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Grainger knows that if you're a school custodian, cleanliness is your top priority. That's why you can rely on Grainger for a range of cleaning products and equipment, from disinfectants to floor scrubbers. Grainger for the ones who get it done welcome to the Techbrew ride home for Wednesday, October 29th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today Nvidia announced a whole bunch of things yesterday and that sent their market cap above $5 trillion for the first time and Grammarly rebrands as superhuman character AI moves to ban kids outright and is the first home robot actually here or is this vaporware? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. If you're looking for enterprise grade identity automation minus the enterprise grade baggage, aka having your users log on 500 times, Yeshid delivers advanced IAM automation without moving TV onto a legacy identity provider. Whether you use Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Okta, Yeshhid integrates directly. No rebuilds or RIP and replaces are required. Yes ID helps IT and security teams reduce risk, not just tickets and IT teams everywhere might just have breathed a collective sigh of relief. Every access, change, review and approval is tracked and exportable, helping security teams effortlessly demonstrate compliance with SOC2, ISO or HIPAA. IT and security teams can spot risk before it becomes a finding. Learn more at yeshid.com techbrew that's Y-E-S-H-I D.com techbrew Nvidia this morning became the first company in history to hit a $5 trillion market cap, climbing 5% in early trading. Nvidia is up about 50% so far in 2025, and up 1,275% since 2022. Maybe it's up this morning because Nvidia made a bunch of news yesterday at their Nvidia GTC event. First, they announced plans to invest $1 billion in Nokia for a 2.9% stake and announced a partnership to integrate Nvidia tech into Nokia's network products. Nokia has been pivoting to AI of late. Then Eli Lilly announced a partnership with Nvidia to build what the companies say will be the most powerful supercomputer run by a pharma company powered by more than A thousand Blackwell GPUs. Palantir announced partnership to use Nvidia's chips and software to help its customers speed up decision making in complex fields such as logistics. EV maker Lucid partnered with Nvidia to develop a fully autonomous vehicle platform starting with building more adas tech for Lucid's existing Gravity SUV and Uber announced plans for a fleet of 100,000 autonomous vehicles powered by Nvidia's new drive AGX Hyperion 10 starting in 2027, quoting Bloomberg on Tuesday, as part of its GTC conference held in Washington, D.C. nvidia unveiled a new technology platform, Nvidia Drive AGX Hyperion 10, that lets manufacturers equip their cars with hardware and sensors that can work with compatible autonomous driving software. As part of the collaboration, Stellantis NV will be among the first automakers to deliver at least 5,000 Nvidia powered robotaxis for Uber's operations in the US and internationally, Uber said in a separate statement. The ride hailing giant will oversee end to end fleet operations vehicles including remote assistance, charging, cleaning, maintenance and customer support, it said. Stellantis will work with Foxconn on hardware and systems integration, the carmaker said in a separate statement. Start of production is targeted for 2028, with initial operations with Uber to start in the US pilot programs and testing are expected to ramp up over the coming years, it said. The commitments allow Uber to make more robotaxis available on its platform over time, which could in turn help improve the cost of operating and commercializing an otherwise expensive technology. The company has partnered with more than a dozen autonomous develop, has committed to investing in some as it bets on a future where robotaxis and human drivers complement each other, end quote among the other headlines yesterday, Jensen Huang said Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs are now in full production in Arizona after being solely manufactured in Taiwan. Previously, he said the U.S. needs, quote, finesse to maintain its AI lead over China. And Nvidia is in an awkward phase as President Trump meets with Xi Jinping later this week. And quoting Bloomberg, much of the presentation focused on the AI industry reaching a turning point. Huang's argument Artificial intelligence models are now powerful enough that customers are willing to pay for them, and that in turn will justify the costly build out of computing infrastructure. I don't believe we are in an AI bubble, huang said during a Bloomberg television interview after the presentation. All of these different AI models we're using, we're using plenty of services and paying happily to do it. Nvidia expects to ship 20 million units of its latest chips. A previous generation hopper only accounted for 4 million units in its whole lifetime. Huang said the remarks helped ease fears of an AI investment bubble, sending shares of Nvidia up 5% to a record closing high of $201.03 on Tuesday, end quote. Sources are telling the Journal that OpenAI's recent restructuring, approved by the various attorneys general yesterday, paves the way for an IPO as soon as 2027. Sam Altman says an IPO is likely to, but gave no timeframe. Quote the agreement, made final Monday evening, allows OpenAI to move forward with a new corporate structure. That paves the way for a blockbuster public listing that could arrive as soon as 2027. Some of the people said it would be one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. The discussions have been preliminary, and a public listing could ultimately happen later or be scrapped, the people said. OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said Tuesday that an IPO is likely, but that the company doesn't have specific plans on timing. Nearly two weeks ago, Altman sat down for a call with California Attorney General Rob Bonta to deliver a simple message. He really wanted OpenAI to stay in California. Behind it was a subtle threat as Bonta weighed whether to bless OpenAI's controversial conversion to a more traditional company structure. OpenAI had spent months making the case that it was the economic heart of the California economy and would be willing to leave if Bonta blocked its plan to convert to a simple corporate structure. Altman's message was that he was committed to his home state and wouldn't sue it or leave it, as some others, such as his rival Elon Musk, had done. The discussion proved decisive, ending an extended investigation by Banta's office marked by furious public lobbying from OpenAI's critics. When the final deal was done, it included a pledge for OpenAI to remain in California and expand its presence there. In exchange for Banta's blessing, OpenAI accepted a sweeping set of rules that continues to place the company within the oversight of its original nonprofit, now called the OpenAI foundation, as well as the attorney general. California is my home and I love it here, altman tweeted Tuesday. We really wanted to figure this out and are really happy about where it all landed. The California Attorney general was prepared to file a lawsuit against OpenAI, but decided not to do so after reaching a few key points of agreement with the company. People familiar with the discussion said they included receiving at least three weeks notice before the OpenAI nonprofit agreed to any major changes to the public benefit company structure or mission and guarantees over the nonprofit board's independence. Grammarly is rebranding as Superhuman after its acquisitions of Superhuman Mail in June and Coda In December of 2024, the standalone writing tool Grammarly still exists, but one wonders how much of the Superhuman acquisition was just to secure that branding. Quoting the Verge AI writingaid Grammarly is now part of Superhuman alongside Coda, Superhuman Mail, and a new AI assistant called Superhuman Go. The new Superhuman suite, including all those tools, will be available starting today for everyone with a paid Grammarly Pro subscription. Superhuman Go will be available to subscribers for no extra cost through February 1, 2026, but superhuman has not yet confirmed exact pricing for it beyond that date. The rebrand may seem like a quick turnaround after the Superhuman male acquisition just a few months, but according to Noam Levinsky, chief product officer at Superhuman, it was not the motivating reason for that deal. The rebrand has been in the works since as early as late last year, when Grammarly acquired Coda after the company's rebranding, the standalone writing tool Grammarly still exists, but it's taking a back seat as Superhuman shifts its focus to offering an AI agent powered work platform that works in every tab of your browser and knows enough about what's going on to offer useful suggestions. In this demo video, the company says that with connections to over 100 apps, it can offer contextual help help like scheduling meetings based on your Google Calendar's availability or getting the details in a pitch right based on the info in a database. Superhuman is pivoting from its former focus on writing to make Grammarly's connections to other apps and web browsers its main selling point. A core part of Superhuman is its AI assistant, Superhuman Go, which is effectively Grammarly's existing generative AI assistant with a fresh coat of paint and more features. The tasks that Superhuman Go is capable of helping me with are just far, far greater and much broader than what the original Grammarly Go product was able to do because it was mainly focused on the writing use cases, levinsky says. End quote. The digital world is more connected behind the scenes than you may realize. Interconnected is a video podcast series by Equinix that explores the hidden infrastructure behind our connected future. From data centers to cloud ecosystems to the platforms and people who use them, Interconnected's hosts bring tech leaders, industry experts and innovators together in candid conversations to break down and discuss the future of global connectivity. The third episode of Interconnected, for example, covers the digital infrastructure for a food secure world. They discuss how farmers are moving from 20th century operations to AI and machine learning that analyzes soil, weather and crop data to tackle 21st century risks, plus how digital platforms are now connecting local producers to global demand through cloud. Linked supply chains follow Interconnected on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When your data goes dark, Veeam turns the lights back on. Partner with Veeam to increase your data resilience and get the right data recovery options for any kind of disruption so you can undo the unpredictable and get your data back so fast you won't even have time to miss it. With Veeam, it's all good. Keep your business running. @veeam.com character AI says it plans to limit use of its products to users under the age of 18 to 2 hours of conversations per day, and then gradually reducing the time limit for those users before banning them completely on November 25th. For a new company and product, it's often key to get younger users to adopt what you're doing and so they will age into being customers. So one wonders what sort of behavior Character AI was seeing from younger users that scared them enough to take this drastic a step. Quoting the FT the long term effects of prolonged usage of AI are not understood well enough, karan Deep Anand, chief executive of Character AI, told the Financial Times. He said the company wanted to shift the conversations from chatbots into a better, safer experience for our teen users. Hopefully this has far reaching consequences for the industry, he added. Character AI has 20 million monthly active users with about half female and 50% Gen Z or Alpha people born after 1997. It's said that fewer than 10% of users self report as under 18. The startup permits romantic conversations for adult users, but not sexually explicit ones. It prohibits non consensual sexual content, graphic or specific depictions of sexual acts, or promotion or depiction of self, harm or suicide. Character AI has also announced a nonprofit organization called the AI Lab, which will conduct and publish research on user interactions with AI. It is also partnering with organizations to provide support for teen users as they process the eventual removal of the chatbot experience. Social media went unchecked, if you will, for a long time before we started putting guardrails in, said Anand, who used to work at Facebook and Instagram owner Meta. We need to be responsible upfront and that's the reason why we are pushing the envelope even further with the changes we are announcing today. End quote from the AI Job pocalypse question mark file it's not just Amazon with the big layoff news yesterday, the Journal points out that ups, Target, GM and other major US Companies have recently announced tens of thousands of layoffs of white collar workers as executives hope that AI can handle their workload. Quote A leaner new normal for employment in the US is emerging Large employers are retrenching, making deep cuts to white collar positions and leaving fewer opportunities for experienced and new workers who had counted on well paying office work to support families and fund retirements. Nearly 2 million people in the US have been without a job for 27 weeks or more, according to recent federal data. Behind the wave of white collar layoffs, in part, is the embrace by companies of artificial intelligence, which executives hope can handle more of the work that well compensated white collar workers have been doing. Investors have pushed the C Suite to work more efficiently with fewer employees. Factors driving slower hiring include political uncertainty and higher costs. Altogether, these factors are remaking what office work looks like in the US Leaving the managers that remain with more workers to supervise and less time to meet with them, while saddling the employees fortunate enough to have jobs with heavier workloads. The cascade of restructurings has created a precarious feeling for managers and staff alike. It is also tightening the options for those who are looking for employment. Around 20% of Americans surveyed by the Wall Street Journal NORC this year said they were very or extremely confident that they could find a good job if they wanted to lower than in past years. Meanwhile, opportunities for frontline, blue collar or specialized workers are growing. Companies describe shortages of trade, healthcare, hospitality and construction employees while pausing hiring for consultants and managers, laying off staff in retail and finance and deploying AI to do work in accounting and fraud monitoring. The system just feels like it's messed up, said Chris Reid, 33, who was laid off a year ago from his job in technology sales, his field of more than a decade. Reid, in New Braunfels, Texas, recently took a job selling Toyotas after spending 10 months looking for work. Reid supports his three children, ages 10, 8 and 6, and his wife, a stay at home mom and student in tech. I'm qualified, I have the experience, reed said. I just didn't get any of those jobs. The white collar jobs on the chopping block have been roles that many American workers aspired to secure. They paid up for college credentials to qualify for an interview, then landed comfortable jobs such as human resource managers and mid level engineers. Now, what was once a stable position feels like a ticking time bomb, with employees who work their way up the corporate ladder awaiting their turn for a video call announcing their last day. Jobs that are higher paying and require a bachelor's degree are more exposed to AI than other positions, economists at the Federal Reserve bank of Philadelphia found. Even as the economy grows, hiring has weakened, with economists expecting slower job creation this fall. In such an environment, companies are becoming Choosier and both experienced white collar workers and new college graduates seeking their first jobs are getting squeezed. End quote and well, time to welcome our humanoid robot overlords I guess. Although there is a bit of a catch. Quoting Engadget California based AI and robotics company 1X is now accepting pre orders for its humanoid robot Neo, which was designed to automate everyday chores and to offer personalized assistance. Users will be able to control NEO and have it accomplish tasks around the house with the click of a button or a verbal command. It will come with the ability to do basic tasks autonomously when it starts shipping next year, including opening doors, fetching items and turning the lights on or off. However, if early adopters want Neo to be capable of more specific or complex tasks, they'd have to be comfortable with the idea of a human teleoperator controlling the robot remotely and seeing inside their homes. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern, 1x CEO Bernd Bornich explained that the AI neural network running the machine still needs to learn from more real world experiences. Bornich said that anybody who buys Neo for delivery next year will have to agree that a human operator will be seeing inside their homes through the robot's came necessary to be able to teach the machines and gather training data so it can eventually perform tasks autonomously. If we don't have your data, we can't make the product better, he said. Bornich admitted that much of the work will be done by teleoperators. In the beginning, owners will have access to an app where they can schedule when the teleoperator can take over NEO and where they can specify the tasks they want the machine to do, he said. 1x is putting control in the hands of the owner to respect people's privacy as much as possible. The company can blur people so that the remote operator doesn't see them, and owners can designate no go zones in their homes that the operator cannot go to. Teleoperators cannot also take control of Neo without the owner's approval. Of course, there's always potential security breaches to think of. Bornich at least assured that Neo has several layers of security to prevent it from hurting people. 1x Neo is available in tan gray and dark brown. It's now available for pre order from the company's website with a deposit of $200. Those who want early access to it can get it for $20,000, but it will also be available as a subscription service of $499 a month. So not exactly an autonomous robot yet. I'M not sure a home robot being controlled by somebody somewhere remotely via VR, I guess is vaporware or not, but I guess the idea is this is a placeholder to prove the robot is nimble enough to operate in your home so that when the AI does catch up, it can be like, hey, ready to go? Marco Arment, if you're listening, you finally done it. The latest update to your Overcast podcast app made putting podcasts on my Apple Watch actually work for the first time. Amazing. Something I've been waiting for for years. Good on you. Talk to you tomorrow.