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Your default survives, the rules change. Google keeps Chrome but gets watchdogs and data sharing. OpenAI brings experiments in-house with a $1.1B Statsig deal, Anthropic arms up with $13B, and Amazon turns your camera into checkout. Which of these hits your roadmap first?
📌 In today’s Generative AI Newsletter:
Google guilty on defaults; Chrome stays
OpenAI buys Statsig to own experiments
Anthropic raises $13B at $183B valuation
Amazon Lens Live makes the world shoppable
⚖️ Google Escapes Chrome Breakup as AI Shifts Antitrust Case
Image Credit: Getty Images
A U.S. judge has ruled that Google will not be forced to sell Chrome, even as the company was found guilty of illegally locking up default search slots on Apple devices, Android phones, and major carrier deals. The decision sent Alphabet’s stock up 7% in after-hours trading.
Here’s what the ruling means:
Illegal contracts: Google paid billions for preset search positions, with exclusivity clauses and revenue-sharing that regulators said shut out rivals.
Remedies imposed: Exclusive default deals are banned, a six-year oversight order starts in 60 days, and Google must share search data with competitors to help them improve on long-tail queries.
New oversight: A Technical Committee will monitor how Google bundles services like Gemini and Assistant on browsers and devices.
AI in the judgment: Judge Amit Mehta wrote that “the rise of artificial intelligence changed the course of this case,” noting that OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are already reshaping how people search.
Google was found guilty, but avoided the nuclear option of losing Chrome. The outcome clarifies how AI’s arrival is already bending the rules of antitrust law and forcing courts to predict the shape of competition before it fully arrives.
💰 OpenAI Buys Statsig for $1.1B to Power Its Applications Division
Image Credit: Bloomberg
OpenAI has agreed to acquire Statsig in an all-stock deal valued at $1.1B, one of the largest purchases in the company’s history. Statsig, founded in 2021 by ex-Facebook engineer Vijaye Raji, built experimentation and A/B testing tools used by companies like Notion, Atlassian, Brex, and Bloomberg.
Here’s what the deal brings:
Raji’s new role: He will join OpenAI as CTO of Applications, reporting to division CEO Fidji Simo, and oversee product engineering for ChatGPT, Codex, and future consumer apps.
Team integration: Statsig’s staff will transition into OpenAI, though the company says the group will operate independently with a “measured” integration plan.
Strategic shift: By owning experimentation infrastructure, OpenAI gains control over how new features are tested, scaled, and shipped across its consumer platforms.
Buying spree: The acquisition follows OpenAI’s $6.5B purchase of a Jony Ive–led AI hardware startup in July, after a failed $3B bid for Windsurf earlier this year.
Statsig had just raised $100M at a $1.1B valuation in 2024, making this a rare billion-dollar exit in under five years. For OpenAI, the move turns product testing into an in-house capability at a time when its valuation is rumored to be climbing toward $500B. Every new feature starts with an experiment. OpenAI just locked that process inside its own walls.
🌏 Anthropic’s Historic $13B Raise Pushes Valuation to $183B
Anthropic has closed a $13B Series F at a $183B valuation, putting it shoulder to shoulder with some of the world’s industrial giants. The round was co-led by Iconiq, Fidelity, and Lightspeed, with capital from BlackRock, Blackstone, Altimeter, Coatue, Baillie Gifford, D1 Capital, Insight Partners, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and the Qatar Investment Authority.
Here’s what the funding fuels:
Enterprise scale: Now serving 300,000 business customers, with large accounts above $100K in run-rate revenue growing nearly 7x in the past year.
Claude Code surge: The coding assistant has crossed $500M in run-rate revenue, with usage multiplying more than tenfold in just three months.
Expansion push: New funding earmarked for global growth, safety research, and deeper enterprise adoption.
Capital realities: CEO Dario Amodei has acknowledged discomfort with sovereign wealth fund money tied to authoritarian governments, but admitted it is unavoidable at this scale.
CFO Krishna Rao framed the raise as a show of “extraordinary confidence” in Anthropic’s performance. With $13B fresh, the company is armed for a high-cost sprint in the AI arms race, where every competitor is fighting to define the next platform.
🛒 Amazon Launches Lens Live for Real-World AI Shopping
Image Credits: Amazon
Amazon has rolled out Lens Live, a new feature that turns its visual shopping tool into a real-time AI search engine for the physical world. Shoppers can now point their phones at any product around them and instantly see Amazon listings in a swipeable carousel at the bottom of the screen.
Here’s how it works:
Instant matches: Tap on any object in your camera view to see product listings, add items to your cart, or save them to a wish list.
Rufus integration: Amazon’s AI shopping assistant offers product insights, summaries, and conversational Q&A to help with quick research before buying.
Powered by AWS: The feature runs on Amazon SageMaker and OpenSearch, scaling machine learning models for fast, accurate visual recognition.
In-store advantage: Lens Live doubles as a comparison-shopping tool, letting customers check if Amazon offers a better deal while browsing brick-and-mortar stores.
Lens Live debuts on the Amazon Shopping app for iOS, rolling out first to “tens of millions” of U.S. shoppers. With Rufus, AI guides, and AI-enhanced reviews already live, Amazon is stacking its retail empire with tools designed to keep buyers inside its ecosystem from the moment curiosity strikes.
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