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1.	Adam Mosseri: Social Media Not 'Clinically Addictive' By Erin Woo Source: The New York Times

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, testified in a landmark trial on Wednesday that social media was not "clinically addictive," The New York Times reported. Mosseri added that people could be addicted to social media similarly to being addicted to a television show, but that that was different from, and less serious than, being "clinically addicted," according to The New York Times.

Mosseri is the first social media executive to testify as lawyers for K.G.M., a 20-year-old girl from Chico, Calif., try to convince a jury that Meta's and YouTube's product designs are addictive and have caused K.G.M. mental health problems. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan are both expected to testify in the trial, which is the first of thousands being brought against social media companies. Snap and TikTok both settled K.G.M.'s case on the eve of trial, but remain defendants in the other cases.

Opening statements in the trial kicked off on Monday. Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, argued that Instagram and YouTube were "digital casinos." Meta countered that K.G.M.'s mental health problems were caused by familial abuse, and YouTube said that it was not a social media company. On Wednesday, Mosseri said that Instagram was careful to test features used by young people before releasing them; Lanier presented internal documents from 2019 showing that Mosseri and Zuckerberg lifted a ban on beauty filters, overruling executives who warned they could lead to body dysmorphia in young users.

2.	Meta's Auditor Raised Red Flag On Its Data Center Accounting By Anissa Gardizy Source: The Wall Street Journal

Meta Platforms' auditor issued a cautionary note in the tech giant's latest annual report, flagging the company's accounting treatment of its $27 billion data center project as a "critical audit matter."

Ernst & Young did not indicate it disagreed with Meta's approach, but the designation signals that it was one of the most complex aspects of its audit. (The Information previously on Meta's creative deal-making, which included getting a letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission OK-ing the accounting treatment.)

The project, known as Hyperion, was structured as a joint venture with Blue Owl Capital. Meta accounted for this as a so-called "variable interest entity." Under accounting rules, a company must consolidate such an entity if it is deemed the "primary beneficiary," meaning it has the power to direct the activities that most significantly affect the venture's economic performance. Meta concluded it is not the primary beneficiary, allowing it to keep the project's assets and debt off its balance sheet.

EY said auditing that conclusion was "especially challenging due to the significant judgment required" to determine Meta was not the primary beneficiary. The EY comment was first reported on by The Wall Street Journal.

3.	X Subscriptions Hit $1 Billion in Annualized Revenue, Exec Says By Theo Wayt Source: The Information

X recently hit $1 billion in annualized recurring revenue from selling subscriptions, head of product Nikita Bier said in an xAI all-hands meeting on Tuesday.

The subscriptions X sells include Basic, Premium and Premium+ plans that range from $3 to $40 per month. The social media site, formerly known as Twitter, has ramped up efforts to sell subscriptions after Elon Musk's acquisition of the site in 2022 coincided with a decline in advertising revenue. X subscriptions include benefits like boosted posts, checkmarks and additional access to xAI's Grok models. xAI acquired X last year.

Bier's comments, which he made during an xAI all-hands meeting that the company posted on X, did not include an update on advertising revenue or other xAI financials. During the meeting, Musk also detailed a wider xAI leadership shakeup following the company's merger with SpaceX last week.

4.	Ackman Reports Stakes in Amazon and Meta By Martin Peers Source: The Information

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management last year bought stakes in Meta Platforms and Amazon, adding to a portfolio already heavy with big tech stocks Alphabet and Uber.

Ackman jumped into both stocks as they were underperforming. Amazon rose 5.2% last year, while Meta rose 12.8%, compared with the Nasdaq's 20% rise. (Meta is up slightly so far in 2026 while Amazon is down 11%). In a presentation to investors posted on its website on Wednesday, Pershing Square described Meta as a "leader in the fast-growing digital advertising space and one of the clearest beneficiaries of AI integration" while Amazon was the "largest cloud business by market share…and the dominant retail e-commerce operator."

All its big tech investments "offer structurally higher growth than most companies in the S&P 500," the presentation said. The hedge fund has about $30 billion under management, a third of which is in one company, Howard Hughes Holdings.

5.	Anthropic Joins Firms Promising Data Centers Won't Raise Power Prices By Anissa Gardizy Source: The Information

Anthropic said Wednesday it will take steps to ensure its data centers don't raise electricity prices for consumers, joining a list of tech companies that includes OpenAI and Microsoft that are trying to defuse backlash over AI's strain on power grids.

Anthropic said it would address what it described as the root causes of price hikes. Anthropic pledged to pay for "100% of the grid upgrades needed to interconnect our data centers," aiming to prevent those costs from being passed on to households. It also said it plans to secure dedicated power supplies for its facilities so they are not fully reliant on the existing grid, a strategy that has become increasingly common among large AI data center developers.

Anthropic said it would make these commitments directly for the facilities where it works with partners on the development. In cases where it leases capacity from cloud providers, the company said it is "exploring" ways to mitigate the impact its workloads might have on local electricity prices.

6.	Essilor and Meta Sell 7 Million Smart Glasses in 2025 By Martin Peers Source: The Information

EssilorLuxottica and Meta Platforms sold more than 7 million smart glasses in 2025, Essilor reported on Wednesday, a huge improvement on 2024. Essilor had reported a year ago that only 2 million smart glasses had been sold since the product was launched in 2023.

EssilorLuxottica's disclosure was the most detailed either of the companies has given about the glasses. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month that sales of the glasses "more than tripled last year" without giving the actual figures.

Zuckerberg has high hopes for the potential of the glasses, which include access to Meta's AI assistant. Zuckerberg noted on the January earnings call that "billions of people wear glasses or contacts for vision correction [and]…it's hard to imagine a world in seeral year where most glasses that people wear aren't AI glasses."

7.	Alibaba's Holiday AI Shopping Campaign Generates 120 Million Orders By Juro Osawa Source: The Information

Alibaba Group said its Qwen chatbot app's AI e-commerce service has generated more than 120 million orders from Chinese consumers over the past six days, since the company last week started giving away free shopping vouchers to the app's users.

Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent Holdings have all started offering giveaways and other incentives to promote their AI chatbot apps ahead of the Lunar New Year this month, as the Chinese tech giants fight over the country's 1.4 billion consumers during the country's biggest holiday season.

Alibaba is offering a free shopping voucher worth 25 yuan ($3.60) to every user of its Qwen app, which allows consumers to make online purchases of food, drinks and groceries. The Qwen app is also giving away digital red envelopes containing random amounts of money to users, allowing them to win up to 2,888 yuan in cash. Alibaba plans to spend around 3 billion yuan ($432 million) in total on Qwen's overall holiday giveaway campaign. The rival AI apps from ByteDance and Tencent have also launched similar campaigns with red envelopes and other promotions.

8.	Shopify Shares Tumble Amid Software Selloff By Ann Gehan Source: The Information

Shopify shares were down around 11% by midday Wednesday, reversing a nearly 12% premarket jump that had followed the release of the e-commerce software maker's latest financial results. That volatile trading likely reflects general investor fears about AI's impact on software companies that have been triggering sharp selloffs in companies across the sector.

The drop comes even as Shopify has moved quickly to work with AI companies like OpenAI and Google to help them develop shopping features for their AI apps. That could give it a piece of the market if AI-powered shopping takes off, but will likely weigh on margins in the near term due to the cost of the new AI tools.

Shopify's revenue rose 31% to $3.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, helped in part by Shopify adding more large merchants and growth in its payments business. Shopify said Wednesday it expects to continue that momentum, projecting a revenue growth rate in the low thirties for the current quarter. The company also announced a $2 billion share buyback program, which it plans to launch later this month.

9.	Singapore's Grab Reports First Full-Year Profit By Juro Osawa Source: The Information

Grab, Southeast Asia's largest ride-hailing and food delivery company, reported full-year profits for the first time, a little more than four years after it went public via merging with a blank-check company.

"It's not just a one-time thing," said Grab Chief Financial Officer Peter Oey, in an interview on Thursday after the Nasdaq-listed company announced its financial results. "We are a sustainable business."

Singapore-based Grab posted a net profit of $200 million for 2025, compared to a net loss of $158 million in 2024. It also swung to an operating profit of $65 million in 2025, from an operating loss of $168 million in 2024. Its 2025 revenue rose 20% to $3.37 billion.

Oey said a major factor behind the full-year profit is Grab's ongoing effort to automate its operations, including its more extensive use of AI, in order to reduce costs. "We are able to operate with less headcount," even as Grab continues to expand into more cities across Southeast Asia, he said.

Despite the improvements in earnings, Grab's stock hasn't caught up. Its current share price is down 11.5% from 12 months ago, and it has declined 16.7% since the beginning of this year. Grab is underperforming the Nasdaq Composite, which is down only 0.7% year to date.  The stock's weakness is due to investors' doubts about whether Grab can sustain the pace of its expansion in Southeast Asia, and concerns over the region's economic outlook.

10.	Target Participates in OpenAI Ads Pilot By Ann Gehan Source: The Information

Target said this week that it will be one of the first advertisers working with OpenAI as it launches ads in ChatGPT. Target also said that brands that advertise through its Roundel retail media business will be able to participate in the ads pilot.

OpenAI launched ads for some U.S. ChatGPT users on Monday. To start, OpenAI is charging advertisers on a per-view basis, The Information previously reported, and will determine which ads are shown based on topics and keywords in users' prompts.

Generally, AI apps moving into showing ads have been seen as a potential threat to ad businesses like Target's, though the early moves by OpenAI show they can still be involved as partners. In its most recent quarterly earnings report in November, Target said that its retail media business grew ad sales at a rate in the mid-teens, even as net sales declined. Roundel clients include General Mills, Clorox and Nestle, according to its website.

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