Tech
Satya Nadella says companies that trust one AI for everything may not survive
On Sunday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella doubled down on the shocking warning he issued earlier this month to businesses that use AI, taking it a step further this time. Companies that rely wholly on the proprietary AI labs for their AI needs ultimately won’t survive, he predicts.
That’s what he said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” When Zakaria asked Nadella to explain what constitutes a company sharing too much with an AI model provider, Nadella said businesses need to be wary of everything they hand over, from their data to their prompts.
Nadella called for a setup where “every time you use the model, all of the metadata around it is retained by you, so that you could use all of that to train perhaps your own weights or your own open model.” (Weights are a model’s trained parameters — essentially its brain. Nadella’s point: Companies should hold on to their own usage data so they can eventually build a model of their own.)
“Any firm that doesn’t have this control, I will claim will not remain a firm because you’ve essentially outsourced your thinking,” he added.
In short: Companies without their own models — or without a layer of AI infrastructure known as AI gateways to separate their prompts from the model itself — will be in trouble, Nadella says.
He specifically wants companies to stop relying on AI labs’ built-in coding tools, known as harnesses.(Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Codex are examples of these.)
“By keeping the harness separate from the model and the context and memory separate from the model, you absolutely can use multiple models for what they’re great at. At the same time, any one model can go away, and you can still continue to be in control of your own destiny,” Nadella said.
Mind you, Microsoft is an investor in the two largest AI labs, Anthropic and OpenAI. Coding agents are a particularly popular way for enterprises to use AI models and by all accounts are earning the model makers gobs of money.
And yet, Nadella is telling enterprises not to rely too heavily on them. Microsoft, naturally, would benefit from that warning, as its cloud business is now also selling the kind of alternative infrastructure he’s recommending.
Despite the obvious self-serving fear tactic, he’s not wrong. Enterprises are increasingly realizing that they need many model options, particularly cheaper options, and are turning to open-weight models — models whose underlying code is publicly available — that they can fine-tune and run on their own hardware. That, in turn, means they will also need ways to manage multiple models, as well as coding agents that aren’t tied to a specific model provider.
But Nadella’s observation isn’t just about runaway budgets. He anticipates that once a company has “outsourced its thinking” to a model, there’s little to stop the AI lab from eventually offering a competing service of its own. This risk grows as enterprises adopt AI agents and give them access to the innards of the company.
It’s the kind of warning that the startup industry has been shuddering about for years: What’s to stop model makers from wiping out startups by copying and competing with them?
In May, for example, when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman offered to invest in every Y Combinator startup in its latest cohort by offering them AI credits, seed investor Jason Calacanis issued a similar buyer-beware, posting: “If you take these tokens, there’s a non-zero chance that OpenAI will study exactly what your startup is doing, copy your idea and put your app into their free offering. This is the classic platform playbook — be careful, founders!” he posted.
Now Nadella is making that same case to enterprises.
One caveat: Nadella’s concern about oversharing with AI models applies only to businesses — not individuals. When Zakaria specifically asked Nadella how everyday people could protect themselves, Nadella shrugged it off, saying that sharing data is simply the price consumers pay for using a service, especially a free one.
“To some degree there’s got to be some value exchange in the consumer space where you’re getting something for free, maybe for your data. That’s sort of how the advertising business model has worked,” Nadella said.
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Tech
Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence partners with Nvidia to scale its AI research
After two years in stealth, Safe Superintelligence, the AI lab founded by former OpenAI co-founder and alignment lead Ilya Sutskever, has announced a long-term partnership with Nvidia as it prepares to scale to its next phase.
The deal, which includes an undisclosed investment, will give Safe Superintelligence (SSI) access to Nvidia’s Vera Rubin GPU platform, which is expected to increase the startup’s compute resources “by an order of magnitude.” The partnership comes as SSI has achieved significant research milestones, per Nvidia.
Nvidia’s investment stretches into multiple billions, a source familiar with the deal told TechCrunch. Bloomberg reported that the deal size was $5 billion.
Already an investor in SSI, the chipmaking giant said it signed this compute partnership to “accelerate SSI’s next stage of growth after obtaining rare access into the company’s closely guarded research.”
“We have research that is worthy of scaling up, and having access to a big NVIDIA computer will let us do so,” Sutskever said in a statement. “We are confident that our big bet on the Vera Rubin platform will take us to the next level.
The partnership news, while sparse in details, brings SSI back into the spotlight after a quiet two years since it was founded. The company is pursuing a “straight shot” research approach to building what it says is a safe, aligned artificial superintelligence, without getting distracted by commercial product releases or short-term revenue cycles.
At a time when commercial pressures to move fast could encourage AI labs to lower their bar for safety, SSI’s approach to developing foundational techniques focused on alignment and true general reasoning feels poignant. That’s especially true in light of OpenAI’s recent disclosure that one of its advanced models broke out of its sandbox to hack into Hugging Face during testing — sparking concerns about whether it’s even possible to ensure AI alignment before new, increasingly capable models are released.
According to Nvidia, the two companies will also collaborate on advancing Nvidia’s current and future compute platforms, relying on SSI’s tech and “unique insights into the future of AI.” (SSI also partnered last year with Google Cloud to power its research.)
Sutskever is a pioneer in the field of AI. He co-authored and co-created AlexNet alongside Alex Krizhevsky and Geoffrey Hinton, proving that GPU scaling and deep neural networks can work. That work has largely been credited for setting the groundwork for today’s generative AI.
Prior to leading SSI, Sutskever headed the now-defunct Superalignment team at OpenAI. He left OpenAI months after a failed attempt to oust OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, following what Sutskever referred to as a “breakdown in communications.”
SSI has raised $7 billion to date, and is valued at $32 billion post-money, according to PitchBook data. Aside from Nvidia, the firm’s backers included Andreessen Horowitz, Alphabet, Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, Sequoia Capital Partners, and others.
TechCrunch has reached out to SSI and Nvidia for more information.
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Tech
This $9 key physically locks your most addictive apps
Screen-time apps aren’t effective for many people because, in the end, they depend on your willpower. They remind you to stop scrolling or let you set timers, but such notifications can be easy to ignore.
Autonomous Key takes a different approach to this issue simply by being a physical device. It’s an NFC key that pairs with a companion app to let you lock away distracting apps. So instead of tapping a button to bypass the block, you have to physically scan the key with your phone to regain access to your locked apps. Each unlock session can last for up to 60 minutes before the apps are automatically locked again.
That physical requirement is what makes the idea compelling. Instead of depending on your self-control, you can leave the NFC key in another room, or even at the office or gym, turning a mindless impulse to open Instagram or TikTok into a deliberate decision that requires extra effort.
At just $9, Autonomous Key is considerably cheaper than its competitors like Blok ($29), Unpluq ($26.50), and Brick ($59).
Brick does offer a few more advanced features, including Sleep Mode and the ability to block in-app purchases, but Autonomous Key covers the core functionality at a fraction of the price.
The key itself is compact, measuring about 3 inches long, and works with smartphones running Android 8.0 or later, and iPhones running iOS 15 or later.
The companion app also provides AI-powered insights, tracking how often you unlock distracting apps, how long they remain accessible, and the times of day you’re most likely to reach for them.
Notably, the AI summarizes your habits with a deliberately sassy personality. For example, if you repeatedly unlock your apps immediately after locking them, it might say that the key clearly wasn’t far enough away and will suggest putting it somewhere less convenient.
Plus, unlike many app blockers, there are no subscriptions or premium tiers required to unlock additional features. One key can be paired with multiple phones, making it a practical option for people who may have multiple devices, or for families.
During my testing, however, I noticed the NFC scan occasionally required multiple attempts to register. So it’s probably not the best choice for locking important apps (like messaging or email) that you may need to access throughout the day.
There’s also the question of what happens if you lose the key. If your apps are locked, the current workaround is to uninstall and reinstall the companion app. If they’re already unlocked, you can simply remove the key from your account. The company says it’s developing a backup unlock method that will arrive in a future update.
Autonomous Key is currently in beta following a Kickstarter campaign, and began shipping earlier this month. It’s available in five colors: pink, orange, blue, gray, and brown.
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Tech
Power up your AI infrastructure! A first look at the Smart Systems Stage agenda at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
AI doesn’t run on code alone — it requires massive amounts of power, and that demand is increasingly becoming a critical bottleneck. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, the Smart Systems Stage will be where energy, infrastructure, and technology collide, covering everything from fusion breakthroughs to the grid strain AI is putting on the entire economy.
From October 13-15 in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, join leaders from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Helion, Inertia, Bloom Energy, and more as they dig into what it actually takes to power the next decade of innovation. We’re tackling everything from commercial fusion’s path, to the grid and why utilities and startups are racing to modernize aging infrastructure, to how data center operators are scrambling to secure the electricity that AI’s growth depends on.
We’re also closing in on the end of our current pricing window, so this is your chance to save on all of our tickets for founders, investors, and more — grab your ticket here before our current discounts are gone! As for the agenda at hand, let’s explore the Smart Systems Stage lineup so far:
Bringing Fusion to the Grid
Leaders from Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion break down the breakthroughs driving commercial fusion forward, the challenges still ahead, and what it will take to get fusion power onto the grid at scale.
With David Kirtley, CEO, Helion, and Brandon Sorbom, Chief Science Officer, Commonwealth Fusion Systems
How Twilio’s Founder Is Tackling the Power Problem
Inertia CEO Jeff Lawson joins for a candid fireside chat on his path from founding Twilio to leading one of the best-funded fusion power startups in the world — and how scaling Twilio is shaping his approach to talent, timelines, and the hard engineering questions ahead.
With Jeff Lawson, CEO, Inertia
Rewiring the Grid for the Electric Age
Electricity demand is growing faster than the infrastructure built to support it. This panel explores what it takes to modernize the power system, where investment is flowing, and how utilities, startups, and technology providers are building a more resilient, flexible grid.
With Drew Baglino, Founder & CEO, Heron Power; Apoorv Bhargava, CEO and Co-founder, WeaveGrid; and more speakers to be announced
AI’s Power Problem
As compute demand skyrockets, data center operators and energy companies are racing to secure power and expand infrastructure before it becomes the bottleneck that slows AI’s next wave. Hear how leaders across both industries are tackling it.
With Sara Spangelo, President & Co-Founder, Ambrosia Energy; Bill Thayer, SVP, Head of Datacenter Solutions, Bloom Energy; and more speakers to be announced
Whether you’re building the next energy breakthrough, rethinking grid infrastructure, or just trying to understand what’s really constraining AI’s growth, the Smart Systems Stage is built for founders and operators who need the full picture — not just a headline and an LLM summary.
Plus, joining us at Disrupt 2026 means you can get access to every other stage, all of the networking, every side event, and the rest of our full speaker lineup. It’s a three-day deep dive in the heart of the startup community you’ll never forget, so register today!
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Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence partners with Nvidia to scale its AI research
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