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Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride home for Wednesday, December 17, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today ChatGPT ups its image generation game. Now it's Amazon's turn to invest in OpenAI. WBD says it still wants to go with the Netflix offer, Waymo's Raising Money Again, and the new AI sort of newsletter that Google wants to put in your inbox every every morning. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. You may have noticed that your CRM system has become crazy with bots and agents of late at the Tech Brew Ride Home, we love AI, but not when it's used to commit fraud or launch ransomware. Fortunately, Mimoto, the creator of continuous verification, now offers the next generation of Continuous Captcha. Momoto Continuous Captcha diverts only the agents and bots attempting to gain access to your CRM through registration forms with memoto. Good agents can do what agents do enable your customers to have more productive experiences on your website or app while stopping the bad agents from defrauding you and your customers. It's a win for everyone except the cybercriminals. Right now, our listeners can purchase a year of Momoto continuous captcha for $5,000, a 20% discount on their lowest price plan. To learn more, head to Momoto AI ride home. That's Mimoto AI ridehome. OpenAI has updated ChatGPT images to generate images up to four times faster and edit more precisely, and added a new section in ChatGPT's app and website specifically for images. Quoting Bloomberg, the updated software aims to let users make a number of edits to uploaded images, such as by changing the style from photorealistic to watercolor, or by giving each person pictured a new hat, all without losing track of details in earlier versions. In particular, OpenAI said the new model can keep the lighting, a person's appearance and a scene's composition steady through a variety of edits and changes. The company's previous image models sometimes tripped up, keeping track of such details, particularly across multiple edits and quoting TechRadar. There are a lot of other subtle improvements to the new model as well. It can produce denser text without developing into nonsense, show a crowd of small faces without producing too many oddballs, and it can keep track of ELE across multiple edits, so you can change one aspect of an image without the AI deciding to mess with the other bits. Past models were easily confused by chain edits or overlapping instructions. The upgrade also makes for better combining and transforming of images. You can ask IT to blend styles, move an aspect of one image to another, or remove everything except a single component and move it into a new setting. You also don't have to worry so much about the space between people or objects getting confused. Still, it's not perfect. Some outputs miss the mark. Occasionally the model will misinterpret a frame or render something too literally. But the difference now is that those moments feel like exceptions rather than the norm. Or at least that's what OpenAI claims. There's more to it than just what you can do with OpenAI's model. Adobe recently revealed that it is embedding Photoshop and Acrobat into chatgpt. That means we're approaching a future where multiple editing platforms live side by side. You might prompt ChatGPT to design a poster, then click over to Photoshop to refine it without ever leaving the same window. The most positive interpretation of the upgraded ChatGPT images is that another level of high quality visual creativity is no longer gated by technical skill or expensive software. But that comes with all of the caveats and uncertainties about how much of what ChatGPT produces is simply remixed content scraped without consent from human artists, not to mention how much its use takes away opportunities for professionals in the field. As much fun and as impressive as the results can be, it still means that users have to decide what exactly it means to make something in the first place. The information says Amazon is in talks to invest more than $10 billion in OpenAI at a greater than $500 billion valuation with OpenAI using AWS Trainium chips as a part of the bargain quote. The Amazon investment would help OpenAI afford some of the commitments it has made to rent servers from cloud providers, including from Amazon Web Services. OpenAI last month announced it would spend $38 billion servers from AWS over the next seven years, making AWS one of at least five cloud providers OpenAI uses to develop its artificial intelligence. The deal could also help Amazon find a new customer for its Trainium AI server chips, which compete with the Nvidia AI chips that OpenAI primarily uses today. As part of the deal being discussed, OpenAI plans to use Trainium chips, two of the people said. Amazon, however, won't be able to sell OpenAI models to its cloud customers, as Microsoft, which owns about 27% of OpenAI equity, has secured an exclusive right to do so. Additionally, Amazon and OpenAI have discussed commerce partnership opportunities, one of the people said. OpenAI wants to turn ChatGPT into a shopping hub and has discussed earning fees for referring customers to retailers. It isn't clear whether the Amazon OpenAI deal would involve any arrangement related to such features in ChatGPT or AI powered shopping features that Amazon is developing for its own apps. OpenAI also wants to sell an enterprise version of ChatGPT to Amazon, the person said. OpenAI still needs more cash as it has projected it will burn more than $100 billion over the next four years as it spends money on servers and talent to develop and run its AI. OpenAI in the summer had told some investors it planned to raise about $90 billion in 2027. That could theoretically include an initial public offering. End quote. Coursera plans to acquire rival online education platform Udemy in an all stock deal valued at $2.5 billion, combining two of the largest US learning platforms. Quoting Reuters, Udemy shareholders would receive 0.8 shares of Coursera for each held, valuing the company at about $930 million, according to Reuters calculations. Coursera shares were up 6% in pre market trading, while Udemy rose about 18%. The deal unites two of the largest U.S. based online learning platforms at a time when consumer course enrollment growth has cooled from pandemic highs, prompting companies to seek, scale and pursue enterprise clients and more predictable subscription revenue. Coursera and Udemy bet that a combined platform will be better positioned to capture corporate demand for workforce training, particularly in artificial intelligence, data science and software development, as employers invest in reskilling workers amid rapid advances in generative AI. Based on Coursera's last close, the offer implies a price of $6.35 per Udemy share, a premium of roughly 18.3%, the company said. The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals. Coursera, which partners with universities and instit institutions to offer degree programs and professional certificates, has increasingly focused on enterprise customers, while Udemy operates a marketplace of independent instructors selling individual courses and subscriptions to businesses. Despite companies pitching AI upskilling as a major growth opportunity, investors have remained cautious on the sector shares of online education companies have lagged broader markets amid concerns over competition, pricing pressure and uncertain returns from AI related investments. Udemy shares have fallen about 35% so far this year, while Coursera is down roughly 7% over the same period, leaving both companies trading well below their post IPO highs. Warner Brothers Discovery this morning recommended that its shareholders reject Paramount's unsolicited cash bid, calling the offer illusory and saying it believes Netflix's proposal is still superior. Quoting the Journal in its letter, Warner said the Ellison family is using a revocable trust to fund the deal and that documents provided by Paramount about the commitment contain gaps, loopholes and limitations that put you, our shareholders and our company at risk. The Netflix merger, on the other hand, is fully backed by a public company with a market cap of more than $400 billion and with an investment grade balance sheet. Warner said the terms of the Netflix merger are superior. Warner said in its letter the Paramount offer provides inadequate value and imposes numerous significant risks and costs on Warner. Paramount's hostile bid is at $30 a share, though the company has also told Warner this offer isn't its best and final proposal, a signal it could increase the bid. Warner shares closed Tuesday at $28.90. Paramount's bid initially included capital from three Gulf sovereign wealth funds as well as Jared Kushner's affinity partners. As of Tuesday, Affinity was no longer involved in the deal. The dynamics of the investment have changed significantly since we initially became involved in October and affinity spokesman said, adding the firm continues to quote See strong strategic rationale for Paramount's offer Paramount's tender offer is set to expire on January 8th but can be extended. The company has said repeatedly that it didn't hear back from Warner so that it could improve its offer. Warner said Wednesday that its board repeatedly engaged with all parties, holding dozens of calls and meetings with the principals and the Ellisons. The company said it raised the concerns about the funding to Paramount and the Ellisons and gave them several opportunities to change the offer. Warner also said Wednesday that its board doesn't believe there is a material difference in regulatory risk between the Paramount offer and the Netflix deal. End quote. 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That's why Delve is designed as an AI native compliance platform. Delve uses AI agents to handle headaches like taking repetitive screenshots for you, monitoring your tech stack for security gaps in real time, auto filling security questionnaires in your browser or in CSV, and creating secure data rooms to send to prospects and auditors. Their team can personally work with you in Slack to get you 100% compliant and manage your whole audit for you. Over 1000 of the fastest growing companies get compliance done in Delve, including lovable, bland, micro one instantly and 11x for listeners. They're offering an exclusive $1,000 discount on any Complian framework. Check out Delve co Morning Brew and start using AI for compliance. That's Delve co Morning Brew. Bloomberg is reporting that Waymo is in discussions to raise more than $15 billion, led by Alphabet at a valuation near $100 billion and has achieved an annual revenue run rate above 350 million quote. The prior investment round in October 2024 valued the company above $45 billion and was led by its parent Alphabet, which also owns Google. The valuation increase underscores Waymo's emergence as a leader in driverless technology, with the company spending heavily to ramp up its fleet and expand into new cities. The company has achieved an annual revenue run rate above $350 million, two of the people said. Waymo is one of Alphabet's other bets, the division of high risk projects managed by President Ruth Porat that have been facing pressure to become an independent company as part of an effort to run Alphabet with greater efficiency and quoting the ft. Waymo plans to expand to a dozen cities next year, including its first European market in London after the UK government accelerated rules to permit fully driverless vehicles. It is also piloting services in Tokyo and targeting other US locations, including New York. It already operates more than 250,000 rides per week across five US cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company has more than 800 robo taxis operating a commercial service in the San Francisco Bay area, with more than 2,000 across the US its robo taxis have now driven more than 100 million fully autonomous miles. Yesterday it was the UK but it looks like the US is waving this around as a cudgel generally now because the Times says the US is now threatening economic penalties against European companies like Spotify if the EU does not roll back regulations and lawsuits targeting US tech giants, quote the pronouncement appeared to signal a rockier period for US EU trade relations as the two governments work to complete a trade framework they announced this year. The United States has been pushing Europe to open up its tech sector to American firms, but U.S. officials have complained that the European Union has not walked back broader regulation of company business practices while also proceeding with investigations of major American tech firms like Google, X, Amazon, and Meta. In a social media post, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which has carried out the negotiations, said the European Union and some member states had, quote, persisted in a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives against U.S. companies. The United States had raised concerns with the European Union about these issues for years without meaningful engagement, all while allowing European companies to operate freely in the United States, it said. If the European Union continues these policies, the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures, the USTR said it named fees and restrictions on service companies among the possibilities and said it would use the same approach against other countries that echoed Europe's strategy. The Post signaled out potential European service providers that could be targeted by name listing Accenture, dhl, Mistral, SAP, Siemens and Spotify, among others. European authorities have in recent months signaled a willingness to dial back some regulation of tech to bolster economic growth and encourage development of artificial intelligence. But EU officials have shown less openness to changing key regulations related to social media and anti competitive behavior that are often at the center of American complaints. President Trump and other administration officials lashed out at the block this month after its regulators find X, the social media platform owned by elon Musk, roughly $140 million for violating digital transparency rules. Another investigation underway of X could lead to further fines and penalties. Europe has to be very careful, Mr. Trump said last week. Authorities in Brussels have in recent weeks also initiated fresh investigations of companies including Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta. That is on top of the billions in penalties that have been issued over the past decade against American tech giants for violating antitrust, digital privacy and tax rules. End quote. Google has launched cc, an experimental AI assistant that delivers a personalized daily your day Ahead briefing email based on your emails and calendar. Quoting the Verge, Google wants you to start your day with AI. Google's AI, to be specific, which is why the company is launching an experimental agent to comb through your emails, calendar and documents to deliver a briefing to your inbox every morning. The new feature, called cc, delivers a daily your Day Ahead briefing to your inbox each morning. The personalized briefing, which Google describes as one clear summary, outlines your schedule for the day ahead, along with any key tasks or updates you should be aware of, like bills you need to pay or appointments to prepare for. CC can also prepare email drafts and calendar links for when you want to act quickly and get a head start on the day. CC is initially launching an early access to paid subscribers over 18 in the US and Canada. Google says it's opening a waitlist for CC today, which you can sign up for here. The company did not indicate how long the waitlist could last or when it will expand access. The agent is built with Google's Gemini AI model and learns about you by connecting with your Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive, as well as the Internet. You can personalize the tool by teaching it more about yourself and give it things to remember by replying to its briefs or emailing it directly, Google says. Cc, which joins other Google agents for things like coding, shopping and web browsing in Chrome, is remarkably similar to ChatGPT. Pulse, a personalized briefing tool OpenAI launched back in September. CEO Sam Altman described Pulse as his favorite feature we've launched in a long time. And finally today, once more into the prediction markets. This is how much they've grown in the last 18 months. Bets placed on prediction markets were less than $100 million per month in early 2024. They were $13 billion per month in November. Quoting the FT while Polymarket previously dominated trading volumes, Kalshi's presence has accelerated in recent months and the two companies now have ro equal market shares. According to the report, about $9 billion worth of bets were placed on those two platforms alone last month. Both companies have announced a string of new partnerships with major sports leagues and others and embarked on marketing blitzes. Google Finance displays probabilities based on betting data from both platforms, while Kalshi is teaming up with media outlets CNN and cnbc. Sports bets far outstrip other categories on Kalshi, while Polymarket tends to have a more even distribution across sports, beta and politics the report found. End quote. Hey, I finally set up the Ad Free feed inside of Apple Podcasts as well. So if you do listen to me right now on Apple Podcasts and have never signed up for the Ad Free feed because you didn't want the hassle of signing up and having a different email and billing and all that stuff, you're in luck. Just open this podcast right now in Apple Podcasts and you should see a banner to sign up for the Ad Free feed. The pricing is exactly the same as if you went through Tech Supercast Tech, but I guess easier to manage through your Apple account this way. Talk to you tomorrow.