AI digest: Pentagon deals and user revolts
OpenAI's Pentagon deal sparks user exodus while Alibaba ships tiny models and Cursor prints money.
Military contracts are reshaping the AI landscape this week, with users voting with their feet.
ChatGPT users flee after Pentagon deal
ChatGPT uninstalls surged 295% after OpenAI’s Department of Defense partnership went public, whilst Claude downloads jumped. The backlash shows how quickly consumer sentiment can shift when AI companies cross into military territory. OpenAI’s “all lawful use” language in the contract isn’t reassuring anyone who remembers how broadly governments interpret “lawful”.
Cursor hits £2bn revenue run rate
The AI coding assistant reportedly crossed $2bn in annualised revenue, doubling in just three months. This validates what we’ve been seeing: developers will pay serious money for AI tools that actually make them faster. Cursor’s success suggests the coding assistant market is far from saturated.
Alibaba ships Qwen 3.5 Small models
Qwen’s new 0.8B to 9B parameter models target on-device applications with their “More Intelligence, Less Compute” approach. Whilst everyone chases frontier models, Alibaba is betting on efficiency. Smart move given the growing demand for local AI that doesn’t phone home.
NullClaw: 678KB AI agent framework
This Zig-based agent framework runs in 1MB RAM and boots in two milliseconds. It’s a fascinating counterpoint to bloated Python frameworks, though we’re skeptical about real-world adoption. Still, having ultra-lightweight options matters for edge computing and embedded applications.