Tech today is a story of AI’s growing power—and the push to contain or capitalize on it. In the UK, regulators have ordered Google to give publishers a real way to block their content from feeding AI search features, a significant challenge to the assumption that platforms can summarize first and negotiate later. At the same time, investors are still pouring money into generative AI, with music startup Suno raising $400 million at a $5.4 billion valuation despite ongoing copyright battles. The startup world is leaning in too: Red Bull Basement is pitching AI tools and equity-free backing as a shortcut for first-time founders. And the region’s wealth rankings are shifting alongside that momentum, with ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming overtaking Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s second-richest person. Less encouragingly, a wave of near-duplicate Medium posts listing unverifiable phone numbers in Iranian cities highlights the internet’s enduring spam problem.