Microsoft launches 'vibe working' AI

PLUS: YouTube pays $24M for blocking Trump

AuthorAuthor

Jennifer Mossalgue & Rowan Cheung
September 30, 2025

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Microsoft just dropped a new buzzword: vibe working. It’s their vision for Office apps powered by AI agents that handle the busywork — writing documents, crunching numbers, designing slides — so you can focus on big-picture thinking.

The era of Clippy is long gone — now your PowerPoint has a vibe manager.

In today’s tech rundown:

  • Microsoft wants you to ‘vibe work’

  • YouTube to pay $24M in Trump settlement

  • Gaming giant EA goes private in record buyout

  • California signs first AI safety law

  • Quick hits on other tech news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

MICROSOFT

Image source: Microsoft

The Rundown: Microsoft just coined a new buzzword — “vibe working” — for new agentic workflows in Office apps where AI handles the heavy lifting, transforming how documents, spreadsheets, and presentations are built. 

The details:

  • Microsoft’s “vibe working” tools let users start a Word or Excel file with a prompt and refine it through iterative, AI-powered suggestions.

  • Office Agent, powered by Anthropic in Copilot chat, creates PowerPoint and Word files directly from conversational workflows; Excel support coming soon.

  • Agent Mode, powered by OpenAI's GPT-5, works inside Excel and Word on the web, breaking tasks into discrete steps with transparent reasoning.

  • Both features are rolling out now through Microsoft's Frontier program, with desktop app support coming later.

Why it matters: Microsoft wants AI as a collaborator, not just a feature, but that assumes workers want to outsource thinking, not just automate grunt work. If it works, knowledge work shifts from executing tasks to steering intelligence. If not, it's another layer of abstraction slowing you down while feeding Microsoft's models with your data.

ALPHABET

Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown

The Rundown: Alphabet, parent company of YouTube, just signed off on a $24.5M payout to settle President Trump’s lawsuit over his social media exile following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The details:

  • Of the total, $22M will be directed to the Trust for the National Mall, designated to fund construction of a new White House State Ballroom.

  • The remaining $2.5M goes to other plaintiffs, including the American Conservative Union and several conservative activists who joined Trump’s suit.

  • Trump sued YouTube, Meta, and X in July 2021, claiming the bans amounted to “wrongful censorship” of his speech and conservative voices.

  • Meta agreed to $25M and X paid $10M earlier this year, but YouTube’s deal is the headline finale.

Why it matters: Meta, X, and now Alphabet have all paid up, and Trump's accounts have been live since 2023. For Alphabet — pulling nearly $10B in quarterly ad revenue — this settlement certainly won’t hurt the bottom line. But it sets a precedent: a price tag for presidential power versus platform control.

ELECTRONIC ARTS

Image source: Electronic Arts

The Rundown: Electronic Arts, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, just became the centerpiece of the largest leveraged buyout in history: the ‘Madden’ and ‘Battlefield’ publisher agreed to a $55B private takeover.

The details:

  • EA is being acquired by Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), and Affinity Partners, the firm run by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

  • Shareholders get $210 per share in cash — a 25% premium over pre-announcement prices — funded by $36B in equity and $20B in debt.

  • EA exits public markets after 36 years, handing control to a consortium led by Saudi sovereign wealth and private equity heavyweights.

  • PIF’s play extends Saudi Arabia's gaming expansion; it’s been systematically buying stakes in major publishers and esports platforms since 2022.

Why it matters: This blockbuster deal is second only to Microsoft’s $69B buyout of Activision Blizzard. Going private frees EA from quarterly earnings pressure, enabling longer development cycles and riskier bets. But with ‘Battlefield 6’ launching, the $210 price tag may shortchange shareholders just as EA’s earnings kick in.

AI SAFETY

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The Rundown: California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 53, the nation's first law requiring leading AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta to publicly disclose safety measures and promptly report AI-related risks to state authorities.

The details:

  • Companies must report critical safety incidents, such as deceptive AI behaviors, to California's Office of Emergency Services within 15 days.

  • Whistleblower protections shield employees who flag catastrophic AI risks, backed by civil penalties enforceable by the Attorney General's office.

  • The law applies only to companies with over $500M in annual revenue, training models at 10²⁶ FLOPs or higher, which exempts smaller startups.

  • Anthropic backed it; OpenAI and Meta lobbied against it, warning of compliance chaos across 50 states, though both say they'll comply anyway.

Why it matters: With 32 of the world's top 50 AI companies based in California, SB 53 sets a global precedent. Unlike last year's vetoed SB 1047, which demanded kill switches, this bill opts for transparency over mandates — a "show your work" approach that threads the needle between oversight and innovation.

QUICK HITS

Meta is expanding facial recognition safety tools on Facebook in Europe, the UK, and South Korea to combat public figure impersonation, with Instagram rollout coming soon.

South Korea’s Rebellions raised $250M, boosting its valuation to $1.4B and fueling mass production of its AI chip and product development for next-gen data centers.

Instagram is testing a new interface in India and South Korea that launches the app directly into the Reels page, making short-form video the primary experience.

Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN reportedly lost more than 1.7M paid subscribers in the week after suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

Meta is offering UK Facebook and Instagram users ad-free paid subscriptions in response to regulatory pressures over targeted ads and user data.

Google is reportedly launching a research program to use Pixel Watch sensor data in exploring how wearables can screen for high blood pressure.

Black Forest Labs, a secretive German AI startup specializing in image generation, is in talks to raise $200–$300M at a valuation of around $4B.

Scientists engineered a handheld “bone-healing gun” — essentially a modified glue gun — that lets surgeons print bone-like scaffolds directly into fractures.

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is shutting down her consumer software startup, Sunshine, and selling its assets to her new AI venture, Dazzle.

A Faraday Future electric SUV caught fire at the startup’s LA headquarters, causing an explosion that blew out part of a wall, though no injuries were reported.

Firefly Aerospace’s hopes for a swift Alpha rocket launch suffered a setback after an explosion on Monday during test-firing destroyed the next booster stage.

COMMUNITY

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Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team

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