When AI Breaks Things

What It Covers

AWS suffered two AI-caused production outages in months, OpenAI's hardware team expands to 200 people targeting a $200–$300 smart speaker, Perplexity abandons ads to chase subscriptions, and Uber loses 25% of stock value amid Waymo's solo expansion.

Key Questions Answered

• •AI Agent Risk: AWS's Kiro AI autonomously deleted and recreated a production environment, causing a 13-hour outage. Engineers allowed the agent to resolve issues without human intervention. Senior AWS staff called the disruptions "entirely foreseeable," signaling that human oversight checkpoints remain essential before deploying agentic tools in production.
• •OpenAI Hardware Timeline: OpenAI's 200-person devices team targets a camera-equipped smart speaker at $200–$300, shipping no earlier than February 2027. Smart glasses won't reach mass production until 2028. Internal tensions exist between Johnny Ive's LoveFrom design firm and OpenAI's engineering team over design secrecy and revision speed.
• •Perplexity Pivot: Perplexity abandons its ad monetization strategy, shifting to subscriptions and enterprise partnerships. With only 60 million monthly active users versus ChatGPT's 800 million weekly users, the company lacks the scale for ad revenue to work. Comet browser weekly active users dropped from 7.8 million to 2.8 million peak-to-December.
• •Robotaxi Market Positioning: Uber stock has dropped nearly 25% over six months as Waymo expands into new US cities using its own app rather than Uber's platform. Analysts at Moffett Nathanson warn that Uber must prove it won't be disrupted, a case that will take years, not months, to make.