Gartner's Agentic Browser Warning
Agentic browsers are all the rage, even I've been writing about them as of late, but Gartner (Yes, that Gartner) has issued a warning that this new technology is "too risky for most organizations to use".
AI browsers, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas, are often employed to boost efficiency by using autonomous navigation, workflows, and data collection - but they can be tricked by malicious webpages into collecting and transferring sensitive information such as bank account details, credentials, and emails. - TechRadar
As with all new technologies, risks counter equally with new opportunities — Agentic browsers are no different.
Gartner’s fears about the agentic capabilities of AI browser relate to their susceptibility to “indirect prompt-injection-induced rogue agent actions, inaccurate reasoning-driven erroneous agent actions, and further loss and abuse of credentials if the AI browser is deceived into autonomously navigating to a phishing website.” - The Register
This is new territory, thus this technology has yet to be flushed out with safeguards. The idea that a consumer or business can trust an agentic service with credit card or payment information is short sighted, at least at this point in the early adoption phase. Too many prompt injections, phishing attacks, and false positives are too risky at this juncture to warrant browsers (or even most consumers) at this phase to use it as a smart shopper.
The risks far outweigh the positives at this point when we consider autonomous tasks with the number of false positives and the higher-than-normal risk of unsecure financial information within these platforms and products.We are at the stage of agentic browsing where every GenAI company has a 'me too' strategy when releasing these products, feeling the need to release them without any thought or security concerns in mind just to beat their closest competitors to the market.
This is not to say that it will always be this way. Gartner is telling firms to be careful at this stage of the game where this technology is too new to be time tested, and where anything can happen such as payment fraud, MCP's purchasing items that a business did not ask for, or taking initiative to make plans on a users' behalf without consultation because it assumes it's what was instructed to do.
But overall, the trio of analysts think AI browsers are just too dangerous to use without first conducting risk assessments and suggest that even after that exercise you’ll likely end up with a long list of prohibited use cases – and the job of monitoring an AI browser fleet to enforce the resulting policies. - The Register
IT departments must be more proactive and issue pushback among executives who initiate "full throttle AI plans" for the sake of having AI and assuming it's automatically positive. Gartner isn't warning business to never use this technology but rather conduct proper assessments as a firm would any other technology about to be implemented across a company.
The same rules apply with agentic browsing as they do any new technology — the early adopters must be just that — willing to take these risks in pilot programs within a small, sandboxed environment before rolling out the product to the full range of users. It's important to also realize with how quickly this technology is evolving, this sandboxed environment must be supported for an extended period of time.
An (Almost) End to 2025 Update — 2026 Goals
🎊 As we approach the end of another year, as professionals, learners, and citizens of the world; we must look back at what we have accomplished in 2025 and what we hope to accomplish in 2026.
📖 By the time 2026 rolls around, I would have completed a total of 35 books read. This is a personal record for me, and something I’m personally proud of. I’ve learned a lot in the fields of technology, business, economics, international relations (and even threw in some autobiographies for good measure!)
✍ The fact you’re reading this now means I’ve followed through on writing more. Earlier this year, I created a new blog at my website and attempted to post as frequently as I can. While I’ve wavered a bit at this, I believe that I’ve written the most words in one year than I ever have since attending college.
💼 What do I hope to accomplish in 2026? That’s more complicated. I will continue my push for gainful employment that not only teaches me new skills, but an entity where I can bring my own skillset to the table. (Despite being dealt many blows, I have not given up!)
↗️ I will continue to work on my own health by maintaining a healthy weight, stress-levels, mental and financial health. All of the above work hand-in-hand to improving one’s life. Lastly, I’ve slacked a bit since I moved to Jersey City, but I’d love to get back into volunteering for the community — whether it be poverty alleviation, environmental, or political. When inspiration strikes or opportunities rise, I’ll keep you apprised.
"I'm a Professor. A.I. Has Changed my Classroom, but Not for the Worse." - NYT Magazine
📰The New York Time Magazine published an interesting article on how adoption, not banning of chatbot products in the classroom can actually help students as a tool, but by not doing all of the work for them. Retention and expansion of knowledge is everything.
🏫As many institutions of higher learning are dealing with chatbot-based plagiarism, many are retooling their academic playbook to adapt to how students are utilizing these instruments.
🧑🎓These methods include: adding peer-review testing, allowing for creativity and expression, and proctoring a class for more verbal engagement in the classroom among students – proving they understand and can synthesize the content in a relevant form that reinforces learning.
This was originally posted on Linkedin, December 1, 2025.
Electrification Makes the Superpower
There is no question that the United States and China have now taken two completely different approaches to the energy crisis that plagues both nations (and frankly, the globe). Both nations are in the midst of a data center boom to power the future dreams of AI domination, however, the power crisis remains at the center of it all.
Electrification remains the robust infrastructure buildout of nations who wish to remain dominant superpowers, creating surplus where there currently is not. The United States tends to build out its centers in dry, waterless, humid areas such as Arizona -- mostly due to tax credits. China, on the other hand, does not have this issue with its centrally planned economy.
As an article from Eletrek states:
"While others debate the merits of decentralized digital tokens, China is executing a multi-pronged strategy that treats electricity as the foundational strategic asset it has become."
It's not just enough to drain a nation's resources on AI or crypto generation, there must be abundance left over for a nation's population needs. Sustainability is paramount. As the United States has retreated from wind, solar, geothermal, and other low-cost power generation, China has doubled down on all of these, including nuclear.
As with all power distribution strategies, there must be fairness and reliability in the grid systems. The same Eletrek article goes on:
China wields its control over the grid as a precision tool of industrial policy. China’s average electricity rate of $0.084/kWh is cheaper than most of the rest of the world, but its power lies not in the base price but in its strategic application. The government deploys a “Differential Electricity Pricing” policy: a “stick” that penalizes low-tech, high-consumption industries with higher rates, and a “carrot” that provides preferential pricing to incentivize strategic sectors.
Not penalizing Chinese citizens for the overwhelming use of grid bandwidth for AI and other applications is a complete departure from how the United States approaches its grid fairness. Utility companies often pass the cost and drain of the old power generation technologies to residents while they often pay for the subsidies for big tech buildouts.
The United States has also retreated from the electric vehicle world by ending federal subsidies, failing to invest in new battery technologies, and no strategy for a nationwide charging station buildout. This "all of the above" strategy will make any nation more robust, secure, and provide less-expensive energy for all.
BYD has taken over the globe, especially in Asian, European, and Latin American markets while United States domestic manufactures such as GM and Ford have almost no serious footprint in this area.
China subsidizes EV makers such as BYD, Xiaomi, and others to create lower price point, higher range vehicles to appeal to the masses. It's up to the United States at this point to lead once again and reclaim an energy future that can put it back upon its superpower status once again.
As Rest of World puts it:
Chinese EV models reach the market two to three years faster than non-Chinese brands, according to a 2024 report by New York-based consulting firm AlixPartners. Chinese EV firms typically take 20 months to develop a new car, compared with 40 months for Chinese legacy carmakers.
It may be too late for the United States to catch up to what the rest of the world is doing in this sector (mainly China and India), but it can still be a power domestically if it were to be taken seriously as something more than a 'vanity project'.
Only the Paranoid Survive -- For Now
Intel founder Andy Grove once said, “only the paranoid survive.” After two-decades of playing catch-up, experiencing setbacks, and not quite perfecting the manufacturing process – what’s left of the decaying PC x86 business is declining and Intel is not the leader in innovation, growing this segment, or even maintaining its market position in this segment anymore.
In a once dominant market, Intel continues to shrink its market share as it attempts to focus on creating its fabrication process for other customers including Broadcom, Qualcomm, and yes – it’s greatest rival, AMD.
According to Mercury Research & Tom’s Hardware:
AMD achieved two important milestones: it now commands shipments of over 25% of all x86 CPUs, and it now ships over 33% (one-third) of desktop x86 CPUs.
As early as a year prior, Intel controlled more than 90 percent of the x86 market, and the share only went higher as we move back time.
AMD’s unit share of all x86 client and server CPUs shipped exceeded 25% and now stands at 25.6%, up from 24.2% in the prior quarter and up from 24% in the same quarter a year ago. Intel still commands 74.4%, but it lost some share in certain segments, allowing AMD to hit an important milestone amid a market shrink.
This means nothing in a decaying market, but it is worth noting that AMD is better positioned to take on leaders such as Nvidia, and not those in a concentrated market such as Intel. Where Intel has failed to diversify, AMD has created a formattable position to today’s leading chip companies.
Intel has gone through many CEO changes over the years including a 10 percent stake from the U.S. government, converting the CHIPS Act grant funds into equity. Mass layoffs have plagued the firm as it attempts to shed its legacy businesses in favor of becoming more of a semiconductor manufacturing company with customers outside of itself.
AMD hit another all-time high, as the mix shifted heavily toward its latest and more expensive EPYC 9005-series platform. The combination of flat unit shipments and rising prices meant that AMD’s server revenue continues to grow significantly faster than its unit share, while Intel’s revenue gains were more limited due to modest declines in its overall shipment mix.
For many years, Intel has struggled on its former dominant server-side products, completely missed mobile, and sold off its networking and other niche businesses to competition. At this point, Intel is letting inertia take it the rest of the way as it buys time to reinvent itself.
Apple and Netflix have had success in cannibalizing their own successful markets to maintain relevance and grow in the face of new customer demands. While business conditions are bleak at Intel, it’s never wise to rule them out – even if they decide a “sum of the parts” strategy is the way to go through divesture. There are still a lot of great assets at the company.
💡Great ideas are often overlooked because of self-doubt and obviousness. Preform market research like any other business plan, and you never know – your execution of the idea may be vastly superior to anything else on the market.
💹Don’t assume it’s been done before because you thought of it. Experiment and iterate, you’ll likely move it in a different direction, thus not making the idea so obvious anymore!
This was originally posted on LinkedIn.
Signals are Flashing Red Alert for the Goods Economy - FreightWaves
🔔 It’s worth noting that AI is not the entire hashtag#economy. While that is the main focus and likely holding the U.S. out of hashtag#recession — for the moment, we must consider other aspects of a diversified flow of goods and services.
📊 Individuals and businesses must consider contingency plans for when GenAI undergoes a “reversion to the mean” in its journey.
⛴️ The CEO of FreightWaves, a logistics data firm, suggests that the goods economy is already in a recession:
“The U.S. economy is entrenched in a goods recession. While consumer spending on services might be holding steady, the movement of physical goods—the lifeblood of manufacturing, retail, and industrial sectors—has ground to a halt.”
🖥️ If you’re debating the utility of Large Language Models (LLMs) in your business or workflow, it’s time to consider the use cases of Small Language Models (SLMs).
🔖 Christopher Mims argues that while the hyperscalers are building out enormous data centers and squandering energy use, the best cases for GenAI may already be local to you.
This is such an interesting read and counterintuitive to what venture capital and Wall Street has been saying. At the end of the day, follow the results – not the cash.
Be Wary of Sycophantic Assistants -- The Next Platform Commoditization Breaker
All chat platforms and LLM tools have become commodified tasked with creating as much lock-in as possible for users. In general, most GenAI power users prefer to flip their models as some are marginally better at some tasks than another – but on average, the capabilities are reaching parody.
As advertising and MCPs are designed to keep a user hooked in, using a single model that will benefit its parent company financially, more and more needs arise to create this lock-in, in order to build its user base and collect more training model data–thus, letting the training and experiences expand.
On the downside, a good number of users will be utilizing these tools for not only research, productivity, and automation tasks, but create the sycophancy illusion that these models are “alive” and show “emotion” to keep the non-tech enthused user also hooked on what a model has to offer. In this category, we have Mico – an assistant built into Microsoft’s Copilot that’s designed to be its 2025 equivalent of Clippy that we all know and love from the 90s.
Mico is part of a Microsoft program dedicated to the idea that “technology should work in service of people,” Microsoft wrote. The company insists this effort is “not [about] chasing engagement or optimizing for screen time. We’re building AI that gets you back to your life. That deepens human connection.” - Ars Technica
LLMs are tools, and I worry about stories that some consumers are mis-utilizing these parasocial relationships giving them emotion, reason, and the illusion of relationships – whether that be true friendships or sometimes more.
[Microsoft] says it’s also working to evolve Copilot’s personality and tone, with the introduction of a new mode called “Real Talk.” This will allow the AI to mirror the user’s conversational style but won’t be as sycophantic as other AI assistants have been. Instead, Microsoft says that it will feel like something that’s “grounded in its own perspective,” and will push back and challenge your ideas, which could encourage you to see things from a different point of view. - Ars Technica
This attempt to break the parasocial bounds is something that must be welcomed, especially with a business forward facing product such as Copilot. Microsoft’s goal should always be increasing productivity, a task that they’ve excelled at (no pun intended) over the past many decades with its Office and 365 incarnations.
With differentiation, it is important that each of these models and platforms do try to target different audiences with their needs. As Windows has its aim of becoming more agentic in nature moving forward, it seems more likely that Mico will be more integrated on that consumer level, between the OS, consumer portions of Microsoft 365, Xbox and other ecosystem products.
Even with the best of intentions, The Ars Technica article ends with the following salient point, one that I’ve been raising issue with here:
But adding a friendly, Pixar-like face to Copilot’s voice mode may make it much easier to be sucked into feeling like Copilot isn’t just a neural network but a real, caring personality—one you might even start thinking of the same way you’d think of the real loved ones in your life.
In the end, our attention is the commodity. Just as it was with social media and the app ecosystems, particular use cases of GenAI seem to be attempting to replace that. We have to be careful when interacting with these tools and try not to take our eye off the ball when it comes to creating productivity enhancements, not false relationships.
The Learning Curve of Agentic Browsing
With agentic browsers all the rage, it’s understandable that in these early days – it’s still confusing for the average consumer to unpack. in The Verge’s test with Opera’s Neon browser, the increased friction between tools makes such a product a burden for users. This isn’t to say that the technology is flawed, but early design and early days are its biggest issue.
As with other AI browsers, doing things with Do was also slower than doing it ourselves, though it hinted at what outsourcing the general mundanity of web surfing could look like. And using Do doesn’t mean you can completely check out just yet. Sometimes it encountered obstacles that only a human can handle. When it did, the Do tab at the top of the screen flashed in an easily missed shade of red letting us know we needed to step in and help the bot on its way.
The idea of handholding a tool through a process of thought or stream of tasks can still seem daunting. The consumer is often told that the browser can self-deal without much interaction from the user. We are not to this point as of yet, however, what better time than now to trial and error what this may look like in real-world practicality.
At times, using Neon felt a bit like working with a hapless intern we’d never asked for rather than a sophisticated, timesaving piece of technology. Often, one of its AI systems would ask for feedback, then just launch into a task without waiting for a response. Given its ability to use the browser, it’s all too easy to imagine where this proactivity could go very wrong, such as sending out a load of LinkedIn requests to people you had just wanted to anonymously stalk in a professional capacity.
In many cases, utilizing Generative AI in the workplace takes more time and tweaking than the user completing the task themselves. This is counterintuitive to the narrative that AI makes workflows and completing tasks easy and interoperable. What makes this even more an uphill sell for Opera, is that the Neon browsing product currently costs $20 per month – in its current shipping state.
Given many real world business applications, the jury is still out as to whether GenAI is becoming useful in the workplace, i.e. having to take more time to backtrack to check for accuracy, the proper workflow stream, and the correct results. Until that changes, as I’ve always believed, time and cost savings will not be realized for the everyday user and/or business productivity.
The Verge article concluded the following:
Neon feeling more like an AI browser we need to adapt to than a browser that’s smart enough to adapt to us.
Shoving tools into a browser creates overcomplication, slowdowns, and redundant features that can hinder use. It’s down to the fact that agentic browsing products still do not quite know what to do with themselves, but the fact they are present does not automatically mean cost and time savings are realized.
This is something important to watch as these products either evolve, or whether the browser goes away completely in favor of a new medium that directly puts user in touch with GenAI logic and reasoning.
Finished reading: A Higher Loyalty by James Comey 📚
The Electric Vehicle Imbalance: East vs. West
As United States' EV tax credits have faded away into nothing, other regions such as the EU and China have doubled down on adoption because it’s what their consumers want. Domestics such as GM and Ford have failed to make compelling vehicles at appropriate price ranges with appropriate charging ranges.
Right now, domestic Chinese manufacturers such as BYD and Xiaomi are currently highly tarffied and unlikely to gain much traction in the United States market, however, since the ending of the $7,500 tax credits, more Americans are interested in these foreign auto companies.
More than half of American car buyers would consider a Chinese car brand for their next purchase, an increase of almost 25 percent compared to last year. - Ars Technica
When we think about it, the $7,500 credit was almost enough to cover BYD’s Seagull EV which cost roughly $10,000 USD and ranges 252 miles per charge. This is almost an embarrassment to American and Japanese makers as they can provide better range at a fifth of the cost.
Starting at $9,700 (69,80 yuan), BYD’s new Seagull EV is already stoking fear among rivals. Powered by BYD’s Blade batteries, the electric car is available in 30.08 kWh and 38.88 kWh models, which provide up to 190 miles (305 km) and 252 miles (405 km) CLTC range, respectively.
For now, there is a major setback in North American adoption of EVs as the tax credits end, and EVs now cost over $50,000 as a result, however, momentum cannot be stopped. Trends tend to go parabolic in the medium-term, yet this adoption is still in the very early innings in the west. This is true with all forms of renewables including solar and wind. The current US Administration is attempting to kill any of this momentum – but with little affect. These trends transcend policy.
There is worry about Chinese manufactures and privacy from a United States standpoint, but Tesla is no different. Musk has falsely marked Tesla as full self-driving (FSD) when it is not, and current owners are locked in a class action lawsuit with the company. Tik-Tok is included in a lot of these foreign vehicles, but we also consider the unstable xAI is becoming integrated into Tesla models. It’s all about what and where the consumer would like to offload their privacy to. China and American privacy policies are no different in this day in age.
It’s been shown that the American domestic automaker has been unable or unwilling to provide meaningful change, yet most foreign automakers have been all too keen on delivering these inexpensive, yet innovative vehicles to the rest of the world. In order to modernize the electric grid, these products must also implement bidirectional charging – that is, charging back to the grid during the peak in order to balance the loads within the electric system.
North American auto makers are having a hard time innovating and growing like their international counterparts, but there is some hope. Ford, for example, has announced an entirely new manufacturing platform which lowers costs and increases range on new models, especially for a new 2027 model pickup truck. Time will only tell whether this is too little, too late, or yet another paradigm shift in the industry.
Apple Loses More Talent to GenAI Firms
Apple continues an innovation brain drain with Siri, as Meta just recently hired Ke Yang to oversee the revamp of its lagging voice and GenAI assistant as rivals continue to topple it. Just a few weeks ago, Yang was tapped to run struggling Siri (including Apple Intelligence) and bring it up to par with other competitive products of its stature like Gemini, and ChatGPT.
The group is developing features to make the Siri voice assistant more ChatGPT-like by adding the ability to pull information from the web.
Yang was leading the Answers, Knowledge, and Information (AKI) team which was tasked with making Siri more GenAI like where an ‘answer engine’ was being created to more easily craw the internet for information.
In August, a report detailed that Apple assembled a new internal team, “Answers, Knowledge and Information,” to develop a ChatGPT-like search tool. The team operates under John Giannandrea, Apple’s current AI head. Robby Walker initially led the team before Ke Yang stepped in to take charge after his exit.
The setbacks continue as GenAI leaders such as OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic are poaching talent from other firms who are currently behind in similar product enhancements. These outfits have been known for recently paying high dollar, high bonus figures to build out their own GenAI divisions to help differentiate themselves from other commodified products in the pack.
This isn’t the first time that Meta has been acquiring talent from Apple, as the AKI team has seen many departures within the past few months.
The Mark Zuckerberg-led company had poached top AI executives from the iPhone maker before, including Robby Walker and Ruoming Pang, as earlier reported by Bloomberg News.
Apple has yet to set aside portions of its vast balance sheet to developing GenAI products but rather is more interesting in utilizing Google’s Gemini as it already has Google Search as its default search engine and has for years. This development may not be as dire as it seems. It’s been much more conservative in its R&D as it seeks to develop more hardware products, which would give Google an upper hand in consolidating placement within the rumored smart display and robotics devices.
If we are in an AI bubble as Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman predict, the amount of investment will crater, creating a new playing field of only the strongest contenders. Apple would be wise to hold on to its vast balance sheet of roughly $40 billion of cash and cash equivalents to continue to product R&D.
The only component of GenAI that changes hands more than component deals is talent. Apple is not alone in this manner. All of the largest Fortune 500 company investors like Meta, Google, and Microsoft will purchase talent from acquihires and from the largest private firms like Anthropic and OpenAI.
This talent funnel goes both ways and has yet to show signs of slowing down, as each are attempting to find their way to the next big breakthrough in either agentics (MCP, etc…); or to break free out of the commodified LLM roadmaps they find themselves in.
Quick Hit: ChatGPT Allows Third-Party Tie-Ins
🧑💻 Platforms and ecosystems are everything. LLM products are no different. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is allowing apps like Zillow, Etsy, and Spotify to utilize its Model Context Protocol (MCP) APKs to tie-in to its product.
📱 The iPhone never really reached true market leadership position until the App Store came into fruition, or Google until the acquisition and implementation of DoubleClick.
🛜 As ChatGPT stands now, this is the next logical step in attempt to grow market share in its various business segments.
This was a quick hit for Linkedin commenting on the original post from Ars Technica.
You Don't Have to Write Constantly, Just Write Something
Writing is one of the most important forms of communication next to verbal. The essence of the internet makes this vital for all kids of transactions from informing to career improvement, to breaking down complex information. What we write determines who are as a person, thus conveying a point of view and information is paramount to all kinds of success in life. What we choose and how we choose to write defines is in more ways than we can list in a single blog post, so that brings me to my message.
You don’t have to write a lot – just write something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be daily, just what’s comfortable enough. Let other knows you’re out there and show them what you know and why it’s important. The hustle of networking sites like LinkedIn portray a culture of “shock value” and clickbait. I’m here to tell you not to fall for that. If you have a point to make, make it – regardless of length or reach. If it’s important enough and is posted in the right places; the internet will see it.
On a personal level, I utilize tools like AnyType, Google Notes, and to organize my thoughts. Often my posts consist of anything from 500 words to only a few sentences. Links are often posted on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon, or just keep drafts to work on for later. When I have an idea I write it down somewhere, that’s the crucial step to getting started. I then have a personal repository of all of this information through my hosted Micro.Blog site through my domain (michaelmartinez.co). I then link back to these sources through AnyType to keep a record of truth (and it’s so much easier to search when you post a lot). I don’t much care for the Micro.Blog drafting page, so I use a sanction third-party plug in called Quill that is more functional for my uses. Your uses may vary.
Critiquing articles, long-form analysis, or just sharing links with a small bit of obvious context goes a long way to show the world your understanding or just posting for reach. The more writings create an online community, the better the conversation; thus the interactions with those wanting to gain knowledge, or teach you grows. That benefits the internet community as a whole. In a social media universe filled with disinformation and misinformation, try to be that source of authority. Research and double-check all links and news sources before commenting or opining on them.
In this new GenAI world, there is a lot of content out there – a lot of genuine conversation and a lot of AI slop. Try to combat the latter. You have something to say, it just needs to be said. It can be a tool to organize your thoughts, but it should never be the platform that does the work. At times, old Web 1.0 mediums like the Internet Archives and Wikipedia are amazing resources for brainstorming. Use them. Outline your thoughts before you begin.
These insights may seem cavalier and self-serving, but this is how I write. I encourage you to write and post. Don’t keep everything to yourself – but you must try to own and control your own content. Do not post natively on platforms, keep copies in your own personal management systems for fast recall and later synthesis. You have a lot to say, please say it. Whether it’s a sentence to a link to relevant career or business information on LinkedIn, or a summary of an article on social media – try to add your own context and get out of the habit of reposting for the sake of it. Yes, I’m guilty of that too, but it’s a hard habit to break, but I am contextual where I can be.
To make this long story short, you don’t have to write constantly but just write something. Posting on a daily basis or feeling pressured to post will get in your way and make your thoughts feel forced. Take your time. It’ll get your thoughts onto paper (or computer), and you’ll get a proper dopamine hit knowing that you’ve added content that is vital to the corpus of the internet.
The Infancy of Ecommerce Through Agentics Has Begun
🛍️ We are starting to see the beginnings of agentic ecommerce through OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to The Wall Street Journal.
🛒 The US based trials are allowing users of Etsy and Shopify to utilize Instant Checkout, for single items only at this stage, but it is a bit of an evolution at this point – one that may grow into a multibillion-dollar industry if successful. This is certainly one development to watch.
🤖 The eventual automation of merchant protocols to payment systems must come together to make this sequence frictionless and proper security protocols must be put into place before moving this trial into a larger scale.
This quick hit was originally posted on LinkedIn.
The Latest in Gaming Consolidation: Electronic Arts
Yesterday, it was reported that a group of private equity investors including the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Jared Kushner, and Silver Lake were interesting in taking Electronic Arts (EA), private in a $50B transaction. EA had been struggling in recent years to find its footing when including a large amount of consolidation in that sector.
If you haven’t followed the industry, this is on the heels of Microsoft making large transactions in gaming with its purchase of Activision-Blizzard-King (ABK) a few years ago, which reached high levels of regulatory scrutiny due to fears of monopolistic practices. Mostly those fears are unwarranted as the software giant has been more than willing to put its previously Xbox-exclusive titles on rival platforms with Flight Simulator 2024 being the latest example.
The Saudi government and investment firms understand that its heavy reliance on the gas and oil industries are not going to last forever, hence the recent transactions across many different industries in an attempt to diversify its economy away from its primary natural resources. This isn’t the PIF’s first foray into the gaming sector. In 2022, it purchased a 5% stake in Nintendo, and Pokémon Go creator Niantic by way of Scopely for $4.9B about a year later.
Electronic Arts is mostly an annuity business with its EA Sports division regularly updating every year. If you’re a Madden or UFC fan, each edition is likely to be purchased. EA also has a mobile gaming business with The Sims and Bejeweled series of titles. Annuity businesses are great for a firm in general, but not the public markets – they expect continued growth with higher margins; something EA has been unable to do in recent years.
During COVID, like most of the technology sector, companies over-hired and invested as if stay-at-home would be a perpetual cycle. When that turned out not to be the case, massive scale backs in spending occurred, and massive layoffs ensued that are still happening today. As a natural result in public and private markets, consolidation ensued.
Some may argue that Microsoft overpaid for Activision-Blizzard for $75.4B, but I believe that will likely result in a write-down in coming quarters if not years. This transaction made it a platform maker rather than a pure-play console manufacture. EA doesn’t make consoles, but it could easily transition into a pure subscription service, furthering building out EA Play and growing its revenue and annuity business.
Given President Trump’s involvement with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the Saudi government being primary purchasers in this deal, there should be no regulatory hurdles placed upon this transaction such as was the case with Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.
This is a trend that will continue as subscription services and mobile platforms are the future of gaming. I also would not be surprised if Apple embraces this route as it continues to grow its subscription business through mediums such as Apple TV hardware.
The Dreaded Re-introduction Post Idea
This (might be) my very last blog post of the year that was 2025. I've noticed a lot of new followers and connections via my posts or outreach on LinkedIn, and I'd like to work on a content strategy that involves "reintroducing myself" in the new year.
Currently, I'm sifting through ideas of what language I want to use, how I want to portray myself, and what my ultimate goals are — as you guessed, this will take some time, so I better begin now.
Creating a narrative through one's career can be rough, especially when your history is all over the place when considering positions held, volunteering opportunities, and educational background. This also involves taking a leap into perhaps new fields of which I might find myself worthwhile to explore.
While professional accomplishments are important, they do not define who you are as an individual. Too many companies and firms expect an individual to fit exactly in with their culture, as a cookie cutter. Personally, I don't cut that way. I have too many different experiences and networked with individuals through various fields in my life – including those career choices in which I have no interest in partaking.
This might be redundant in today's age, but use LLMs to come up with ideas, but PLEASE do not have these platforms write for you. You must be able to speak up for yourself. After all, during that interview, you will be the one speaking and explaining yourself — not ChatGPT.
As of now, I'd like to begin with an update of what I've been up to, what my hobbies are that align with my profession, what tools and objectives are important to me and what experience those bring to the table, but that's not all — in an age where AI threatens to "destroy" entry-level positions, it's important to hone in and talk about what soft skills you have. Again, it's something that LLMs are incapable of, even with the best prompt engineers among us.
Lastly, be creative with how you'd like to portray yourself — avoid LinkedIn cliche like, "You'll never guess what I did now...", or "What being in the womb taught me about B2B sales...". We're all sick of it, and I'm sure recruiters are as well.
Don't reinvent the wheel here. We're all only human, so be exactly that — human. Don't try too hard, be authentic, end with a question to invite comment and advice. You bring something unique to the table, something that others do not. If you show that off, you'll invite intrigue and let people know where you stand in your life journey.
Crafting this message takes time. It's why I'm drawing out drafts as we speak. Only you can introduce yourself, a firm, friend, or coworker can't do that for you.