AI Leaders Weekly Briefing

January 30, 2026

Anthropic and OpenAI sought billions in funding, xAI faced legal trouble over deepfakes, and major companies pushed into enterprise services and new generative models, and more.

• OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly sought billions in new funding, accelerating the LLM race, while Meta announced plans to significantly increase AI spending up to $135 billion, backed by infrastructure deals like a $6 billion fiber-optic agreement. ^1234567
• Elon Musk's xAI faced intense scrutiny, including lawsuits and formal probes from the EU and US attorneys general, over its Grok chatbot's alleged creation and spread of harmful deepfakes and antisemitic content. ^89101112
• xAI secured infrastructure through a potential merger with SpaceX and a $430 million Megapack purchase from Tesla, while Tesla also planned a $2 billion investment into the AI startup. ¹³¹⁴¹⁵
• Anthropic continued its enterprise push, integrating Claude tools into workplace apps like Slack and Asana, securing a key partnership with ServiceNow, and assisting healthcare organizations with paperwork reduction. ^{16171819202122}
• OpenAI is shifting its strategy towards monetization, exploring advertising and retiring older models like GPT-4o in favor of GPT-5.2, while simultaneously launching 'Prism,' a free AI workspace for scientific research. ^232425262728
• Google DeepMind introduced 'Project Genie,' allowing users to generate interactive virtual worlds, and Chinese AI leaders Moonshot AI and Qwen released new SOTA models focused on vision, coding, and multilingual text-to-speech. ^{29303132333435}
• Other developments included DeepSeek receiving conditional Chinese approval to buy Nvidia H200 chips amid reports of Nvidia aiding DeepSeek models later used by the Chinese military, and Anthropic facing a new music publisher lawsuit. ^36373839

Sources

1. OpenAI, Anthropic reportedly raising billions of dollars in new funding siliconangle.com
2. Facebook-owner Meta to nearly double AI spending bbc.co.uk
3. Anthropic and OpenAI raise billions as LLM race accelerates cityam.com
4. Morning brief: OpenAI eyes massive funding as copper hits record highs invezz.com
5. Anthropic Poised for $20B Funding Round eweek.com
6. Meta, Corning sign deal worth up to $6 billion for fiber-optic cables in AI data centers reuters.com
7. Meta earnings updates: Wall Street is focused on AI capex heading into Q4 results businessinsider.com
8. Grok is the most antisemitic chatbot according to the ADL theverge.com
9. 'Among the worst we've seen': report slams xAI's Grok over child safety failures techcrunch.com
10. Grok Maker xAI Faces Non-Consensual Sexual Deepfake Class Suit news.bloomberglaw.com
11. The State-Led Crackdown on Grok and xAI Has Begun wired.com
12. EU opens formal probe into Musk’s xAI over Grok deepfakes ft.com
13. Tesla sold $430 million worth of its Megapack backup batteries to Musk s xAI in 2025 cnbc.com
14. Exclusive: Musk s SpaceX in merger talks with xAI ahead of planned IPO, source says reuters.com
15. Tesla Plans $2 Billion Investment in Musk’s xAI bloomberg.com
16. Anthropic's Claude helps healthcare organizations reduce paperwork Anthropic
17. Automat-it Announces Reseller Agreement with Anthropic to Offer Claude Models Through AWS Resale Programs freep.com
18. ServiceNow inks another AI partnership, this time with Anthropic | TechCrunch techcrunch.com
19. ServiceNow chooses Claude as default model Anthropic
20. Anthropic embeds Slack, Figma and Asana inside Claude, turning AI chat into a workplace command center venturebeat.com
21. Anthropic introduces interactive tools in Claude Anthropic
22. OpenAI Plans New Offering Aimed at Large Customers theinformation.com
23. OpenAI’s ad turn: Can ChatGPT monetise without losing user trust? forbesindia.com
24. Chatbot Breakup: OpenAI to Retire GPT-4o Right Before Valentine's Day pcmag.com
25. OpenAI retires GPT-4o and older models OpenAI
26. OpenAI’s Prism Takes on Claude AI for Scientists & Coders androidheadlines.com
27. OpenAI introduces Prism OpenAI
28. OpenAI explores additional income streams in major shift to how it earns revenue ewn.co.za
29. Google's Project Genie lets you generate your own interactive worlds engadget.com
30. DeepMind launches Project Genie DeepMind
31. Qwen open-sources Qwen3-ASR and Qwen3-ForcedAligner Qwen
32. Moonshot AI drops Kimi K2.5, topping Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.2 newsbytesapp.com
33. xAI unveils Grok Imagine API xAI
34. Moonshot AI releases Kimi K2.5 Moonshot AI
35. Qwen 3 TTS AI Released : Clone Any Voice for Free and Craft Rich Speech geeky-gadgets.com
36. DeepSeek can now buy Nvidia’s H200 chips, but China has conditions thehindubusinessline.com
37. Exclusive: Pentagon clashes with Anthropic over military AI use - sources reuters.com
38. Exclusive: Nvidia helped DeepSeek hone AI models later used by China s military, lawmaker says reuters.com
39. Anthropic faces new music publisher lawsuit over alleged piracy reuters.com