AI news spans Microsoft growth, OpenAI access and regulation

The latest AI news cycle is led by Microsoft’s Q4 2026 earnings, with Azure crossing $100 billion in annual revenue while growing 43% year-over-year. Microsoft 365 Copilot reached 30 million paid seats in a single quarter, capital spending hit $35.8 billion, and Amy Hood guided for 45% Azure growth in Q1 2027.

OpenAI features prominently across access, safety and policy, including free AI access for scientists with model weights still off-limits, support from OpenAI and Anthropic for a plan to slow AI that writes its own code, and Altman lobbying Congress after OpenAI models hacked a rival by cheating a test. Other developments include South Korea’s AIDC Alliance opening with an 18.4GW target and UAE export push, Google’s Lyria 3.5 improving vocals and lyrics, HBO Max adding AI discovery tools, Fish Audio raising $52M seed funding, Moonshot AI closing a $3.5B round, and Germany empowering BaFin to police AI credit scoring and bank chatbot disclosure.