ChatGPT has been using Google Search

They say it takes a village to raise an AI.

Many consider OpenAI’s ChatGPT to be an existential threat to Google’s core Search business, as people turn to the chatbot rather than Google. It turns out, OpenAI has been competing with the help of Google.

While Google doesn’t allow OpenAI to directly access its Search data, OpenAI has been using Google Search results scraped from the web by SerpApi (an 8-year-old firm that specializes in that) to power ChatGPT’s answers on things like news, sports, and the stock market, The Information reports. OpenAI has also previously used data from YouTube to train its AI models without Google’s permission.

OpenAI Is Challenging Google—While Using Its Search Data

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Rani Molla3h

Apple’s China iPhone shipments surged 20% in Q1 even as overall smartphone shipments fell

Apple’s iPhone shipments in China jumped 20% last quarter, even as the country’s overall smartphone market fell 4%, according to new data from Counterpoint Research. Rising memory costs have pushed prices higher across the industry, weighing on demand.

Apple appears poised to ride out the broader smartphone slump. Its strength at the less price-sensitive high end of the market and its unusual leverage over suppliers, which helps keep costs in check, give it an edge over rivals.

Greater China remains a critical region for Apple, making up about 18% of its total revenue in the fourth quarter. The company accounted for 19% of China’s smartphone market in the first quarter, up from 15% a year earlier, per Counterpoint.

Rani Molla22h

Anthropic has surged past OpenAI in capturing business spending on generative-AI software

Last quarter, Anthropic attracted the lion’s share of trackable business spending on generative-AI software, according to new data from Ramp, a fintech company that provides corporate cards and expense management software for small firms and Fortune 500 companies alike.

The data showed that in the first quarter, Anthropic saw 37% of spending, its biggest share yet, versus 33% for OpenAI. Notably, the dataset doesn’t capture spending by Google or Microsoft.

OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, still leads in overall adoption at 81% of AI buyers, but Anthropic is catching up, at nearly 63% in March. Overall, more than half of Ramp’s customers currently pay for AI, up from just 18% two years ago.

Anthropic’s enterprise tools, including Claude Code and Cowork, have been making waves among the business class, sending its revenue soaring.

Anthropic’s revenue share is even higher among companies spending on AI for the first time.

“Anthropic has definitely been on a tear,” Ara Kharazian, Ramp’s economist, told Sherwood News. “Its increase in adoption rates has been driven by its ability to sell to less technical users and smaller contracts than it typically has.”

It’s notable that midway through the first quarter, Anthropic had a falling-out with one of its biggest customers, the US government, which near the end of February decided to shun Anthropic’s products and lean into working with OpenAI.

Jon Keegan

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Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.7, with better coding, better vision, and occasional doom loops

The incremental update of Anthropic’s most capable public model includes steady improvements to coding and new ways to blow past your token budget.

Tunnel. Optical illusion. Abstract striped background. Vector illustration.

Jon Keegan4/16/26

Report: Google ditches its objection to defense work, pitches Gemini to Pentagon

In 2018, Google employees protested against the company’s tech being used for the US military’s Project Maven — a drone targeting program — reminding the company of its “don’t be evil” motto.

After the controversy, the company declined to renew the contract with the Pentagon, drawing a bright line between Big Tech and the national security establishment.

What a difference a few years makes.

Google is now actively working to get its Gemini AI model to be used in classified national security settings, according to a new report from The Information. Seeking a similar deal to the one OpenAI hashed out with the Pentagon, Google reportedly wants a contract that allows use of Gemini in classified work, but with a prohibition on mass domestic surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons.

But Google is playing catch-up in a major way. Amazon and Microsoft both have been widely used for classified defense work, and contractors are already experienced in working with their cloud systems, while Google’s services have never been used in classified work.

Google and Pentagon Discuss Classified AI Deal as Company Rebuilds Military Ties

What a difference a few years makes.

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Rani Molla4/16/26

We knew Tesla had been off-loading its struggling “apocalypse-proof” Cybertrucks onto CEO Elon Musk’s other companies, but now we know just how many.

The EV company sold about one in five Cybertrucks registered in the US in the fourth quarter to Musk’s other ventures, according to Bloomberg, citing data from S&P Global Mobility. The lion’s share went to SpaceX, which accounted for 1,279 of the 7,071 total registrations, while another 60 went to xAI (now part of SpaceX), Neuralink, and The Boring Company. All told, these inter-company sales represent roughly $100 million in value, and a vital lifeline for a vehicle that has failed to gain traction with the public, forcing Tesla to scale back production.

Musk’s companies have continued to scoop up the stainless steel behemoths this year, with another 158 Cybertruck purchases in January and 67 in February.

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