Memory Prices Hit Cisco, Apple Faces Siri Snags

Summary

Bloomberg Tech – Memory Prices Hit Cisco, Apple Faces Siri Snags

Date: February 12, 2026
Hosts: Caroline Hyde (New York) & Ed Ludlow (San Francisco)

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into pivotal developments shaking up the technology landscape—from the impact of soaring memory chip prices on Cisco, disruptions across software and wealth management, delays in Apple’s AI-powered Siri, landmark social media litigation, and ambitious expansions for AI and autonomous vehicle firms. Featuring expert commentary from analysts, portfolio managers, founders, and journalists, the episode offers essential insights into challenges and opportunities unfolding across the tech sector.

---

1. Memory Prices Wallop Cisco and Broader Tech Markets

[01:07–02:44] Key Segment

• Issue: Cisco faced an 11% stock drop, the sharpest since May 2022, driven not by declining demand (which remains strong) but by margin compression due to surging memory (DRAM) chip prices.
• Context: The broader NASDAQ 100 also reflected anxieties over rising hardware component costs as markets anticipate the forthcoming Consumer Price Index (CPI) print.
• Expert Insight:
  • Woo Jinho (Bloomberg Intelligence):
    • “Cisco is the leading global provider of networking equipment… but the gross margin issue, especially given the DRAM pricing, is a lot bigger than we had thought.” [02:44]
    • While Cisco has stabilized margins into Q4 through pricing strategies and supplier negotiations, the fundamental issue is escalating component costs amid AI-driven hardware demand.
    • Looking ahead, Cisco’s sizable software business could stabilize margins by 2027. “If software really starts ramping up, we could start seeing some gross margin stability in 2027.” [03:27]
  • Caroline Hyde:
    • Observes this “anxiety of memory costs” echoing throughout both consumer and corporate tech markets. [01:32]
• Market Implication: Investors are increasingly wary about how essential hardware upgrades for AI workloads could pressure tech margins.

---

2. Software Sector Reset: AI’s Double-Edged Sword

[04:41–10:12] Key Segment

• Guest: Tony Wong, Portfolio Manager, T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund

• Main Points:

  • Valuation Reset:
    • Tony Wong characterizes the recent sell-off in software stocks as a “valuation reset,” amid fears that embedded AI will dramatically reshape the field, altering what constitutes sustainable value.
    • “The market is in a sell first and ask questions later mode.” [06:00]
  • AI Agents and Moats:
    • Emphasizes the shift to “autonomous enterprise agents” that go beyond mere prompts, changing the dynamics of workflow productivity and competitive barriers.
    • “If you are just a feature, then AI agents can encode software so easily and costlessly that you can essentially be embedded in a bigger platform.” [06:00]
  • Monetization Dilemmas:
    • Competitive pricing—especially from startups—leads to price deflation and changes the margin structure away from seat-based models toward outcomes-based and agent-driven economic models.
  • Specialization Still Matters:
    • Citing input from Siemens CEO on the resilience of industrial/simulation software, Wong says “most of the economics will be made at the specialization of the niches… Domain-specific knowledge will always be very important.” [09:15]

• Notable Quote:

  • Ed Ludlow: “It started in Europe in August… all the European software stocks sold off. Earlier today we spoke to the Siemens CEO. Let’s get his take.” [08:14]
  • Siemens CEO (via Woo Jinho): “We rather see an enrichment of this software, which allows more and more customers to use it.” [08:29]

---

3. Apple Faces Delays With AI-Powered Siri Revamp

[11:53–14:15] Key Segment

• Reporter: Mark Gurman (Bloomberg)
• Details:
  • Apple’s AI-centric overhaul of Siri, originally announced at WWDC 2024, is delayed. Key new features, such as contextual personal queries, now slip from iOS 26.4 (expected March) to iOS 26.5 (May/June). Some features might not launch until iOS 27 in September 2026—two years after announcement!
  • Gurman:
    • “The setback for Apple here is not necessarily in phone sales… but the challenge is, where is OpenAI, where is Anthropic, where are Google going to be at the end of this year?” [12:51]
    • Apple’s collaboration with Google’s Gemini team is helping offset the tech gap, but the real question is whether Apple’s offering will impress compared to OpenAI and competitors.
  • Potential Stakes: Apple risks losing mindshare in the “AI assistant” arms race if delays persist—and rivals advance more quickly.
• Notable Quote:
  • Gurman: “Altogether it's possible that these new features are not going to launch until two years after they were initially introduced.” [12:26]

---

4. Social Media on Trial: “Addiction” vs. “Problematic Use”

[14:15–17:00] Key Segment

• Context: Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testifies in a landmark case alleging social platforms intentionally “hook” young users, driving mental health issues.
• Legal Reporter: Madeline Meckleburg (Bloomberg)
• Key Testimony:
  • Mosseri distinguishes between “clinical addiction” and “problematic use.” He denies that heavy use of Meta platforms equals “addiction” by medical standards, echoing themes from earlier Congressional testimony.
  • The trial will span eight weeks, with more senior executives from Meta and Google expected in the stand—possible implications for thousands of similar lawsuits nationwide.
• Notable Quote:
  • Meckleburg: “This case… represents thousands of other cases that have been filed. So there’s a lot of attention on the outcome here because it’s going to dictate how the rest of these cases are decided.” [16:19]

---

5. AI Disruption Hits Wealth Management: Meet Hazel

[18:25–24:27] Key Segment

• Context: Startup Altruist launches “Hazel,” an AI-driven tax planning tool for wealth managers. Stocks of incumbents (Charles Schwab, LPL, Raymond James) tumble as investors fear AI-driven disruption could squeeze profits or alter the industry structure.
• Guest: Jason Wang, CEO, Altruist
• Highlights:
  • Altruist frames Hazel as a tool for empowering—not replacing—advisors via unprecedented efficiency (“hundreds of hours” of work reduced to “two to three minutes”; cost cut from tens of thousands to ~$100 per month).
  • Wang: “We’re not trying to displace financial advisors or wealth managers. It’s AI to help empower them to do better work for their clients.” [19:32]
  • Hazel is “custodian-agnostic,” targeting all advisors, not just those on Altruist’s own platform.
  • Model’s Strength: Combines clean, highly detailed transaction and client data (“the ultimate system of record”) for tailored insights.
• Market Reaction:
  • “Somewhere between tens of billions and maybe 100 billion of market cap would be wiped out in a week. AI is very powerful…” — Jason Wang [18:56]
• Notable Moment:
  • Ed Ludlow asks whether legacy firms have reached out for collaboration. Wang says no, not directly, but hundreds of major wealth management companies are seeking partnerships in light of the disruption. [21:38–22:38]

---

6. Private Markets Surge: SoftBank, Anthropic, and the Rise of Dual-Backed AI Bets

[24:45–28:53] Key Segment

• SoftBank:
  • With an 11% OpenAI stake, the firm is shifting focus—cutting positions like T-Mobile to double down on AI, chip design (Arm, Ampere), and private equity targeted at data centers. Fourth consecutive quarter of profit signals turnaround.
  • “SoftBank is like the way to play OpenAI exposure.” — Caroline Hyde [25:42]
• Anthropic Mega-Raise:
  • The AI startup is closing a $20B+ funding round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, DE Shaw, Dragoneer, Sequoia—a rare case of VCs betting on multiple direct competitors (taboo for information leakage).
  • “Founded Fund is not alone. We’re seeing Sequoia as well in the round and the list grows.” — Natasha Mascarenas [27:58]
• Implications: Large, concentrated VC bets in multiple AI labs represent both opportunity and governance risk.

---

7. Waymo’s Expansion: Regulatory Roadblocks and Scale

[28:53–34:42] Key Segment

• Guest: Kid Americana, Co-CEO, Waymo
• Focus:
  • Ambitions: Waymo is eyeing broader U.S. (including New York State but not NYC proper) and international rollouts, with London and Tokyo as target cities—London set to become the largest citywide launch to date.
  • Federal vs. State Rules: Advocates for a unified U.S. regulatory framework for AVs, arguing that “we cannot lead globally if it’s a framework governed by multiple jurisdictions.”
    • “We think it’s really important that there is a federal AV standard… the burden should be on companies to demonstrate why you believe your technology is safe enough.” — Kid Americana [30:22]
  • London Experience: UK regulators have been “extremely forward leaning,” focused on safety and not complacent about the transport status quo.
  • Public Demand: “In cities where our technology can't be deployed, we are seeing organic campaigns spring up saying, I want Waymo in my town.” [31:48]
• Notable Quotes:
  • “We’re in more than 30 of the 60 London boroughs—you know, like 60% of the city is already covered. That’s way beyond what, for example, Tesla’s doing in Austin.” — Ed Ludlow [33:33]

---

8. AI Disrupts Logistics: Algorithm and the “Next Shoe To Drop”

[34:42–35:29] Key Segment

• Disruption: U.S.-traded Algorithm claims its AI-powered “semi cab” platform cuts empty freight miles by 70%—triggering sharp declines in logistics stocks (C.H. Robinson down 21%, DN Transport Index down 5%).
• Implication: Suggests logistics and transport are in the crosshairs for the next wave of AI-led disruption.

---

9. Human Behavior Modeling: Similarly’s Breakthrough

[35:29–40:05] Key Segment

• Guest: June Park, CEO, Similarly (AI startup)
• Concept:
  • Similarly creates predictive simulations of human behavior for corporate clients (CVS, Gallup, Fortune 10/500 firms) via AI agents trained on unique, highly personal interview data.
  • “We actually can create an AI interviewer that can go talk to people one on one… and actually get life stories and their preferences… with their consent.” — June Park [37:14]
• Use Cases:
  • Simulated focus groups, store layout optimization, digital polling panels, and even predicting 80% of questions that will be asked on earnings calls.
  • “We can predict, with 80% certainty, what analysts are going to ask CEO/CFOs on earnings calls.” — June Park [39:00]
• Rapid Progress: Despite being only 7 months in, Park credits fusion of top-tier Stanford research with elite product teams from Figma and other startups.

---

10. Closing Markets and Latest News (Skip Ads/Outros)

• Crypto: Grab’s CFO touts growth and profitability; Coinbase faces downturn as crypto trading volume falls due to weaker retail activity and less volatility.
• AI Model Updates: Google’s Gemini 3 release touts improved science and research capabilities; Alphabet stock spikes.
• Insight: Coinbase’s diversification efforts (stablecoins, prediction markets) have minimal short-term effects on revenue amidst the current crypto rout.

---

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Woo Jinho:
  • “The gross margin issue… is a lot bigger than we had thought.” [02:44]
• Tony Wong:
  • “It’s more important that you are the platform and not just a feature.” [06:00]
• Mark Gurman:
  • “It’s possible that these new features are not going to launch until two years after they were initially introduced.” [12:26]
• Madeline Meckleburg:
  • “This case…dictate[s] how the rest of these cases are decided.” [16:19]
• Jason Wang (Altruist):
  • “It’s not AI taking those jobs away. It’s AI to help empower them to do better work for their clients.” [19:32]
• Kid Americana (Waymo):
  • “We’ve been advocating for a safety case-based approach because the technologies are different.” [30:22]
• June Park (Similarly):
  • “We can predict, with 80% certainty, what analysts are going to ask on earnings calls.” [39:00]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Cisco/memory prices: 01:07–04:41
• Software sell-off & AI transformation: 04:41–10:12
• Apple Siri delays: 11:53–14:15
• Social media litigation: 14:15–17:00
• Wealth management/AI disruption: 18:25–24:27
• SoftBank, VC, Anthropic: 24:45–28:53
• Waymo expansion/interview: 28:53–34:42
• AI in logistics: 34:42–35:29
• Similarly (human behavior modeling): 35:29–40:05
• Crypto/markets wrap: 43:06–end

---

Conclusion

This episode captures the volatility and excitement that surround technology’s major sectors in 2026—from hard-hit hardware margins, software’s existential questions in the age of AI, and consumer tech delays, to the explosive possibilities (and risks) posed by AI in wealth management, logistics, and behavioral prediction. Investors, innovators, and regulators alike face both immense promise and daunting complexity as AI’s second wave crests across the tech landscape.

Transcript

[Michael McDermott]

At CES. Michael McDermott, EVP of Samsung, spoke with Bloomberg Media Studios about what the company calls its next AI chapter, your companion to AI living. It's a shift from AI as a feature to AI as a trusted partner in everyday life.

[Premier Protein Advertiser]

Premier Protein it's for getting after life, not just Fitness. With 30 grams of protein, 160 calories and no sugar added, helping people fuel their joyful lives. With Premier Protein, you can say yes to more. Whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with the kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends, Premier Protein offers delicious flavors like cafe latte, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, strawberry and.

[Caroline Hyde]

Cake batter, to name a few. Find your favorite [e-mail].

[Premier Protein Advertiser]

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts Radio news. Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to.

[Caroline Hyde]

Coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.

[Ed Ludlow]

This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, memory chip prices strike again, this time taking a toll on Cisco even as AI demand surges. We'll break it down.

[Caroline Hyde]

Plus Apple's revamp of its Siri voice assistant hits new snags that could delay the release of some features.

[Ed Ludlow]

And Altruists launched an AI tax planning tool. And within hours, wealth management stocks tumbled. The CEO of Altruist joins us to discuss.

[Caroline Hyde]

First we check in on these markets that in many ways are still digesting AI disruption. We focus in on Cisco that I know you'll go to. We're off by 1% on the NASDAQ 100. That anxiety of of costs, of memory costs really building into the benchmark, but more broadly but all eyes on costs for consumers. CPI print coming later in the market. Just a little bit nervous ahead of that Bitcoin down another day off by a percentage point. 67,000 is where we trade for this particular risk asset. Ed, what are you looking at?

[Ed Ludlow]

There's a lot of pieces of consecutive red on the screens we've been putting up. Cisco, no exception, down 11% track for its biggest drop since May of 2022. And prior to today's session it was up 11% and had momentum. Outlook is strong on sales for the current period demands there, but there's margin compression memory chip prices. Let's get more with Bloomberg Intelligence senior hardware and network analyst Woo Jinho. It's actually probably a good time to remind us what Cisco is and what Cisco does. But the memory issue is factoring in to servers and right now you are leading with your react piece on the Bloomberg terminal with the memory chip issue. What do we need to know?

[Woo Jinho]

Yeah, hey, so so really quickly, what Cisco is, is the leading global provider of networking equipment for, for corporate as well as for data centers. And they've actually had a foray into cloud data centers to help power some of the AI workloads. Now what happened last quarter, they got the AI orders, you know, and drove a lot of the upside on sales. But the gross margin issue, especially given from the DRAM pricing, is a lot bigger than we had thought.

[Caroline Hyde]

Chuck Robbins though was trying to say that like if anyone's going to navigate this, they're going to navigate it. They're already going to their suppliers, they're already thinking about increasing prices. How well can they handle it?

[Woo Jinho]

Yeah, so we did the Math for the third quarter there's about 200 basis point product erosion on gross margin. But when we look at the, the fourth quarter, you know, they're able to stabilize that. Now think about 2027, they actually have a fairly sizable software business and if software really starts ramping up, we could start seeing some gross margin stability in 2027.

[Caroline Hyde]

Region HO Bloomberg Intelligence. There we have your piece. Cisco's results Outlook Pinched by memory price spike look, all of this is as Cisco's numbers. They highlight the heavy infrastructure buildout but have investors really questioning what happens next for the implications to software too. Joining us now to go across the whole gamut is Tony Wong, Portfolio manager T Rowe Price Science and Technology Fund. In his latest, he says that recent software sell off is more of a valuation reset and that companies that successfully embed AI into workflows could drive stronger productivity and margins over time. And Tony, what's so great about having a voice on the show is you time and time again have been like the proof point. The ROI is going to be productivity gains. Suddenly we got the productivity gains sort of shining a light that we're actually worried it's going to really hit valuations. How do you weigh where we are in terms of the sell off and if it's overdone?

[Tony Wong]

Yeah, well, I think it's the key question the market is wrestling with right now. And so when I think about it, it's really just what is on the right side of change, I think. And what is the inevitability here? And I think what you're seeing with cloud cowork is that these agents are becoming more autonomous and they can actually execute things on their own. Do more than just like you had to prompt something like chatgpt, you know, for, for your own personal chatgpt. But so what it's exciting is that these enterprise Agents, I think are going to be more, more of a force here and as we're starting to see that really pay off. And we think about it like, I think the why the market's reacting the way it is, because if you think about it in the future, like there are wide sweeping implications for what moats mean, like in terms of software as well as information services. So it's definitely a disruptive potential force here.

[Caroline Hyde]

Disruptive to some of those in your portfolio. I'm looking. You are exposed to Salesforce, you are exposed to Accenture, which people have been worrying about the consultant side of the equation. Even Shopify, even though delivered strong numbers got beaten up yesterday. How are you being discerning at this moment of where you actually buy into on a dip? Because you do think that they'll manage to ride the software disruption?

[Tony Wong]

Yeah, so I think that, you know, it's more important that you are the platform and not just a feature. Because you're a feature, then AI agents can encode software so easily and costlessly that you essentially can be embedded in a bigger platform. And so I think that increasingly you want to make sure that you're the layer that all these agents need to coalesce around. I think that there's going to be a lot of change here in terms of. And we honestly don't know. And so I think the market is in a sell first and ask questions later mode. And so it's important to kind of stay on the right side and manage these, these changes in the market.

[Ed Ludlow]

Tony Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has this line that software is now worth paying for. The example he would give is cursor. But I guess what we're trying to do with you is define what software is that is worth paying for. You just brought up Salesforce, right? So in the most recent quarter they had like more than $1 billion of architecture directly from AI. And they talk about all the almost 19,000 agent force deals that they have, yet they're still subject to this same AI is going to eat software's lunch chat that's going on right now. Why, why do people not believe the traction that they have as an example that it's worth paying for?

[Tony Wong]

Yes. I think there's two things that I think about. One is that the. There's just so much competition when you think about all these eight native startups and they're pricing in a way that is really compelling and to drive adoption essentially. So you think about like image generation, right? Like you pay $20 a charge, you can generate Unlimited images whereas on Adobe a Firefly you have to pay per image generation. You know, you can think about, you know, cloud cowork a similar way in terms of what they're pricing versus the value that they're delivering is, is really compelling. And so I think what you just have a lot of price deflation and that's why I think a lot of these software companies are looking to drive adoption. You know, their economics aren't as good as the seed based model. And we're going from like a seed based model to outcomes and agents which is a very different, different version just.

[Ed Ludlow]

For, for reference audience. NASDAQ 100 near session lows now down one and a quarter percent. This story started in Europe in August. I was there in London. I remember the day all the European software stocks sold off. Earlier today we spoke to the Siemens CEO. Let's get his take.

[Woo Jinho]

You know, that has the potential to disrupt some of their software businesses. I mean if you talk about software which runs on, on call centers and alike, I mean that's fully on the block. But if you go on the other end on industrial software, simulation software, physics based software, that we don't see that at all. We rather see an enrichment of this software which allows more and more customers to use it.

[Ed Ludlow]

Another software CEO whose fate is very closely tied to a relationship with Nvidia. And I think it's important to point that out. But his argument is that actually specialized software is getting better because of AI. You buy that?

[Tony Wong]

I think so. And I think that most, I think a lot of the economics will be made at the specialization of the niches. So you know, domain specific knowledge will always be very important. And so you know, I think just general knowledge is probably going to be not take the economics. And so what really matters is like being able to put this into ROI. Now at the same time it doesn't mean that if you have a stronger model, that doesn't mean it doesn't create more competition for existing incumbents. So I don't think the battle is won or lost for these companies and I think it's just important that they stay front footed and incorporating the latest technology trends into their platform.

[Caroline Hyde]

And your Science Technology fund has all the trends. You're in hardware and software, your number one holding is Alphabet at the moment than in video. But going back full circle to Cisco, your exposure there, what do you think about the memory price implications and how you can weather who are the winners and losers in that situation?

[Ed Ludlow]

How long for?

[Tony Wong]

Yeah, so I think that you know, memory is A fascinating industry because one is secular trends and AI is not just new tam. And then we've also gone through multiple years of underinvestment because memory has been a downturn. So I think one it is that there's secular but there's also cyclical elements of it. So you know, in terms of our portfolio, we definitely own a lot of the bottlenecks where the economic value capture is in such as memory. At the same time I think that you know, Cisco networking and this is also going to be participating in AI. I think that the implications of the memory shortage is actually becoming more widespread and having implications that a lot of times the market didn't think about. So you know, it is fascinating. But I do think Cisco continues to be a really important company that's driving a lot of this adoption.

[Ed Ludlow]

Tony Wong, T. Rowe Price Great to have you back on Bloomberg Tech. Really appreciate it. Now coming up, Apple's new Siri runs into more snags during testing. What's delaying the upgrade? We have the Bloomberg reporting next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Apple's revamp of its Siri voice assistant has hit new challenges that could delay the release of some features, according to sources. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman as always has the details. Let's get into the details. What do we need to know? What's new? What are you hearing from inside the company about the latest snag with artificial intelligence powered Siri?

[Mark Gurman]

So Apple has been planning to launch the new Siri. This is an AI revamp that initially introduced in June 2024 at its developers conference, allowing you to tap into features like your personal to fulfill queries on stream content and precise control of apps. It was supposed to launch next month in March as part of an update called iOS 26.4. This had been the plan for for several months. It's actually been the plan for for well over a year at this point now that is being delayed and staggered potentially. Right now the delay is moving many of the SIRI capabilities to iOS 26.5. That's scheduled for some time in May June, so about a couple of month delay. But some of the features including the personal contacts features, those are likely not to launch until September as part of iOS27. So a bit of a delay there and you know, altogether it's possible that these new features are not going to launch until two years after they were initially introduced. The setback for Apple here is not necessarily in phone sales. People are still buying iPhones. You saw the $85 billion dollars worth of sales which could have even been more if not for some manufacturing challenges. But the challenge is where is open air? Where's anthropic? Where are Google going to be at the end of this year? Right. They're likely to be well ahead of where they are today. So that's really what we have to pay attention to.

[Caroline Hyde]

Let's talk, Mark, about how, therefore, the Google integration is going, because in many ways this just fits into the overall Apple intelligence stock start and how they're going to be building out from within.

[Mark Gurman]

My belief is the only reason they're going to be able to get this done this year, which I still believe they're going to do despite these latest snags during testing, is because their models are being improved by the Google Gemini team as part of that collaboration between the research labs at both Apple and Google. So that is going to be a major boon for them. I do expect this big Siri chat bot revamp in iOS 27 coming out with the iPhones in the fall to be pretty nifty and pretty cool. A new way to control your phone with AI. They just need to pull it off and I think they will. But the big question is how impressive is it going to be in September compared to whatever OpenAI and Gemini has for their own customers and Graphic has with Quad in six months from now?

[Caroline Hyde]

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, we appreciate you on all things latest with Apple. Meanwhile, let's turn our attention to social media now because Instagram boss Adam Mosseri testified in a landmark case they like in social media to digital casinos. Mosseri told the jury he doesn't consider problematic use of platforms like matter to be the same as, quote, critical addiction. Bloomberg's legal reporter Madeline Meckleburg is with us. You were there in the hearing, nla. And so the push on Adam Mosseri, anything different that we've heard on other occasions that he's testified?

[Madeline Meckleburg]

So he covered a lot of similar ground to things that we've heard before in congressional testimony and other public remarks about this issue of social media addiction. Obviously, what's unique here is the context in which he was giving this testimony, which is this landmark case that's testing whether juries will respond to claims that these companies knowingly designed their platforms to addict young users. But we heard him cover a lot of different ground. As you noted, he talked about this issue of clinical addiction versus problematic use, which is something that we hear a lot from social media companies referring to people who use the platforms more than maybe they feel good about. We also heard him talk about some internal emails in the company when he was asked about them by the lawyer about decisions they were weighing about certain features on the platform related to photo filters on Instagram.

[Ed Ludlow]

This is a process, right? Both sides present arguments. You have plaintiffs. What do we need to know about what happens next, who else might testify and what is under consideration at the heart of the trial?

[Madeline Meckleburg]

That's right. So we're in week one of what's expected to be an eight week trial. Adam Mosseri was the first executive to be called to the stand, but he will certainly not be the last. As you said, this is the plaintiff's case. They kind of get the first chunk of time at the trial and then the defendants in this case, Metta and Google, they're going to get a chance to respond. We're also expecting to hear from Mark Zuckerberg of Metta. We're expecting to hear from YouTube CEO Neal Mohan at some point. And we're also, we kind of got a little bit of a preview that we're going to be hearing from executives a little bit further down the food chain who maybe were weighing in on some of these decisions. But the heart of this case is about this question of addiction and whether or not these platforms knowingly designed these tools to hook young users, resulting in mental health struggles. This case, of course, centers on one individual, a young woman from California, and her specific allegations. But it represents thousands of other cases that have been filed. So there's a lot of attention on the outcome here because it's going to dictate how the rest of these cases are decided.

[Ed Ludlow]

Bloomberg's Madeline Beckleberg, thank you very much. Now coming up, Altruist introduces a new AI way to plan your taxes. We speak with Jason Wang, Altruist CEO next. This is Bloomberg Tech.

[Michael McDermott]

How do you shift AI from being a flashy feature to a trusted partner in consumers everyday lives on the ground at CES? Bloomberg Media Studios, asked Michael McDermott, EVP of Samsung.

[Woo Jinho]

Our 2026 vision is built around an AI companion. It understands you and responds intuitively. This intelligence works quietly in the background across TVs, home appliances and mobile devices. By putting AI at the center of everything we do, we're simply improving everyday.

[Michael McDermott]

Life for everyone everywhere.

[Caroline Hyde]

At Charmin, we heard you shouldn't talk.

[Michael McDermott]

About going to the bathroom in public.

[Kid Americana]

So we decided to sing about it.

[Woo Jinho]

Charmin ultra strong you can use less better than the rest. Shaman ultra strong Booty pass the clean.

[June Park]

Text salmon wave texture it's the best.

[Woo Jinho]

Study up, teach a lesson on fresh your booty Pass the clean test. Charmin Ultra Strong.

[Madeline Meckleburg]

Charmin Ultra Strong with Diamond Weed.

[Tony Wong]

Texture cleans better than the leading one.

[Michael McDermott]

Plaid brand, so you can use less. Enjoy the go with Charmin.

[Caroline Hyde]

AI it's at it again. And it's been a wonky, worrying few days for wealth managers and those who've had shares in it. Considering the technology's impact. It's all started. Tuesday, a startup called Altruist added a tax planning tool to its AI model. HAZEL within hours, wealth management stocks had tumbled. Charles Schwab LPL Raymond James as you see, down significantly. And that says investors really feared disruption. The CEO of the company that kicked all of this off, how true is Jason Wang? Jason, Jason, did this take you by surprise?

[Michael McDermott]

Yeah, I think to be incredibly honest, I don't think anybody could have possibly thought that, you know, somewhere between, you know, tens of billions and maybe 100 billion of market cap would be wiped out in a week. AI is very powerful and certainly the market reaction tells me that there's a lot of people voting with their dollars and the potential disruption.

[Caroline Hyde]

Jason, all of this is about enabling, well, wealth managers, individual wealth managers. From your part, just remind us what Altruist does and what this new development in terms of building in a tax tool does to help them.

[Michael McDermott]

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the nail on the head, like the most important thing is that we're not trying to displace financial advisors or wealth managers. It's not AI taking those jobs away. It's AI to help empower them to do better work for their clients. And in many ways, when people think about wealth management, you know, there's, there's deservedly a lot of critique. It could be things like why is it so hard to get access? Like the minimums are really high. Why are the costs very high? Why are the results sometimes inconsistent? And a lot of that is, you know, because of how much manual process and human labor is involved. You just have a lot of limiting factors. I very much is a incredible equalizer, you know, effectively with a tool like Hazel. What used to take, you know, teams that were, you know, 10 or more people working hundreds of hours and costing many tens of thousands of dollars. It can be done in like two to three minutes. And you know, users, the advisor users in our case are paying 100 ish dollars per month. Right. So much more affordable, much more accessible. And taxes, just to start, we launched Tax first for what it's worth, because it's tax season in the U.S. we wanted that to be our first agent to kind of get out there in the hands of wealth managers and advisors. But this is a pretty good harbinger of the things that will come. There'll be more agents doing more work that will continue to make advice better, more affordable and more accessible.

[Ed Ludlow]

Jason, you will have noticed that some of the CEOs of those wealth managers appeared on television in the days that followed the sell off his Charles Swab. Listen to what they had to say.

[Michael McDermott]

AI is a real accelerant.

[Ed Ludlow]

So it was puzzling to see our.

[Tony Wong]

Stock sell off related to AI because we're benefiting it from it in multiple ways and bringing it to our clients.

[Ed Ludlow]

It's allowing us to reach new clients.

[Tony Wong]

And I think that's why you won't.

[Michael McDermott]

See population of advisors shrink is is.

[Ed Ludlow]

That I will be useful in reaching.

[Michael McDermott]

New clients that we couldn't before.

[Ed Ludlow]

Has Mr. Worst or any other leader in that field phoned you since Tuesday day? And would you be open to working with these companies literally jointly?

[Michael McDermott]

Yes. So no, I haven't heard directly from for Mr. Worcester, but we already actually work with any independent financial advisor. One of the reasons why we stood up Hazel as a separate entity. Altruist, of course, is a direct competitor to Schwab, Fidelity, LPL and others. But we wanted Hazel to be something that any advisor could use to help any client and we didn't want them to be forced into using a single custodian. So there are already thousands of advisors who use Schwab, for example, as a custodian that are leveraging Hazel and doing doing so to drive better outcomes for their clients and a lot more operational efficiency for themselves. And we have, I'd say in the last 48 hours it's in the hundreds of very large, significant, you know, wealth management companies around the world reaching out to see if there's a way that we can partner. So definitely looking forward to, you know, putting this tool in as many hands of as many capable advisors in the US as possible.

[Ed Ludlow]

Let's talk about the tool and the technology. You know, what are the data sets that the underlying model is trained on? What is your core competence? That if there is concern from, from the legacy industry of wealth management, what is it they should be concerned about and what is it that makes this model powerful?

[Michael McDermott]

Well, so there's two, two parts that I'll try to be succinct. But the first is I think what causes concern is not so much just the AI, it's the fact that we also have built a very modern infrastructure for our wealth business. So the things you can do On Altruist you just can't do anywhere else in terms of the speed of opening accounts and funding accounts and managing of assets. If you take AI and you put it on top of bad antiquated infrastructure, you're not going to get a ton of value. It's kind of akin to putting like a, you know, self driving on a horse and buggy or something like that. Like you need to have like an entire vertically integrated ecosystem. I think if anything that's maybe where some of the market concern is is that what happens if something like is digital and it's 20 or 30% better. You add AI and multiple agents, it becomes 2 or 300% better. Now advisors could very much have a shift in where they decide to custody their assets. That could be pretty monumentally difficult to overcome for some of the big incumbents. As far as what makes the model unique, the way that we built Hazel's we rely like most AI companies on having really clean data. So data is a huge advantage. I think Mr. Wurster was right in saying that data is very critical. In the case of a custodian you have the ultimate system of record, meaning we have all of this data on clients transactions. That makes it a lot easier to give personalized analysis and feedback to the users.

[Ed Ludlow]

Jason Wagon Voucher is sorry we're out of time but grateful for the conversation. Coming up we look at Waymo. We'll be right back. This is Bloomberg Tech.

[Caroline Hyde]

Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. A lot of action in the markets today. Let's just go through it. In terms of the NASDAQ benchmark currently off by 1.8% we're at session lows. This is as we worry about earnings and how they're implicated by prices, prices and memory. Cisco in particular down significantly. I wanted to shine a light off by 11%. So we've got that anxiety about whether AI is really helpful helping these businesses or whether pricing pressure is hurting them. Remember the macro pictures about get CPI data. So pricing pressure for the consumer too as we build up to that the market's just a little bit jittery. Adyen over in European trading, check it out by 20%. This is the payments company Fintech which is being hit by consumer sentiment being on the downside. Also a weaker dollar hit them as well in terms of payments, revenue and their earnings outline just really not living up to expectations. We move on and have a think about what what's happening when you've got exposure to the private sector. Now many are saying I'm talking btig in particular saying that SoftBank is like the way to play open air exposure as well because they've already put $36 billion in, they're looking to increase that maybe up to the tune of 30 billion. And they have an 11% stake in the business and actually they managed to post a profit, the fourth quarterly profit in a row not seen since 2021 as their investment stake in OpenAI goes up and to the right, helping offset some other losses. But the stock traded in the US if you're looking at depository receipts, currently up by 3%. So we'll dig into that a little bit more. But it's interesting what's happening in terms of the softbank story.

[Ed Ludlow]

It's a little bit like shuffling the deck and like, you know, you have to sell at certain holdings to fund investment deeper into the names that you're most interested in. Like it's not rocket science at the end of the day. Carry, one quick question to ask is like how wide software banks is exposed beyond one single name like OpenAI given how ferocious the lab battle is right now.

[Caroline Hyde]

Yeah. Opening either in on. Remember they've been going into chip design companies like ampere. They've been looking real exposure to arm, but they've been cutting back on their T mobile exposure to be able to get more into these privately held businesses. They've also been buying private equity companies. Right. Because they want the exposure to Datacenter.

[Ed Ludlow]

Yeah, I'm glad the team got that up. I mean, you know, far right column says everything. Let's get to another story in the private markets that we've been trying to update you on regularly. Anthropic is close to locking in a deal to raise more than $20 billion in a funding round co led by investors including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, the Esure and dragonair. That's according to Bloomberg sources, one of the largest startup funding rounds ever. And who's been across it? Bloomberg's VC reporter, Natasha Mascarena. Important detail actually. Like some of those names are interesting. You know, Dragon has come up a lot recently. Waymo was something we reported a couple of weeks ago. What do we need to know? Like how close is this and. And who's leading?

[Premier Protein Advertiser]

Yeah, listen, on Monday we were discussing where are the crossover funds in this round. Now we have some examples with D.E. shaw, with Dragonier. We also have a continuing list of traditional venture capitalists in the round. What I'm really paying attention to is the addition of the Founders Fund to the cap table. That's an early OpenAI investor and founders one is known for concentrated bets. So it is interesting to see an early OpenAI investor go ahead and be a major investor in this anthropic round. And Founders Fund is not alone. We're seeing Sequoia as well in the round and the list grows.

[Caroline Hyde]

It's interesting. I know another VC that makes concentrated bets and doesn't go in to other companies that seem to directly compete Heat. So how much of a taboo is it that VC's back two horses? Almost like having some sort of option here.

[Premier Protein Advertiser]

Yeah, I mean it used to be a huge taboo because of concerns about information leakage or how do you really take that out of your head when you're in a partner meeting and discussing, you know, two different roadmaps that are, you know, both in this case going towards a version of AGI. What I would say and what we are reporting is that certain investors get certain information rights. In the case of OpenAI, sources are telling us that if you have a certain amount of ownership in the company, that comes with its own information. And so what we're really wondering is who's taking big checks in these rounds because they are the ones that will have to answer the questions of how are we keeping the information separate.

[Ed Ludlow]

Bloomberg's Natasha Mascarenas, thank you very much. Now Waymo is aiming to have a big year year, adding new U.S. and international markets. The robotaxi firm also recently raised $16 billion from parent Alphabet and other outside investors. Co CEO Kid Americana sat down with us and discussed the company's plans, including whether it's considering an ipo. Listen to this.

[Kid Americana]

We are just laser focused on execution, you know, building Waymo to be financially responsible operationally. Excellent. And then make sure we maintain the safety culture like that's what we're really focused on. Having this vote of confidence, as you said, not only from Alphabet, but from our three co leads from this round and from all of the new investors who decided to join our cap table and the existing ones who doubled down on their belief that this is the right opportunity to fund. And so we just feel humbled. But also there's a lot to do. So we're just really focused on making sure that we can scale, focusing on our two first international launches, London and Tokyo, and scaling across the United States.

[Ed Ludlow]

We do not yet have, although there has been progress toward just this week, a federal level framework set of rules. What do you think the direction of travel is with that? And you know, clearly if you had to deal with one set of rules and not A city by city, let alone state by state basis or case, you'd be making a bit more progress, I suppose.

[Kid Americana]

Yeah, we think it's really important that there is a federal AV standard. We've been advocating for sort of a safety case based approach because the technologies are different. And we think that the burden should be on companies to demonstrate why you believe your technology is safe enough. We also think there should be transparency requirements. You know, people should have to demonstrate rate how many trips are you providing? You know, I don't. Right now, the balance isn't quite there. I mean, some states require a lot of reporting, some don't require as much reporting. I think the United States has an opportunity with this technology to lead globally. And I don't think you can lead globally if it's a framework that's governed by multiple jurisdictions across the states. And it's a way to slow down the adoption of this technology, not only in the US but in other markets.

[Ed Ludlow]

New York City. New York City, not necessarily New York State. A lot of people want to know what's the, the roadblock there, pardon the expression, and what's the timeline? You know, you work closely with the authorities, but that is a big potential market.

[Kid Americana]

Yeah, that's a market where, you know, we're just going to have to do the work and demonstrate our safety outcomes and earn the trust and chisel away at it over time.

[Ed Ludlow]

They have the rules for you to follow.

[Kid Americana]

They do not have rules that allow the human operator to be removed from the vehicle entirely.

[Ed Ludlow]

And until that changes.

[Kid Americana]

And until that changes. But, you know, there is an interest in doing this in the state, even outside of the city, and that gives us an opportunity to grow more fans. And fans actually are calling for this. In cities where our technology can't be deployed, we are seeing organic campaigns spring up saying, I want Waymo in my town.

[Ed Ludlow]

San Francisco, the Bay Area is, is my home. London's where I grew up. And I was studying the map of the boroughs that you propose to launch in, and you correct me if my math is wrong, but just based on those boroughs at launch, this seems to be the biggest citywide deployment from the start that you guys will have done.

[Tony Wong]

Is that correct?

[Kid Americana]

It possibly it's correct. I mean, we're in the phases of figuring out the specifics around the launch and figuring out the actual framework around the launch. And so I don't want to speak too definitively about what we're going to do, but what you're speaking to is we're not gated by the Technology.

[Ed Ludlow]

Right.

[Kid Americana]

And we have the appetite to scale and we want to partner and do so safely and we want to earn trust. So that's like there's a lot of levers there that we have to figure out how to strike the right balance and how to make sure that we're introducing it to the community both to meet the demand and to grow.

[Ed Ludlow]

I asked because of those 20 cities to come, London is one.

[Kid Americana]

Yes.

[Ed Ludlow]

And London is now outside of the European Union. But it's, you know, it's kind of your Europe launch.

[Caroline Hyde]

Yes.

[Ed Ludlow]

What was that experience like within London's regulatory framework and the UK's regulatory framework?

[Kid Americana]

They're, they've been extremely forward leaning and interested in seeing how this technology could actually improve safety on their roadways.

[Ed Ludlow]

Right.

[Kid Americana]

And that's where I think, you know, we find a sweet spot when people are less sort of complacent about the status quo.

[Caroline Hyde]

Waymo Co CEO to Kedra my work on it and I mean we've got to check out the full interview, it's on bloomberg.com or as a special edition of Bloomberg Tech podcast. But really your conversation is about this extraordinary expansion into London and just how, what pace of growth, what signals are you discerning as to how big it.

[Ed Ludlow]

Could be that you and I both called London home. Right. And we've taken the bus and the tube and gone on bikes. And so how do they get past what's a really established transit network? And right now there are several dozen Waymo vehicles testing in London. They are doing that in more than 30 of the 60 London boroughs. You know like 60% of the city is already covered. That's way beyond what for example Tesla's doing in Austin. Right. Even the Bay Area here in terms of their scale and footprint. So there's a big expectation that if this labor government is doing okay and passes the rules, then they can do this for real this year. No safety driver or supervisor and have a commercial service at scale that they haven't done that quickly in the United States.

[Caroline Hyde]

This is about disruption of transport. And it looks as though transport and logistics is in the eye of the storm in terms of disruption today as well. If you're looking at the markets you and I have just been poring over some of these market moves. Extraordinary for C.H. robinson down by 21%. You're actually seeing the Dow transports have at the index having its worst day since April of 2025, currently down by 5%. Now traders are telling Bloomberg Kuhnenagel, for example, which is another European logistics company Traders are citing an announcement coming from Algorithm. The Algorithm is a US traded company and they've announced that as a leading AI technology company, they've published a new white paper demonstrating its semi cab platform reduces empty freight miles by more than 70% across active customer networks. Is this the next AI shoe to drop?

[Ed Ludlow]

And it was a severe shoe sharp drop and we got to keep looking into it coming up in the program. Back to AI similarly secures $100 million in new funding as it looks to scale predictive AI that mimics human behavior. We have more on that next. This is Bloomberg Tech. AI startup similarly has raised $100 million in a new funding round led by Index Ventures. Similarly is an AI lab that wants to help companies predict human behavior. In fact, a chain of human behaviors. For more, June park, similarly CEO and one of the founding group is with us in San Francisco. This is very interesting because the field has tried to develop a model that is a behavior model and it has had mixed success, some failure. Let's start by talking about the data sets that the model is trained on. How did you develop what you think is a model that does give you an insight or a prediction of how a human might behave?

[June Park]

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. So similarly is a company that is spinning out of Stanford where we led Frontier Research on creating agents and simulations that leverages generative AI technology. So today we partner with millions of real people and combine our data collection strategy with our modeling strategy to create agents that can actually behave in a much more generalizable context. So data here we might leverage include interview data that's unstructured, which is the kind of data in the past was very hard to leverage.

[Ed Ludlow]

Literally people telling you their life stories.

[June Park]

That's exactly right. So we actually can create AI interviewer that can go talk to people one on one, voice to voice, and actually get life stories and their preferences around different policies and so forth with their consent.

[Caroline Hyde]

And to what end? I mean, to build simulations that are 100% accurate to, to then populate this with agents. Tune, how do you see this work you've done proving more disruption to the market right now?

[June Park]

Right. So today we work at Fortune 10 companies in retailer businesses, to personal finance, to, to CPG companies, and even to polling companies. And today our customers use our technology to do concept testing. So for instance, CVS has been a close partner for the past five months where CVS has now created hundreds of thousands of similes or quote unquote agents that represent their real customers so they can actually do simulated focus groups to understand better and there's in their pain points and their use cases, but also to do store layout designs and so forth. Gallup, another polling company that's highly well established and respected, is now working with similarly to create digital panel of their agents or their simulated human panels. Now one last example that's interesting is of course many of our Customers are Fortune 500 companies that regularly have earnings call. So use case there might actually be creating simulation of the earnings call. So this is an ask that we get frequently. So in the recent, in the recent earnings call we simulated, we actually can predict 8 out of 10 questions that are actually asked in this call.

[Caroline Hyde]

Sorry, June, you're saying the analysts almost don't need to be asking that questions. You can predict with 80% certainty what analysts are going to ask CEO, CFO foes on earnings calls.

[June Park]

That's exactly right. In fact, I actually before our conversation today, I had a chance to simulate the questions that two of you might ask. And these are some of the questions that actually have come up in our simulation.

[Ed Ludlow]

So you see, you seem well prepared. Look, there's a degree of skepticism about about similarly. To be fair, the founding members, four of you are largely academics at Stanford. You founded the company officially a year ago ago, but you've only been training the model for seven months. You say you have five months of commercial deals. How have you done that so quickly?

[June Park]

So similarly, it's a real combination of amazing frontier researchers that raises the ceiling of the what the models are capable of today, but also amazing product and engineers. So here on the product side, we have people like Lainey Allen and Mika Kapoor who have been product and engineering leader in the space of companies such as Figma and Heavier. And that combined with the rest of the engineering team and the research talent, enables us to create frontier technology that actually gets routed directly to product.

[Caroline Hyde]

June park, who has preempted all of our questions through his own products of Simile. We so appreciate your time. Thank you very much indeed. Let's just take a look elsewhere in AI model world because Alphabet currently spiking higher up almost a percentage point. This is as they've updated a release to Gemini 3. Gemini 3 Deep Thinking Reasoning model. It's an update and they say that the mode has been updated to solve modern science research challenges in particular. Ed look, Alphabet has been on a tear because of the idea that its generative AI is managing to leapfrog or at least push ahead some of the rivals.

[Ed Ludlow]

Yeah, it has. And look at the spike in the session on those headlines. Headlines are coming up. Coinbase releases earnings after the closing bell. We're going to preview what to expect. This is Bloomberg Tech. Asian delivery firm Grab missed analysts expectations on its full year forecast, a sign that weaker consumer sentiment is weighing on the company. Earlier we spoke with Grab CFO Pizza. Listen to this.

[Woo Jinho]

It was an amazing year for us. We achieved some new milestones in the business. We have now 50 million monthly transacting users using our app constantly on a monthly basis. We also showed great profitability in the business to over $500 million in adjusted EBITDA. But also our first year net profit in the business. As we look at 2026 we're firing all cylinders and we are seeing good growth across all the platforms across all the different products that we have today. We are confident going into 2026 in terms of delivering that new guide that we gave out for 2026. But also we also gave a three year guidance also at the same time of 20% revenue growth from 2025 to 2028.

[Caroline Hyde]

So really long term perspective here, just dialing in on the profitability side because you're right, many loving the fact that you surprised you delivered this full year profit. What now to really drive up that return on equity. Our Bloomberg intelligence analysts talking about maybe it's the net profit to really be driven higher needs even more leaning into the fintech side of the business or some cost cuts. Where do you pull?

[Woo Jinho]

Yeah, there's really three big pillars when you look at the business today. One is continuing the growth momentum in our rights business as well as our deliveries business and our deliveries also now we have other products and services. For example, grocery delivery continues to be one of our fastest growing. It's actually growing 1.7 times faster than our food business today. We also have dine in which is another unique set of product features that brings people to restaurants also at the same time financial services also continues to be our fastest growing segment of our business today. The loan book size that we have today, we've clipped over a billion dollars in loan portfolio and we expect to double that as we finish the year 2026. So we've got all the different products working together to really drive that growth in the business. But also margin expansion at the same.

[Caroline Hyde]

Time from delivery to FinTech. Grab CFO Peter talking of Fintech, Coinbase was about to report earnings after the bell. And this comes in the context of a deepening crypto rout which has seen the value of bitcoin in particular plunge look more than 45% from its peak. And with that, that expectations of Coinbase's revenue are not looking pretty. Bloomberg senior crypto reporter Olga Kareff joins us now. And it's all about volumes, right? And they're going to pull back. So inherently revenues must have been hit.

[Madeline Meckleburg]

Absolutely. So what happens when prices drop continuously? A lot of the retail traders stay on the sidelines. And of course crypto exchanges, they make a huge portion of their revenues from transaction fees. So they see a huge drop in that.

[Ed Ludlow]

What I understand, Olga, I get the volumes concern, but I've always understood that like Coinbase, other others that it competes with, they benefit from volatility.

[Tony Wong]

Right?

[Ed Ludlow]

Because volatility, you have to trade in one direction or another. Why is that not a good moment for them?

[Madeline Meckleburg]

So you're absolutely right. When there is high volatility, they do benefit. But typically what happens is that you have, say several days of very high volatility, such as in sort of in October when bitcoin dropped a lot, or in early February when again and dropped a lot. So you can have a lot of volatility, a lot of trading during those days, but then you can have sort of slow, slower activity, lower activity in the days kind of in between those very high volatility days. And that can impact exchanges. Like for instance, we've already seen Robinhood report that its fourth quarter crypto revenue was down 38%. So things are not looking good for crypto trading providers.

[Caroline Hyde]

Briefly, Coinbase has tried to diversify, diversify ahead of this. They're looking whether or not it's predictions markets, whether or not equity trading, Olga, is that enough?

[Madeline Meckleburg]

So this are. So Coinbase has been trying to diversify for many years and these are really good initiatives that could really help in the years ahead. But right now, for instance, they just launched prediction markets. So it's a very, very small revenue driver. They do have stablecoin revenue coming from their revenue share with Circle. That is helping to start to stabilize revenues quite a bit. But a lot of the other revenue portions are still small.

[Ed Ludlow]

Bloomberg's old creed, thank you very much. That does it carry for this edition of Bloomberg Tech.