Amazon just gave Wall Street a serious case of sticker shock. The company’s plan to spend about $200 billion this year on data centers and AI chips sent the stock sliding, as investors started wondering when all this AI muscle actually turns into profits. The spending wave is part of a much bigger tech push, with Big Tech set to pour more than $600 billion into AI infrastructure. Amazon says demand is there, but markets want proof. (Reuters)

Anthropic just pushed a big upgrade to its Claude model, rolling out Opus 4.6 to make its Cowork AI better at finance, legal, coding, and everyday office work. The timing matters because Wall Street is already rattled by the idea that tools like this could eat into expensive enterprise software. Stocks tied to research and legal tech have been sliding, and this release adds more fuel to that debate. (CNN)

TikTok is trying to turn more scrolling into more shopping with a new Smart Promotion program for TikTok Shop sellers. Essentially, TikTok co-funds your ads, runs them with its algorithms, and promises up to a 5x return, but only if your store already performs well. Sellers need strong reviews, solid fulfillment, and at least 30 recent orders to get in. For TikTok, it’s a way to push higher-quality products while growing its cut of in-app commerce. (Social Media Today)

Apple is walking into the global memory chip crunch with its biggest iPhone cycle in years and a tough pricing call to make. Demand for the iPhone 17 is strong, but surging DRAM prices driven by AI data centers are squeezing smartphone margins across the industry. Apple has the supplier clout to secure chips that smaller Android brands cannot, yet Tim Cook is staying non-committal on price hikes. Whether Apple eats the costs or passes them on could reset smartphone pricing for everyone else. (Reuters)

Reddit just delivered a strong quarter, beating on revenue and profit, posting 70 percent sales growth, and backing it up with a $1 billion stock buyback. Guidance for early 2026 also came in ahead of expectations, even as growth in logged-in US users continues to slow, a metric advertisers watch closely. Management says that split matters less now as Reddit improves personalization for all users, while partnerships with Google and OpenAI are shifting from data deals toward deeper product integrations. (CNBC)

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