OpenAI eyes $174B in sales by 2030

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Thursday.

Quick notes from The Information (paywalled):

• OpenAI hit $3.7B revenue in 2024 and projects $13B in 2025, with $125B forecasted for 2029

• Even if it misses by 50%, the growth would still be historic

• AI agents are expected to drive most of that future revenue

• OpenAI is becoming more like AWS or Azure than a consumer app

• A two-sided platform is emerging, with users on one side and agents on the other

• Ads may play a role, but the bigger move is owning intent and brokering actions at scale

But not everyone is cheering…

Ziff Davis, owner of CNET, PCMag, IGN, and Everyday Health, is suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, as first reported by The New York Times.

OK let’s keep going ↓

Here’s what you should know:

• Adobe Firefly updates

  Plans range from free to $200/month. Adobe Fresco is also introducing a content credential to indicate when artwork is made by hand.

• Spotify expands AI playlists to premium users in 40+ new markets

  Including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean.

• Google’s AI Overviews reach more than 1.5 billion people every month

  Google shared the figure as part of its Q1 2025 earnings.

• The White House releases their official AI education plan

  10 years from now, which country will be the global AI leader?

• Department of Defense officials outline AI’s strategic role in security

  Aggressive AI-enabled defense posture.

• IBM claims $3.5 billion productivity boost through AI agent use

  Rolled out its strategy to 270,000 employees around the world.

• Imogen Heap launches AI music tools with AI platform Jen

  Mmm, whatcha say? Oh, that you only meant well? Well, of course, you did.

• AI project to improve outcome for stroke patients

  The project SAMueL-2, which stands for stroke audit machine learning, helps to identify which patients can receive a procedure called thrombolysis, which involves administering drugs to break down blood clots.

• Perplexity will come pre-installed on all new Motorola phones

  Also, their AI voice assistant is now available on iOS (video below).

The numbers:

• Databricks will invest over $250 million in India to expand its AI efforts, boost hiring by 50%, and open a new R&D center in Bengaluru focused on training and innovation.

• Avidicure raised $50 million in seed funding to develop modular antibodies that enhance immune response for targeted cancer treatment.

• Listen Labs raised $27 million to use AI voice interviews and autonomous agents to transform and automate global market research.

• Augur raised $7 million in seed funding to scale its AI platform that predicts and blocks cyberattacks before they happen.

Thought starters:

I’m reading The Urgency of Interpretability by Dario (Anthropic CEO).

Also worth a watch: Anthropic’s YouTube video Could AI Models Be Conscious?

Finally, check out this paper from the Epoch team: Trends in AI Supercomputers

Meme of the day:

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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