June 24, 2026

Global AI Edition

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Filling the Gap: An Influx of Climate Cash (New York Times)

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While many big name philanthropists are backing away from climate giving, at least one megadonor is stepping up and writing major checks.

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Mike Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and founder of Bloomberg, has announced $590 million in new environmental commitments in recent days, the New York Times writes. 

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The funds will flow from Bloomberg Philanthropies, his charitable organization, and support work on ocean conservation, the energy transition and efforts to combat air pollution.

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Some $285 million will go to efforts accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy at a moment when the Iran conflict is rattling energy markets.

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Bloomberg Philanthropies said it would do this by supporting renewable energy industry associations, providing data and analysis on the industry and advising regulators and grid operators, according to the New York Times.

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Among the groups set to receive funds are Ember, an energy research firm; Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit group that collects energy data; the World Resources Institute, a think tank that focuses on climate and development issues; and the University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability.

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An additional $260 million will be spent on efforts to protect the oceans. Grantees include the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Global Fishing Watch and Oceana.

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Antha Williams, who leads the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said a key focus of the oceans work would be supporting the creation of new marine protected areas in international waters. And for the first time, Bloomberg Philanthropies will be funding efforts to restore coral reefs, the New York Times writes.

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A final $45 million of the Bloomberg Philanthropies funds will support programs to improve air quality in major cities around the globe.

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Funding climate issues was, until recently, a popular pursuit of the billionaire class. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg were among the tech titans who made huge pledges to address global warming. But since President Trump’s return to office, many of those efforts have gone quiet or fizzled altogether.

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Bloomberg, meanwhile, has spent much of his fortune supporting efforts to close coal plants and block the expansion of the petrochemical industry, the New York Times writes.

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“Mike has been very steadfast in his commitment to global climate action,” Antha said. “We get outreach from people who are saying, ‘We want to take action to solve the urgent problem of climate change,’ or ‘We need your help to transition to less polluting sources of energy.' Mike has told us to answer that call.”

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Read the full piece here. 

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The Big AI Picture

How Model Drama, Open Source, and New AI Tools Are Reshaping the Race (Everyday AI Podcast)

Everyday AI’s latest run of episodes captures exactly why the AI world feels impossible to keep up with right now: in the span of just a few days, the conversation swung from frontier-model geopolitics to hands-on product upgrades to the open-source surge reshaping enterprise strategy.

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The controversy around Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models, which were pulled shortly after launch after the US government raised national security and cyber-risk concerns, is not just insider AI drama.

It is a reminder that model access, safety concerns, business decisions, politics, and global competition are now deeply intertwined, meaning companies can no longer ask only “Which model is best?” but also “Which model can we rely on tomorrow?”

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At the same time, the episodes show how quickly AI is becoming more useful in everyday work: ChatGPT Tasks is bringing AI closer to a personal assistant that can help you stay on top of reminders and follow-ups, Claude Design is making it easier to turn ideas into polished visuals and creative work, Claude Code is helping developers move faster, and Codex is pointing toward a future where AI can observe a workflow and help repeat or automate it.

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Then comes the open-source shockwave: models like GLM-5.2 and DeepSeek are showing that powerful AI may not always have to come from the biggest, most expensive closed systems. With Microsoft reportedly exploring lower-cost models that companies can run more directly themselves, open-weight AI is no longer a side conversation for hobbyists; it is becoming a real enterprise priority.

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These episodes also show how AI is spilling far beyond chatbots, from creative tools and workplace assistants to coding support, healthcare, compliance, and national strategy.

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Looked at together, the takeaway is clear: the AI race is not slowing down; it is splintering into a dozen simultaneous races over models, agents, costs, governance, workflows, and trust.

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Whether you are an AI expert, a curious beginner, or still trying to understand why everyone keeps talking about “model madness,” these are must-listens because they make one thing excitingly obvious: understanding AI is quickly becoming part of understanding how the modern world works.

Listen to the latest episodes from Everyday AI here. 

The AI Footprint

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AI Companies Should Release Environmental Impact, Commit to Clean Energy, Says UN Chief (Washington Post)
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday called on artificial intelligence companies to release information about the carbon pollution they create, along with the water and land used to power their operations.

While urging action in an address at London Climate Action Week, Guterres proposed the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative, arguing AI companies should measure and disclose the impact of their increasingly in-demand technology — an impact which has been cited by opponents as a reason to curb the rapid growth of data centers.

These companies have faced mounting pressure, both from governments and locally in areas with data centers that support AI, for increased transparency and more standardized reporting across the industry.
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Guterres said AI companies should also commit to powering their facilities with electricity produced with renewable technologies, such as wind and solar, by 2030.

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“No more hidden costs,” Guterres said at Europe’s largest independent climate conference. “No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean.”

Many major tech companies have vowed to power their operations using cleaner sources, some by the end of the decade. Some plan to do so especially using solar and nuclear, including tech giants Amazon and Google.

As AI booms, many, including Guterres, have touted its ability to accelerate climate solutions. It could improve energy efficiency, and reduce pollution and emissions.

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What I'm Reading

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Voter Bulletin: Progressive Challengers Score Key Wins in New York Primary Runs (Bloomberg)

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Three candidates endorsed by Zohran Mamdani swept to victory in Democratic congressional primaries on Tuesday, showing that the coalition that powered the New York City mayor to a surprising victory last year is gaining strength.

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Some of the city’s most established political figures were toppled in races that highlighted divisions within the party over ideology, Israel and immigration.

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Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander defeated two-term Representative Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional district, while New York state lawmaker Claire Valdez won in the 7th district in Queens and Brooklyn. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a community organizer and graduate student, defeated incumbent Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary in the 13th Congressional District.

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Micah Lasher, a state lawmaker and former aide to many of New York’s top officials, including Mike Bloomberg, won a Democratic primary for a coveted open House seat in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

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Lasher, 44, gambled by running a staid, old-fashioned campaign based on his résumé and government expertise at a moment when Democrats across the country are furious at the party establishment and hungry for pugnacious new stars, the New York Times writes. 

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But Tuesday’s results suggested that voters in one of the oldest, best-educated and wealthiest districts in the United States may still be an exception, continuing a long tradition of looking past flash and fame to elect liberal policy heavyweights.

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Workplace Upgrade: Anthropic Wants Claude to Be Your New Slack Coworker (Bloomberg)
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Anthropic wants Claude to enter the Slack chat in a bigger way.

The artificial intelligence startup on Tuesday unveiled Claude Tag, a new feature that lets users have the chatbot interact with everyone in a Slack channel on their behalf.

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The tool can be used to monitor activity in the work messaging app and, with some preset guidance, send alerts about posts that may impact the user’s day or drop a comment in a conversation. It can also be ordered to fix issues with code.

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Scorcher Alert: Europe Swelters Under an Early Heat Wave as France Records Its Hottest Day Ever (Associated Press)
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France recorded its hottest day ever on Tuesday amid an exceptional early heat wave across Europe, the national weather agency said.

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It said France’s national thermal indicator — an average of temperatures measured at 30 weather stations— hit a new record of 29.8°C (85.6°F). The previous record of 29.4°C (84.9°F) dated back to the heat waves of August 2003 and July 2019.

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Daytime highs above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) were also recorded at many individual weather stations, Météo-France said.

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The heat wave is also hitting other parts of Europe, exposing tens of millions of people to extreme temperatures. And it’s far from over. Italy, Spain, and Britain have also been hit.

Market Forecast: A Stock Trader’s Guide to Navigating a Rare ‘Super El Niño’ (Bloomberg)

As concerns over the Iran war recede, stock investors are confronting another threat: climate risk, which is prompting a reassessment of bets across sectors from agriculture to insurance.

A high probability of a “Super El Niño” heading into 2027 may drive up temperatures in some parts of the world, sending power demand surging, hurting crop yields and reigniting inflationary pressures. That could complicate the outlook for central banks, posing a risk to global equities trading near record highs.

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AI Giant Leap: Nobel Winner John Jumper to Leave Google DeepMind for Anthropic (Bloomberg)

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New in Smart Specs: Meta Debuts Glasses Under Its Own Brand at Lower $299 Price (Bloomberg)
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Meta, which helped popularize smart glasses through partnerships with Ray-Ban and Oakley, is going down-market by launching lower-priced models under its own brand for the first time.

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The social networking giant on Tuesday unveiled what it calls the Meta Adventurer and Fury glasses, each priced at $299. That’s $80 less than the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer model announced last year.

Meta is also introducing a $399 Starfire model in collaboration with Kylie Jenner, aiming to appeal to a younger, more fashion-focused demographic:

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Meta’s new in-house smart glasses in collaboration with Kylie Jenner. Photographer: Mark Gurman/Bloomberg

Step Inside the Machine: Visit Dataland, an Intense New AI Art Museum (The Economist)

Visitors to Dataland, a new museum for the arts in Los Angeles, step onto an escalator and descend into a tempest. Rain blows sideways across mirrored walls. Next psychedelic pink amoebas and green squiggly lines gyrate across the walls and floor. It is hard to walk straight. Is this what it is like to be trapped inside a lava lamp?

“It’s a living sculpture,” says Refik Anadol, a digital artist and the museum’s co-creator. He points to lines emanating from people’s feet. “That’s your data.”

Dataland is the creation of Anadol and his wife, Efsun Erkilic, two Turkish artists. Anadol is probably the most prominent and polarizing artist working today—regarded by some as avant-garde and by others as spectacle-heavy and too commercial. (His works have appeared in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Sphere, a concert venue in Las Vegas.)

Some pics from inside the exhibit:
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Dataland’s more radical premise is the idea that its creations might help visitors get in touch with their humanity. This is done, in large part, by assaulting the senses.

When guests arrive, they are given medical-grade devices—a watch and a heavy collar—that record heart rate, body temperature and emotional responses. As visitors move around, their measurements and location are fed into a system that changes the art to react to each person, The Economist writes. 

Anadol’s ambition is for the new museum to convince visitors that there is more to AI art than hype. He starts with the premise that there is ethical and unethical data. The former is about “asking permission” and “getting licenses” for artworks’ data inputs, not training models on data irrespective of consent. “If a human and a machine collaborate, it’s a new form of art,” says Anadol.

Learn more about Dataland here, and purchase tickets here. 

Best of Late Night

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On President Trump telling reporters that the algae bloom in the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is not his fault, while hiring a business to install the pool’s new water-treatment system, Greenwater Services:

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“Did they replace the water with Mountain Dew?” 
-- Jon Stewart

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“Some people like to spend the summer hanging at the pool; some prefer relaxing in the lush green countryside — while President Trump was like, ‘Why not both?’” 
-- Jimmy Fallon

“I kid, of course, it’s not about the name. I’m sure Greenwater Services is a very reputable company that fairly won the Reflecting Pool contract because of their expertise and track record.” 
-- Jon Stewart

And from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Jimmy addresses the latest news, like Trump hiring the company Green Water Solutions to paint the Reflecting Pool blue, Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz and Trump feuding with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over a G7 Summit photo. Click the photo below to watch.
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