Thursday, April 16, 2026 · San Francisco
Strategic AI Intelligence from San Francisco
Analysis

China gave away its best AI models. Agents made the giveaway profitable.

China gave away its best AI models. Agents made the giveaway profitable.

For two years Alibaba, MiniMax and Zhipu gave away their best AI models while price wars ate the margins. Then agents started running overnight, burning tokens by the trillion. Zhipu raised API prices 83 percent in Q1 2026 and demand kept climbing. Tencent hiked Hunyuan over 400 percent. The licenses are quietly closing and the Alibaba Token Hub tells you where the cash register finally sits.

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LLM Popularity Meter

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Based on enterprise adoption data, news coverage & editorial analysis · Not investment advice · Updated weekly
Repo Radar: 5 GitHub Projects Worth Your Week
Tools & Workflows

Repo Radar: 5 GitHub Projects Worth Your Week

Repo Radar looks at five fast-moving GitHub projects: Hermes Agent, OpenScreen, Google AI Edge Gallery, DeepTutor, and Multica. The pattern is clear. Open source is moving from code libraries into full products for agents, local AI, screen demos, and learning workflows.

Marcus Schuler · 9 min read ·
Intermediate Tutorial: Build Useful Chrome Skills for Gemini Workflows
Tools & Workflows

Intermediate Tutorial: Build Useful Chrome Skills for Gemini Workflows

Chrome Skills turn repeated Gemini in Chrome prompts into reusable browser workflows. This intermediate tutorial shows how to confirm access, save useful prompts, compare selected tabs, build a research verification Skill, and keep the library from becoming clutter. It also explains where the rollout is limited, why selected tabs matter, when a saved prompt is too risky for confidential work, and how to test outputs before trusting them.

Harkaram Grewal · 16 min read ·
The Token Optimization Industry Shouldn't Exist. That's the Point.
Tools & Workflows

The Token Optimization Industry Shouldn't Exist. That's the Point.

Half of Claude Code's 200,000-token context window vanishes before developers type a single message. Now a cottage industry of optimization hacks, paid toolkits, and CLAUDE.md pruning rituals has sprung up to manage the tool that was supposed to manage itself. The parallel to manual memory management isn't flattering, and the business incentives behind it are even worse.

Marcus Schuler · 14 min read ·
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The Problem With OpenAI and Anthropic. $1.2 Trillion in AI Wants to Go Public, and Neither Company Can Close the Trust Gap.

OpenAI's shares are going unsold. Anthropic leaked its source code twice. Both want IPOs worth $1.2 trillion. Neither can close the trust gap.

Every Tuesday Morning

Apple at 50 Has Everything Except an AI Strategy. The Next CEO Inherits the Gap.

Apple turns 50 with record revenue but no AI strategy of its own. John Ternus is the likely next CEO. He inherits the gap.

OpenAI's Biology Model Is Not a Lab Breakthrough. It Is an Access Strategy.
Analysis

OpenAI's Biology Model Is Not a Lab Breakthrough. It Is an Access Strategy.

OpenAI's GPT-Rosalind looks like a biology model launch, but the deeper move is controlled access. The model sits inside ChatGPT, Codex, APIs, vetted customers, life sciences plugins, and biosecurity rules. That package could matter more than any launch benchmark, because pharma buyers need faster research they can defend when regulators, safety teams, and rivals start asking who got through the gate.

Maria Garcia
Maria Garcia · Analysis
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