OpenAI trims its mega-round to $20 billion as AI stocks wobble
OpenAI is now seeking up to $20 billion in its latest funding round, down from an earlier target of about $30 billion, CNBC confirmed on Saturday after the Financial Times first reported the cut. The FT puts the round's post-money valuation at $1.25 trillion, with investors from the UAE leading alongside Coatue, and some backers reportedly trimming their allocations ahead of a Friday deadline. The round is still open, so terms could move. The timing matters: it landed the same day Intel fell sharply on weak guidance and Nvidia and Micron slid too. The implication is simple: even the biggest name in AI is finding that investors want to see the spending pay off before writing ever-larger cheques. Source: CNBC
What else matters
One robots.txt line to opt out of AI training
Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic say they will honour a shared robots.txt "policy token" that tells their crawlers not to use a site's pages for AI training, so publishers no longer need a separate rule per company. It is still an IETF individual draft and voluntary; Microsoft starts on 1 February 2027, Google in early 2027, and OpenAI in the coming months. Source: IETF draft
Apple Intelligence finally heads to mainland China
Apple says Apple Intelligence reaches iPhones in mainland China with iOS 27.3, starting with a beta on 4 November and a full release in December. It brings earlier features like notification summaries, translation and writing tools, with Alibaba's Qwen built into some experiences, but not the new Siri. Source: The Verge
GPT-6.1 Terra pushes cheap computer use
OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Terra is a fast, lower-cost model aimed at computer use, visual reasoning and everyday writing, with API prices 50% below GPT-5.6 Terra. OpenAI claims big jumps on agent and coding benchmarks and a much lower factual error rate, which makes high-volume automation like invoice entry far more practical. Source: OpenAI
