OpenAI is valued at $1.25 trillion as AI spending growth stalls

OpenAI hits a $1.25 trillion valuation as AI spending growth stalls

OpenAI is now valued at $1.25 trillion in a new round of funding that has raised another $11 billion, according to Bloomberg, The Verge reports. That comes not long after OpenAI raised $122 billion from investors in March at a valuation of $852 billion. Bloomberg says OpenAI is still pursuing more investment that could take the round to $20 billion, after it had initially hoped to raise as much as $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation².

At the same time, a new report from Ramp shows AI spending flatlined over late summer even as token volumes rose. According to Ramp's data, token spend grew only 1.5% across August and September, after growing 42% in July from the previous month. October did see a re-acceleration, with token spend up 8.9% from September 23 to October 23¹.

Ramp's lead economist Ara Kharazian told TechCrunch that almost all AI spending comes from venture-backed, high-growth tech companies. He said the slowdown is not a demand problem and pointed instead to competition: in September, OpenAI cut API prices in half for GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna¹. OpenAI's rival Anthropic filed its S-1 to go public last week, The Verge reports².

“The era of hypergrowth may be over”

Google takes over a troubled Wyoming data centre as OpenAI drops NDAs

Crusoe, a Denver-based data center developer recently valued at $30.9 billion, confirmed Friday it has sold an unfinished data center project in southeastern Wyoming to Google. Google, which Crusoe had tried and failed to land as a customer for the project, is taking over the development after reportedly raising concerns about its cost and construction timeline. Google did not disclose how much it paid, but it announced plans to invest $17 billion to develop the data center campus³.

Crusoe first announced the project last year with infrastructure company Tallgrass, planning to eventually scale it to 10 gigawatts of power capacity. TechCrunch says The deal shows how hard it can be for independent developers to deliver massive projects on time and within budget, given the challenges of securing equipment and power. Crusoe is still developing another data center for Google near Amarillo, Texas³.

Separately, OpenAI announced that it won't use non-disclosure agreements with public officials on its data center projects, after midterm voters voiced their opposition to data center expansion, The Verge reports. OpenAI says it will pay the full cost of the electricity it uses and of the infrastructure needed to serve it. In October, Amazon announced it would no longer use NDAs with government agencies on data center projects⁴.

Meta's Muse agents can now build custom spaces

Meta has launched Spaces, a new way to work with its Muse AI agents, TechCrunch reports. Meta says Users can describe an idea in chat and Muse builds a space, such as a tracker, a planner or a project board⁵. The Verge reports examples like a shopping hub, a school dashboard, a music tracker and a trivia game⁶.

If users connect outside apps such as Gmail, Google Calendar, OpenTable or Notion, Muse keeps pulling information from them to update prices, dates and other details in the background⁶. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's founder and CEO, posted on X that he had made a BBQ game, an event tracker and a home control dashboard with spaces⁵.

Spaces is the second new Muse feature in a week: on Thursday, Meta made Muse Voice, which lets users video chat with their agent, available to everyone in the US^5,7. During its earnings call in October, Zuckerberg said Meta's agents had 10 million users in the US and Canada, less than two months after they debuted⁵.

Amazon now lets you text Alexa to shop

Amazon is launching a feature that lets customers chat with its Alexa AI agent over text messages to help them shop, TechCrunch reports. Select US customers will Get a text asking them to turn on the feature, and others can join a waitlist as it rolls out more broadly in the coming weeks⁸. The Verge reports that Users can describe a product or send a photo, and Alexa for Shopping will search Amazon listings, text back recommendations and order the item for them⁹.

The text agent can manage lists, keep tabs on prices, search for items across the web, compare products and check the status of orders. Amazon says Alexa will learn users' preferences over time and suggest items accordingly⁸. The contact appears in a user's phone as Amazon Alexa⁹.

The move comes after Amazon blocked Meta's Muse from querying its site in September, and just before the start of the holiday shopping season. TechCrunch notes that Last month DoorDash said third-party agents had placed only hundreds of orders in total on its platform, and that it plans to focus on its own text-based agent⁸.