Good morning.
Jeremy here again, filling in for Andrew, who is at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Deer Valley, Utah. The conference kicked off yesterday, and man, I’ve got serious FOMO.
Some highlights so far:
- Lyft CEO David Risher told the audience that the company’s deal with California state lawmakers that paves the way for its drivers to unionize will actually save the company $200 million per year in insurance costs.
- Jeffrey Katzenberg predicted that passing laws in the U.S. to protect children from online harms would be a slog, noting that it took 80 years to get seat belt laws passed in the U.S.
- DoorDash CEO Tony Xu detailed why autonomous delivery—whether through self-driving cars, small robots, or drones—has still not happened despite the better of a decade spent on research and development.
But the big news in tech today, aside from what’s happening at Fortune Brainstorm Tech, of course, is anticipation around Apple’s big hardware reveal later today. iPhone fans—and Apple investors—have great expectations. Will Apple live up to them? Bea Nolan has a rundown below of what we might see unveiled. One thing analysts are cautioning we probably won’t see: a lot of those native AI features Apple has been promising iPhone users for more than a year now.
Always leave ‘em wanting more may be good showbiz advice, but it might not do Apple’s share price any favors.
—Jeremy Kahn
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New iPhone, who dis?
Photo Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Apple is set to unveil its latest iPhone in an “awe-dropping” event later today.
The company is hosting its annual product launch in Cupertino where it’s slated to launch major hardware refreshes across its lineup and debut the brand new iPhone 17 family. The company is also expected to launch updates to the iPad Pro, Vision Pro headset, Apple TV, and HomePod mini and reveal the iPhone 17 Air, set to be the thinnest iPhone to date.
Apple has been navigating a complex political environment, and some analysts expect the tech giant to raise prices on the Pro models as the company deals with a challenging tariff environment.
Analysts have also cautioned against expecting a major AI announcement during the event.
“Apple has already shared that a major Siri and Apple Intelligence revamp will only happen in 2026 and, timing-wise, it’s unlikely a major strategic investment in an AI firm would coincide with Apple’s keynote next week,” Forrester’s Thomas Husson noted.
Instead, he said Apple is more likely to spotlight its new A19 Pro chip, which features a more powerful Neural Engine for on-device AI tasks like conversational models, advanced photo editing, and personalized suggestions. A fresh AI partnership with Google’s Gemini could also surface, building on last year’s tie-up with ChatGPT.
The show kicks off at 10 a.m. PT.
—Beatrice Nolan
OpenAI is starting to panic about its corporate restructuring plans
OpenAI is scrambling to salvage its corporate restructuring after facing unexpected opposition, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report. The company is even considering the “nuclear option” of leaving California entirely, though a spokesperson denied any plans to relocate. The stakes couldn’t be higher: about $19 billion in funding—nearly half of what OpenAI raised in the past year—depends on investors getting traditional equity in a new for-profit structure.
Currently, OpenAI issues “profit participation units” instead of traditional stock, but investors want real equity. If the restructuring collapses, those investors can pull their money—a potentially catastrophic blow for a company planning to burn through $115 billion by 2029. OpenAI now faces a coalition of dozens of nonprofits, labor unions, and philanthropies opposing the move, plus a legal challenge from Elon Musk. Meta has been lobbying to block the deal too, the Journal reports.
Both California and Delaware attorneys general are investigating the restructuring, with concerns about recent suicides linked to ChatGPT interactions complicating approval. Regulators are questioning whether OpenAI has abandoned its original public benefit mission for revenue. The AGs could sue or demand hefty settlements as conditions for approval.
OpenAI executives didn’t anticipate this backlash, according to the Journal, and are now scrambling to save the deal, hiring advisers with ties to Governor Newsom while pledging $50 million to community organizations.
—Jeremy Kahn
Meta suppressed child safety research, whistleblowers say
Two former and two current Meta employees have submitted documents to Congress alleging that Meta curtailed research into children’s safety, according to a report from The Washington Post.
The employees allege that after Frances Haugen’s 2021 leaks, Meta quietly limited how staff could study sensitive issues like youth well-being, race, and harassment. They allege Meta’s lawyers advised researchers to avoid collecting data on minors and even urged them to run sensitive studies under attorney-client privilege.
One researcher says he was ordered to delete an interview in which a teen described his 10-year-old brother being sexually propositioned in Horizon Worlds. Meta told news outlets the deletion was required under privacy law, citing rules that ban collecting information from children under 13 without verified parental consent.
Meta has denied the rest of the claims, saying the allegations were “stitched together. The company also said it had approved nearly 180 Reality Labs-related studies on social issues, including youth safety and well-being, since 2022.
A Senate subcommittee is set to review the whistleblowers’ claims this week.
—Beatrice Nolan
Anthropic’s $1.5B settlement hits a roadblock
The judge overseeing Anthropic’s proposed settlement with authors has blasted the agreement as “nowhere close to complete.”
Judge William Alsup said at a Monday hearing that he felt “misled” by the settlement proposal and had “an uneasy feeling about hangers on with all this money on the table.” He cited concerns about class lawyers striking a deal behind the scenes that will later be forced “down the throat of authors.”
The motion to approve the deal was denied, and a post-hearing order stated that approval is postponed until more information is provided. Attorneys will now have to return with a revised settlement proposal. As part of this, the judge directed the parties to create a form requiring all copyright owners to opt in to the settlement; if any owner opts out, that work will be excluded.
Judge Alsup set a September 15 deadline for submitting a final list of works, which currently stands at just under 500,000.
The $1.5 billion settlement had already been touted as one of the largest copyright deals in U.S. history, and experts say it could establish a benchmark for similar cases.
—Beatrice Nolan
More tech
Anthropic endorses California’s AI safety bill. It’s the first major AI company to back the bill.
Trump’s tech dinner triggers a MAGA backlash. Tech bosses spike tensions in MAGA land.
SpaceX to acquire EchoStar Spectrum in $17B deal. The deal will allow EchoStar to resolve a regulatory probe.
A former WhatsApp security chief has sued Meta, alleging ignored privacy risks. WhatsApp called the claims false and tied to poor performance.
Google says the open web is already in “rapid decline.”The statement starkly contrasts Google’s recent claims about the health of web search.
