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Hello readers,
There are so many things we wish there were an app for.
Maybe a tracker for your book club. A game for your kids. A tool that does one small thing your phone may not be able to do.
Until recently, those wishes usually ended there. Building software meant learning to code or paying someone who had.
That gap is closing fast. Epic Games just rebuilt its entire launcher with AI coding tools, half-joking that programming is hard, so it vibe-coded instead, and says the result opens 46% faster than Steam.
So, if anyone can build software now, who decides what is good, safe, or fair?
That question runs through the rest of this edition. Amazon is reportedly paying $7 billion for software that helps developers hop between AI chips. Anthropic is warning that small AI models could soon copy themselves across everyday devices. McDonald’s is in court over an AI pricing tool, and Character.AI is looking for a buyer after filing for bankruptcy.
Building is getting easier. Owning what we build, and answering for it, is getting harder.
Let’s dive in.
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Epic Games rebuilt its launcher using AI coding tools and claims it opens in 5.47 seconds versus Steam’s 10.07. The preview adds Linux support, though one unofficial test after Valve’s latest update clocked Steam at 5.23 seconds.
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Google Play is letting users aged 18 and older in select markets, including the US, run Android apps built in Google AI Studio without a developer account. The apps stay private, though sharing with friends and family is planned.
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Google’s experimental Playground lets US adults create browser games from text prompts, tweaking physics, characters, and rules without code. Games can be shared privately or published to a public gallery, with leaderboards in select genres and Unity Spark integration planned.
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Amazon is reportedly negotiating a $7 billion deal for Decart, whose software helps developers move AI workloads between chips. Anthropic explored a $6 billion bid earlier but walked away. No agreement has been announced.
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In controlled tests, Anthropic ran a 26-billion-parameter model across 15 TV boxes costing about $55 each. It estimates small models could chain together self-replication steps by late 2026, though Cerebras’ CEO says doom talk overshadows AI’s benefits.
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A proposed class action claims McDonald’s AI pricing engine used confidential sales data from nearly 14,000 US restaurants to coordinate franchise menu prices. McDonald’s denies it, insisting AI does not set the price of a Big Mac.
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Since October 8, Meta has stopped accepting ByteDance and TikTok-linked ads on Facebook and Instagram across seven countries, including the US, Canada, and Japan. Meta says it will not run ads from a competitor trying to pull users away.
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Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 on October 12 and put itself up for sale. Disney opened with $20 million for a non-exclusive license to some of its IP. The platform stays online but could wind down without a buyer.
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If AI lets anyone build, the harder question is what to build first. Javier Cabrerizo explains how HBX Group moved beyond individual productivity gains, scaling from two dedicated AI squads to fifteen. He also explains why oversight does not disappear with agents but moves up a level. His test for spotting hype is to remove the technology from the pitch and see if customers still care.
Join the conversation.
Get The Scoop
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iJS Munich runs from October 26 to 30 at the Holiday Inn Munich City Centre, both in person and online. The fullstack JavaScript conference covers Angular, React, Node.js, Vue.js, and TypeScript. As part of Agentic Web Week Munich, it also includes an AI Agent Development Bootcamp.
Register now.
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That is all for this edition of #TDFutureFocus.
Software used to start with someone who could code. Now it can start with someone who can describe what they want. That opens the door to many more builders, and many more questions about who checks the work.
We will keep watching both. Until then, stay hydrated, stay curious, and maybe vibe code yourself something nice. See you in the next edition.
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