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Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride home for Tuesday, January 13, 2026. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Microsoft tries to calm data center build out backlash, layoffs come to the Metaverse. Apple has a new creator subscription package. More implications from that Apple Google AI deal from yesterday and is cowork for Claude, the personal AI agent we've been waiting for. Here's what you missed today. In the world of tech, Attackers don't even need exploits when they can use your allowed tools against you. That's why ThreatLocker enforces default deny at execution, stopping unknown software scripts and ransomware the moment it tries to run. No signatures, no guesswork, just control. Threatlocker takes zero trust from theory to practice by blocking any unauthorized application or behavior from ever running in the first place. Generative AI has lowered the barrier to malware creation, so ThreatLocker prevents AI generated polymorphic and fileless attacks by shutting down unknown behavior automatically, even if it's never been seen in the wild. Threat Locker gives you tight control without the noise, meaning fewer alerts and a cleaner, predictable operational posture. Learn more@threatlocker.com TechBrewRideHome that's threatlocker.com TechBrewrideHome Microsoft has announced it is changing its data center approach, pledging to pay its own power costs, reject tax breaks and replenish more water than it uses going forward amid the growing local opposition to data center buildouts that we've discussed recently. Quoting GeekWire. The new plan, announced Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C. includes pledges to pay the company's full power costs, reject local property tax breaks, replenish more water than it uses, train local workers and invest in AI, education and community programs. This sector worked one way in the past and needs to work in some different ways going forward, said Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and vice chair, in an interview with Geekwire. He later described the shift as both the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. President Trump made headlines Monday night with a Truth Social post in advance of the news, saying his administration has been working with tech companies, quote, to secure their commitment to the American people. He called Microsoft first up and said it would make major changes to ensure that Americans don't pick up the tab for their power consumption, end quote. This new initiative by Microsoft comes at a critical juncture for tech Amazon, Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and others are betting hundreds of billions of dollars on AI. But those ambitions hinge on their ability to build out the infrastructure to support them, a prospect that depends increasingly on the cooperation of local communities that have grown skeptical of the costs and trade offs. Smith said Microsoft has been developing its initiative since September. He described it as a response to shifting public sentiment, which he witnessed firsthand during visits to his home state of Wisconsin for Microsoft's Data Cent expansion back in 2024. Local residents wanted to talk about jobs. By last October, the big topics were electricity prices and water use. We saw this catch fire to a degree for many other companies and many other places around the country as each month unfolded, he said. In data center hubs such as Virginia, Illinois and Ohio, residential power prices jumped 12 to 16% over the past year, noticeably faster than the US average, according to US government data, as grid operators scrambled to add capacity for large new facilities. The issue has drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Last month, three Democratic senators launched an investigation into whether tech giants are raising residential power bills, sending letters to Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta. An Amazon funded study found that the company more than covers the utility costs associated with its electricity use in some regions. Microsoft's new approach, as outlined in a post by Smith, is a clear departure from its own past practices. The company has previously accepted tax abatements for data centers in states including Ohio and Iowa, and its identity was kept under wraps in a Michigan township until recently. In the interview, Smith promised new levels of transparency. He acknowledged that the traditional approach in the industry was for companies to buy land under non disclosure agreements to avoid driving up prices, giving them a competitive edge but leaving communities in the dark about who was moving in and how they would operate. That is clearly not the path that's going to take us forward, he said. The companies that succeed with data centers in the long run, he added, quote, will be the companies that have a strong and healthy relationship with local communities, end quote. Asked if Microsoft hopes to inspire or compel others to follow suit, Smith stopped short of positioning Microsoft as the sole leader, crediting Amazon for really good and well executed work in this space, while adding that the industry is going to need to set a higher bar for itself, end quote. The company's other Commitments include a 40% improvement in water efficiency by 2030, plus a pledge to replenish more water than it uses in each district where it operates. Microsoft cited a recent $25 million investment in water and sewer upgrades in Leesburg, Virginia as an example. Also a new partnership with North America's Building Trades Union for apprenticeship programs and expansion of its Data Center Academy for operations training full payment of local property taxes with no requests for municipal tax breaks and AI training through schools, libraries and chambers of Commerce, plus new community advisory boards at major data center sites, End quote. Meta this morning confirmed it is laying off more than 1,000 Reality Labs staff and will reinvest the savings into wearables, quoting Bloomberg Affected employees will be notified of the layoffs starting Tuesday morning, according to an internal post from Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth that was reviewed by Bloomberg News. The cuts are expected to hit roughly 10% of employees within the Reality Labs group, which has about 15,000 workers, Bloomberg reported earlier this week. As part of the reduction, Meta is pivoting its Metaverse efforts to focus on mobile devices, according to Bosworth's memo. The company is also planning to cut back on its virtual reality investments to make the business more sustainable, bosworth wrote. We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward wearables, a company spokesperson said. This is part of that effort and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year. Underscoring Meta's increasing focus on AI, the tech company and Essilor Luxottica SA are discussing potentially doubling production capacity for AI powered smart glasses by the end of this this year, people familiar with the matter said. Meta has suggested increasing annual capacity to 20 million units or more by the end of 2026, said the people, asking not to be named because the deliberations are private. In December, top executives discussed budget cuts as deep as 30% for the metaverse group, aiming to adjust budgets and funnel more money toward other projects like AI glasses. Meta has partnered with Essilor luxottica to develop a number of AI powered spectacles with brands like Ray Ban and Oakley. Mark Zuckerberg has said those glasses are perform better than expected and they remain a key part of his plans to increase adoption of Meta's AI assistant. Meta will continue to develop the Metaverse, but with a focus on mobile phones instead of the fully immersive VR headsets that the company initially imagined. The team building Metaverse software experiences, now called Horizon, will quote, double down on bringing the best Horizon experiences and AI creator tools to mobile, bosworth wrote. With the larger potential user base and the fastest growth rate today, we are shifting teams and resources almost exclusively to mobile to continue to accelerate adoption there. Meta will also keep investing in VR headsets and features, but less aggressively. Starting today, VR will operate as a leaner, flatter organization with a more focused roadmap to maximize long term sustainability, bosworth wrote. End quote hmm. I'm starting to wonder when or even if we'll ever see a meta quest 4. Apple this morning unveiled Apple Creator Studio, a groundbreaking collection of creative apps like Final Cut, Logic Pro and Pixel mature Pro for $12.99 a month or $129 a year. This is a subscription and services play, but it's also an AI play. Central to this is the debut of Pixel mature pro for iPad, which has been rebuilt from the ground up for a touch first experience with full Apple pencil support, allowing users to transition projects seamlessly between mobile and desktop. Video editors might be chuffed by significant intelligence upgrades to Final Cut Pro, such as Transcript Search, which enables users to locate specific sound bites by typing phrases, and visual search for identifying specific objects or actions within raw footage. The addition of beat detection, powered by Logic Pro's AI models, allows for the automatic alignment of video cuts to a musical grid on the iPad. The new montage maker further simplifies social media content creation by automatically reframing horizontal clips to vertical and intelligently editing highlights based on the best visual moments. Music producers gain access to an expanded AI session player lineup with the new Synth player and Chord id, the latter of which can convert any audio or MIDI recording into a functional chord progression. Logic Pro also introduces natural language search for its sound library, letting creators describe the vibe of a loop to find a match. Beyond dedicated creative apps, the subscription unlocks advanced generative capabilities within pages, Numbers and Keynote A new content hub provides a curated library of high quality graphics and illustrations, while integrated AI models allow for text to image generation and the upscaling of low resolution assets. Via Super Resolution. Keynote users can now generate entire presentation drafts from simple text outlines and numbers. Subscribers gain access to Magic Fill, which uses pattern recognition to automate complex formulas and table population. Together, these features represent a massive infusion of AI and high end assets into Apple's creation and productivity ecosystem, which, let's face it, has never exactly been the most popular platform out there. But we might look back on this announcement as the beginning of Apple's AI foundation. It's the holidays, which means you're probably trying to figure out what to get the people in your life who live in back to back meetings. This isn't some sci fi concept. It's Plaude P L A U. It snaps onto the back of your phone and records phone calls, meetings and conversations. This isn't just note taking though. It can summarize meetings, generate to do lists, draft emails, extract insights, analyze perspectives and help you make better decisions, all with full contextual awareness across your past conversations and meetings. Black Friday is coming and Plod is giving techbrew Write home listeners 20% off. Search P L A U D on Google or Amazon and get 20% off. If you've ever wanted to be a fly on the wall for the conversations world class CEOs have behind closed doors, then you may want to listen to the new podcast Long Strange CEO to CEO. In each episode, Brian Halligan, co founder of HubSpot, speaks with leaders to unpack the real stories behind scaling their companies from the emotional toll of leadership to the tactical disp decisions that shape a company's future. Expect candid conversations about hiring, culture, communication strategy and more. Whether you're an aspiring founder, a seasoned CEO, or simply curious about the stories behind the CEOs on the long Strange trip of building enduring legendary companies, this is a show you won't want to miss. Long Strange Trip is available everywhere you get your podcasts. That's Long Strange Trip podcast. Speaking of Coming back to yesterday's news, Apple and Google had an announcement yesterday saying that Apple foundation models based on Gemini will help power not only a more personalized Siri but also quote future Apple intelligence features. In other words, it looks like Apple, at least for the near future, is building its entire Apple Intelligence on top of Gemini. Quoting Mac rumors, the deal isn't a one for one swap of Apple foundation models for Gemini ones, but instead a system that will let Apple keep using its proprietary models while providing zero data to Google. The limited and deliberately obscure statements from Apple and Google are clear about one thing Gemini will be involved in building the updated Apple foundation model. This is occurring due to a previously reported $1 billion per year payment made by Apple to Google. As that initial rumor pointed out, Gemini is not being weaved into Apple's operating systems. Instead, everything will remain Apple foundation models. Gemini will be the foundation of that when you buy an iPhone. It is built with chips manufactured by tsmc, a display from Samsung, and various other parts sourced from all over the world. However, no one makes the claim that Samsung is powering the iPhone. LLMs and generative models, what we colloquially refer to as artificial intelligence, are powerful tools when used correctly. And Gemini's 1.2 trillion model is being leased to Apple as the perfect example of that. It is a tool that will help train Apple foundation models to be more useful in the tasks Apple sets for them, while Gemini will be used in training what the press release refers to as a foundation that will power Siri and Apple Intelligence features for the foreseeable future. Apple is clear that Gemini is not what will be running on your iPhone. Instead, the use of Apple foundation models and Apple's approach to privacy will be maintained in this agreement. Google allegedly will get $1 billion a year as long as this practice continues, and it may continue for some yet. Apple is working to create its own 1 trillion parameter model due out in 2027 or so, but even when that is available, Apple will likely want to keep Gemini around for reinforcement, comparison and further training. The result will be a set of on device AI tools that give users access to the new, more personalized Siri and Apple intelligent systems that rely on app intents. On the Surface, everything will operate normally, and in the back end, Apple foundation models will be pulling the strings. Users won't need to worry about what is Google versus what is Apple, because the final shipping product is all Apple, there isn't any data being passed to Google or its servers, and Gemini won't be loaded onto iPhones. It's a win for Apple, a win for privacy conscious consumers, and a win for Google. The only real losers here are the ones that wish this AI stuff would all go away because of how they came to be via scraping the web of its information. Of course, there's always the chance that Gemini will get a similar function to ChatGPT by being addressable via Siri. Google's image search tools are already a part of visual intelligence, but implementing Gemini for more broad queries is possible. Though no word has been shared on the screen front, the deal is fundamentally different from the Google search one as it is completely obfuscated from the end user. Talking to Siri won't produce some kind of Gemini logo, nor should it. To reiterate, everything the end user interacts with will be Apple technology hosted on Apple controlled server hardware or on device and not seen by Apple or anybody else at all. Period. End quote. Finally today, something that I think I might need to test out for myself soon have you heard the stories online about how you can basically hack Claude code to do anything for you, basically turning it into your own bespoke AI agent? Well, Anthrapic definitely heard those stories too, because they have now debuted Cowork for Claude, built on top of CLAUDE code for automating complex tasks with minimal prompting as a research Preview for Claude Max subscribers. Quoting TechCrunch built into the Claude desktop app, the new tool lets users designate a specific folder where Claude can read or modify files with further instructions given through the standard chat interface. The result is similar to a sandboxed instance of Claude code, but requires far less technical savvy to set up. Currently in Research Preview, Cowork is only available to max subscribers, with a waitlist available for users on other plans. The new tool is inspired in part by the growing number of subscribers using Claude code to achieve non coding tasks. Treating it as a general purpose Agen Cowork is built on the Claude Agent SDK, which means it's drawing on the same underlying model as Claude code. The folder partition gives an easy way to manage what files Cowork has access to, and because the app doesn't require command line tools or virtual environments, it's less intimidating for non technical users. That opens up a new world of potential use cases. Anthropic gives the example of assembling an expense report from a folder of receipt photos, but Claude code users have also put the system to work managing media files, scanning social media posts, or analyzing conversations. Similar to Claude code, Cowork is designed to take strings of actions without user input, a potentially dangerous approach if the tool is given vague or contradictory instructions. In a blog post announcing the new tool, Anthropic explicitly warns about the risk of prompt injection or deleted files, recommending that users make instructions as clear and unambiguous as possible. Those risks aren't new with Cowork, the post reads, but it might be the first time you're using a more advanced tool that moves beyond a simple conversation. Launched as a command line tool in November 2024, Claude Code has become one of Anthropic's most successful products, leading the company to launch a string of new interfaces in recent months. A web interface launched in October, followed by a Slack integration just two months later. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.