Good morning. Can a company that helped shatter the status quo a generation ago do it all over again?
That’s the question dogging Workday, the HR cloud software company, which recently brought back co-founder Aneel Bhusri as CEO in an attempt to “re-found” itself in an age of AI.
I recently spent time with Bhusri and some of his lieutenants—including product and tech boss Gerrit Kazmaier and chief AI officer Joel Hellermark—to understand what makes Workday tick now that it’s a full-blown Fortune 500 firm trying to be a startup again.
I also sought to answer the questions: Is the SaaSpocalypse overblown? Can you teach an old dog a new trick? And most importantly: Can any established CEO survive AI-led disruption?
Please give it a read. More tech news follows. —Andrew Nusca
Thoughts? Suggestions? Hot tip? Drop me a line.
THE BIG STORY
HomeView is Apple’s latest bet on Siri AI
Apple CEO John Ternus presided over his second major product launch on Tuesday, introducing new home devices that include Apple’s first smart home display.
The gadgets offer more ways to generate hardware sales. More importantly, they’re ideal hosts for Apple’s upgraded Siri, giving the company a new distribution channel as it plays catch-up in AI.
The biggest reveal in Tuesday’s product launch was HomeView, an entirely new Apple device. The device looks like a giant Apple Watch and resembles the 2002 iMac G4, which had a hemispherical white base topped with a flat-panel LCD screen.
Apple also announced a new Apple TV 4K with an upgraded chip, the HomePod mini 2, and a collection of home accessories developed with LG and Schneider Electric, including a video doorbell, a smart thermostat, and a smart lock.
HomeView, which has a 7-inch display, costs $299 and is available Nov. 13. A wall-mounted version is also available.
Apple’s announcement prominently featured Siri AI, its upgraded assistant, which will be available in beta on HomeView and the new Apple TV 4K. HomePod mini 2 will receive the assistant through a future software update.
“This is them rebooting their entire approach to home,” Anshel Sag, an analyst at market research firm Moor Insights & Strategy, told Fortune. “If Siri’s that much better, then there’s an opportunity for them to reboot all the stuff that they weren’t successful with because Siri was not good. This is just the first phase.”
Siri has lagged well behind leading chatbots from OpenAI and Anthropic. The new version, which relies on Google’s Gemini AI technology, is designed to understand what is on a user’s screen and act on it, help with writing, and search a user’s phone for context, among other features.
Sag said one of the most noticeable differences is that Siri used to hand off queries to ChatGPT or elsewhere because it lacked intelligence, but it now gives the requested answer directly. Still, he said, the general public seems largely unaware that Apple has upgraded Siri, and the iPhone maker needs to change that quickly if it wants wider adoption. —Sebastian Herrera
THE BLIND BOX
“Where AI is being deployed at scale, and where there’s a lot of investment happening right now, is in inflationary use cases.”
THE RUNDOWN
—The FBI arrested an OpenAI staffer after the company discovered a recording device in one of its offices.
—Anthropic: Small AI models may soon self-replicate on IoT devices.
—Google deploys Gemini 4 Argon, the company’s flagship frontier AI model, in its Gemini app.
—Take-Two’s Rockstar Games plans to release Grand Theft Auto VI for PC in Q1 2027.
—Character.AI files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It will sell some assets to Disney, which hired Character.AI’s CEO as its first companywide CTO.
—Uber's longtime autonomous mobility chief, Sarfraz Maredia, exits the company.
—SpaceX bundles Grok, Cursor, and X Premium in monthly plans priced between $8 and $200.
—Bumble goes private in a $1.3 billion deal. Ithaca Holdings co-founders Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman will become co-CEOs.
—Economic gains from the global AI boom are helping offset losses from conflict in the Persian Gulf, the IMF says.
THE PARTING SHOT
“My goodness,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to think, staring down at his roasted brew. “My Guinness.”