Whats up and welcome to Eye on AI. On this version….Insights from Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco…Disney invests $1 billion in OpenAI and licenses its IP to the corporate…OpenAI debuts GPT-5.2 in effort to silence considerations it’s trailing rivals…Oracle inventory takes a tumble.
Hello, it’s Jeremy right here. I’m nonetheless buzzing from Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco, which passed off earlier this week. We had a superb lineup together with Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief working officer, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, Exelon CEO Calvin Butler, Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, Insitro CEO Daphne Koller, and plenty of extra. We additionally had a considerate dialog on AI’s impacts with actor, director, and more and more AI thought chief Joseph Gordon Levitt, in addition to a scream of a session with actor, comic and AI CEO Natasha Lyonne. Right this moment, Sharon Goldman, Bea Nolan, and I are going to share a couple of highlights and private impressions.
For me, there was a notable vibe this 12 months that plenty of firms are considerably additional alongside in implementing AI throughout their organizations, together with utilizing AI brokers in some restricted, however essential, capacities. Many viewers questions, particularly in a few of the breakout periods, had been round governance and orchestration strategies for an more and more hybrid workforce the place AI brokers shall be finishing duties alongside staff.
Nonetheless, it was putting to listen to Butler, the Exelon CEO, say that his firm is shifting cautiously. When the consequence of getting one thing fallacious is actually lights out, safety and reliability should take priority over the whole lot else. And so Butler mentioned he was pleased to not be a “first mover” however as an alternative a “quick follower” when it got here to AI implementations. Let different individuals take the hit and be taught from their errors, appears to be his view.
And this wasn’t the one place the place audio system had been looking for to tamp down hype. It was refreshing to listen to Michael Truell, the cofounder and CEO of hit coding assistant Cursor inform me that he didn’t suppose software program engineering would ever be absolutely automated in the way in which that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman typically talks about. As an alternative Truell mentioned that whereas the period of time that coders spent on “compilation” of code would proceed to shrink, he noticed a continued want for people to make design selections round “how ought to the software program work.”
Equally, Vidya Peters, from DataSnipper, mentioned she thought there would nonetheless be a task for certified accountants inside finance organizations, even when they had been more and more being assisted with AI instruments such because the one her firm makes. She additionally mentioned she thought that purposes geared particularly for a selected business or job—particularly in regulated industries—would proceed to win out over extra normal goal AI fashions, whilst the massive AI firms are more and more concentrating on particular skilled use circumstances for his or her normal goal fashions.
A panel that Sharon moderated on the “new geography of information facilities” was fascinating. The message was that proper now, information facilities are going the place the ability is. However more and more information facilities are going to be trying to construct their very own energy on web site and probably even grow to be web contributors to the grid. And Jason Eichenholz, the CEO of Relativity Networks, mentioned that as AI inference workloads come to eclipse AI coaching workloads, there shall be an growing must carry information facilities near main inhabitants facilities, however that the majority cities within the U.S. are energy constrained. How are we going to get these city facilities the tokens they want on the velocity at which they want them? That’s anybody’s guess proper now, Eichenholz says—though his firm builds the quick fiber that may carry these tokens from the information facilities to finish customers.
Lastly, I loved listening to Dayle Stevens from Telstra clarify why her firm selected to kind a three way partnership with Accenture to ship its AI stragegy, moderately than merely hiring the consulting agency underneath a conventional service contract. Stevens mentioned the three way partnership has enabled the corporate to maneuver a lot quicker than it could have in any other case and to faucet experience, together with beginning an AI innovation hub in Silicon Valley, that will have been arduous to implement in any other case.
The way forward for enterprise AI is hybrid
Now, right here’s Sharon’s takeaways: In my mainstage session with PayPal world head of AI Prakhar Mehrotra and Marc Hamilton, VP of options structure and engineering at Nvidia, each mentioned the growing energy of open supply AI fashions to permit enterprise firms to regulate their information and fine-tune for particular use circumstances. However each agreed that the way forward for enterprise AI shall be hybrid, with enterprises sometimes utilizing each open fashions and proprietary mannequin APIs.
There was loads of time for philosophizing, as effectively: at one dinner, I chatted with delegates from The Clorox Firm, Workday and different firms about the whole lot from what jobs had been future-proof (I urged canine walkers had been secure from AI) to what AI would actually imply for the way forward for right now’s kids (the underside line: they nonetheless must be taught to suppose for themselves!).
My favourite panel was one I moderated with a half-dozen leaders and stakeholders on the planet of AI information facilities, together with Andy Hock from Cerebras, Matt Subject from Crusoe, and former OpenAI infrastructure coverage chief Lane Dilg. We dug into how the road is blurring between energy infrastructure and information facilities, with billions in capital and gigawatts of energy at play. My greatest takeaway was that the AI information heart situation is native, native, native. Each neighborhood and native authorities shall be coping with its personal particular points and compromises round points comparable to land, vitality, and water—and what works for one space won’t work for one more.
Folks and tradition are paramount
And here’s what Bea needed to say about this 12 months’s Brainstorm AI San Francisco:
Most enterprises are nonetheless attempting to determine the easiest way to undertake AI, however leaders this 12 months had been additionally eager to emphasise that selecting the best instruments is barely a part of the equation. Firms additionally want to make sure that each their staff and their org charts are prepared for the shift—in any other case, even essentially the most superior AI pilots are prone to fail.
As Accenture’s Chief Accountable AI Officer Arnab Chakraborty put it: “Don’t simply take into consideration expertise—take into consideration individuals and the tradition. It’s so paramount.”
Or take Open Machine CEO Allie Okay. Miller’s recommendation and don’t name AI a software in any respect: “Calling it a software finally ends up being a bit little bit of borderline self-limiting habits that’s holding enterprise all all over the world behind.”
I additionally moderated a panel of healthcare consultants, which introduced collectively a mixture of clinicians who see sufferers day by day and tech leaders constructing and deploying healthtech instruments at scale. In healthcare, the business is mostly feeling good about clinician-facing AI, nevertheless it’s nonetheless wrestling with what it means to securely deploy patient-facing brokers.
The panelists mentioned, amongst different issues, what it means to be shifting towards a future the place sufferers and clinicians seek the advice of the identical AI earlier than they seek the advice of one another.
The joy is working excessive on the company facet, however not that a lot has actually modified within the examination room—a minimum of in keeping with Gurpreet Dhaliwal, a clinician-educator and Professor of Medication on the College of California. Whether or not it’s with Dr. Google, Dr. ChatGPT, or only a neighbor with some robust beliefs about antibiotics, Dhaliwal mentioned sufferers have at all times arrived with a second opinion of their again pocket. Whereas AI is poised to be a revolutionary drive for healthcare—particularly in fringe circumstances comparable to uncommon illnesses—it’s but to basically change the dynamic between sufferers and their physicians.
With that, right here’s the remainder of the AI information.
Jeremy Kahn
jeremy.kahn@fortune.com
@jeremyakahn
FORTUNE ON AI
Google DeepMind agrees to sweeping partnership with U.Okay. authorities targeted on science and clear vitality—by Jeremy Kahn
Hinge’s founder and CEO is stepping down to begin a brand new AI-first relationship app—by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Cursor has rising income and a $29 billion valuation—however CEO Michael Truell isn’t occupied with an IPO—by Beatrice Nolan
AI IN THE NEWS
Disney invests $1 billion in OpenAI, brings characters to OpenAI apps. The house of Mickey Mouse is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and, underneath a three-year licensing deal, will let customers generate brief, prompt-driven movies in OpenAI’s Sora app utilizing greater than 200 Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar characters. OpenAI is meant to create guardrails to stop customers from creating movies or photographs that may mirror poorly on the Disney model. The partnership was struck after almost two years of talks. In the meantime, Disney concurrently despatched a cease-and-desist letter to Google accusing it of large-scale copyright infringement tied to AI outputs that includes Disney characters. You may learn extra from The Wall Avenue Journal right here.
OpenAI debuts GPT-5.2 mannequin, answering considerations it was trailing rivals. The corporate launched a brand new AI mannequin that, in keeping with evaluations OpenAI performed, delivers state-of-the-art efficiency throughout a variety of duties, together with coding, mathematical reasoning, and “information work.” The mannequin confirmed vital enchancment over GPT-5.1, which OpenAI launched solely a month in the past, and bested Google’s and Anthropic’s new fashions. The discharge of Google’s Gemini 3 Professional in late November prompted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to declare a “code pink” to refocus the corporate on bettering ChatGPT. However OpenAI executives mentioned the discharge of GPT-5.2 had been within the works for months and that its debut was not associated to the “code pink.” OpenAI mentioned GPT-5.2 additionally improves security, notably round psychological well being–associated responses. You may learn extra from Jeremy right here.
New lawsuit claims ChatGPT contributed to murder-suicide in Connecticut. A wrongful-death lawsuit was filed in opposition to OpenAI and Microsoft after a 56-year-old Connecticut man, Stein-Erik Soelberg, killed his 83-year-old mom after which himself following months of more and more delusional conversations with ChatGPT. His household says the chatbot bolstered and contributed to his psychological sickness. OpenAI has expressed condolences and pointed to ongoing enhancements to ChatGPT’s capability to acknowledge and reply to customers in misery. You may learn extra from The Wall Avenue Journal right here.
Microsoft says well being queries are essentially the most frequent use of its Copilot AI by shoppers. Microsoft analyzed 37.5 million anonymized Copilot conversations from January by means of September 2025 to know how individuals use the AI assistant in every day life. The research discovered that health-related questions dominated cell utilization, whereas subjects and utilization patterns diversified considerably by system, time of day, and context. Past info search, customers more and more turned to Copilot for recommendation on private subjects, displaying its function as a companion in each work and life moments. You may learn Microsoft’s weblog on the findings right here.
Meta and Eleven Labs signal a brand new partnership to offer voice overs for Reels. Meta has partnered with London-based voice AI firm ElevenLabs to combine AI-powered audio capabilities throughout Instagram and Horizon. This partnership will allow new options comparable to the power to dub Reels into native languages in addition to to generate character voices. You may learn extra in The Financial Occasions right here.
AI CALENDAR
Jan. 7-10: Shopper Electronics Present, Las Vegas.
March 12-18: SWSW, Austin.
March 16-19: Nvidia GTC, San Jose.
April 6-9: HumanX, San Francisco.
EYE ON AI NUMBERS
$34 billion
That is the one-day paper loss Oracle founder and chairman Larry Ellison suffered Thursday after his firm’s shares had been pummeled by buyers more and more involved with the quantity Oracle is spending to construct information facilities for OpenAI. Oracle’s quarterly capital expenditures for the final quarter got here in above analyst expectations and in reality exceeded the amount of money the corporate generated within the quarter. “It’s just like the poster baby of the AI bear case,” Jay Hatfield, chief govt of Infrastructure Capital Advisors, advised the Wall Avenue Journal.
