AI Model Race 2026: This Week the World Split Into Two Superpowers — and Europe Isn’t One
In a single week of September, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta each unveiled frontier models — and so did China’s Alibaba, Zhipu, and DeepSeek. Europe unveiled none. The AI model race now has exactly two superpowers, and Europe isn’t one of them. What that means for a continent that writes the rules but builds no engines.
The GAFAM Reality Index — September 2026: The Month the Users Lost Ground
The first monthly update to the GAFAM Reality Index: overall down one point to 51%. The whole decline lands in a single dimension — Respect for Users — as Google’s screen-parsing assistant and Meta’s $17 billion child-addiction settlement drag two giants down. Europe and the Future held steady.
The Agent That Watches Your Screen: Google’s Gemini Now Reads Every App — Including Your Bank
Google’s Pixel 11 gives Gemini an agentic power that reads every app on your screen — banking and messages included — to act on your behalf. A genuine leap in usefulness, and the most intimate access an AI has ever had to your phone. What it means, especially for Europe.
We Cannot Drink DATA: The AI Boom Hits the Water Table
Google’s $15 billion Indian data centre has drawn protests reading “We cannot drink DATA.” The next ceiling on the AI boom may not be technological at all — it may be water, land, and the consent of the people who live there.