🤖 Google Gemini powers Apple Siri in $1B deal 🤖
Apple formalizes multi-year partnership making Gemini the foundation for Siri's AI upgrade.

Apple and Google have announced a major multi-year partnership worth approximately $1 billion annually, with Google's Gemini models set to power Apple's foundational AI capabilities including the highly anticipated Siri upgrade expected later this year. Apple emphasized that Gemini provides the strongest foundation while maintaining privacy standards through on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute—the existing ChatGPT integration remains intact. This deal reshapes the competitive landscape by aligning two tech giants on AI infrastructure. The market response was immediate: Google's market cap briefly crossed $4 trillion for the first time, signaling strong investor confidence in the partnership's strategic value.

🖥️ Anthropic ships Cowork for desktop AI automation 🖥️
New macOS tool extends Claude Code's agentic capabilities beyond coding to everyday tasks.

Anthropic has released Cowork, a macOS research preview that extends Claude Code's agentic capabilities to everyday desktop productivity. The tool operates within a designated folder where Claude can autonomously organize files, build reports, manage expenses, and generate documents. Cowork includes integrations with Asana and Notion, plus optional browser control via a Chrome extension. Users can assign multiple jobs and return to completed work later—a significant step toward ambient AI assistance that matters for workplace automation adoption. Currently exclusive to Max tier subscribers on macOS, this positions Anthropic to compete directly with emerging desktop automation tools.

🏥 OpenAI acquires health startup Torch for $60M 🏥
Acquisition brings unified medical memory platform to OpenAI's healthcare ambitions.

OpenAI has acquired health data startup Torch for roughly $60 million, bringing aboard the team behind the company. Torch was building a "unified medical memory" platform designed to consolidate fragmented patient data across multiple vendors into a single cohesive system optimized for AI applications. The acquisition comes just days after OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Health, allowing users to connect medical records and wellness apps to the chatbot. This move positions OpenAI to compete in the lucrative healthcare AI market, where data integration remains a critical bottleneck—enabling future products to access comprehensive patient histories for more accurate diagnostics.

INTERESTING TO KNOW

🛒 Google opens Universal Commerce Protocol for AI agents 🛒

Google has launched the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open-source framework enabling AI agents to handle the complete shopping journey from discovery through checkout. Built with Shopify, Walmart, Target, and Etsy, UCP will power native checkout in AI Mode Search and the Gemini app via Google Pay integration. With endorsements from Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and over 20 companies, this signals broad adoption for agentic commerce infrastructure.

🧪 DeepSeek preps V4 to beat OpenAI on code 🧪

DeepSeek is reportedly preparing to launch its next flagship model, V4, in mid-February 2026. Internal testing suggests the model could outperform OpenAI and Anthropic on code generation benchmarks, with notable advances in processing extremely long code prompts. This development intensifies competitive pressure in code-focused AI tools where pricing and access remain key differentiators.