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Thanks for reading The Briefing, our nightly column where we break down the day’s news. If you like what you see, I encourage you to subscribe to our reporting here.
Greetings! Before we get into this evening’s briefing, check out Kalley and Cory’s late-breaking scoop today about Meta Platforms’ latest efforts to boost its artificial intelligence efforts. We reported that the company is holding advanced talks with Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, two prominent investors, about joining Meta. Meta is also discussing partially buying out their investment firm, NFDG, as part of the talks. Netflix continues to find fresh ways to mimic the old-school cable TV business it has already conquered. After introducing an advertising-supported tier and wading into live sports, on Wednesday it announced a new deal with French broadcaster TF1 to distribute its TV channels on its service in France. While this is just a deal with one broadcaster in France, the move has potentially broader implications. Netflix is intent on growing its advertising business—hence the company’s investments in broadcasting live programming such as Christmas Day NFL games. Its aim is to have ads eventually go from a small part of its business to a meaningful contributor—at least 10%—to its overall revenue, which totaled $39 billion last year. To underline the point, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters made the announcement with TF1 in Cannes during the ad industry’s biggest festival of the year. If the partnership with TF1 succeeds, it’s not difficult to see Netflix testing similar offerings in other countries where it sells ads. This could include deals with other broadcasters or even the introduction to Netflix of ad-supported streaming TV channels from the likes of Disney+ and Paramount Global’s Pluto TV, which carry a mix of television shows and movies. To be sure, Netflix has tested something similar before in France—in 2020, when it experimented with Netflix Direct, essentially a programmed channel full of movies and shows it already offered as on-demand titles. Back then, the company said traditional TV remained popular in France, and it wanted to offer viewers a “lean-back experience where they don’t have to choose shows.” In a statement Peters made on Wednesday in France, he mentioned how the deal with TF1 would “provide French consumers with even more reasons to come to Netflix every day and to stay with us for all of their entertainment.” Netflix has inspired so many copycats throughout the entertainment industry that it’s interesting to see it emulate old-fashioned TV programming for a change. Be on the lookout for a different type of taxi in New York! Waymo, Alphabet’s robotaxi company, is returning to the Big Apple, several years after doing limited tests there for a few months in 2021. This time, it will use five cars to map out a portion of Manhattan, limited to an area south of Central Park that extends to the Financial District. But like its earlier effort in New York, this won’t be a proper Waymo robotaxi experience: It will start with daytime driving only; human drivers will be behind the wheels at all times, and the cars won’t yet be picking up passengers. The state of New York mandates that robotaxis must always have a safety driver sitting behind the wheel. Waymo is lobbying to change that law. Still, the sight of Waymos prowling the streets of New York will likely wake up many more Americans to the notion that they could soon be riding in a car with no one at the wheel. The media and finance capital captures an outsize part of the nation’s attention. That may explain why shares of Uber and Lyft, which have already been competing with Waymo in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities, fell more than 4% Wednesday before recovering some of those losses. From my own experience living in San Francisco and Atlanta, it was only when most Waymos on the street were operating without human drivers that the public really understood robot-driven cars were more than a novelty. To get the full effect, New Yorkers will still need to cross state lines.—Alex Perry • Microsoft plans to cut thousands of jobs, mostly in sales, in the coming months. • Klarna—the buy now, pay later payments provider—plans to launch a mobile phone service in the U.S. that offers unlimited data, calls and texts for $40 a month. • The NAACP plans to sue xAI for allegedly polluting predominantly Black neighborhoods in Memphis, The New York Times reported. The organization says the pollution is coming from natural gas turbines Elon Musk’s AI startup is using to power a supercomputer facility in the city. AI Agenda by Stephanie Palazzolo separates hype from reality and explains how AI is transforming industries. The 4x/week newsletter details the innovation and disruption happening in AI, from the AI startup funding frenzy to the major technological breakthroughs that will set the agenda for decades to come. Sign up today. | 
