by Raphael Dudler | May 25, 2026 | gafam watch
Wedbush Securities published a landmark note this week: 2026 is year three of a 10-year AI revolution cycle — and the inflection point where infrastructure investment transforms into monetization. Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are identified as the primary beneficiaries. Massive AI spending from governments, Asia and the Middle East is also forecast. gafam.ai examines what Wall Street’s most bullish AI forecast means for European investors, enterprises and regulators.
by Raphael Dudler | May 24, 2026 | gafam watch
The week of May 18–24, 2026 will be remembered as the moment AI stopped being a tool that answers questions and became a system that takes action — specifically, commercial action. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol signed Meta, Microsoft, Stripe, Klarna and Affirm as partners for end-to-end agentic checkout. Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping buys at third-party retailers. Microsoft’s Copilot executes tasks across enterprise workflows. And Zuckerberg admitted most AI agents aren’t ready for his mother. gafam.ai’s Sunday analysis of the week that changed AI commerce forever.
by Raphael Dudler | May 21, 2026 | meta ai
Meta has launched Muse Spark — its first flagship large language model built entirely in secret, under Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang’s newly formed Superintelligence Labs. It is a closed, proprietary model — a direct departure from the open-source Llama strategy that Meta has championed since 2023. Muse Spark delivers competitive performance on multimodal perception, reasoning and agentic tasks at a fraction of the compute cost of Llama 4. The open-source era at Meta may be ending.
by Raphael Dudler | May 20, 2026 | gafam watch
Today, May 20, Meta begins executing its 8,000 layoffs — 10% of its global workforce. LinkedIn is cutting 5% of staff this week. Amazon has eliminated 30,000 corporate roles across six months. More than 103,000 tech employees have lost their jobs in 2026 — approaching the total for all of 2025 in just five months. Google I/O is celebrating the AI future. On the same day, the human cost of that future is arriving in employees’ inboxes.
by Raphael Dudler | May 16, 2026 | meta ai
Google and Meta — two companies competing directly in AI, advertising and social media — have quietly become collaborators on Android. Instagram is now fully optimised for Android tablets. AI-powered Instagram editing tools including video upscaling, night sight and audio separation have landed on Android. And Instagram Edits for Android is getting a major AI upgrade. In the AI arms race, even rivals find reasons to cooperate. gafam.ai examines what this unlikely partnership reveals about the future of the GAFAM landscape. Published by gafam.ai — The European Eye on Big Tech & Artificial Intelligence.
