Aside from the Chinese robots putting on a spectacle at the Chinese Spring Festival 2026 earlier this week, we also witnessed another moment of drama between Sam Altman and Dario Amodei at the AI Summit in India.

On another note, while Claude released Sonnet 4.6, Google Gemini unveiled Gemini 3.1 Pro. OpenAI then capped it off by hiring the founder of the popular AI agent OpenClaw.

It’s hard to say who truly won the week. Perhaps, in the end, it’s the users.

OpenAI is close to finalizing a funding round that could raise more than $100 billion and value the company at over $850 billion.

The figure represents a $20 billion increase from the $830 billion valuation initially reported for this round. The company's pre-money valuation stands at $730 billion, meaning the fresh capital is pushing the total even higher.

The massive influx of cash comes as OpenAI continues to burn through money while pursuing profitability. The company recently began testing ads in ChatGPT for free users, a controversial move designed to generate revenue but one that risks alienating users who prefer an ad-free experience.

Investors apparently believe the gamble is worth it. The first wave of funding is expected from tech giants and major investors already betting heavily on AI; Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50 billion, SoftBank is preparing to contribute around $30 billion, Nvidia is close to a $20 billion commitment, and Microsoft is also participating. Venture capital firms and sovereign wealth funds are expected to join later rounds, potentially pushing the total amount raised even higher.

To put the valuation in perspective, an $850 billion price tag would make OpenAI more valuable than most publicly traded companies in the world. It underscores the extraordinary faith investors have in the company's ability to dominate the AI landscape, despite mounting competition from rivals like Anthropic, Google, and others.

Google added music generation capabilities to its Gemini app on Wednesday, powered by DeepMind's Lyria 3 model, marking another step in AI's expansion into creative territories.

Users can now describe a song they want, and Gemini will generate a 30-second track complete with lyrics and AI-created cover art. For example, asking for a "comical R&B slow jam about a sock finding its match" will produce exactly that. The feature also allows users to upload photos or videos, and the AI will create music to match the mood of the content.

Google says Lyria 3 represents a significant improvement over previous versions, creating more realistic and complex tracks. Users have control over elements like style, vocals, and tempo. While the system won't directly mimic specific artists, mentioning an artist's name in a prompt will generate music in a similar style or mood.

The feature is rolling out globally to Gemini users aged 18 and over, with support for eight languages including English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean. Google is also expanding its Dream Track feature for YouTube creators worldwide, previously limited to the United States.

All AI-generated music will carry a SynthID watermark to identify it as machine-made content. Google has added capabilities within Gemini to detect AI-generated music, allowing users to upload tracks and verify their origin.

The launch arrives amid ongoing tension in the music industry. While platforms like YouTube and Spotify are embracing AI music and signing deals with labels, AI companies face copyright lawsuits over their training data. Services like Deezer have introduced tools to mark AI-generated music and combat fraudulent streams.

Peter Steinberger, creator of the viral AI agent OpenClaw, has joined OpenAI in a move that highlights the OpenAI’s aggressive push into autonomous AI assistants.

OpenClaw, which went from a weekend project to one of the fastest-growing repositories in GitHub history with over 180,000 stars, allows users to manage calendars, book flights, clear email inboxes, and control smart homes through simple text commands via messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Steinberger, an Austrian developer who previously built PSPDFKit (a PDF toolkit used by Apple, Dropbox, and SAP), said he chose OpenAI because he wants to "change the world, not build a large company." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that Steinberger will "drive the next generation of personal agents" and that OpenClaw will become an open-source project housed in a foundation that OpenAI will support.

The project's journey has been anything but smooth. Originally called Clawdbot, it was forced to rebrand after Anthropic sent a trademark complaint over its similarity to Claude. During the brief window when Steinberger's old GitHub handle was available, crypto scammers hijacked it and launched a fraudulent token that briefly hit a $16 million market cap. The project was renamed Moltbot, then finally OpenClaw.

Meta and Microsoft both courted Steinberger, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling him directly, but he chose OpenAI on the condition that the project remain open source. The irony is notable: OpenClaw was one of the biggest drivers of API traffic to Anthropic's Claude model, and Anthropic's trademark enforcement may have inadvertently pushed its most successful community developer to a competitor.

The move comes with security concerns. Cisco's AI security research team found that some third-party OpenClaw extensions performed data exfiltration and prompt injection without user awareness, and one maintainer warned that the project is "far too dangerous" for users who can't understand command-line operations.

Apple is ramping up development on three AI-powered wearables as it races to keep pace with competitors like Meta and Snap in the emerging smart device category, according to Bloomberg.

The company is working on an AirTag-sized AI pendant with cameras that users can pin to their clothing, AI-powered smart glasses code-named N50, and AirPods with enhanced AI capabilities. All three devices are designed to connect to the iPhone with Siri serving as a central component of the user experience.

The smart glasses appear to be furthest along in development. Reports reveals that the high-resolution camera-equipped device could enter production as early as December, ahead of a 2027 public release. Apple is positioning the glasses as more upscale and feature-rich than the pendant or AirPods, suggesting they may be the flagship product of the trio.

Apple faces stiff competition in the smart glasses market. Meta has arguably become the most successful player with its Ray-Ban partnership, while Snap plans to release its standalone Specs later this year. The AI pendant concept also has competition from devices like the Humane AI Pin, though that product has struggled to gain traction.

The push into AI wearables reflects Apple's broader strategy to expand its ecosystem beyond smartphones and watches. By tying these devices to the iPhone and integrating Siri, Apple is betting that seamless connectivity and its existing user base will give it an edge over competitors.

However, the company's track record with wearables beyond the Apple Watch has been mixed. The Vision Pro headset, while technologically impressive, has yet to achieve mainstream adoption. Whether consumers are ready for AI-powered cameras on their clothes or faces remains an open question.

Apple has not commented on the reports.

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