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Welcome to this week’s 🌮 Product Tapas. 🎄

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What’s cooking this week? 🥘

ChatGPT becomes a platform with 800M users (hello 2007), and Disney drops $1B on Sora with 200 characters licensed. Meta trains on China's Qwen 18 months after Chinese firms borrowed Llama (uno reverse), space data centres apparently now make sense, and FLUX.2 nails character consistency while McDonald's AI ad gets pulled for being terrifying.

Clearly we're not slowing down for Christmas any time soon.

On that note, will I do another one of these next week? 🎄 Not sure just yet… let's see how many mince pies and “festive cheer” I get through. Not missed a newsletter in over two years though, so perhaps I'll just do the news :)

Let's go 🚀🎅

OpenAI and Google dropped major updates same day. GPT-5.2 arrives in three tiers with August 2025 knowledge cutoff. The "danger label" on GPT-5 isn't symbolic - its CTF cybersecurity performance nearly tripled in one month (27%→76%). Either the model got dramatically better at hacking, or someone figured out how to measure it properly.

Also? So. Many. Model. Releases.

ChatGPT became a platform with 800M weekly active users - developers submit apps, monetisation coming later; hello early 2000s. Is THIS the App Store moment for AI? Disney isn't just experimenting; they invested $1B and licensed 200+ characters to Sora (though notably, no talent likenesses). If your APIs don't work with ChatGPT, you're getting disintermediated.

Slack's CEO became OpenAI's first-ever Chief Revenue Officer - expect more profitability and value themes moving forward. Meanwhile, Meta's training on China's Qwen model marks a power reversal: just 18 months ago, Chinese firms were borrowing Meta's Llama. Geopolitical AI collaboration is happening quietly while everyone argues about regulation. The narrative shifted faster than the policy.

Data centres hit a wall: $64B in US projects blocked or delayed by cities. Google's Project Suncatcher achieves 8x solar efficiency in orbit. Blue Origin and Starcloud are racing to build the infrastructure. Nvidia's chip smuggling prevention tech arrived quietly - protecting supply chains matters when ground-based expansion is stalling. The bottleneck isn't models anymore, it's real estate and power grids. This all just sounds mad.

McDonald's and Coke's AI ads got roasted while FLUX.2 solved character consistency through “disentangled unconditional guidance” (keeping the same person across multiple images). Codex Mortis launched - first 100% AI game (code, art, sound, music) - mixed reviews. ChatGPT Image is 4x faster. The most important part? AI model naming remains utterly out of control. Can marketing please step up?

The trust infrastructure is breaking: badges don't mean safe, models are learning to hack, regulation is fragmenting. Product teams shipping AI without consent frameworks and failure modes are about to discover what "liability" means.

Platform Expansion:

AI Features:

Strategy Divergence:

Platform Consolidation:

YouTube securing Oscars exclusivity, Instagram pushing Reels to TVs, DoorDash spinning out discovery apps. The platform playbook is evolving: go where users are (big screens), lower AI friction (selfie try-ons, natural language), and test aggressive monetisation ($20/month browsers). Meanwhile, consolidation continues - Meta killing desktop Messenger, Google sunsetting dark web reports. Strategy divergence: Apple embracing Google Cast while Netflix restricts it. The "build vs buy vs bundle" decisions are getting weirder.

Business:

Robots:

Hardware:

Research:

This week wasn't just busy - it was, well, really busy. Sorry I've run out of superlatives and ways to describe it. Every week is insanely busy it seems. The AI race seems to be moving to ecosystems, infrastructure, and platform strategies. ChatGPT became a platform (again). Google continued to put Gemini everywhere. OpenAI got safety labels.

The platforms are maturing. The tools are getting better and better and it the provider's narrative is slowly shifting towards value creation. Your competitors are already shipping.

Check the link here to access.

Tom explores Airbnb's groundbreaking photography strategy that doubled its revenue in just one week. By identifying poor visuals as a major barrier to bookings, co-founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia took the initiative to enhance the quality of property images, leading to significant revenue growth. Read the full article here.

💡 "A picture tells 1,000 words." This quote reinforces the importance of visual storytelling in building trust and driving action in a marketplace environment.

Tim Herbig discusses the pitfalls of a poorly defined product strategy, illustrating how it can lead to decision paralysis when actionable opportunities arise. He emphasises that a successful strategy should provide clear guidance on when to accept or reject new initiatives. Read the full article here.

💡 "Strategy has one job: helping you confidently say yes or no to opportunities."

Once again, Built for Mars is back this time sharing innovative user experience strategies from platforms like Strava, Spotify, and Duolingo. The newsletter highlights how these services create meaningful connections through contextual insights and engaging features. Read the full article here.

💡 "Spotify will tell you a specific global rank to contextualise just how much you listen to a particular artist." This ranking not only makes the data digestible but also enhances shareability among users.

Remember, we've built an ever-growing library of our top podcast summaries. Whether you need a quick refresher, want to preview an episode, or need to get up to speed fast - we've got you covered.

Check it out here

One founder. Eight months. $80M exit. Maor Shlomo built Base44 solo, sold to Wix, and believes custom AI-built software will kill most SaaS companies.

In 8 months, one founder went from bootstrapped idea to an $80 million acquisition by Wix - without a team, without funding, just AI and conviction. Maor Shlomo, founder of Base44, explains why he believes most SaaS companies will be eliminated, why margins don't matter in the AI era, and where smart money should go today.

20VC with Harry Stebbings

💡 Top tip - This is a dense conversation covering market dynamics, competitive strategy, and investment thesis. Read the executive summary below, then jump into the full article sections most relevant to your role (defensibility for product leaders, investment criteria for VCs, or market dynamics for founders).

Key insights from the full article:

That’s a wrap.

As always, the journey doesn't end here!

Please share and let us know what you would like to see more or less of so we can continue to improve your Product Tapas. 🚀👋

Alastair 🍽️.