Welcome back to your daily memorandum talking tech, business, AI, markets, and more. 🗞️

In today’s edition, we are tackling the following:

🤖 Samsung adds Perplexity as the third AI agent for Galaxy S26.
🎮 Microsoft reshuffles Xbox leadership after leak forces early announcement.
🚗 Uber unveils white-label platform for global robotaxi operators.
💼 PayPal attracts takeover interest after shares tumble nearly 46%.
🌎 Mexico deploys troops after cartel retaliation kills 25 Guards.

TECHNOLOGY

• Samsung is adding Perplexity to Galaxy AI for its upcoming S26 series (Engadget) 

  ^{_{More: Android Authority, Samsung Newsroom, Android Police}}

  • Ahead of Galaxy Unpacked on February 25, Samsung confirmed Perplexity as a third AI agent alongside Bixby and Gemini, invokable via "Hey Plex" or the side button hold.

  • Perplexity integrates natively with Samsung Notes, Clock, Gallery, Reminder, and Calendar, as well as select third-party apps, enabling multi-step workflows without switching apps.

  • Samsung cited internal data showing 8 in 10 users rely on more than two AI agents, framing the addition as a deliberate "open multi-agent orchestration" strategy rather than a Gemini replacement.

• Microsoft was forced to announce Xbox leadership changes early after the news began leaking to IGN (The Verge) 

  ^{_{More: CNBC, Engadget, VGC}}

  • Phil Spencer retired as CEO of Microsoft Gaming on February 23 after 38 years at the company; Asha Sharma, former president of Microsoft's CoreAI division, takes over effective immediately.

  • Sarah Bond, widely seen as Spencer's heir apparent, resigned instead, citing the completion of her four-year commitment to lead Xbox through the post-Activision Blizzard integration.

  • Sharma's stated day-one priorities are great games, the "return of Xbox" to its core fans, and the future of play, while explicitly pledging not to "flood the ecosystem with soulless AI slop."

• Uber launches Uber Autonomous Solutions, offering AV insurance, roadside assistance, mission control tools, fleet financing, and training data services (Investor Relations) 

  _{^{More: TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance}} 

  • Uber Autonomous Solutions externalizes over a decade of ride-hailing infrastructure, dispatch, maintenance, insurance, and fleet management, as a white-label platform for AV developers and robotaxi operators worldwide.

  • AV Mission Control gives operators a real-time view of every vehicle in their fleet, with an intelligent orchestration layer that flags potential interventions and maintains a full command-history ledger for auditability.

  • The launch positions Uber as a picks-and-shovels play in the robotaxi race, competing directly against Tesla's own autonomous network rollout and Waymo's expanding US footprint.

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BUSINESS

• OpenAI launches Frontier Alliances, entering multiyear deals with Accenture, BCG, Capgemini, and McKinsey to help deploy its enterprise AI agent platform (CNBC) 

  ^{_{More: Fortune, Reuters via WTVB, Inc.}}

  • Frontier is OpenAI's enterprise 'semantic layer’ that links AI agents across a company's full tech stack, CRM, HR, and ticketing, allowing them to execute multi-step workflows without human handoffs.

  • BCG and McKinsey lead AI strategy and operating model design; Accenture and Capgemini handle end-to-end technical integration, data architecture, and lifecycle support.

  • The alliance directly threatens SaaS incumbents like Salesforce and ServiceNow, with their own consulting-channel partners now being trained to sell OpenAI's agent platform as an alternative.

• PayPal attracts takeover interest from potential buyers after stock slide wiped out almost half its value (Bloomberg) 

  _{^{More: Reuters, East Bay Times}}

  • PayPal has fielded meetings with banks amid unsolicited interest from suitors; at least one large rival is examining an acquisition of the whole company, while others are interested only in specific assets.

  • Shares surged 9% on the news, a stark bounce for a stock that has fallen ~46% over the past 12 months, leaving PayPal with a market cap of roughly $38.4B.

  • Buyer interest remains preliminary and may not lead to a deal; PayPal declined to comment, and incoming CEO Enrique Lores is due to formally take the role on March 1.

• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei summoned to meet Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon over military use of Claude (CNBC) 

  ^{_{More: Axios, TechCrunch, NBC News}}

  • Hegseth described the Tuesday meeting as a "sh*t-or-get-off-the-pot" ultimatum: Anthropic must drop its safeguards against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons use, or face designation as a "supply chain risk."

  • Claude is the only frontier AI model embedded in classified US government systems; a supply chain risk designation would void Anthropic's $200M DoD contract and force Pentagon partners to offboard Claude entirely.

  • Tensions escalated after reports that Anthropic internally questioned whether its technology was used in the January 3 raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which the Pentagon interpreted as ideological resistance.

MARKETS

WORLD

• 25 National Guard members killed in violence after the death of Mexican drug lord "El Mencho" (BBC) 

  _{^{More: CBS News, NPR}}

  • Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes ("El Mencho"), leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Mexico's most wanted man, was fatally wounded during a military raid in Tapalpa, Jalisco, with US intelligence support.

  • CJNG retaliation was immediate and nationwide: 25 National Guard members killed in six Jalisco attacks, 250+ road blockades across 20 states, airports disrupted, and Guadalajara turned into a ghost town.

  • President Sheinbaum dispatched 2,500 additional troops to Jalisco; the US Embassy issued shelter-in-place alerts, and analysts warned rival cartels may now move to fracture and absorb CJNG territory.

• "Near impossible" travel conditions in New York as over 22 inches of snow fall on the US East Coast (BBC) 

  ^{_{More: CBS News, NPR, CNN}}

  • The "Blizzard of 2026" dropped 15–22+ inches across New York City and Long Island, the first blizzard warning for NYC since 2017, with Governor Hochul calling it potentially one of the top-10 worst winter storms in 150 years.

  • Mayor Mamdani declared a citywide travel ban through noon Monday, the first NYC snow day since 2019; over 10k flights were canceled nationwide, 650k+ customers lost power, and DoorDash suspended NYC deliveries overnight.

  • The National Weather Service called travel conditions "nearly impossible" as wind gusts topped 60 mph, creating whiteout conditions with snowfall rates of up to 3 inches per hour at peak.

• Australia backs removing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from royal line of succession (BBC) 

  _{^{More: NBC News, UPI, Newsweek}}

  • PM Anthony Albanese wrote to UK PM Keir Starmer formally backing the removal of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of succession, making Australia the first of 14 Commonwealth realms to do so.

  • Andrew was arrested on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, accused of leaking confidential trade documents to Jeffrey Epstein while serving as UK trade envoy (2001–2011); he denies all wrongdoing.

  • UK legislation would be required to remove him from the succession, along with agreement from all 14 other Commonwealth nations where King Charles III is head of state, a process with no modern precedent.

FUTURISM

• The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis — A thought exercise in financial history, from the future (Citrini Research) 

  ^{_{More: Alap Shah's companion piece}}

  • Written as a fictional June 2028 macro memo, the piece models a "human intelligence displacement spiral" in which AI-driven white-collar layoffs collapse consumer spending, triggering a recursive feedback loop with no natural brake.

  • The scenario traces contagion from SaaS revenue implosion → PE-backed software defaults → life insurer balance sheet stress → prime mortgage delinquency in tech-heavy ZIP codes, with the S&P down 38% from its October 2026 highs.

  • The authors stress that this is a scenario, not a prediction, written in February 2026, when the S&P was near all-time highs, as a framework for investors to stress-test portfolios built on assumptions of stable white-collar employment.

• Anthropic releases the AI Fluency Index, tracking 11 observable behaviors that measure how people collaborate with AI (Anthropic) 

  _{^{More: Forbes}}

  • Using a privacy-preserving analysis of 9,830 multi-turn Claude.ai conversations, Anthropic found that 85.7% exhibited "iteration and refinement" and that these conversations showed more than double the rate of all other fluency behaviors.

  • A counterintuitive finding: when Claude produces polished artifacts (code, documents, apps), users become more directive but less evaluative, checking facts 3.7pp less and questioning reasoning 3.1pp less than in non-artifact conversations.

  • Only 30% of users explicitly tell Claude how to interact with them upfront; Anthropic suggests this is the highest-leverage fluency behavior most users could add immediately.

• Japan Opens School Staffed Entirely by Virtual Waifus (Futurism)

  • Tokyo-based Luminaris launched "Virtual Cram School Wish High" on March 1, where every teacher is an active VTuber, a streamer who uses a digital anime avatar instead of their real face.

  • Courses cover math, English, physics, chemistry, and history at roughly $63/month per subject, well below the $9,500/year charged by elite cram schools, positioning it as an affordable option for lower-income families.

  • The model is built on parasocial attachment: fans follow these streamers because of a personal bond with the character, which the school uses as a hook to retain student subscriptions.

CONTENT

• ‘Loyal’s Celine Halioua: From Defying Doubters To Pioneering Dog Longevity’ (The Upstarts Podcast)

  • Celine Halioua discusses building Loyal and launching a landmark clinical trial to extend the lifespan of senior dogs.

  • She explains raising $250M for an unconventional biotech startup pursuing multiple FDA approvals.

  • Halioua reflects on confronting doubt, breaking Silicon Valley patterns, and modeling leadership for women founders.

• ‘The Pentagon vs. Anthropic + An A.I. Agent Slandered Me + Hot Mess Express’ (Hard Fork)

  • Anthropic resists Pentagon use of its models for weapons and surveillance, risking federal contracts.

  • The hosts unpack a case where an autonomous AI agent generated defamatory claims.

  • A closing segment revisits tech industry chaos, highlighting governance gaps in rapidly deployed systems.

• ‘How Malwarebytes Is Protecting Millions In The Era Of AI Scams’ (Grit)

  • Marcin Kleczynski recounts building Malwarebytes from a teenage side project into a global cybersecurity company.

  • He examines AI-driven scams reshaping threat landscapes and demanding constant product reinvention.

  • The conversation explores scaling discipline, strategic pivots, and protecting individuals against emerging digital risks.

EXTRAS

• Google restricts AI Ultra subscribers who accessed Gemini via OpenClaw OAuth — days after Anthropic's own ban on third-party token use (Implicator)

  • Google restricted $249.99/month AI Ultra accounts with no warning or explanation after users accessed Gemini 2.5 Pro through OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent framework with 200K+ GitHub stars.

  • Anthropic had updated its Consumer Terms of Service two days earlier to explicitly ban the use of OAuth tokens from Claude Free, Pro, and Max accounts in any third-party tool, citing token arbitrage economics as the core issue.

  • OpenAI is the strategic outlier: it hired OpenClaw's creator and publicly endorsed third-party harness usage, positioning developer openness as a competitive differentiator against both Google and Anthropic.

• NYT: The AI Boom Is Producing a Backlash (New York Times) 

  • The piece documents a growing wave of resentment among workers displaced by AI, from software engineers to white-collar professionals, who feel the productivity gains are flowing entirely to shareholders and executives.

  • Unlike previous automation waves, critics argue that AI is simultaneously displacing workers and advancing so quickly that it can absorb the new roles those workers might redeploy into.

  • The backlash is increasingly organized: from Occupy Silicon Valley protests outside the offices of Anthropic and OpenAI to congressional pressure for AI-impact disclosures in corporate earnings reports.

• Finnish quantum computing company IQM plans to go public via a SPAC merger at a $1.8B valuation (Bloomberg) 

  More: CNBC, Reuters

  • IQM Quantum Computers will merge with New Jersey-based blank-check company Real Asset Acquisition Corp, targeting a Nasdaq listing and $1.8B valuation in a deal that follows a string of quantum SPAC announcements in 2025–26.

  • Founded in 2018 at Aalto University, IQM has deployed quantum systems in Germany and Finland and counts government research institutions among its customers, a differentiated, hardware-focused model versus software-layer competitors.

  • The listing reflects sustained investor enthusiasm for quantum computing infrastructure, despite the sector being years away from achieving a commercial-scale advantage over classical systems.

AND MORE

• President Trump announces a plan to raise global tariffs to 15% after the Supreme Court blocks many import taxes.

• EU urges full clarity from the U.S. and insists trade commitments be honoured after tariff ruling.

• Supreme Court tariff decision sparks concern in China and South Korea while markets remain steady.

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• EU fails to agree on new Russia sanctions ahead of war’s fourth anniversary amid internal opposition.

• Samsung integrates Perplexity AI assistant into Galaxy S26 lineup ahead of Unpacked event.

• A leaked video of Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra privacy display highlights new screen tech ahead of launch.

• Pakistan conducts airstrikes on alleged militants along the Afghan border, drawing an Afghan threat response.

• North Korea’s Kim Jong Un re-elected general secretary as rare party congress opens.