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Could it be any clearer that Sam Altman intends for OpenAI to be a sprawling consumer tech company, not just an AI lab? His public comments certainly suggest as much. Today, The Verge reported that OpenAI has been working on an internal prototype of a social network that would let people share their AI-generated images. OpenAI began as a fairly rudderless little AI lab back in 2015. We literally had no idea we were ever going to become a companylike, the plan was to put out research papers, Altman said in a recent Stratechery interview. But there was no product, there was no plan for a product, there was no revenue, there was no business model, there were no plans for those things. ChatGPT changed everything. The AI chatbot took off like a rocket when it was quietly released to the public in late November 2022, soaring to 100 million users within weeksfaster than any consumer app in history. At the time, OpenAI was making some money by selling API access to its early models. But ChatGPT turned OpenAI into a consumer tech company. You simply dont second-guess numbers like that. And the growth hasnt stopped. Something like 10% of the world uses our systems now a lot, Altman said on April 11 at a TED eventa figure that implies OpenAI has around 800 million users. Thats why the company has been so busy adding new features and services to ChatGPT, now a household name. Its added internet search, image generation, and deep research capabilities, with more surely on the way. In his Stratechery interview, Altman even floated the idea of OpenAI offering something other tech giantsApple, Google, Metaalready provide: a single sign-on for the web. [W]e have this idea that you sign in with your OpenAI account to anybody else that wants to integrate the API, and you can take your bundle of credits and your customized model and everything else anywhere you want to go, Altman told Stratecherys Ben Thompson. And I think thats a key part of us really being a great platform. This vision ties neatly into Altmans social network ambitions. Facebook parlayed its dominance into a single sign-on system that allowed it to follow users around the web, collecting data on the sites they visited and what they did there. OpenAI could similarly leverage a social network and single sign-on to gather valuable data to train future AI models. (OpenAI didnt immediately respond to Fast Company‘s request for comment.) There are other signs of Altmans ambition to broaden OpenAIs scopeincluding hardware. The company is reportedly considering acquiring Io Products, a hardware startup cofounded by Altman and former Apple designer Jony Ive. The startup is developing a personal AI device designed to know all about the user and help with daily tasks. (Altman and OpenAI are also reportedly exploring designing their own AI chip, following in the footsteps of Amazon, Apple, and Google.) But much of OpenAIs time and energy in the coming years will likely be spent growing its breakout product, ChatGPT, into a full-fledged AI-first tech platform. I really believe in this product suite, Altman told Thompson. I think that if we execute really well, five years from now, we have a handful of multibillion user products.
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E-Commerce
Mark Zuckerbergs marathon stint on the stand in the Federal Trade Commissions (FTC) antitrust trial against Metathe parent company of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebookhas been eye-opening for several reasons. For hours, Zuckerberg has defended his company against accusations that it stifles competition by acquiring rivals just as they begin to pose a threat. A 2012 email chain presented by the FTC seems to tell its own story. In it, Zuckerberg discusses acquiring Path and Instagram, both emerging competitors at the time. The businesses are nascent but the networks are established, the brands are already meaningful and if they grow to a large scale they could be very disruptive to us, Zuckerberg wrote, proposing Facebook buy them. (In court this week, the Meta CEO denied that he was specifically referencing Instagram or Path, claiming he was speaking more generally about competitors.) Critics say the email chain reflects Metas broader strategysomething Zuckerberg himself outlined in a subsequent 2012 email: Even if some new competitors springs [sic] up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again. Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they were using, those new products wont get much traction since well already have their mechanics deployed at scale. Meta declined to comment on the record to Fast Company about the similarities between its features and those of its competitors. In court, the companys attorney described the FTCs case as a grab bag of arguments at war with the facts and at war with the law. Of course, borrowing ideas from competitorsfrom broad concepts to specific featuresisnt unusual in the social media world. But while many companies do it, Meta has often moved faster and more aggressively than most. Metas copycat strategy isn’t a secret, says social media expert Matt Navarra. It’s a business model. Zuckerbergs copy-paste playbook is often mocked and imitated, but has been hugely successful and made Meta into the global superpower of social media that it is today. Here are eight notable examples from the past decade: 2016: Instagram Stories (following Snapchat) Snapchat changed the social media landscape in October 2013 with its Stories feature, allowing users to post photos or videos that disappeared after 24 hours. The feature quickly became popularwhich may explain why, in 2016, Instagram (owned by Facebook) introduced its own version of Stories. 2018: Lasso (following TikTok) By 2018, TikTok was gaining momentum among younger usersa demographic Facebook was struggling to retain. That November, Facebook launched Lasso, a stand-alone app for short-form, entertaining videos. Leaked audio later revealed Zuckerbergs strategy: launch Lasso in markets where TikTok hadnt yet taken hold. (Lasso shut down in 2020 after failing to gain traction.) 2019: Facebook Dating (following Tinder and others) By the late 2010s, dating apps like Tinder had become mainstream. In 2019, Facebook launched Facebook Dating, letting users browse profiles and swipe to matchmuch like the established players in the space. 2020: Hobbi (following Pinterest) Facebooks internal R&D team released Hobbi, an app allowing users to organize and share photos of their hobbiesa clear nod to Pinterest. Tech media described it as an experiment in short-form content creation around personal projects, hobbies, and other Pinterest-y content. Hobbi lasted only a few months, with fewer than 10,000 reported downloads. 2020: Reels (following TikTok) After the failure of Lasso, Facebook took another shot at competing with TikTok by launching Reels. In fairness, YouTube also responded to TikToks rise with its own version, YouTube Shorts. Still, critics have pointed to the nearly identical interfaces across these platforms as evidence of Big Techs copycat culture. 2020: Neighborhoods (following Nextdoor) In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemics surge in local community engagement, Meta launched Neighborhoodsa feature allowing users to post content visible only within their local area. Social media experts dubbed it a Nextdoor clone. The service shut down after about two years. 2021: Bulletin (following Substack) As newsletters surged in popularity thanks to platforms like Substack, Meta quickly followed suit with its own newsletter tool, Bulletin. The service attracted big-name writers, including Malcolm Gladwell. But Bulletin was short-lived, shutting down in early 2023. 2021: Live Audio Rooms (following Clubhouse) Clubhouse pioneered the rise of social audio during the pandemic, with Twitter Spaces quickly following. By mid-2021, Meta launched Live Audio Rooms, its own real-time voice-chat feature. By the end of 2022, it too was shut down.
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E-Commerce
Taxpayers calling the IRS for help processing their taxes this filing season may find it harder than normal to get someone on the phone, experts say, a problem that is only expected to get worse next year with staffing cuts that could slash the workforce considerably. For this year, data of tax return processing times shows numbers largely in line with those from last year. IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season were not allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until after the taxpayer filing deadline of April 15, though thousands of probationary workers were laid off earlier this year. Legal experts in tax compliance say the long wait times are going to increase as more buyouts and layoffs take effect. Eric Santos, the executive director of the Georgia Tax Clinic, which provides free tax law services to low-income taxpayers, says wait times for the IRS phone line are markedly longer than usual and IRS staff are overwhelmed with the increase in work. The IRS staff “basically tell us they dont have time to look at certain cases, Santos said. The work is getting spread across fewer and fewer people. The reduction in workers which may end up being nearly half the entire IRS workforce is part of the Trump administrations efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through billionaire Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency by closing agencies, laying off nearly all probationary employees who have not yet gained civil service protection and offering buyouts to almost all federal employees through a deferred resignation program. Earlier this month, the IRS began layoffs that could end up cutting as many as 20,000 staffers up to 25% of the total workforce. The roughly 7,000 probationary IRS workers who were laid off beginning in February were recently ordered to be reinstated by a federal judge, though it’s unclear whether those workers have been called back into work. Comparing figures through the first week of April from 2024 and 2025, 101.4 million returns were processed this year compared to 101.8 million tax returns last year. Refunds are up, with 67.7 million issued this year compared with 66.7 million in 2024. But Santos and others worry that the 2026 filing season could be negatively impacted by the loss of thousands of additional tax collection workers who are expected to exit the agency through planned layoffs and buyouts. I dont see how theyre going to keep up with tax filing season next year, Santos said. I think its a fair question to ask now. A Treasury spokesperson who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity said in a statement that IRS staffing reductions were part of other improvements the agency is taking to be more efficient and improve service. Sakinah Tillman, director of the University of the District of Columbia Tax Clinic, has not seen a delay in processing refunds this year but has seen delays in reaching the IRS by phone. She worries that the phone delays could hurt clients going through collections who are trying to settle their debts. What happens when clients try to become compliant?” she asked. “Or when people who are willing and able to pay but they just cant get someone on the phone? Former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the AP that even in a normal year the IRS’ responsiveness slows the further into tax season it gets. Next year, if they cut 10,000 or 20,000 employees, they’re headed back to really bad taxpayer service on the phone, he said. “And the taxpayer priority line will become an oxymoron. Fatima Hussein, Associated Press
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