What earnings say about Big Tech’s AI gamble - DTNS 5136

0:00This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, October 30th, 2025. we tell you what you need to know, give you all of the important context and help you help each other understand. Today it is earnings palooza, but investors have some concerns about the sustainability of AI investments. Yeah, they do. I'm Jason Howell. And I'm Sarah Lane. Let's start with what you need to know with a big story. All right. Happy earnings day, everybody. Did you get your gifts all wrapped and everything? Oh, it's such a good day. we're going to try not to bog you down in a ton of numbers because I know people don't really enjoy that myself included but giving that given that it's Microsoft it's Alphabet and it's Meta all sharing their quarterly earnings reports why don't we take a few minutes to look closer at what they seem to point to kind of in an aggregate perspective and Financial Times has a good article that kind of does this for us so it's certainly what I what I read through along with the reports.

0:56And it really looks at each company's investments as a whole, but also really directed towards the AI infrastructure. Totals nearly$80 billion collectively between those three companies. That's a lot of dough going to AI infrastructure right now. Alphabet had record $100 billion in revenue. That made investors happy. Microsoft actually got some negative reaction, even in light of its own 39 % revenue growth. They wanted more, Jason. They wanted more. They always want more, more. And you know what? And tomorrow it'll totally change, right? It's such a back and forth, rapid, you know, tennis match.

1:35A lot of need-for stuff. Exactly. Meta saw negative investor response to its own revenue growth at 26%. So, you know, they're showing some growth here, but I think what the article points to and kind of an interesting thing that we're seeing is that these positive gains end up being overshadowed by, at least in this case, the sustainability of profit growth when you consider the uncertainty around each of those companies' investments in future cloud, yes, but also future artificial intelligence payoffs, right? Meta spending heavily on its superintelligence pursuit, as we've talked about many times.

2:11They believe that the long-term promise of advanced AI will be worth the upfront cost. Alphabet and Microsoft, they're maybe taking a more balanced, focused approach. They're working toward more incremental advances of AI into their existing services. But in all those cases, investors seem to really be concerned about this rush to grab the lead in AI, and that might lead to a market correction. So everybody's really focused on the future, and they're doing what we hear about all the time, Sarah, in technology, which is, we're spending the money now because we're going to make it up later. Is that what we're looking at here?

2:48Well, yeah. I mean, that's, that's what the company is going to say is, is, you know, maybe you weren't happy with our 28 % profit growth, but look at what we're investing in so that, you know, by 2027, we're going to be in a greater place. I think that this, this points to what kind of happens with, with every, whether it's a startup or a major company, it's like, you can't all be winners. There are going to be a couple winners in, in this race. Now I'm not saying that AI can't exist in a variety of places, but when it comes to the big guys, you know, the Amazon, the alphabet, the meta, you know, the Apple, um, it's like, you can't all win in the same way.

3:35You're going to have somebody who's like, all right, so they won. And that just that happens with kind of everything. It's like, does it happen? You know, it's like Adobe Photoshop. You've got a lot of other options. But Photoshop is just sort of that is that is the crown jewel of of its category. Kind of like the Kleenex of the category. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and I was just reading yesterday about Amazon's huge new AI facility in Indiana, which is, I mean, it's massive. You know, they built it in a year and are continuing to build it. I know we're not talking about Amazon right now as far as earnings, but it's like, you know, companies can throw a lot of money into something and get it, companies of the size rather, and get it up and running quite quickly.

4:23and it's sort of like, what's it for? Well, uh, you know, Amazon in, you know, in its case is saying, you know, this is going, could power, you know, 1.5 million homes in a, you know, in a densely populated area, that sort of stuff. And I think that's where myself included, sometimes we get into the weeds a little bit with AI. Cause I'm like, you know, chat bots, don't you guys already have chat bots? Like, what are we doing here? But these companies are thinking way beyond that. This is not sort of like, oh, I want to write a research paper and, you know, and use an assistant. This is like powering the world.

5:04So, so when you're a company of these sizes, then you have to spend a lot of money in order to be a competitor in the space. Yeah. And I guess, yeah, the, the, the big question is how long do investors as they, They are interested in investing wisely and smartly, and especially in companies like this, they have a certain level of confidence that their investment is behind. How long are they backed up by that confidence when the companies continue to invest in the future of this direction, the world being run on the AI, as you put it? And, you know, like you see a company like Meta and it's the moves that it's made in the last handful of months around its super intelligence division.

5:53It's like, OK, we're betting the farm on super intelligence. And then you hear about the layoffs and the super intelligence because they're going back and forth. But yet so much of their R &D, so much of their money, the revenue that they're making and earning. And that's great. But so much is going out the door for this future promise. and how much patience do those investors actually have to kind of wait it out? And does this compare to other moments in technology? You know, like, are we looking, is this another indication of the bubble scenario that continues to come up? I think there's definitely an AI bubble going on.

6:28I think it points to, and a good reminder of the fact that we are in still such early days of all of this that, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall, a lot of companies, if you've got the money, you do it. And then you figure out how to scale back later, which means, you know, job losses in certain cases, which sucks, you know, for some folks. But it's kind of like, let's just, you know, we're going to war, guys. Get everybody together. See how many people we got. Yeah. And go from there. Yeah. Interesting stuff. So there you go. There's your earnings palooza. See, we didn't bog you down with numbers.

7:08We hope you enjoyed it. Well, DTNS is made possible by all of you listening right now. Thanks to AB Puppy, Dale McKay and Matt Zaglin. Yeah, thank you, folks. All right, there's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. After months of repeated and escalating tariffs and regulatory bans, the U.S. president met with the Chinese president to strike an agreement that puts in place a one-year truce that will help ease U.S. and China trade tensions. China will pause its limits on rare earth metal exports while the U.S. is postponing new shipping fees to reduce cost pressures for tech companies that rely on Chinese manufacturing.

7:51And there are many. The leaders discussed NVIDIA AI chips business, but the U.S. president says they didn't discuss giving China access to NVIDIA's high powered Blackwell AI chips. Yeah, there had been some speculation that the U.S. might possibly approve shipments of those really high-end black-well chips because that's been another kind of ongoing conversation or discussion around what China gets access to versus doesn't. And obviously, this is something that NVIDIA would like very much because NVIDIA wants its technology in all places. But it sounds like there's no real indication that took place and that possibly those discussions, I think the U.S.

8:28president alluded to some of those discussions needing to happen between Beijing and NVIDIA directly. Yeah, the ongoing talks, it can be hard to follow. I know, totally. Even if you're following it closely because this all changes like the wind changes. But yeah, I can imagine if you're anybody in the executive team at NVIDIA right now, you are hoping very much for an outcome that is favorable to you. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, as you say, it changes like the wind, this stuff. I feel like anytime there's a, okay, we've got a definitive. It's like a definitive with a very large asterisk next to it because so often those definitives change.

9:15And we'll see what that means for this story too. Samsung released a beta version of its internet browser for Windows for the first time with integrated Galaxy AI features that were previously only found on its premium Android devices. Not just premium. I mean, there's Samsung browsers on pretty much all of Samsung's Android devices. It can sync browsing data between Galaxy phones and Windows PCs and has seamless resume browsing. So if you're browsing on one, you can pick up the other device and just resume where you left off between them. The Windows version adds anti-tracking features, also a browsing assist feature, an AI tool for summarizing and translating web pages, which is, as I like to say, kind of table stakes for AI integrations these days.

10:03Users must register for the beta. You have to go into the Samsung developer portal and use a Samsung account. So if you don't have one, you have to create one. And it's users in South Korea and U.S. to start plans to expand to more markets soon. So are you going to change to a Samsung browser on your machine, Sarah? No, no, but I have no issue with this in theory. I mean, is this something that you've signed up for? And, you know, I assume you've been part of the beta program. I mean, I don't really have. Well, I do somewhere. I have a Windows PC, but I don't really use it on a regular basis. So I haven't checked this out.

10:37I mean, I've used plenty of Samsung phones in the past. And, you know, I think there's a lot of overlap between what Samsung wants to do with its kind of ecosystem and what Apple does with its ecosystem. Samsung really wants to be in all the same kinds of places and have the same interoperability that the tightly controlled and just really kind of well-oiled machine that is Apple's ecosystem is as an example. So this doesn't surprise me. Honestly, it surprises me that it took them this long to do it, to be honest. I mean, I don't know. I don't see Samsung working with Windows as Apple working with Apple at all.

11:22But I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. No, it's more from the ecosystem for their devices front. They want their devices and their products to all talk and work cohesively with each other in a way that like Pixel devices, I guess you have the correlation between that and Chromebooks. But Samsung, you know, they've got TVs, they've got all these things, and they really want them all to work together. And so a Samsung browser on a Windows PC just gives them another platform to say, see, we're in all the places. I guess that was my point. Yeah. No, no. It's I, I, I appreciate all the stuff that Samsung does, uh, even though, well, I have a Samsung TV in my bedroom, uh, which is very old, but you know, has been, has been cooking, cooking along for, you know, who even knows how long, 15 years or something.

12:11Um, and, uh, otherwise I don't have a lot of, uh, uh, hands-on experience with Samsung products, uh, as of late, but, um, yeah, for anybody out there who's like, no, this is great. And here's why, let us know. Feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. Love it. Google has implemented big changes to its Play Store policies in the U.S. following a court injunction in the Epic Games lawsuit. The lawsuit that will never end. Never ends. My goodness. Developers can now link to external stores offering direct payment options like credit cards and PayPal and offering cheaper deals to its users outside of Google Play.

12:51Before these changes, Google's policies blocked developers from promoting or linking to alternative payment methods. Obviously, that upset some folks. So here we are. Yeah, I mean, and this has got to sound familiar too, because Apple, you know, has made similar changes recently. I'm curious, as an iOS user, you've kind of been living with, I mean, I'm assuming you've been living with some of the changes or experienced them. Have they impacted your experience from a user's perspective? Like what have you noticed? Not really. And here's why I, um, I've got, my phone isn't right next to me right now, but I've got, I don't know, like 300 apps on that phone.

13:32You know, every time I get a new phone, I just, I just do a cloud, um, a cloud backup. And so there are a bunch of apps that I don't need that just continue to live on the phone. I am not installing a lot of stuff these days. I do here and there, you know, or there's, you know, there's an app that's weird and I have to reinstall it type thing. But that kind of, you know, 30 % cuts, you know, in Apple's case. And I know the Google Play situation is similar and companies like Epic saying like, hey, that's not cool. You know, people should be able to have a choice. that doesn't really affect me because I've kind of gotten all the apps that I need there already.

14:16However, however, if I were to be wanting to, I don't know, you know, download the Epic Games app, which I don't have because I don't do a lot of gaming. And I had an opportunity to do that for a cheaper price. I mean, cheaper price, you're always going to have the cheaper price. That's the whole issue here is that people don't understand that they have other options. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's like, it's like going to the grocery store and overpaying for apples. It's like, you don't have to overpay for apples. You just go to the next grocery store and get the same apple for less. If you know that going to the next, I don't know why I said apples, you know, maybe it's confusing.

14:57Grapefruit. Yeah. It's not an apples to apples comparison. We're talking grocery stores and technology companies. Right, right, right. But, but it's, you know, but it's, it's, it's kind of that whole thing. It's like, okay, you want your cut. That's cool. But give people another option if they want to care enough to, to know about what their options are. And, and that's, that's, that's where this is all going. And I think that it's a good thing. You know, I don't, I don't feel like, Oh, poor Apple, poor Google. They're not going to get, you know, as much of the cut of these sales. I really just, they don't, you know, they were abusing power.

15:40That's what I think. At the end of the day, this is a pro user change. And it might be hard for Apple and Google to have to change how they do their business, but I think it's good for the users. And so I'm curious to see what that means in practice. Once I see it on my Android phone at some point. I'm sure I will. But like you, I'm not installing like insane amounts of new apps either. I have the same apps that travel with me every time I set up a new phone. I need to like spend an afternoon and whittle it down because it's out of hand. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I probably on any given day, I use like maybe five apps, maybe, you know, like, and they're not even all on my home screen.

16:22You know, I just search for them. They're in there somewhere. But yeah, it's all, everybody has different routines. For sure, for sure. Universal Music Group has settled with UDO. UDO is the AI Music Generation Service. This is a deal that will result in a new subscription platform on UDO to allow music fans to create music using licensed songs. Universal had accused UDO of copyright infringement for training its AI on copyrighted tracks. Now under the deal, universal artists must approve. They have the ability to approve their inclusion, first of all. And then all user-generated content has to stay within the UDO platform.

17:04So that's interesting. Artists and labels will get paid when their music is used for AI training and remixes on the platform as well. UDO's new service is expected to launch next year. Details of the financial terms were not released. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot more deals like this because I think fans would love the ability to kind of play with some of their favorite artists' music in an AI-generated way. And, you know, doing that in a way that doesn't respect the artists, like that's not sustainable. And so this is a move towards that. Yeah. Yeah. This is very much a handshake agreement of like, okay, you know, let's let the UDO users have some fun.

17:45I don't totally understand staying within the UDO platform. I guess if you kind of think of it as a social network where you hang out and just share fun things back and forth with friends, that's fine. but that does limit, you know, the functionality a bit. But yes, I am not surprised about this at all. I would have been shocked if UGM, UMG rather, and UDO went to battle in court and UDO won and said, nah, you know, you just, you just, we're just training AI on copyrighted music. It's like, that's not going to fly. So, so, and I haven't, I haven't played around with this stuff really at all. I don't know if you have Jason.

18:33I mean, I did when it, what's the other one? Suno. Yeah. Yeah. Suno and UDO, you know, similar. They're the primary ones. Yeah. And yeah, you know, played around was like, Oh, this is fun, but it's not really something that I'm doing, you know, for work or, you know, for my livelihood. And so it's kind of like a novelty for me, for other people. It might make a lot more sense and, and be, uh, make, uh, I don't know, uh, be something that they're, they're actually using to make money in some way. And that's where it gets kind of squirrely, right? It's like universal is like, wait a second. You know, if, if this turns into something that's not just a fun hobby, like, ha ha, look what I did with the song and turns into something where someone's making money.

19:19Well, we want some of that money. And, and I think that's key in why they want to keep it on the platform. Because if I'm on there creating a new... I don't know. Why am I suddenly blanking? I can't name a single artist. But if I'm on there and I'm making a track from my favorite artist, whoever it is, Tom Petty, sure, let's go that way. And I then am able to export that song and then upload it to Spotify. That's no good. And so I think that's what they're protecting here by saying it's got to stay within the platform. We're going to create a sandbox for you to do all this stuff in, but the music that you create in Tom Petty's voice can't go anywhere but here because here we can control it.

20:00We have, you know, we have ways of compensating. Once it leaves here, we've lost control of it. And someone might think that's an actual Tom Petty song and you're making money because you uploaded it to Spotify. That's my guess anyways. So we'll see. I'm very curious to see how that transpires. Finally, we have some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future. As mentioned briefly yesterday, Sora has started rolling out a bunch of new features, including character cameos, clip stitching for connecting multiple videos together, and easing up on its invitation code requirements for a limited time.

20:35You'll have to check those out. WhatsApp is adding passkey support to its cloud chat backups, which can be found inside settings. Go into settings, there's a new option in the chat backup section that enables end-to-end encrypted backup and you can use pass keys to access. Virgin Media 02 will launch the UK's first smartphones with automatic Starlink-powered satellite connectivity service in remote areas, starting first with message and data services, and then with phone calls coming at a later date. Sigma acquired Weavey. That's a service that allows users to combine various like different mix and match image and video generation models together for a more advanced AI driven editing kind of approach.

21:17So they're going to integrate that with plans to integrate it into its platform under the new Figma Weave brand. And finally, we alluded to the possibility on yesterday's show. And now one day later, multiple sources are telling Reuters that OpenAI is actively laying the groundwork for an IPO that could target around$1 trillion. Yes, you heard that right. I said trillion with a T. The largest IPO ever. If it happens, which it probably will. If it happens. Yeah, I think so. If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on this show, get in touch with us on the socials. We are at DTNS Show on X, Instagram and Threads, Blue Sky and Mastodon.

22:01For TikTok and YouTube, You can find us at Daily Tech News Show.

22:09We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. And today, Brad has a shocking revelation about using LLMs to create fake receipts. Yeah, Brad says, you are telling me that using LLMs to create fake receipts, say it isn't so. Just kidding. All that aside, there are very valid reasons to create receipts from LLMs. Well, sort of valid reason, says Brad. As somebody that travels about 29 weeks per year for my business expense system, it demands receipts for anything over a certain dollar amount. When I can't get a receipt from the vendor, I typically create one in Google Docs. However, I've begun to use OpenAI or Gemini to do this now, and it works great.

22:52Much faster than me having to type the required information for a receipt, especially if the vendor in question has a website that the LLM can crawl. Just thought I'd share this non-criminal use of received generation by an LLM use case. Love the show and all that makes it possible. Thank you, Brad. And, and yeah. I don't know about that. I don't know. I mean, I realize you said non-criminal use and I'm not saying that it is criminal use, but there's, but there's something a little weird about that, right? Like the receipt, it's not the real receipt. Yeah, it's not. I mean, I guess if you, yeah, that's a tough one.

23:29That's a tough one. It's a gray area for sure. If you, yeah, obviously Brad does a lot of travel, certainly more than me. So, you know, and I am, I'm very used to, you know, on the company dime, you know, going out to dinner, you know, with the folks and, you know, one of us picks up the tab and it's like, okay, this is what I'm going to submit. You know, this is, this is, this is a receipt, a physical receipt with my signature on it type thing. You know, there's, I guess there's not much you can do about that. But if you are working with various vendors on the road and somehow, yeah, OpenAI or Gemini in Brad's case can make sense of that and cut down his workload.

24:10Well, that's interesting. But yeah, I kind of don't get it either, Jason. Well, what we do get is what you are thinking about because you send us your feedback all the time. We want more of that. If you have insight into a story, if you have a story like Brad, who's saying, hey, you know, receipts, you got to love LLMs for this. Share it with us. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com. Yeah, big thanks to Brad for sending that in and contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron at Patreon.com slash DTNS. We'll see you tomorrow.

24:53The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.