Peacock bets on bundles through a new deal with YouTube

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1:42Kyle Mesteth, a native skateboarder building a movement for kids nationwide. Joy Aladakun, whose music moves from protests to daily commute. Find out how they started something bigger than themselves and listen wherever you get your podcasts. As rivals chase acquisitions, Peacock bets on bundles through a new deal with YouTube. I'm Imran Shaikh and your daily crunch for Wednesday starts right now. On Sunday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella doubled down on the shocking warning he issued earlier this month to businesses that use AI, taking it a step further this time. You see, companies that rely wholly on the proprietary AI labs for their AI needs ultimately won't survive, he predicts.

2:22Yeah, that's what he said on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. When Zakaria asked Nadella to explain what constitutes a company sharing too much with an AI model provider, Nadella said businesses need to be wary of everything they hand over, from their data to their prompts. Nadella called for a setup where every time you use the model, all of the metadata around it is retained by you so that you could use all of that to train perhaps your own weights or your own open model. Weights, by the way, are a model's trained parameters. Essentially, it's brain. Now, Nadella's point is this. Companies should hold on to their own usage data so they can eventually build a model of their own.

3:05Nadella continued, Any firm that doesn't have this control, I will claim will not remain a firm because you've essentially outsourced your thinking. In short, companies without their own models or without a layer of AI infrastructure known as AI gateways to separate their prompts from the model itself will be in trouble, Nadella says. Now, this is the kind of warning that the startup industry has been shuddering about for years. I mean, what's to stop model makers from wiping out startups by copying and competing with them? Chinese tech giant Baidu has started testing autonomous vehicles in London as part of its partnership with Lyft and FreeNow, the German taxi and multi-mobility app that Lyft now owns.

3:49Now, Baidu is the latest in a string of companies to test self-driving technology in the UK ahead of commercial robo-taxi deployments. Now, the testing, which began on Tuesday with human safety operators, comes nearly a year after the two companies struck a strategic partnership to deploy Baidu's purpose-built Apollo Go RT6 robo-taxis across key European markets through the Lyft platform. The vehicles will eventually be available through FreeNow, which Lyft acquired in 2025 for about$197 million. That deal gave Lyft a foothold in Europe's ride-hailing market, where a handful of well-funded companies are now jockeying to be the first to market with robo-taxis.

4:31London, in particular, is shaping up to be a key battleground in the region. You see, in April, Waymo began testing its autonomous vehicles with human safety operators in the city. Uber and its self-driving tech partner, Wave, also announced plans to launch a robo-taxi service in London this year. That initial service, which customers can now sign up for on an interest list, will have human safety operators behind the wheel before fully driverless operations begin later. Baidu and FreeNow by Lyft, as the latter service is now called, said they expect to invite the public to hail their robo-taxis in 2027.

5:07The companies, which didn't provide a more detailed timeline, noted that the launch will depend on regulatory approval. While much of the streaming industry is focused on mergers and acquisitions, Good ol' NBCUniversal is expanding its reach through partnerships, with its latest move bringing Peacock directly to YouTube. You see, on Monday, NBCUniversal and YouTube announced a multi-year global strategic partnership, bringing Peacock's premium plan to YouTube premium subscribers in the U.S. starting in early 2027. I mean, this gives millions of viewers access to Peacock's full lineup, including NFL and NBA coverage, Saturday Night Live, Love Island USA, Law & Order SVU, and Bravo favorites like the Real Housewives franchise.

5:56The deal means content will be integrated into the YouTube experience, allowing viewers to discover and watch Peacock content without leaving the platform. For YouTube, the partnership makes YouTube Premium a stronger offering by adding another major entertainment service. Now, it also supports YouTube's broader strategy of becoming a hub for streaming, giving viewers access to premium TV, live sports, and creator content all in one place. This partnership comes as media giants look for new ways to grow while competing with platforms like YouTube and TikTok, which continue to capture more of consumers' viewing time.

6:31Now, many companies have responded by reshaping their businesses through major deals. Paramount Skydance has agreed to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery, and Fox is buying Roku. Peacock, however, is leaning into distribution. The company has already partnered with Amazon and Apple, and the YouTube deal is its biggest effort yet to put its content where audiences, well, already are. The deal also comes on the heels of Peacock reporting its first-ever quarterly profit in the second quarter of 2026. The streaming service currently touts 48 million paid subscribers. And folks, that's your Daily Crudge.

7:07Today's stories were reported by Lauren Forrestal, Kirsten Karosik, Julie Bort, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists. We'll see you here tomorrow. Same tech time, same Crunch channel. And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.

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