Good morning. Some of you left spicy letters in my inbox after yesterday’s note about the tech-induced, election-tinged kerfuffle playing out at the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. (That wasn’t you, Vinod, was it?)
So it’s a fine time, then, to highlight the results of a recent EY survey of senior tech types about the U.S. election. Three in four leaders believe the result will have a major impact on the tech industry’s ability “to stay ahead of global competition in the next two to four years,” particularly with regard to regulation of AI, data, and privacy.
One thing that won’t change? The leaders’ commitment to AI. Four in five say their company plans to increase such investments by 50% or more in the next year. Administrations may come and go, but AI is forever. For now, anyway. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. My editor wants you to know that the decorated pro football player Tom Brady will be speaking at Fortune Global Forum in NYC next month. (My family insists I follow that with: Go Birds.) Interested? Request an invitation here.
Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Data Sheet? Drop a line here.
Apple Intelligence rollout has customers complaining
Courtesy of Apple
Many Apple customers who upgraded their iPhones and updated their software in advance of Monday’s rollout of so-called Apple Intelligence were annoyed that they then had to join a waitlist before receiving the promised AI-powered features.
“Promising Apple Intelligence with iPhone 16 and then releasing it a month later is bad enough. Now people have to be on a waitlist to have promised features? Such a strange rollout this year,” wrote one user on X. Another added: “What the heck, Apple?”
Apple, for its part, made the existence of a waitlist clear in a support blog post upon the release, saying that after updating the device, users have to click Apple Intelligence and join the waitlist.
“Apple Intelligence is usually available for activation within a few hours of joining the waitlist, though wait times can vary,” it reads. “You will receive a notification when you can activate it on your device.” —Sharon Goldman
Amazon’s top grocery exec departs for Wonder
Tony Hoggett, who was brought in three years ago to run the e-commerce giant’s brick-and-mortar division, including its grocery stores, has agreed to join Wonder as its chief operating officer.
At Amazon, Hoggett—a Tesco veteran—worked to reboot its Amazon Fresh grocery stores in part by eliminating a high-tech system called Just Walk Out that allowed customers to shop and leave without stopping first at a checkout counter.
Wonder is a delivery-focused restaurant chain based in New York City and run by serial entrepreneur Marc Lore. It operates 27 fast-casual restaurants in the northeast that offer around two dozen different cuisines or menus to diners out of a single location.
Wonder has raised $1.5 billion since its founding, and aims to open a total of 100 locations by January 2026. The company is also testing versions of its restaurants inside four Walmart supercenter stores. (Lore sold his Jet.com to Walmart in 2016.)
Does Hoggett’s hire signal a desire for Wonder to further expand into grocery? Lore tells Fortune no. Wonder’s leaders “fell in love with Tony” because of his experience in running tech-enabled storefronts and his expertise in fresh-food supply chains. —Jason Del Rey
Track your favorite head of state, thanks to Strava
Nearly seven years ago, it emerged that exercise-tracking app Strava was exposing the movement of U.S. soldiers around military bases worldwide, creating a significant security risk.
Well, here we go again: Bodyguards of French President Emmanuel Macron have also been using Strava, and have been inadvertently sharing their locations, Le Monde reports.
That means they’ve made it possible to track Macron himself, to a degree.
The French newspaper says its Sunday report is the first of a series, showing how “three of the world’s most important leaders have been put in danger” due to their security guards’ use of Strava. The app provides public heat maps of users activity, for those who fail to keep their locations private.
In this case, the information was used to identify the names and home addresses of Macron’s security, equivalent to members of the U.S. Secret Service. The maps also revealed the jogging routes of those bodyguards while they scouted hotels where Macron would stay during future trips.
Keeping fit is pretty essential if you’re secret service. Broadcasting details of your fitness regime? Not so much. —David Meyer
Russia acquired U.S. AI technology through India
An Indian pharmaceutical company called Shreya Life Sciences has been accused of selling high-end Dell servers optimized for artificial intelligence to Russia.
That’s a problem, of course, because there are U.S. and E.U. trade restrictions in place to block such behavior—specifically with regard to AI computing infrastructure and specifically for Russia.
A Bloomberg report says the Mumbai company moved more than a thousand PowerEdge XE9680 servers—which contain Nvidia’s coveted H100 AI chips—over five months this year to Russian trading firms.
Though India and Russia have a very active trading relationship, Shreya had not reportedly been placed on any lists of concern. India is the largest recipient of Russian arms exports and the second-largest supplier of “restricted critical technologies,” including microchips, to Russia. —AN
Hong Kong outlines ‘responsible’ AI policy
Hong Kong regulators have laid out a plan for deploying artificial intelligence in the financial services industry. Like lots of government guidance on emerging technology, it stresses responsible use and insists automation shouldn’t replace human judgment.
A policy statement from the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau proposes a “dual-track approach” that promotes development while balancing cybersecurity, data privacy, and intellectual property concerns. It notes the pros and cons of an emerging technology and nods to some use cases in the sector, from investment decision-making to fraud detection to customer service.
“The proof of the pudding is in the tasting,” the memo states. Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission is also planning to issue AI guidance in the next month. —Jenn Brice
More data
—Indonesia bans iPhone 16 sales. The world’s fourth most populous nation says Apple didn’t keep its investment promises.
—Meta is working on a conversational search engine to replace Google and Microsoft.
—Delta sued CrowdStrike over its “catastrophic” global outage in July.
—X won’t get anywhere close to its political ad goal of $100 million.
—Meg Whitman has been working to counterbalance Chinese influence in Kenya.
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