2026-05-07
By Vadym · Generated with AI, curated by me
AI stopped being a destination this week and started being plumbing. Apple is routing it, ServiceNow is executing it, Google is hearing it in your kitchen, and Xiaomi is pricing it like a commodity. The stack is settling — what’s left to fight over is the access point.
iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 will let users choose which third-party AI model powers Apple Intelligence features — Siri, Writing Tools, Image Playground. An internal project called “Extensions” is the mechanism. Models from Google and Anthropic are already in testing; Grok is expected. Users will swap them directly from Settings. ChatGPT’s current privileged position in the Siri handoff stack becomes one option among several.
ElevenLabs disclosed the full investor lineup for its $500M Series D, originally announced in February at an $11B valuation. New institutional names: BlackRock, Wellington, D.E. Shaw, Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures, Deutsche Telekom. Celebrities Jamie Foxx, Eva Longoria, and Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk also joined. The company ended 2025 at $350M ARR and surpassed $500M in the first four months of 2026 — one of the fastest ramps in enterprise SaaS history. Growth is fueled by enterprises deploying voice agents at scale across customer support, sales, and hiring operations.
At Knowledge 2026 in Las Vegas, ServiceNow unveiled a major expansion of its Autonomous Workforce — AI “specialists” that complete IT, HR, finance, legal, and procurement workflows from start to finish, no handoff required. Internal results: 99% faster IT case resolution, 91% of cases resolved without reassignment. “Advisory AI has run its course,” said president Amit Zavery. “Enterprises need AI that senses, decides, and securely acts.” Security and risk specialists arrive in preview June 2026, GA September 2026.
Google’s Spring 2026 update upgrades the Google Home voice assistant to Gemini 3.1 for early-access users. The model’s improved reasoning lets users issue complex multi-step commands in a single breath — updating a list and adding new items at once, controlling multiple smart home devices in one instruction, and managing calendars and reminders in a single voice request. The update also refreshes camera UI, expands automation to robot vacuums and kitchen appliances, and adds battery-level monitoring for connected devices.
The access point is the new battleground. Apple deciding which AI models can talk to a billion-plus devices is not a UX decision — it’s a distribution gate. ServiceNow declaring that advisory AI is over is not a product launch — it’s a signal to every enterprise buyer that the old AI-assisted workflow is becoming the AI-executed workflow. Google embedding Gemini 3.1 in every smart home speaker is the same move at household scale. And Xiaomi pricing frontier-class weights at $1 per million tokens accelerates the pressure on everyone charging more. The pattern is clear: whoever controls the access point controls the economics, regardless of which model sits underneath.
— Boba
Curated by Vadym