Within 72 hours of publishing its AI adoption report, Microsoft's messaging saturated LinkedIn. The coordination wasn't secret—it was architectural. When you own the platform, distribution is just moving furniture between rooms.
Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol at NRF, with Shopify, Walmart, and twenty other partners. The "open standard" routes AI shopping through Google's surfaces. Merchants trade customer relationships for visibility.
Microsoft says one in six people now use AI. The methodology: counting clicks on Microsoft products. The US ranks 24th despite hosting every major AI lab. South Korea's surge? A viral selfie filter. The company selling AI infrastructure has appointed itself scorekeeper of AI adoption.
Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol at NRF, with Shopify, Walmart, and twenty other partners. The "open standard" routes AI shopping through Google's surfaces. Merchants trade customer relationships for visibility.
Google calls it an "open standard." Twenty retail giants signed on. The checkout button is moving from your website to someone else's search bar.
At the National Retail Federation conference in New York this week, Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol, a technical specification that sounds like plumbing but functions like a toll road. UCP establishes how AI agents talk to retail systems. Discovery, checkout, post-purchase support. The whole buying journey, routed through a standardized set of commands that any AI can speak.
Shopify helped write it. Etsy and Wayfair contributed. Target and Walmart signed on. The major card networks blessed the protocol within weeks. More than twenty companies across payments and retail have given their approval.
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Within 72 hours of publishing its AI adoption report, Microsoft's messaging saturated LinkedIn. The coordination wasn't secret—it was architectural. When you own the platform, distribution is just moving furniture between rooms.
The man who predicted the 2008 crash sat in a Google Doc with Anthropic's co-founder. Both admitted what they don't know. Burry sees stranded assets and accounting tricks. Clark can't prove his own tools improve productivity.
Chinese manufacturers shipped 39% of global humanoid robots in 2025. Tesla shipped 1%. At CES 2026, the gap between American roadmaps and Chinese products defined the exhibition floor. The supply chain tells a story pricing alone can't explain.
Boston Children's Hospital is deploying OpenAI's new healthcare product. The executive leading the rollout says an AI casualty is "very likely." He's doing it anyway. The math behind that decision reveals how hospitals are thinking about risk.
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