Wednesday 4 November 2026
Top stories today:
Google faces backlash over plan to block Search at schools
AMD Q3 revenue +45% YoY to $13.4B, net income +95%
ChatGPT hits 1.2B weekly users worldwide
Appleās Siri AI opens to all developers via App Intents
Fal raises $1.3B at $16B valuation in Bessemer-led round
0. Data & Calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing todayās newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Google faces backlash over plan to block Search at schools rejecting AI
Starting in early 2027, Google will disable its K-12 AI tools by default unless schools opt in.
āSearch and AI are deeply integrated,ā said Google VP for Education Chris Phillips.
Students āwill not have access to searchā if their schools reject AI entirely, Phillips said.
Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani criticized the move, along with other politicians.
Following the backlash, Google clarified that schools can enable Gemini, Gemini Notebook, and Search individually.
Granola, the AI notepad for people with back-to-back meetings, just launched Voice Typing.
Hold Fn and talk, and clean text appears in any app you are already using including Gmail, Slack, Docs or Claude. Unlimited words for all Granola users. Try it here.
1 month off any paid plan with code BAYAREATIMES.
*Sponsored.
3. AMD Q3 revenue +45% YoY to $13.4B, vs. $13.1B est., net income +95%
Data center revenue +97% YoY to $8.5B.
AMD forecasts ~$17B in Q4 revenue, vs. Intelās $15Bā$16B, potentially becoming the top x86 vendor by revenue.
AMD shares +24% after hours.
Training AI on finance requires experts who can evaluate models on valuation, portfolio theory, and risk modelingānot just general annotators.
Athyna Intelligence delivers financial analysts, economists, and quant researchers from Latin America for RLHF, evals, and reasoning tasks.
Same US time zone. Vetted in days. 40ā60% savings.
*Sponsored.
5. ChatGPT hits 1.2B weekly users, with search volume reaching ~20% of Googleās
ChatGPT users generate 1.5B images per week, consumer product lead Adam Fry said.
250M combined weekly active users across ChatGPTās voice features, including dictation and spoken conversations.
Memorandum lands in the inboxes of founders, C-level executives, VCs, and investors every single day.
These are the people making decisions in tech, and they pay attention: a 47.4% open rate and a 3.9% click-through rate, with 86% of readers in the US and 12% in Canada.
Featured placements sit at the top of the email with your image, copy, and CTA button. If your product is built for decision-makers, this is where they read.
*Sponsored.
7. Appleās Siri AI opens to all developers via App Intents in OS 27.3 betas
iOS 27.3 and other Apple OS betas let third-party apps bring their content and actions into Siri AI.
Apple Intelligence has also debuted in China via the iOS 27.3 beta, with an Alibaba-powered content filter.
