AI briefing: this week

This week at a glance

Three days into the week, money and products share the stage. The business numbers are enormous: Anthropic's updated IPO paperwork showed about $33 billion in revenue over the first nine months of 2026 - up roughly twelve-fold - alongside much larger future computing commitments, and Fal, which rents out the computing power that runs other companies' AI, raised $1.3 billion at a doubled $16 billion valuation. Salesforce agreed to buy call-center voice-AI maker Cresta, reported at about $2.7 billion. On the product side, Tencent launched Hy4 as the newest open-source heavyweight, Apple Intelligence finally got a China launch date with Alibaba's Qwen inside, ChatGPT and Codex will share one usage allowance from December, and OpenAI said ChatGPT now handles a fifth as many searches as Google. Also this week: researchers got one AI to edit another AI's brain, and OpenAI wants data centers rebranded as "compute campuses."

Key stories of the week

1. Anthropic's updated IPO filing: huge real revenue, even larger future computing bills, and its own warning that AI may soon speed up AI research.
2. Tencent launches Hy4, the newest open-source heavyweight, with image understanding and computer use.
3. OpenAI says ChatGPT now handles a fifth as many searches as Google.
4. Salesforce agrees to buy voice-AI company Cresta, reported at about $2.7B.
5. Fal raises $1.3B to run other companies' AI, doubling its value to $16B.

This week's briefings