Latest / Connecting the Dots / Earnings Pressure, Agentic Coding, and China’s AI Super App

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Earnings Pressure, Agentic Coding, and China’s AI Super App · Connecting the Dots

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  Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
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  it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snarfl Solutions
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  Group brings you Connecting the Dots, where we
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  break down what's happening in tech and why it
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  matters to you. Now, let's dive in with your
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  hosts. Welcome to Connecting the Dots. I am Alex.
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  And I am Morgan. Good morning, everyone. It is,
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  well, it is Wednesday, February 25th, 2026. And
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  we have a a pretty massive stack of tech news
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  to get through today. We really do. It is a busy
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  morning. But before we get into the tech, we
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  always like to set the stage. What is the weather
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  looking like out there today? It is honestly
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  a little disjointed. If you look at the national
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  map, you have critical fire weather persisting
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  down in the central and southern high plains.
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  Wow, high winds and all that. Yeah, high winds,
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  super dry. But then at the exact same time, there
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  was a clipper system dumping lake effect snow
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  across the Great Lakes and into the northeast.
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  So fire in the middle, ice in the east. What
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  about the rest of the country? Out west through
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  the plains and down in the southeast, we are
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  seeing unseasonably warm temperatures just expanding.
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  And locally? Locally here in Sacramento. There
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  is a slight chance of rain early on, but it is
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  going to transition to mostly cloudy skies, high
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  of about 67 degrees. Not too bad. Well, speaking
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  of disjointed, the financial markets are kind
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  of a mixed bag of energy right now, too. They
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  definitely are. The Dow Jones closed yesterday,
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  that is Tuesday, a 0 .71 percent. So it is sitting
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  at 49 ,174 .07. Right. And the S &P 500 had a
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  very similar bump. closing up point seven seven
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  percent at six thousand eight hundred and ninety
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  point zero seven. But the real mover, the one
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  everyone is looking at for that risk on behavior
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  is Bitcoin. Yeah, Bitcoin is having a moment.
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  It is currently trading up significantly about
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  three point nine percent, hovering right around
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  sixty six thousand five hundred and forty eight
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  dollars. Exactly. And when you see crypto moving
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  like that alongside a tech rally, it tells you
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  investors are feeling a bit adventurous. They
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  are definitely looking for growth, which, you
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  know, brings us to a different kind of fuel.
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  Oh, absolutely. We have some incredibly complex
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  technical concepts to unpack for you today. So
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  purchase. That is promo code SNARFL. Alright,
• 2:43
  let us jump right into our feature segment. It
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  is time for the morning star, which is our SNARFL
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  Tech article report. Always my favorite part
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  of the day. So setting the table for you all,
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  the theme today is control versus chaos. That
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  is a great way to put it. We are looking at this
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  incredible tension between established systems
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  of record and this brand new wave of vibe coding
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  AI agents. And our first story is ground zero
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  for this exact conflict. Workday reported their
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  Q4 earnings yesterday. Right, and the numbers
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  were good. They were very good. They reported
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  Q4 revenue of $2 .53 billion. That is up 14 .5
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  % year over year. They beat Wall Street estimates.
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  But, and this is the crazy part, the stock absolutely
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  plummeted in pre -market and after -hours trading.
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  Yeah, dropping somewhere between 9 and 13%. Why
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  does the market punish a company for beating
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  estimates? Because the market is entirely forward
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  -looking. Workday issued what investors considered
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  light guidance for their fiscal year 2027 subscription
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  revenue. What were the numbers on that guidance?
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  They projected between 9 .925 and 9 .95 billion
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  dollars. Which is a massive amount of money.
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  It is a staggering amount, but it was just shy
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  of what the most aggressive analysts wanted to
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  see. But the drop wasn't really just about the
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  math. It was about the narrative. Precisely.
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  Investors are incredibly skittish right now about
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  competition from AI startups, companies like
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  Anthropic and OpenAI. There is this core fear
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  that AI agents are just going to completely replace
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  traditional SaaS platforms like Workday. Right.
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  Why pay millions for an enterprise HR system
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  if an AI agent can just figure out payroll? And
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  that is exactly where Workday's CEO, Anil Bhusri,
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  had to step in and defend the castle. He came
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  out very strong against this idea. He actually
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  used the term vibe coding. Let's define that
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  for the listener real quick. Vibe coding is this
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  new concept where developers use natural language,
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  just plain English, to tell an AI what they want
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  to build instead of writing strict lines of code.
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  You are coding by feeling, essentially. Right.
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  But Husserl was not using it as a compliment.
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  He said, and I quote, no amount of vibe coding
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  is going to produce an HR or an ERP system. He
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  is drawing a very hard line between probabilistic
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  systems and deterministic systems. Break that
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  down for us. What is the difference? Okay, think
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  of a traditional system of record as a vending
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  machine. If you press button A1, you get a bag
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  of chips. every single time. Same input equals
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  same output. That is deterministic. It is a state
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  machine. Because if I work 40 hours, I want my
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  paycheck to reflect exactly 40 hours. Exactly.
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  You do not want variability in finance or human
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  resources. But AI models are probabilistic. They're
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  basically incredibly advanced guessing machines
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  that predict the next word or number based on
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  patterns. So Puzeri is saying you do not want
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  an AI guessing your company's tax liabilities
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  based on vibes. Exactly. He argued that AI is
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  not a state machine today, and maybe it never
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  will be. So what is Workday's actual strategy
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  here to survive? They are taking a hybrid approach.
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  They want to keep that deterministic vending
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  machine core completely locked down for accuracy,
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  but then marry it with AI agents on top for the
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  user experience. They have been buying up AI
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  companies too, right? Yeah. They acquired Paradox,
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  Sana, and PipeDream. and they reported processing
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  1 .7 billion AI actions. But the core data stays
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  rigid. It is fascinating. It is a bet that boring,
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  accurate stuff is still king when millions of
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  dollars are on the line. Boring keeps you out
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  of legal trouble. Exactly. But while Workday
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  is trying to keep everything locked down, our
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  second story shows how fast the vibe coding revolution
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  is actually moving. This one is wild. Anthropic
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  just rolled out a new feature for Claude Code
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  called Remote Control. And this directly changes
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  the physical reality of being a software developer.
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  It really does. So historically, if you are running
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  a huge code build or testing something complex,
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  you are chained to your desk. You have to watch
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  the terminal. Right. Because if it breaks, you
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  have to be there to fix the error. Not anymore.
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  With remote control, you can start a coding session
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  in your terminal on your desktop, and it generates
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  a QR code or a link. OK. You scan that with your
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  phone and you can continue controlling that entire
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  desktop session from the Claude app in your pocket.
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  Wait, does the code transfer to your phone? Because
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  that sounds like a massive security risk for
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  corporate IP. No, and that is the brilliant part.
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  The code stays entirely on your local machine.
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  It does not move to the cloud. Your phone just
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  acts as a remote commander through a live bridge.
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  Oh, I see. It uses temporary access tokens that
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  completely expire the second the session ends.
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  So I could theoretically kick off a massive database
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  migration, leave the office, go walk my dog,
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  and if the AI hits a snag, it just pings my phone.
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  Yes, you just review it while holding the leash,
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  tap approve, and the AI goes back to work on
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  your computer at home. That is the ultimate vibe
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  coding lifestyle. It really shifts the job from
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  typing code to supervising an agent. You are
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  untethered. It is currently in research preview
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  for cloud -backed subscribers, but you can see
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  where this is going. Workday wants you at the
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  desk, ensuring accuracy. And Anthropic is saying,
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  go grab a coffee. The AI has this. It's a totally
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  different philosophy. But if we want to talk
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  about true scale and adoption of these tools,
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  we have to look at our third story today. Yes.
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  Let us talk about Alibaba's new AI assistant
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  app, Quinn. The numbers on this release are just
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  staggering. Quinn hit 10 million downloads in
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  its first week. Which is hard to even wrap your
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  head around. Let's put that in context. ChatGPT
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  was the fastest growing consumer app in history
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  when it launched. How fast did it grow? It took
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  ChatGPT five days to hit one million users. Quinn
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  did 10 million in a week. So it is operating
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  on a completely different magnitude of scale.
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  Is the tech actually that good or is it just
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  because Alibaba has a massive built -in audience?
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  The tech is legitimately top tier. Quinn is built
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  on their Quinn 3 model. And the sources point
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  out this is a mixture of experts model. We hear
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  that term a lot in AI circles, mixture of experts.
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  How does that actually work under the hood? Think
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  of an older AI model like a single general practitioner
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  doctor. You ask it a question and that one doctor
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  tries to figure out the answer. OK. A mixture
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  of experts model is like a massive hospital.
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  When you type in a prompt. A router looks at
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  it and decides which specific specialist should
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  handle it. So if I ask it to write Python script,
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  it sends it to the coding expert. Exactly. And
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  if you ask a math question, it routes it to the
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  math expert. It only activates a tiny fraction
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  of its brain for each query. Which makes it way
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  more efficient. Faster, cheaper to run, and it
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  claims to rival or even beat OpenAI's O1 and
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  Google's Gemini 2 .5 Pro in coding and math.
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  And it even has deep research capabilities, camera
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  inputs, and vibe coding features built right
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  in. Right. Now their business strategy here is
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  fascinating. They are doing a total free -for
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  -all. No subscription fees. None. They're releasing
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  this completely for free to gain mass adoption
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  across China's 1 .4 billion people. The plan
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  is to get everyone hooked and monetized later
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  through enterprise cloud services. Now, we do
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  need to point out what the sources note regarding
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  the geopolitical context here. Yes. The reports
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  indicate that these models are required to align
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  with local government narratives. Right. We are
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  just passing along what the reporting says. The
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  tools are subject to strict censorship based
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  on local regulations. Absolutely. But even with
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  that filter in place, the sheer velocity of consumer
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  adoption is the real story for the tech industry.
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  It connects the dots perfectly back to our first
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  story. U .S. companies are fighting over enterprise
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  subscriptions and accuracy. Meanwhile, Alibaba
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  is just flooding the consumer market to build
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  the ultimate AI super app. If 10 million people
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  get used to a free AI running their personal
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  lives in one week, they're going to expect their
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  workplace software to act the exact same way.
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  And that is the wave Workday is trying to hold
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  back. It is going to be wild to watch. Before
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  code SNARFL. All right, let us quickly recap
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  the three big takeaways from today's Morningstar.
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  First up, Workday. They beat earnings, but the
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  stock took a hit because investors are terrified
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  of AI. Workday's defense is that you cannot vibe
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  code a payroll. They are betting that deterministic
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  accuracy will always win in the enterprise. Second
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  story, Anthropic. Anthropic is proving that vibe
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  coding is becoming a lifestyle. Their new remote
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  control feature lets you run complex local code
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  builds directly from your phone while you're
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  out walking the dog. And finally, Alibaba. Alibaba's
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  Ken model hit 10 million downloads in a single
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  week. They're using highly efficient mixture
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  of experts technology to offer world -class AI
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  for free. Proving the consumer appetite for these
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  tools is absolutely massive. It really is a battle
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  between the old systems of record and this new
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  era of AI flexibility. We will see who comes
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  out on top. We're here to help at Snarful, so
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  reach out on our website if you have any more
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  questions. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch
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  you next time.