Good morning. It’s Thursday, October 30. Today we are covering:
OpenAI lays groundwork for juggernaut IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation
Google finally opens up the Play Store’s gates in the US
WhatsApp can now use passkeys to secure your backups
AI Agents Are Terrible Freelance Workers
Introducing Cursor 2.0 and Composer
Let’s dive in
OpenAI lays groundwork for juggernaut IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation
By Echo Wang via Reuters
OpenAI is laying groundwork for an IPO that could value it at up to $1 trillion, with a potential filing as early as H2 2026 and listing by 2026–2027; early talks contemplate raising $60B+, revenue run-rate near $20B by year-end, and mounting losses, while Sam Altman says going public is the “most likely path” given capital needs.
A fresh restructuring leaves the OpenAI Foundation in control with a 26% stake and warrant for more, trims reliance on Microsoft (now about 27% owner after $13B invested), and positions OpenAI to raise capital and pursue larger M&A to fund massive AI infrastructure plans.
An offering would reward backers SoftBank, Thrive Capital, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and lands amid an AI market surge where CoreWeave’s IPO has roughly tripled from $23B and Nvidia just hit $5T in market value; prior reporting pegged a public debut as early as 2027.
𝕏: Yesterday we did a livestream. TL;DR: We have set internal goals of having an automated AI research intern by September of 2026 running on hundreds of thousands of GPUs, and a true automated AI researcher by March of 2028. We may totally fail at this goal, but given the extraordinary potential impacts we think it is in the public interest to be transparent about this… - Sam Altman (@sama)
Google finally opens up the Play Store’s gates in the US
By Adamya Sharma via Android Authority
Google is opening up the Play Store in the United States starting Oct 29, 2025, letting users download apps and make payments outside Google’s ecosystem.
Developers can now link to external app stores, promote cheaper off-Play pricing, and use non-Google payment options (e.g., direct cards, PayPal), with Google reiterating trust and safety principles.
The changes stem from the Epic Games case and are enforced by a court injunction effective in the U.S. through Nov 1, 2027; Google says further program and business model details are forthcoming.
𝕏: HUGE news for Android apps! For apps serving the US market, Google is “not requiring the use of Google Play Billing in apps or prohibiting the use of in-app payment methods other than Google Play Billing.” - David Barnard (@drbarnard)
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WhatsApp can now use passkeys to secure your backups
By Jess Weatherbed via The Verge
WhatsApp is launching passkey-encrypted backups on iOS and Android, letting users secure stored chats with face, fingerprint, or device screen lock.
The update rolls out “over the coming weeks and months,” replacing the 2021 end-to-end encryption method that required a 64-digit key or password.
Builds on WhatsApp’s 2023 passkey logins, pushing toward a passwordless future that protects chats during phone loss or device transfers.
AI Agents Are Terrible Freelance Workers
By Will Knight via WIRED
Scale AI and CAIS debut the Remote Labor Index: leading AI agents completed <3% of simulated Upwork-style jobs, earning $1,810 of $143,991; top performers ranked Manus (China) then Grok, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini.
Despite advances in coding, math, and reasoning, agents struggle with tool use, multi-step workflows, long-term memory, and continual learning, a finding that counters OpenAI’s GDPval claims of near-human performance on 220 office tasks.
Hype around AI job replacement persists as Amazon cites generative AI in 14,000 layoffs, yet the RLI suggests current agents are unlikely to fill those roles, while researchers note limits of the benchmark and real freelancers may use AI for augmentation.
Introducing Cursor 2.0 and Composer
Cursor Team
Cursor 2.0 debuts Composer, a frontier coding model claimed to be 4× faster than similarly capable models, optimized for low-latency agentic coding (most turns <30s) and trained with codebase-wide semantic search to work reliably across large repositories and multi-step tasks.
A new multi-agent interface shifts the IDE to be agent-centric, enabling parallel runs via git worktrees/remote machines, comparing outputs from multiple models to select the best, streamlined diff/review flows, and a native browser tool for automated testing and iterative fixes.
Availability: Cursor 2.0 is rolling out now with a downloadable build and full changelog for all features.
𝕏: cursor’s composer got 32% on the nextjs evals i tried qwen3 with opencode on a fast inference provider it scored 36% and was 13% faster off the shelf, zero tuning and it’s better...wtf? .- dax (@thdxr)
Trending in AI
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