Snap spins off AI video team into new company, Dotmo, due to costs

techcrunch.com Jun 19, 2026

Snap spins off AI video team into new company, Dotmo, due to costs

Curated by Shubham · TechCapsules · Jun 19, 2026

AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication

Snap is spinning off its internal generative AI video team into a new company called Dotmo, citing high costs of conducting such work internally. Dotmo will focus on developing AI models for interactive gaming experiences and will retain close ties to Snapchat. The initial team will consist of current Snap staff, and while Dotmo won't be directly funded by Snap, the company will receive a large equity stake in exchange for a technology license and talent. This move marks Snap's second major spinoff effort this year, following the spinoff of Specs, a smart glasses line.

💡 Why It Matters

· Snap's decision to spin off its AI team may signal a shift in the company's priorities, allowing it to reduce costs while still maintaining exposure to potential upside through its equity stake.
· By creating a separate entity, Snap can focus on its core business while allowing Dotmo to pursue more experimental and potentially lucrative opportunities in the gaming and interactive entertainment space.

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Microsoft sells OpenAI models in China. OpenAI and Anthropic won’t.

Microsoft has become the primary supplier of OpenAI models in China, selling the technology to the country's largest internet companies, including ByteDance, Ant Group, Meituan, and Tencent. The arrangement hands Microsoft a unique position, as it sells OpenAI models to Chinese firms that the model's creator, OpenAI, will not deal with directly. Microsoft's Azure AI revenue in China has expanded significantly, tripling in the financial year to June 2025. The company's contract with OpenAI allows it to set its own terms for selling GPT models abroad.

💡 Microsoft's dominance in the Chinese market for OpenAI models raises concerns about the potential misuse of the technology and the company's ability to police its use. The arrangement also highlights the tension between Microsoft's business interests and OpenAI's concerns about intellectual property and risk in the Chinese market.

sifted.eu · Jun 18

‘This will unveil the ground truth’: Why the Anthropic ban could benefit…

The US government's order to suspend access to Anthropic's best-performing AI models for non-US nationals has sparked concern in Europe, but some see it as an opportunity for the region. Uljan Sharka, founder and CEO of Italian AI model maker Domyn, views the move as a "huge opportunity" for Europe. The ban may unveil the ground truth and prompt European companies to develop their own AI models. This could lead to increased innovation and investment in the European AI sector, potentially benefiting companies like Domyn. The move has significant implications for the future of AI development in Europe, with some experts predicting a surge in domestic AI innovation.

💡 European companies may now focus on developing their own AI models, driving innovation and investment in the sector. This could lead to the creation of more tailored and region-specific AI solutions.

cnbctv18.com · Jun 18

AI Watch: Why India is caught in the middle of the US-China…

A US-led coalition pushed for AI rules at a G7 lunch, aiming to cut China out of chip and model access. Macron and Modi warned of dependence risks, with India being hit hardest due to its lack of frontier chips and models. India leads the world in daily AI use, but funds are flowing into data centers from companies like CPP, AirTrunk, and Meta-Reliance. The country's limited access to chips and models is fueling calls for state investment. India's position in the US-China battle for chips and models is precarious, with significant implications for its AI development.

💡 India's limited access to frontier chips and models hinders its ability to develop AI capabilities. State investment is crucial to mitigate dependence risks and support India's AI growth.

teslarati.com · Jun 18

Elon Musk predicts Grok will start to challenge Hollywood by the end…

Elon Musk has announced that xAI's model, Grok, will be capable of creating full movies by the end of 2026. A trailer for Homer's The Odyssey, created using Grok Imagine Video 1.5, showcases the AI's rapid strides in video generation. The 2-minute-plus trailer features 36 consistent shots, realistic special effects, and emotional depth, demonstrating Grok's capabilities in scale, physics, and cinematic workflow. Musk believes Grok will be "watchable" by the end of 2026 and "really good" by 2027.

💡 Hollywood's dominance may be challenged by AI-generated content, as Grok's capabilities raise questions about the future of cinematic authorship.

techtimes.com · Jun 18

Satellite AI Inference Clears Orbit: Gemma 3 Ran Aboard YAM-9 in April

Loft Orbital's YAM-9 spacecraft successfully demonstrated the first publicly disclosed execution of a vision-language model in orbit. Aboard the spacecraft, Google DeepMind's Gemma 3 performed natural language queries, classified Earth imagery, and produced plain-English summaries without transmitting raw pixels to the ground. This achievement marks a significant shift in the value layer of Earth observation, moving from ground-based processing to onboard inference capabilities. The model, running on an Nvidia Jetson Orin AGX graphics processing unit, utilized a software harness developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to fit within the spacecraft's memory budget and processing constraints.

💡 This breakthrough enables Earth observation satellites to operate more autonomously, reducing reliance on ground-based processing and potentially leading to faster and more efficient analysis of satellite imagery.

interestingengineering.com · Jun 18

China’s Alibaba unveils AI brains designed to power the next generation of…

Chinese firm Alibaba has unveiled its first embodied AI model family, the Qwen-Robot suite, which links large language models with real-world robotic actions. The suite comprises three models focused on navigation, manipulation, and world modeling for robots operating in physical environments. Developed by Alibaba's Tongyi Lab, the Qwen-Robot suite enables machines to perceive, reason, and interact with the real world, joining a growing global push to advance embodied AI beyond traditional chatbot applications. The models are currently undergoing pilot testing with selected Alibaba Cloud enterprise clients.

💡 The Qwen-Robot suite's success could accelerate the development of robots capable of performing complex tasks in real-world environments, potentially transforming industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare.