🥑 Meta's "Avocado" is rotten

Meta delayed their "Avocado" AI from March to May (or whenever it stops sucking). Performance? Somewhere between Gemini 2.5 and 3. The company's dropping $115-135 BILLION chasing superintelligence while executives whisper about licensing Google's Gemini instead. The audacity I-
Why it matters: Zuck's burning GDP-level money but still can't ship a model that beats Google's. It's giving desperate "maybe we should've stuck to the metaverse" vibes. (source)

Pentagon CTO Emil Michael said there's "no chance" of working with Anthropic because Claude has "different policy preferences" (??) baked into its constitution. First American AI company EVER blacklisted by the Pentagon.
Why it matters: The military-industrial complex just said Claude is too woke for war. This is... actually happening. (source)

Ukraine's sharing millions of combat images and drone footage with allies through "Groundsource" - basically turning their war into the world's darkest Kaggle dataset. Defense Minister says it includes tens of thousands of combat flights.
Why it matters: Ukraine said "if we're gonna fight Russia, might as well train the West's military AI while we're at it." Dark but lowkey genius?? (source)

China's banks have $528 BILLION in tech loans (up 19.8%) while real estate loans DROPPED 1.6%. Major state banks created fast-track approval for AI companies targeting 30% growth.
Why it matters: China just did a CTRL+X on real estate and CTRL+V on AI. The entire banking sector is pivoting harder than a failed startup. (source)

Security startup CodeWall's agent got FULL ACCESS to McKinsey's "Lilli" AI - exposing 46.5M messages, 728K client files, and 57K accounts. How? Basic API endpoints with no authentication. Not even a password. Nothing.
Why it matters: McKinsey charges $500/hour to tell companies about digital transformation but left their own AI system open like a 7-Eleven at 3am. You can't make this up. (source)

Shantanu Narayen stepping down after 18 YEARS with no successor named. Stock down 7% (on top of being down 23% this year). Canva and Figma are absolutely demolishing them with cheap AI tools.
Why it matters: Adobe spent decades building a monopoly just to get disrupted by startups with $5/month AI subscriptions. Creative Cloud? More like Creative Clowned. (source)

LegalWeek in NYC was PACKED with lawyers freaking out about whether clients will pay $800/hour for AI-assisted work. Swedish startup Legora raised $550M at $5.5B valuation (!!!!) to automate legal work.
Why it matters: The entire legal industry's business model is having an existential crisis. Turns out "bill by the hour" doesn't work when AI does it in seconds. Who could've seen this coming?? (source)

Journalist Julia Angwin filed a class action after Grammarly used her name (and hundreds of others) for AI "expert reviews" charging $144/year. The feedback was SO BAD they disabled it entirely.
Why it matters: Grammarly literally said "what if we pretend famous writers reviewed your work but it's just GPT with their names slapped on it?" Spoiler: lawyers noticed. (source)

Rox AI raised at $1.2 BILLION valuation with projected 2025 revenue of... $8 million. That's a 150x revenue multiple. The startup deploys hundreds of AI agents to automate sales ops.
Why it matters: VCs are valuing AI companies like they're trading Pokémon cards in 1999. This definitely won't end badly :) (source)

"Ask Maps" lets you interrogate 300M+ places with natural language. "Immersive Navigation" renders your route in 3D using Street View. It's actually... useful??
Why it matters: Google finally found a way to make AI useful instead of just making it write bad poetry. Revolutionary concept. (source)

"Bee" learns your values and communication style to suggest matches. They're also removing the swipe mechanism in some markets for "chapter-based profiles" (whatever that means).
Why it matters: Dating apps realized Gen Z would rather talk to AI than each other. Honestly? Fair. (source)

Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg from Cursor now report directly to Elon. xAI trying to catch up in coding assistants where Cursor absolutely dominates.
Why it matters: Elon's collecting AI engineers like infinity stones. Still won't make Grok stop hallucinating Turkish history though. (source)

Until Monday (unless the AIs achieve consciousness this weekend), The AI Snacks Team

P.S. If McKinsey offers to secure your AI system, maybe get a second opinion. And a third. And just use a password.