brilliant minds taking different paths towards AGI, the better.

OpenAI’s big moves as Musk trial begins

By Madison Mills and Ina Fried

OpenAI revised its Microsoft contract, floated a Qualcomm hardware deal, and faced Elon Musk in court — all before lunch yesterday.

Why it matters: OpenAI is rewriting the partnership that launched it while defending the legal premise on which it was built.

Between the lines: Both OpenAI and Microsoft are trying to get ahead of potential obstacles in a fast-changing AI world, while also having greater clarity on their financial terms and the flexibility to craft deals with others.

• A nine-person jury was seated for the trial brought by Musk accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefit humanity and focusing on profits instead.

• Opening arguments are scheduled to begin this morning.

Meanwhile, OpenAI is reportedly working on a deal with mobile chipmaker Qualcomm as it continues to plot its expansion into hardware.

Yes, but: Microsoft faces growing pressure to have a coherent AI strategy above and beyond its OpenAI relationship.

Zoom out: OpenAI and rival AI lab Anthropic are locked in a race to define the enterprise AI market and to convince investors they deserve massive IPO valuations.

• Both companies are reportedly eyeing major public listings in late 2026.

• OpenAI’s revised deal is widely viewed as IPO-friendly. It reduces perceived dependency risks on Microsoft, clarifies the financial relationship and frees the company to partner more broadly.

The bottom line: OpenAI is trying to make itself less dependent on Microsoft just as Musk is challenging how the company was built in the first place.

Meta wants to power data centers from space

By Ben Geman

Conceptual rendering courtesy of Overview Energy

Meta has reserved generating capacity from Overview Energy, a startup that hopes to deploy satellites that direct solar energy to the ground round-the-clock.

Why it matters: Yesterday’s announcement shows how AI giants are pushing the tech envelope in their quest for electricity.

• “This is among the largest commitments to ultra-long-duration storage in the industry, setting an example for how technology companies can power AI and cloud infrastructure using storage to maximize availability of energy,” the companies said.

Driving the news: Meta and Overview’s “reservation agreement” is for up to 1 gigawatt of capacity.

• Overview, which emerged from stealth in late 2025, hopes to begin commercial deployment in 2030.

Zoom (way) out: The idea is to collect solar energy in space and beam it to on-the-ground solar projects, “allowing these assets to maximize utilization and produce power around-the-clock,” the companies said.

• This would, in theory, enable more power from existing solar installations without needing new land and grid interconnection queue waits.

• “This means solar farms that currently sit idle at night can keep producing electricity around the clock, maximizing their output and creating more energy for the grid,” the companies said.

The bottom line: It sounds kinda out there (no pun intended).

• But Overview’s backers include known quantities in the VC world like Lowercarbon Capital and Engine Ventures.

Only Nonlinear Work Survives

TL;DR: Palantir CEO Alex Karp says AI agents will invert which skills matter, leaving two safer paths: vocational expertise or neurodivergent, unconventional thinking. He argued low-end coding, lawyering, reading, and writing are losing value, while real expertise, artistic problem-solving, and non-playbook thinking become more important. Read More →

OpenClaw Feels Human

TL;DR: Charles Wu explains in details why OpenClaw can feel more human the longer you use it. The model is not becoming conscious; the workspace is creating continuity. Conversations, preferences, tools, logs, and lessons are written into Markdown files, searched, reloaded, and refined across sessions, so the real asset becomes the growing workspace, not just the rented model weights. Read More →

Sex Toys Turns Agentic

TL;DR: Lovense is integrating OpenClaw into its Remote app to turn a sex-toy controller into a broader AI agent interface. Beyond controlling devices, the app could plan trips, coordinate remote dates, check calendars, suggest movies or recipes, create shopping lists, automate smart-home settings, and sync intimate devices, making OpenClaw the task engine behind Lovense’s relationship automation push. Read More →

Agent Managers Enter Enterprise

TL;DR: Box CEO Aaron Levie says enterprises will need agent deployers embedded across teams to turn scattered AI use into real workflow automation. Their real value is colder than “AI adoption”: finding workflows where agents can replace repetitive human labor faster, cheaper, and at scale. If this role works, it may become the person companies hire before cutting far more people. Read More →

Pompeii Gets a Real Human Face

What’s happening: Archaeologists at Pompeii used AI for the first time to digitally reconstruct the face of a man killed during the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. His remains were found near Porta Stabia, apparently fleeing toward the coast while using a terracotta mortar as a shield from falling volcanic debris.

How this hits reality: This is not just a museum gimmick. Pompeii holds nearly 2,000 years of preserved urban data, from bones and coins to lamps, roads, tools, and death positions. AI is turning archaeology from cataloging objects into rebuilding scenes, bodies, and choices. The archive is becoming more cinematic, and more contested.

Key takeaway: AI is starting to give history a usable interface. The past may feel less like a distant archive and more like a place we can enter, question, and rebuild.

What Else Happened in AI on April 28th 2026?

The trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI kicked off on Monday with the start of jury selection, with the two sides trading barbs on X ahead of opening statements.

Tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said OpenAI is working on its own smartphone alongside MediaTek and Qualcomm, with native AI agents and production likely in 2028.

Adobe opened access to its new Firefly AI Assistant in public beta, letting creators prompt multi-app Creative Cloud workflows while keeping outputs editable.

Alibaba’s new Happy Horse video model rolled out across video platforms, with the release taking the top spot on Artificial Analysis’s video leaderboard.

Taylor Swift filed three federal trademarks for her likeness and voice, joining actor Matthew McConaughey in taking legal action to fight and prevent AI deepfakes.