😺 OpenAI and Microsoft are figuring out how OpenAI will IPO...

PLUS: US Copyright head fired over AI?!

Welcome, humans.

Did you know the Hunt library at the college NC State in North Carolina has a book bot? It’s an automated system that works like an Amazon warehouse that retrieves books for students in under one hour.

After you get your book order in, you can get your prescription filled by the robots helping out the pharmacists at Walgreens.

That’s right, Walgreens is expanding its prescription-filling bots to over 5K stores by end of 2025.

These robotic arms in 11 micro-fulfillment centers are filling a whopping 16M prescriptions monthly—that's 40% of Wally’s prescription volume!

The tech has already saved the company $500M and allowed pharmacists to administer 40% more vaccines. Those are some pretty important numbers as Walgreens prepares to go private in a new $10B deal.

Meanwhile, Australia is getting some new pizza delivering robots, while Amazon’s drone deliveries have taken off in North Texas and could land in Kansas City, Kansas next.

Pretty soon, the only thing you can’t get delivered by robot will be Digiornos!

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

OpenAI is wants to tweak its Microsoft relationship.
Trump ousts Copyright Office director after critical AI report.
Apple exec says AI will replace iPhones.
Oh, and Apple is developing custom AI chips.

OpenAI and Microsoft's $13B Relationship: It's Complicated

Breaking up is hard—and expensive. ESPECIALLY if you’re two multi billion and trillion dollar companies…

Example: Imagine investing $13 billion in your partner, and now they're telling you they need some space. Welcome to the corporate drama playing out between Microsoft and OpenAI—a tech relationship that's getting messier than your ex's “boys trip” to Cabo (that’s also the reason they are now “your ex”).

Here’s the gist:

OpenAI wants to restructure as a public benefit corporation (basically, a company that can make money while claiming to save the world).
Microsoft wants guaranteed tech access beyond their current 2030 contract.
Tensions are rising faster than an AI model's training costs.

The Financial Times broke the news yesterday that these negotiations are all about two things: enabling OpenAI to finally go public with an IPO, while Microsoft tries to secure access to OpenAI's big brains beyond their 2030 contract expiration.

Here's where it gets spicy:

Microsoft is offering to give up some of its OpenAI equity stake (originally bought with that sweet, sweet $13B) in exchange for guaranteed access to whatever AI magic OpenAI cooks up after 2030.
OpenAI plans to cut Microsoft's revenue share from roughly 25% down to about 10% by 2030.
The restructuring would keep OpenAI's nonprofit board in control—a key sticking point after 2023’s Sam Altman firing fiasco.

Why Microsoft is sweating:

Right now, Microsoft's exclusive deal with OpenAI is its golden ticket in the AI race. They've baked ChatGPT tech into everything from Copilot to Azure, basically betting the entire company on AI. And their efforts to develop their own AI (called MAI-1) are still… how should we put this… MIA?

But here's the awkward part: Both parties are already seeing other people. OpenAI has that $500B “Stargate” project they announced with Oracle and SoftBank back in January? Yeah, Microsoft had to loosen its exclusive cloud provider deal just to let that happen.

As one Microsoft exec candidly put it, OpenAI's attitude is basically: “give us money and compute and stay out of the way.” Needless to say, this led Microsoft to also start messing around with other AI models on the side.

Why OpenAI wants freedom: An OpenAI IPO would basically be the biggest tech offering since Facebook, but Altman and company can't do it with Microsoft holding the leash. This restructuring is basically OpenAI's version of moving out of their parents' basement, getting a new car, an

Our hot take: This is less a business negotiation and more like a tech prenup where both sides are already planning their dating life after the breakup. But here's the rough part—they still need each other.

Microsoft needs OpenAI's AI, and OpenAI needs Microsoft's wallet and infrastructure. Talk about a co-dependent relationship!

The bigger question: Can AI companies ever truly be independent if they need billions in compute just to train their models? Or are we heading toward a future where every AI lab is just a fancy subsidiary of some tech giant with deep pockets? *~Cough Anthropic and Amazon Cough~*

Pro tip: Watch Microsoft's own AI model development as the real indicator of how these talks are going. If Satya Nadella starts pouring more resources into their in-house models (and MSFT meets their internal timeline to launch it at Build 2025 next week), you'll know exactly how confident he is in keeping this “partnership” going.

Worth watching: there’s also something fishy going on behind the scenes with OpenAi’s efforts to fix their recent fix of a much needed fix for its overly sycophant 4o. Some Redditors are speculating OpenAI might have broke things worse than they thought… but these are just speculations, of course…

If GPT 4o isn’t working for you, try Claude, Grok, or Gemini 2.5 for your needs!

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Finds the taco truck TripAdvisor forgot.
Keeps your wallet from weeping (as much as anything can in this economy!).

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Around the Horn.

Apple's Eddy Cue predicts AI will replace iPhones by 2035, suggesting revolutionary technological shifts are imminent.
Top AI and tech executives from OpenAI, Microsoft, AMD, and CoreWeave will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on U.S. AI leadership.
Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, after she released a report raising concerns about AI's use of copyrighted materials, potentially linked to tensions with Elon Musk's AI copyright ambitions.
Apple is developing custom chips for smart glasses and AI servers, targeting production by late 2026 or 2027.

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