Netflix will present video podcasts by The Ringer as part of a partnership with Spotify. Content including “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” the movie fan show “The Rewatchables” and true crimecast “Conspiracy Theories” will be part of the lineup, along with The Ringer’s NFL, NBA, Fantasy Football, and F1 auto racing series, joining the Netflix schedule beginning in early 2026. Spotify Head of Podcasts Roman Wasenmüller calls the streaming partnership “a new chapter for podcasting” that will expand discovery, helping creators reach new audiences through Netflix’s global reach. Read more

OpenAI has expanded its alliance with Broadcom, announcing a plan to create enough custom AI accelerator chips to consume 10 gigawatts of power. News of the custom chip collaboration leaked out last month. Now that it is ready to go public, OpenAI says designing its own chips and systems will allow the startup to leverage directly into the hardware what it has learned from developing frontier models. The racks, scaled entirely with Ethernet and other connectivity solutions from Broadcom, will be deployed across OpenAI’s facilities and partner data centers beginning in the second half of 2026. Read more

Nano Banana, the viral image generation and editing model Google released in August as part of Gemini 2.5 Flash, has been used to generate more than 5 billion images to date, and now Google is looking to increase its usage by introducing the model to other popular services. Officially known as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, the visual tool is now available in Google Search via a Create tab that activates it in Google Lens and AI Mode. It’s also been incorporated into NotebookLM, powering the Video Overviews tool that transforms documents into narrated explainer videos. The company says Nano Banana is also coming soon to Google Photos. Read more

Microsoft is teasing a bespoke AI image generator. The model, called MAI-Image-1, was designed in-house and works using text prompts. It is the third AI model Microsoft has debuted this year, following MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview, both released in August. The company, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, has been seeking to put some breathing room between itself and the startup to better position the fledgling firm for independence and profitability. And products exclusive to Microsoft surely won’t hurt that company’s bottom line. “We’re creating AI for everyone,” Microsoft says, calling MAI-Image-1 “the next step on our journey.” Read more

Charter Communications, the nation’s largest cable TV operator, is launching the Spectrum App Store for its flagship TV brand. The digital storefront — accessible through the My Spectrum App and on Spectrum.net — will allow Spectrum customers without a traditional TV package to manage and purchase streaming apps à la carte. The move is an effort to appeal to younger audiences, which cable has been losing to streaming standalones like YouTube for the past 10 years. Charter also announced Spectrum is partnering with Apple to present a slate of immersive 2025-26 season L.A. Lakers games on the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset. Read more