Hello and welcome your weekly big technology news and insights. These are moments when I feel so lucky to be a Silicon Valley journalist. AI is rapidly changing things, for better or worse, that are very important. It’s a joy to see this from a bystander.
We have prepared a flashy newsletter for Google’s Big I/O Conference. Openai then bought Jony Ive’s AI gadget startup for $6.5 billion. It is called IO. Lowercase letters. I’m no joke. That’s the name.
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What you need to know about this Openai-Io Megadeal and what it means for Apple, Google, and other high-tech industries. Take an exclusive look at the powerful new Microsoft AI Exec from Meta.
Central Story Unit
Apple CEOs Tim Cook and Jony Ive. Getty Images
I went to Google I/O this week. This is my favorite Silicon Valley event. Despite being a $2 trillion company, Google maintains a loving, nerd and playful attitude.
Recently, there have been a lot of anxiety about Openai eating Google lunch. There was not much evidence of that at the meeting. Not my BI colleagues, Charles Lorett and Pranav Dixit, who attended with me.
Pranav said Google has revealed how far it has come in a relatively short time. “Openai still ships very quickly, but Google is finally having real momentum,” he said. “I’m really excited to see how this unfolds next year.”
Charles (good) advice: “Don’t underestimate Google.” But he had a warning. “I was on the tech panel when the news came out that Openai was buying an Ive hardware startup.
But what about Apple? Handwing suddenly switched to this high-tech giant. ive helped create an iPhone, but he regrets the unintended consequences of a smartphone. He recently said it still weighs heavily on his heart.
IVE’s IO Startup is designing new devices for the AI future with powerful personalized chatbot assistants chase you and help you out. He also hired many Apple technicians to help. What is the form factor? It definitely isn’t going to be a phone call. Maybe it’s a kind of pin? That idea has already been bombed once.
Now Openai owns whatever this is. ChatGpt could be an AI assistant embedded in this gadget. It’s a potentially powerful threat to Apple and has struggled for years to figure out what the next big device is. It doesn’t help that Apple is behind Openai and Google in AI races.
read more.
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Other Bitech Stories that caught my eye:
Evaluation time
My views on who is currently operating in the tech industry, including updates on the salary of big tech employees.
Related Stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
UP: Google (Alphabet) is up almost 2% this week. See above for the reasons.
Down: Apple’s stocks fell about 7% this week. This is a shift in market capitalization of over $200 billion in favor of Google. Donald Trump issued a new iPhone tariff threat on Friday, adding it to Tim Cook’s challenge.
Comp Update: Below is the actual Employment Lab data. They looked at software development salaries from the beginning of 2024 until the end of March 2025. I’m amazed at the blockchain salary. I think Bitcoin scored a record this week.
Technical pay data from actual employment labs surely
From group chat
Other big tech stories I found on the interweb:
AI play area
Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/bi
This is every week when I try out AI tools. What do you think about this week’s pick? Next week, what should I do or should I use it? Please let us know.
I met Dan Fitzpatrick on Google I/O. He is a technical memo subscriber and an AI expert for education. We discussed how he uses generated AI, particularly how he creates podcasts from his research. This is what he did this week. He talks about meeting Google CEO Sundar Pichai. This was his workflow:
Record a voice memo on his phone. Enter it into Google’s Gemini chatbot and ask them to create a transcript. I try Gemini again to ask gemini and get closer to how Dan spoke in the audio file. The tool has been published as a podcast on LinkedIn.
I also created a podcast to avoid losing. We asked Charles and Pranab about some of their top Google I/O Takeaways. I put that text in a Google Doc and added it to Google’s NoteBookLM AI tool. Next, I selected “Audio Output” on the right side of the NoteBookLM page. After about a minute, the tool created this podcast. Please check it out and let us know what you think.
User Feedback
I’d like to hear from anyone who reads this newsletter. Want to see more? Please email abrarr@businessinsider.com.
Specifically, this week I would like to hear from people who participated in Google I/O. Is Openai (and Jony Ive) a real threat to Apple and Google? why?
