Trump Says TikTok Buyer Group Found
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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Lovelow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. President Trump says he has identified a buyer for the U.S. operations of TikTok.

Plus, Canada withdraws its digital services tax that could have cost big tech billions in a move to restart trade talks with the U.S. And Apple's Hollywood bet takes the lead with F1 movie taking in $55.6 million in the U.S. and Canadian box office. There's a lot going on, Ed, that also might be involving Oracle in the future. President Trump says that they have a buyer for TikTok's U.S. operations, but...

He stopped short of naming the bidder, saying on other networks that the transaction would need China approval. For more, Bloomberg's Mike Sheppard joins us for more. And there is an articulation that we've got a buyer, but the big if is what China does with this information.

Well, that's right, Carol. China has a huge stake in this, and they really will have the final say, given that ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, is based in Beijing and also happens to oversee some of what the Chinese government would consider sensitive technology.

the kind that would need government approval to engineer any kind of final sale, even if the company were to retain control over the algorithm. Our reporting back in April indicated that the deal that had been taking shape at the White House involving ByteDance, TikTok, U.S. officials and a number of prospective buyers in this consortium, it would have left the algorithm in China's hands.

But even with that, with trade tensions surging between Washington and Beijing, it became too difficult to get this deal further along to get Beijing's approval at the time. Mike, we're currently in this kind of extension period, the latest extension to get a deal done. So that's where it stands. But what's our sense of who this mysterious, victorious bidder might be?

Well, it really is appearing to be based on some reporting this morning that we're getting in and it all still taking shape. But our sense is that it is essentially the same consortium that had been working on that we had reported on back in April. And this includes Oracle Corp., which already does quite a bit of back end business for TikTok here in the U.S. through Project Texas.

And then it would also include venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone and some other investors in ByteDance, the U.S.-based investors in ByteDance, perhaps. And the idea would be to dilute ByteDance's stake in the U.S. operations of TikTok.

down below a threshold that is specified in the 2024 law that calls for it to be divested from Chinese ownership and also include the algorithm in the sale. And that algorithm, Ed, is going to be what could emerge as a sticking point, at least here in Washington. If it is not transferred from Chinese control, that could be grounds for at least some objections, at least in Congress. It's unclear, though, whether those will materialize into anything significant otherwise.

enough to either halt the deal or force a shutdown, as the law would specify. As you said, we do have more time to think about this. The president just signed an extension from June 19th, and that'll carry us into September. The other thing the law specified, though, Ed, as you'll recall, there was only one extension allowed by the president, and he's already on number three. So it's unclear how much further he'll be able to take this, Ed.

Bloomberg's Michael Shepard out of Washington, D.C. Thank you very much. Let's talk a little bit more broadly about tech markets. Angela Korkovas, Edward Jones Senior Investment Strategist, joins us now. And I want to go back to something that Caroline was talking about at the top of the show. Believe it or not, it's the last day of the second quarter. We already arrived to the second half of what has been an intense year.

in the technology sector. The Nasdaq 100 is like modestly higher right now in the session, but we continue to push consecutive record highs. What is the single catalyst for tech right now, Angelo? Yeah, as you said, certainly a lot has happened in the first half of the year. And maybe the fact that we are hitting all time highs, we see that as a validation of the positive momentum, not an indication or a signal of an imminent correction.

Certainly the decline, the de-risking in geopolitical trade tensions and other tensions has helped. But at the same time, really what is undisputed is the strength in corporate profits, especially within tech. We are hitting all-time highs, but it is the largest companies that are driving this. About 6% of the S&P 500 has been hitting new highs as of last Friday. So it hasn't yet been brought.

But at the same time, that shouldn't really dilute the message that we remain in a bull market. Some are centered ahead, but corporate profits is what is driving this action.

Corporate profits that sees growth actually start to accelerate out of the U.S., Angelo. Going forward, the second half, is it going to be U.S. exceptionalism? Or if we look at what Bloomberg Intelligence have just been writing, great piece of analysis coming out of Gina and her team today saying the U.S. is no longer setting the pace for global tech earnings. In fact, that's going to Asia and Europe. What do you make of it?

What is happening is the growth gap and the growth advantage that the U.S. has had is narrowing, especially as we think about this year. Europe is accelerating from stagnation, while we are decelerating from a very strong starting point. But at the same time, looking at the major indices for international developed large cap equities, it's been a narrowing of the gap in valuations, which still remains large, rather than

an earnings story. So if we see some stabilization in the U.S. dollar in the second half based on the earnings still outperformance from U.S. equities we would expect potentially U.S. tech and U.S. assets more broadly to come back into favor.

OK. Any area in particular? We've been all about hardware for the last couple of years. Software got its moment in the sun. But I'm interested is there areas in particular that you like within the tech ecosystem of the U.S.?

I think the equal weighted index is also one way to go and participate in that likely broadening that is happening. Yes, NVIDIA and semiconductors remain key at the center of this exciting secular tailwinds that are ahead. But we are seeing last week the equal weighted technology S&P make new highs relative to the market. And that is an encouraging development.

So remain broadly diversified software still likely favored, but that is the case for many other sectors and we can talk about that as well.

Well, I kind of want to go back to the top news stories of the day, which largely center around trade, Canada, Canada and digital tax. We have heard and we will hear again very shortly from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson. But the reason I bring that up is that in summary of the prior quarter, it was really trade that was driving us. I asked this difficult question to every markets participant that comes on the show. What happens next, particularly in tech?

Yeah trade in the near term is still going to be front and center. We have the train deadline that is coming out July 9th. But that date has been dearest a little bit. The administration has indicated that this could be extended. There is many potential agreements with major trading partners underway and this can be unveiled over the coming days. But

Since the start of the year, we are seeing this expected and gradual pivot towards more market-friendly policies, tax cuts, deregulation. So there could be some near-term volatility and some potentially less friendly economic data that reflect a mildly stagflationary impact. But markets are going to be able to look through that as they focus on 2026.

Angelo, going back to the micro to finish, I talked about those two deals at the top, Palantir partnering with Accenture, Sales Channel, Oracle, $30 billion per year cloud client. Outside of those just being news stories that drive those single names higher, how much do you track those data sets for signals of how enduring an AI investment cycle is or how real any of this is in the AI context?

These are important and no doubt the cycle is real. We see that in broader adoption and we see that in the results from the companies that are centered in this space. As we think about moving further away from the trade headwinds, that's going to be a next major step. Some confidence for more deals to happen and I think that is something that can be supportive of the market and the tech space in general.

For now, still very much things that we contend with on the day. Angelo Koukafas, we thank you so much of Edward Jones. Coming up, those headwinds we discussed Canada actually withdrawing its digital services tax in order to restart US trade talks. More on that next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Remember when a single technology glitch could bring an entire workday to a standstill? I'm Mark Banfield, Chief Commercial Officer at TeamViewer. Today, most technical issues are recurring.

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Republican Party leaders are rushing to overcome infighting in an effort to pass President Trump's big, beautiful bill. As Democrats launch an initiative to exploit those divisions. For more, Bloomberg's Kayleigh Lyons joins us now. I don't think in my career, at least I'm sure in yours you have, tracked as closely the passage of the bill, the politics of it and the content of it. What's the latest?

Well, obviously, this is a massive package and it's been very complicated. The so-called voterama began in the Senate this morning is expected to go all day into tonight, perhaps even into the early hours of tomorrow as they vote on an unlimited number of amendments to this bill, including the likes of the one put forward by Senator Ron Johnson, who would like to see a phasing out of the expansion population of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a Susan Collins amendment that would give more funding to rural hospitals in exchange for raising the tax rate

on the country's highest earners. And of course, Democrats are going to put a boatload of amendments to try to get Republicans on the record with things that may be politically unpopular. But all of it is aimed at trying to get the requisite votes needed to pass, knowing that John Foon, the Senate majority leader, can only lose three, and there's still about

eight Republican holdouts who have not committed to voting yes on this legislation, including Tom Tillis, who said yesterday in a surprise announcement, not only would he not be voting for this package, but he's actually not seeking reelection in 2026. So the math is difficult. And math is actually one of the first things they tackled this morning as they voted to adopt the so-called current policy baseline, which essentially means

Fudges the accounting to say that the tax cuts don't cost $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. About $3.8 trillion are taken out as current policy because it's extending the 2017 tax cuts. It's aimed at lowering the price tag, at least on paper. But that still may not be enough to appease fiscal conservatives, especially in the House, which, of course, has to re-vote on this package, assuming that it can get through the Senate. So this voterama is really just step one in a number of remaining hurdles.

Well, Kayleigh, there was some maths that was very much an obsession of big tech that no longer has to be an anxiety. I'm talking about digital services taxes that were coming into force today from Canada on American giants and now no more. Talk us through it.

Yeah, President Trump on Friday threatened Canada, essentially saying that within a week they would be getting a new tariff rate and trade negotiations were going to end entirely over this digital services tax, which could cost American companies like Meta or Alphabet billions of dollars. Those first payments were expected to be due today until Canada basically acquiesced to Trump's demands, deciding to rescind that digital services tax in the name of restarting trade negotiations. And they're now looking...

at trying to get a trade deal done by July 21st. That, of course, is a little bit later than the deadline other countries are working with, July 9th. Of course, that wider deadline that's coming up very quickly. And the digital services taxes for trading partners like the European Union, for example, are still likely seen as sticking points. So while it's still been resolved between the U.S. and Canada, at least for now, that's something we can expect to come up in trade negotiations as they move forward in the coming days elsewhere.

Bloomberg's Kayleigh Lyons, thank you so much from Washington. And look, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson joined Bloomberg's Shonali Basak just this morning to give some insight into current trade talks, saying we should expect a flurry of deals soon. Take a listen. This is going to be a flurry going into the final week as the pressure increases. What can you tell us about what's coming out of those deals? Are they inked deals or are they negotiations for future deals? Well, what I can tell you is that

The staff level, whether it's at Treasury, at USTR, at Commerce, people who've been around for 20 years are in amazement and they're saying these countries are coming with offers that they can't believe. So in terms of bringing down tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, we're leaving aside currency, the financing of

THE LABOR AND CAPITAL IN AN ADVANTAGEOUS WAY, ALL THESE COUNTRIES ARE PULLING BACK. SO YOU SAID TRADE NEGOTIATIONS COULD BE WRAPPED UP BY LABOR DAY. HOW SHOULD INVESTORS AND NATIONS IMPACT BE THINKING ABOUT THAT JULY 9TH DEADLINE?

Could that be pushed back to avoid going back to those April 2nd tariff rates? Well, that's going to be up to President Trump. And I'm not going to tell any country. We have countries that are negotiating in good faith, but they should be aware that if we can't get across the line because they are being recalcitrant, then we could spring back to the April 2nd levels. I hope that won't have to happen.

That was US Treasury Secretary Scott Besson. Let's stay on the impact of tariffs and bring in Rachel Hoff, Policy Director at the Ronald Reagan Institute, who joins us on set here in San Francisco. Trade and tariffs, the policy platform that the administration has explained to us in this program through Michael Kratios is promote and protect in the context of the technology sector. But as we learn about the content of the deals, we're increasingly talking about which camp you're in impacts how you feel about it. If you're a consumer,

you feel one way about tariffs. If you're a technology company, you may feel differently. What does your research tell you about where we will land in the sort of public conscience of how impactful these trade deals have been? Well, we have research at the Reagan Institute on kind of both of those camps. We have...

particularly in the national security domain, a tech sector-focused project that we have, our National Security Innovation-Based Program. And then in terms of consumers and more broadly the American people, we're just out last week with a new survey, a public opinion poll, asking the American people what they think about a range of issues, including trade and tariffs.

And on tariffs in particular, Americans are supportive of tariffs on China, but not at the expense of higher prices. That flips when you put it up against rising consumer prices. What's so interesting in your data and research, Rachel, is the anxiety that everyone has around technology theft with China. That's the number one concern, right?

That's right. Americans are concerned about a number of issues with regard to China, from their military buildup to their economic practices to human rights abuses. But you're right, Caroline. Top on the list of Americans' concerns about China is technology theft. Shortly behind that is technology.

Chinese advancements in AI and the prospect that they may actually advance more quickly than the U.S. in terms of our artificial intelligence research and leadership. So the technology concerns that I know are of interest to your audience are really top on the mind of the American people as well when it comes to Beijing. On the global stage, there are many factors and considerations for American citizens. What Caroline just says is really interesting.

tech theft, but absolutely at the top, based on what I'm reading, is actually Iran and what's happening in the nuclear context. That's right. When we ask about geopolitical issues more broadly, from China to the war between Russia and Ukraine, to tariffs,

One geopolitical issue stands out above all others that the American people think matters to U.S. security and prosperity, and that's preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Our poll was before the recent strikes, but we know that preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is of concern to 84 percent of Americans. You don't get to 84 percent without being there on a bipartisan basis. A majority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans want to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

What seems to have been very holistically thought of on this show is how we therefore need to innovate when it comes to defense tech. Rachel, with this empowered with the data that you bring and the research, what does corporate America go and do about it?

You know, I think that's ultimately ultimately the question. And with tariffs, not just, you know, not just looking at China, but, you know, not all tariffs are created equal. Right. When we look at tariffs on China, this broader conversation about strategic strategic decoupling of our economies on a national security basis, that's different than than tariffs on our allies and our friends. The American people understand that. And certainly, again,

Corporate America, certainly the U.S. tech sector understands that, and particularly with regard to the supply chain challenges that they face. If we have sustained and long-term tariffs against our allies and friends, that's going to hurt the American tech sector, and it's going to hurt our ability to modernize our military and develop the capabilities we need to meet the national security threats of tomorrow.

Well, I'm sure that this sort of data is going to be very useful for policymaking. You are the policy director at the Ronald Reagan Institute. We appreciate the time and the insights. Rachel Holt, thanks for joining. Now, coming up, let's talk more about geopolitics. Israel and Iran's recent war revealed a key risk for global shipping. More on that next in today's Big Take. This is Bloomberg Tech.

The Iran-Israel war highlighted critical flaws among the world's shipping giants, with many of the satellite navigation systems among ships and tankers being vulnerable to mass jamming as they traversed vital waterways. Bloomberg's Jack Whittles joins us now for more on today's big take. Jack, set the scene. How integral is this sort of technology to shipping writ large?

So ships do use satellite navigation systems to navigate nowadays. One of the most common ones is GPS. There's also Russian ones, which is called GLONASS and a couple of other ones as well. So it's really integral to how the shipping industry operates. And don't forget that the shipping industry is responsible for transporting more than 80% of world trade.

Jack, I spent all morning reading and learning about jamming and spoofing. Explain the basic definitions and the data analysis you did on how that's happening and playing out in that region. Yeah, that's a great question because they're not quite the same thing. So jamming is essentially where... So these are satellite navigation systems, so the ships are receiving signals. So jamming is when these signals are essentially overwhelmed. Like imagine someone just shouting really loudly over the signal.

Whereas, you know, the ship system essentially gets confused. Whereas spoofing is when a fake signal is specifically fed to the ship and that can be more insidious. You could really get a ship and slowly lure it off its path by feeding it a fake signal and potentially leading it into trouble. And where is this sort of trouble arising? Does it tend to be in the Strait of Hormuz? Is it more broad than that?

Yeah, so we looked at a few hotspots. So yes, there's been lots in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Other hotspots include the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, especially there's a hotspot near Primorsk, which is a big oil terminal for Russia. So you'll notice that these are regions of geopolitical tension. You know, you've obviously got

recent attacks by Houthis in the Red Sea, obviously had Iran, Israel in the Persian Gulf and Russia's oil exports always subject to lots of sanctions and you've obviously got the Russia-Ukraine war as well.

Bloomberg's Jack Whistles with today's big take. Thank you very much. Now, coming up, we'll dig into how the Supreme Court's ruling on birthright citizenship and other Trump immigration policies are impacting a key component of the tech workforce. That is the H-1B visa holders. Really critical conversation for our audience coming up here next. This is Bloomberg Tech.

Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Welcome to the final day of the second quarter, the final day of the first half of 2025. And the Nasdaq 100, it's that index I always go to because of the high concentration of tech, is once again pushing fresh record highs. Look at the chart at April. That was post deep seek when there was a lot of volatility in markets and we've really rebounded since then.

Again, pushing across many days, consecutive record highs. Right now, as I read across the Bloomberg newsroom, it is trade and trade headlines that are driving markets for tech. But as we talked about earlier in the show, you look at names like Palantir and Oracle. There are lots of deals, particularly in the AI context. They're giving us evidence that this spending on AI is playing into the story as well, Caro. What a chart it is to show to end the first half of 2025.

What a ride. What a ride it has been from an asset perspective and from political perspective. Let's just talk about how Elon Musk has slammed the U.S. Senate's version of the President Trump's tax bill, Ed. Look, the Tesla CEO is warning that cuts to electric vehicle and other clean energy credits would be, quote, incredibly destructive to the country. He said the bill would actually destroy millions of U.S. jobs while subsidizing what he called industries of the past.

Let's bring in Bloomberg's Max Chafkin, who I'm sure was glued to some of these posts on Saturday. And is it making any dent, do you think, from the political standpoint that he wants it to? I mean, it doesn't seem to be. He's been railing about this, you know, from around the time when he and Donald Trump had their spat, you know, their public spat, which...

which ended with social media insults and seems to still be going on to some extent. That's been going on for weeks, and it hasn't seemed to slow this bill down. In fact, you know, we've seen versions of the bill where instead of sunsetting these consumer tax credits, which make it $7,500 cheaper for consumers to buy an electric vehicle, sunsetting those 90 days from passage rather than $150,

80 days, creating a situation where Tesla could be impacted as early as the end of this year. This would be a real challenge for a company that has already struggled with demand, especially amid all the controversy caused by Elon Musk's support of Donald Trump.

Max, you pointed out on X something that we've talked about often on the show, which is the president was quite consistent on his approach to these kinds of incentives. But so was Elon Musk. You know, he kind of regularly said, we'll do away with them because he felt that they, at least as I understand it, he felt it gave other legacy automakers a leg up that Tesla just didn't need. And now he's upset. Just give us that back.

Yeah, I mean, historically, Musk's position has been we don't need the subsidies. And I think one of the reasons for that is that historically, the subsidies were going to sunset. You know, this is before Joe Biden. We're supposed to sunset once an automaker hit a specific number that got taken, gotten rid of. But Musk continued to say he would rather have a level playing field, which sort of made sense because Tesla was the most profitable of the company selling electric vehicles. That is,

its electric vehicles were most profitable. Now, the thing is, over the last year, Tesla's financial position has changed to some extent, right? We've been talking about these sales challenges, sales falling in China, in Europe, and so on. Meanwhile, you have other electric vehicle makers becoming more competitive. That's creating pressure on the company's finances. And I think that's one thing that has changed besides the obvious blow up between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

But to be fair to Elon Musk here perhaps, one thing that also hasn't changed on his part is that he's railed against the deficit and debt.

So how much do we know that this is the nuance that he's really angry about or more broadly his view that we need to rein in spending in America? Listen, I mean, he's railing about the debt as well. While he's tweeting about, you know, these the U.S., you know, hurting the clean energy industry or as he sees it. He's also saying that this bill is going to increase the debt and the deficit. Of course, Musk spent months.

trying to work on that with Doge. And in certain ways, I guess this bill, he sees it as an affront to those efforts. You know, I think the EV policy and the clean energy policies are a big deal here, whether or not Musk specifically points to them or not, because they will affect the bottom line of the company that, you know, is most important to his portfolio. Max Chafkin of the Elon Inc. team. Thank you very much.

Tech companies are top employers of high-skilled immigrants in the United States on H-1B visas. But a recent ruling by the Supreme Court is raising questions about the legal status of children born to those visa holders. Here to talk about the impact on the tech sector, Hiba Ambar. She's a partner with Ericsson Immigration Group. And I think starting with the basics here is important. What happened with the Supreme Court ruling

And what are the mechanics of what it means for H-1B visas that we've just outlined? So the Supreme Court ruled that federal district judges cannot issue nationwide injunctions. And so this decision basically affects how legal challenges to President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order can actually proceed. And it's scheduled to go back into effect July 27th.

So what this means is that if an H-1B visa holder wants to insulate their baby from the effects of the executive order, they need to sue individually or join a class action lawsuit or live in a state that sues or successfully obtains an injunction.

So essentially, the ruling opens the door to piecemeal enforcement of immigration policies, which will potentially lead to differing legal standards in different parts of the country. But coming back to your question about how it impacts tech companies, what this means is that there is a possibility that the babies of the employees of these tech companies will be treated differently depending on where the employee sues or where the employee lives.

And that is going to create a whole new category of employee questions and policy considerations for the company that it has not had to grapple with in the past. We heard from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi about this in Friday's show. Just listen to what she had to say.

So birthright citizenship will be decided in October in the next session. However, it indirectly impacts us because, as you correctly pointed out, if there's a birthright citizenship case in Oregon, it will only affect the plaintiff in Oregon, not the entire country. So yes, it's indirectly, but that's

pending litigation and we're waiting on that in the next term. We're very confident in the Supreme Court. But again, it's pending litigation and that will directly be determined in October. But it indirectly impacts every case in this country and we're thrilled with their decision today. Hiba, would you kindly interpret and explain the pending action in October that Attorney General Bondi was talking about?

So my understanding about what's happening in October is that there's going to be a decision in terms of like the merits of the birthright citizenship executive order itself. So if you recall, what happened on Friday was the Supreme Court only issued

ruled as it pertains to the judge's ability to issue a nationwide injunction, there has not been any sort of a decision on the constitutionality of the birthright citizenship executive order itself. So therein lies, I think, the issue. Because we're facing the next several months of different states having different standards and babies born in those states being treated differently, that is where the logistical, administrative, and possibly even bureaucratic challenges will arise.

both for the high-skilled H-1B visa holders or high-skilled immigrants in the country, as well as the companies that employ them. Let's look at those companies again, Hiba. We've got a beautiful chart that shows how integral H-1B visas, for example, are for certain U.S. tech giants. Amazon, this emphasis, of course, we all recognize is dependent on H-1B as well. Cognizant, Google, this sort of perception of instability in immigration, what does it mean for U.S. employers, do you think?

I think it's important to note that the tech companies in the United States do rely on high skilled immigrants from other countries. And part of the reason for their success and their ability to remain competitive on a global stage has been their ability to hire the best and the brightest.

So if there are high skilled immigrants out there who have even the slightest perception of instability in the U.S. immigration system, there's a chance that that might factor into their decision to accept an offer from a U.S. company or accept an offer from a company in another country. So what the companies and folks in the United States really have to, I think, grapple with is whether they want those skills and that innovation to go elsewhere as opposed to the benefit of the U.S. companies.

Hibbert, what are you advising in the here and now? You must be fielding countless calls. And if there is an employer who's trying to lure in someone who might eventually already be pregnant or thinking about it, are they going to have to sue on an individual basis, do you think?

So individuals, as it stands right now, until something changes, unless and until something changes, if an individual wants to insulate their future baby from being impacted by the birthright citizenship executive order, either they have to sue individually or they have to join a class action or they have to be in a state that sued them.

on the merits of birthright citizenship so that the individuals from that state are somehow insulated from the applicability of the executive order. So that is where I find some challenges to tech companies that actually employ a lot of these visa holders because what I think is going to happen is companies are going to start to get questions that they've never really had to answer before.

For example, what if the employee is scheduled to relocate to a different state but doesn't feel comfortable relocating to that state because they're concerned about whether or not their child will be considered a U.S. citizen upon birth? Is the company now going to change something about the relocation? Are they going to extend some sort of reasonable accommodation? Are they going to stay away from the topic altogether? These are now the company policy considerations that I think a lot of tech companies are going to have to decide.

Hibber Anfer, great to have you on. Thank you. Partner with Ericsson Immigration Group. Meanwhile, coming up, e-marketer, principal analyst, Yori Wormser, joining us to discuss the firm's new forecast for the use of generative AI. Guess who are the fastest adopters? This is Bloomberg Tech.

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With Azure AI Foundry, GitHub Copilot, and VS Code, you have the support to build the way you want. You can design, customize, and manage AI agents, automating routine tasks to give you the time to focus on your vision. You can innovate confidently with responsible AI and security that's built in from the start. Microsoft has everything you need to help you push what's possible.

To learn more, go to developer.microsoft.com slash AI. That's developer.microsoft.com slash AI. Thrivent can help you plan your finances for the people, causes, and community you love. What makes Thrivent different? Financial services and generosity programs are combined to help you build a financial roadmap for the future while also creating opportunities to give back along the way. Visit Thrivent.com to learn more. Thrivent, where money means more.

When it comes to using the latest technology, it's no surprise that younger generations do tend to adopt it faster than older ones. That seems to be the case with generative AI too. The latest forecast on Gen AI use from eMarketer, well, it shows that those from Gen Z are swiftly becoming the heaviest users. Yorri Wemzer, he's principal analyst at eMarketer joins us now.

What's notable is millennials have been the lion's share of who had adopted it fast across work and play. But Gen Z are ramping up. That's right. I mean, right now, as of the end of 2025, when our 2025 numbers are four, we're expecting about the same number of Gen Z and millennials to be using generative AI tools. So a big ramp up from Gen Z and, in fact, starting to be a ramp up from Gen Alpha, too.

Yuri, you can think about this in the context of the population, or you can think about it in the context of internet users. I think that data set is particularly fascinating because on your forecast, it becomes the large body of people that are online.

Yeah, I mean, that's true. So by the end of our forecast in 2029, the majority of people are going to be using generative AI tools. And when you specifically look at the younger generations, millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Gen Z particularly will have over three quarters of that Internet population using Gen Z.

generative AI tools. So just a huge ramp up to the point where three out of four younger users are going to be using these tools. What I find also interesting about your research is how granular it is. And so the reality right now is you have some tools that dominate the market, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude. I don't see Grok in here necessarily, but is this a case that ChatGPT is kind of now the dominant force?

It is the dominant force. About three quarters of generative AI users right now use ChatGPT, but less than half use Gemini. What we're seeing right now, though, is that even as ChatGPT increases its absolute number of users and its share of internet users, its share of generative AI users is actually going down. And it's not a sign that it's losing its

you know, attraction to the general population. It just shows that there's a lot more competition than has been the case, particularly coming from Gemini, Google's Gemini, and to a lesser extent, some of the work programs with Microsoft Copilot.

Yeah, Yuri, go even more granular for us, because many are using generative AI perhaps without asking to. AI overviews has brought it into many people who would not deem themselves an early adopter's life, but they use Google and thus the four, they're now using generative AI. How much is it just going to seep into our everyday and you don't actually have to be setting out there, downloading an individual app, whether that's the latest meta AI or indeed whether it's ChatGPT?

It's a great point because our numbers are just people who consciously use these generative AI tools. So if you're using Google search, as almost all of us are, and are getting an AI overview, which almost all of us are, we're not even counting those numbers. These are people who are actively seeking out ChatGPT or Gemini or working with these tools at work in Microsoft AI. But you're absolutely right. It's absolutely pervasive data.

in the background in things like shopping chat, chatbots, AI overviews, customer service. So almost everyone at this point is touching generative AI at some point. And then what is the use case that you see is just winning out no matter what? Is Gen Z coming to this because of the research, because of ultimately how they study and work? Or is it more in their play? Are we using generative AI more because we want to learn things about our world and how we interact with it?

It's interesting because this combination of all of those, the lead use case is search, which is around 64 percent of all users. It's going to ramp up to about 75 percent of generative AI users using search, which is almost lockstep in the number of users that are using it for work, things like coding or productivity tools, also going from 64 to 73 or 74 percent. When you're looking at some more not

not even niche cases, but things like using it for text generation and image generation. You're seeing 20, 30, 40 percent of ChatGPT users using that. Significant portions using those productivity tools as well. One more is personal recommendations, which we're seeing at around 40 percent. That's more like shopping type tools.

Yorri, you're the desk lead for advertising media and tech at eMarketer, so I hope you're able to answer this. I've been thinking a lot about how with Grok and with Meta AI, you have two generative AI technologies that are closely aligned to social media platforms. There's been reporting, of course, that OpenAI has looked at the formulation or acquisition of a social media platform.

Do you have any sense of how important that is for fresh data, the user-based commonality and things like that? How analogous a generative AI tool with a social media platform is? It's a fantastic question and it's a big advantage. So meta AI

X with Grok, they do have that conversational data that comes from people using the platform. That's incredibly useful for not only training the models just in terms of language, but also training in terms of trends. Google has that to an extent as well with its search tool. But that data that comes from social media is incredibly important.

and will give them that material, that data that it'll take to really improve their services. - Yuri Worms, a principal analyst at eMarketer. Just appreciate the answer to that final question and great conversation all around. Thank you. Now coming up, Apple's Hollywood breakthrough. How the tech giants lead at the box office with F1 could be impacting its streaming strategy. This is Bloomberg Tech.

Roaring to the top of the box office charts was Apple's F1 film. The movie about Formula One car racing starring Brad Pitt brought $55.6 million into U.S. and Canadian theaters and $144 million worldwide. The movie is seen as a test of Apple's strategy to release its pictures in theaters before putting them on its Apple TV Plus streaming service. Caroline.

Let's talk more Apple, Ed, because its smartwatch and wearables business has lost a bit of steam. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes in his latest Power On that Apple should seriously consider developing a smart ring to give its fitness-tracking wearables push new momentum and widen its market. Let's discuss how. Mark joins us for more. And it's kind of interesting. Aura has stolen this march in terms of rings and wearables in that department. Why has Apple perhaps not got with that tactic thus far?

Well, they're all in on the Apple Watch. Don't forget the Apple Watch, you have that big color display, you have the full ecosystem of accessories, you have an app marketplace, right? It's a revenue driver through and through for Apple and it fits very nicely into the ecosystem. A ring would be a bit different. You're not going to have a screen, you're not going to have applications, you're likely not going to have an accessories or apps ecosystem, right? It will be cheaper, probably lower margin. So there are some fears from that standpoint potentially for Apple.

But I do think it would freshen up the wearables market for them. I think it could make them even more competitive, help them grow market share. It would be a nice alternative to the Apple Watch for people who don't want something sort of bulky, depending on the model you get on their wrist. It would be a big leg up for sleep tracking, something a bit more comfortable. You could wear it with any outfit, right? The Apple Watch, sometimes you don't want to wear it maybe with a suit or a tuxedo. So I think it would be a nice alternative for the watch. And it should be Apple selling it versus someone else.

Mark, I'm an Apple Watch wearer. Other wearables are available, obviously. Away from the form factor, though, like inside this thing, there is underlying technology that is analogous to a ring. What is Apple good at that they could transfer into that new form factor?

Well, miniaturization and manufacturing, they should theoretically be able to get more health sensors in a ring than any other company or a smaller startup has been able to do it. Samsung, of course, it's a behemoth like Apple has been able to do it. There's no reason why Apple would technically not be able to release a ring. Imagine having your door keys built into the ring, your car key.

having your Apple Pay in there, a microphone for Siri. There are all sorts of bells and whistles that Apple can put into a ring because of its ecosystem that the competition simply would be unable to. On top of that, the synchronization with the rest of the Apple universe, pairing for additional health metrics from your phone, from your watch, potentially your earbuds and glasses down the road. So I think it would be a good fit for the company. And I do expect them to get into the market at some point.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. And just a reminder to everyone that tunes in for Bloomberg Tech, Power On is his weekly newsletter that you really want to subscribe to. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. Cara, out in London for this week. Yeah, it is sunny here, Ed, I've got to say. But don't forget to get out the sun and check out our podcast every now and then. You can find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart. From San Francisco, from London today, this is Bloomberg Tech.

Developers like you are building the future, and you need the right AI tools to push what's possible. That's where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft helps you build with flexibility. With Azure AI Foundry, GitHub Copilot, and VS Code, you have the support to build the way you want. Whether you're building AI apps that enhance customer experiences or agents that automate complex processes, Microsoft gives you the tools to innovate with confidence, to

To learn more, go to developer.microsoft.com slash AI. That's developer.microsoft.com slash AI. Thrivent can help you plan your finances for the people, causes, and community you love. What makes Thrivent different? Financial services and generosity programs are combined to help you build a financial roadmap for the future while also creating opportunities to give back along the way. Visit Thrivent.com to learn more. Thrivent, where money means more.

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