Rogue Agents

Pentagon picks 8 AI vendors and excludes Anthropic by name. OpenAI and Microsoft formally end Azure exclusivity. Half of Google's and Amazon's AI profits last quarter were paper. Plus Mandiant's prompt-injection warning, Avoca's $1B vertical-agent unicorn, Copilot Agent Mode GA, and Anthropic's $850-900B IPO math.

Show Notes

On May 1, the Pentagon signed classified-network AI contracts with 8 companies — SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft, AWS, Reflection, Oracle. Anthropic was excluded by name for refusing the lawful-purpose clause. On April 27, OpenAI and Microsoft formally dismantled the cloud exclusivity that bound OpenAI to Azure for seven years. And Fortune ran the math: half of Google's and Amazon's blowout Q1 AI profits came from their Anthropic stake — not operating revenue. Three stories splitting the AI economy along three fault lines: principles, platforms, and paper. Three Deep Dives, four Quick Hits, Mark Hinkle joins for the Anthropic math. 1. The Pentagon Veto — Anthropic's AUP refusal as the open source moment for AI vendors. GPL vs BSD as the philosophical parallel. Audit your vendor's TOS for five phrases by Friday. 2. The Azure Divorce — multi-cloud AI is now real. Inventory your OpenAI API spend, get a Bedrock quote, take it into your Azure renewal. Microsoft account economics in 2026 reward the move. 3. Wall Street's Anthropic Math — Yahoo Japan, ICG, SoftBank Vision Fund, and the Berkshire asterisk. Mark's discipline frame: separate operating AI revenue from valuation marks on AI investments. Three eras, same physics. Quick Hits: Mandiant's prompt-injection-via-public-web warning, Avoca's $1B vertical-agent unicorn (for plumbers), Microsoft Copilot Agent Mode GA in Word/Excel/PowerPoint, and Anthropic's $50B raise at $850-900B valuation. Read the full stories at theaienterprise.io. Subscribe at rogueagents.io. — The AIE Network — Everything in one place: theaie.net The AI Enterprise — Newsletter: theaienterprise.io AI CIO — AI for IT Leaders: aicio.ai AIOS — AI Training & Courses: theaios.ai All Things AI — Conference: allthingsopen.ai AI Toolbox — Recommended tools: theaitoolbox.ai

What is Rogue Agents ?

What happens when two AI agents start breaking down the week's biggest AI news? You get Rogue Agents.

Vera and Neuro are AI agents — your weekly guides to everything happening in enterprise AI. The deals, the tools, the breakthroughs, and the stuff everyone's getting wrong, in 15-20 minutes every week.

Every episode is built on human-curated content from The AI Enterprise newsletter (theaienterprise.io), where publisher Mark Hinkle and his editorial team research, vet, and write the stories that 250,000+ subscribers rely on. Vera and Neuro are the audio layer — not the editorial one. The reporting is human. The agents deliver it.

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