Waymo Wants to Ride Your Data

🌟 Good morning,

Today’s ride might take you somewhere unexpected—not just down city streets, but into the future where your expressions could teach machines and your silence could speak volumes. As AI takes control beyond just cars, remember: Awareness is your seatbelt, and curiosity is your fuel.

— Stay woke, stay wonderful

SYNC PICKS
5 Tools to Automate

• SkyReels: AI video creation platform for transforming ideas into videos.

• Agno: Build high-performance Agents with memory, knowledge and tools.

• Deepgram: The Voice AI platform for developers.

• DialX: Dialx is your AI phone receptionist for any business. It ingests data, suggests improvements, answers FAQs, and books appointments so you can focus on growth.

• Clarisign: World’s first AI that drafts, negotiates, and finalizes your contracts—so you can sign smarter and safer. It highlights risks, auto-fills key details, and cuts hours of paperwork down to minutes.

🦄 Startup Spotlight

Funding Roundup

• Sizl raised $3.5M seed (led by Yellow Rocks!) to expand its cook-to-order kitchen model. With plans to open 4 more Chicago kitchens and eyeing Boston, Charlotte, and SF, the startup aims to fix ghost kitchen flaws with fresh ingredients and Eastern European flair.

• Eloelo kicks off its Series B with $13M led by Play Ventures, alongside Gameskraft, Kalaari, and WestBridge. The funds will boost its creator-led live streams—featuring games like tambola and antakshari—as it deepens engagement in India’s fast-growing social gaming scene.

TODAY IN AI
Waymo wants your ride to train its AI—and sell you stuff

Behind the wheel of Waymo’s robotaxis, something new might be riding shotgun: your data. The self-driving car company is preparing to use in-cabin camera footage tied to rider identities to train generative AI models—and possibly personalize ads. It’s a quiet update, buried in a draft privacy policy uncovered by tech researcher Jane Manchun Wong. The document suggests that Waymo may use interior footage to improve functionality and tailor services and ads. Riders can opt-out—but only to a point.

The murky part? We don’t know what exactly Waymo is capturing facial expressions, body language, conversations, or whether that data stays in-house or gets looped into Alphabet’s broader AI push via Google or DeepMind. Even as Waymo scales fast 200,000+ weekly paid rides across LA, SF, Phoenix, and Austin—it’s still a big spender. Alphabet sunk another $5 billion into it last year, with $5.6 billion more from outside investors. Valued north of $45 billion, the company is eyeing new markets and new revenue streams to offset its $1.2B operating loss in 2024.

Privacy advocates may squirm, but Waymo sees an opportunity: a chance to turn a growing fleet—and the data it captures—into AI breakthroughs and monetizable moments. For now, your next robotaxi ride might be more than a trip; it could be training material.

SYNC FAST

1. Google’s DeepMind is paying some UK staff to do nothing for up to a year under strict non-compete clauses, per Business Insider. While still on the payroll, many feel sidelined by the fast-paced AI race. The tactic, banned in the U.S., is legal in the UK—where frustrated researchers say they're stuck watching innovation from the bench.

2. Amazon’s AI video model, Nova Reel 1.1, can now generate 2-minute, multi-shot videos with consistent style and manual shot control. It’s available on AWS—but questions about training data and copyright ethics remain unanswered.

3. Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke told staff no new hires unless AI can’t do the job—calling AI usage a “baseline expectation” and tying it to performance reviews.

TECH SYNC
IBM’s new mainframe

IBM has unveiled the z17, a powerful new mainframe built for the AI era. Equipped with the Telum II processor, it can handle 450 billion AI inference operations daily, a 50% boost over its predecessor, and supports over 250 AI use cases, including generative AI and intelligent agents.

Though mainframes may sound old-school, 71% of Fortune 500 companies still rely on them, and IBM is betting on that legacy to carry AI forward. The z17 is built with AI agility and energy efficiency in mind, using seven times more acceleration with five times less energy than traditional platforms.

IBM designed the z17 with input from 100+ customers over five years—well before the ChatGPT boom—making it a future-ready engine for whatever AI throws next. General availability starts June 8.

MORE TO KNOW
Facebook & Messenger get built-in safeguards for young users

Meta is rolling out Teen Accounts on Facebook and Messenger, auto-enrolling users under 16 into a safer, more restricted experience. Already active on Instagram, these accounts limit who can message, tag, or comment on teens’ content, while also nudging them to log off after an hour and activating "Quiet Mode" at night.

Teens need parental approval to change settings or go live, and content filters remain in place—especially for sensitive material like nudity. Meta says 54 million teens are now under Teen Account protections, with 97% keeping the safeguards on. This move comes amid rising pressure from U.S. lawmakers and health officials to protect young users from harmful online content and social media overuse.