On Amazon, the world’s largest online store, you’re encouraged to shop until you drop. Unless the platform drops the hammer on you and your AI bot for allegedly violating its terms and conditions. The ecommerce giant abruptly blocked Meta’s new personal artificial intelligence agent from shopping on its marketplace on Sunday, and claimed Monday that Muse AI was collecting customer credentials and failing to identify itself (which Meta denies).

It’s probably just a temporary setback for Muse, which investors believe heralds a boom in the AI supply chain. Since its launch on September 8, the free personal agent has won both plaudits and downloads, offering some vindication for Meta, a hyperscaler that seemed all but irrelevant in the frontier model race.

Nothing Compares 2 CPU

Chatbots are built on large language models that let people query them for text-based responses, which range from bang-on to Woodstock-level hallucination. As a personal AI agent, Meta’s Muse fills a different niche.

AI agents perform continuous activities, often in the background, on behalf of a user: filling out forms, researching travel or shopping. The appeal is straightforward. Who doesn’t like having things done for them? The caveat is you’re handing access to your email, bank accounts, credit card and personal passwords to the newfangled technology.

Regardless, expectations are mountain-sized. During last year’s holiday shopping season alone, traffic from AI sources to retail sites rose nearly 700% year over year, according to Adobe. Precedence Research estimates the global AI agent market could grow from $8 billion last year to $236 billion by 2034. Meta’s betting big on this, having launched a nationwide TV spot for Muse over the weekend.

AI agents could also light a fire under a handful of AI infrastructure providers. LLMs require Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for heavy training. That’s why $5.4 trillion Nvidia, the king of the GPU, has become the world’s most valuable company. But personal agents, because they perform continuous actions, are often better suited to Central Processing Units (CPUs) that can handle repetitive, sequential logic. Investors made clear they expect a CPU rally:

• Shares in UK semiconductor Arm Holdings, which struck a partnership with Meta earlier this year to codevelop CPUs for the social media giant’s data centers, rose 17% on Monday. Intel, whose CEO said last week that demand for CPUs is so strong it can only supply half of what customers want, jumped 12%.
• Advanced Micro Devices, another major CPU designer, surged 10%. Meta shares, it should be said, climbed 11%, and Muse was the top downloaded mobile app in the US.

Law & Order History: Amazon is serious about preventing shopping on its marketplace by automated tools from other companies, though the results of its efforts have been mixed. In August, a US appeals court overturned a temporary ruling that blocked AI firm Perplexity’s shopping agents; Amazon filed an amended complaint on Monday.

David Ellison has reeled in his prize catch, which he hopes doesn’t end up being the commercial white whale it was for both Discovery and AT&T.

After reaching a settlement Monday with the 12 state attorneys general seeking to block the acquisition, Ellison’s Paramount hopes to seal the deal to take over the storied Hollywood studio in about two weeks. That means ownership of valuable intellectual property such as Batman and Game of Thrones. As well as a massive, roughly $80 billion debt load just as the cost of borrowing is once again on the rise.

Felix Felicis?

According to unwritten Hollywood rules, the third chapter in any trilogy must be the biggest and most bombastic. The recent run of WB acquisitions seems no different. AT&T acquired the studio back in 2018, and balked after less than four years of servicing an initial $180 billion debt load that came in at about 2.9 times EBITDA. Discovery moved on a similar timeline, shopping itself around town after roughly four years of servicing an initial debt load of about $55 billion, or about 4.3 times EBITDA.

When all is said and done, the resultant Paramount-WBD conglomerate’s $80 billion debt load will be equal to roughly 6.5 times EBITDA, according to most estimates. Ellison says he has a plan to define the media giant beyond its credit card bill, though ratings agencies are somewhat skeptical:

• Back in March, after Paramount won the WBD bidding war, Fitch downgraded the company’s debt from BBB- to BB+, a “junk” rating. S&P lowered the company’s debt rating before the deal, while Moody’s has it on review for a downgrade to junk status.
• Ellison and his executives, meanwhile, have told investors that they can reduce the debt load to just three times its annual EBITDA within three years, banking on some $6 billion in post-merger synergies.

30 for 30: Still, a successful turnaround will require some content home runs. And thanks to the settlement terms, Paramount will be required to take a lot of swings at the plate. Under the deal, Paramount-WBD must release 30 films theatrically in each of its first two years, and 32 films in each of its next three years. At least 20% of those films must be potential blockbusters or “tentpole” releases, though that’s something that may be as much of a wish as a pledge for Paramount, which hasn’t had a $1 billion-grossing film since 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.

Nissan’s going rogue with a new kind of hybrid engine. The Rogue Hybrid, unveiled yesterday, brings new technology to the US at a time when road-trippers are hesitant to buy plug-in vehicles that might run out of charge on Zzyzx Road.

Traditional hybrid engines route electricity both directly to the car’s wheels and to a battery operating in parallel, switching between the two power sources. Nissan’s “e-Power” hybrid system doesn’t send any gas power to the wheels; instead, it uses gas to power a generator that charges a battery.

The car’s tailor-made for the US market, where Nissan has been ramping up.

Nissan’s US Tune-Up

E-Power is new tech for the US, but not around the world; Nissan has sold more than 1.6 million e-Power-equipped vehicles globally since debuting them a decade ago in Japan. It took three generations of the Rogue before Nissan felt the cars could efficiently handle high-speed freeway commutes. The Rogue’s new engine has a power boost that’s made with speeding and swerving Americans in mind.

It’s part of Nissan’s strategy to double down on the North American market, which has become a bright spot for the Japanese automaker:

• Nissan’s global sales dropped nearly 7% in the first half of the year, while US sales held steady (up 0.3%). Nissan is now maxing out its production at US factories as it tries to limit its exposure to tariffs.
• The Japanese automaker seems confident its new Rogue model can outmaneuver Toyota’s popular RAV4 Hybrid; Nissan dealerships even plan to stock some RAV4s just so shoppers can test drive and compare both models. The Rogue could also compete with extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs) that can be plugged in for a charge and fueled up with gas.

Middle Lane: Hybrids made up 19% of US auto sales last month, JD Power found, selling twice as fast as gas-powered cars in the second quarter. Hybrids promise more miles per gallon than gas-only cars as pain at the pump related to the Iran War persists.