£31B AI investment spree, agents doing our shopping, Meta torrenting porn for AI training, and design wins that actually moved metrics. Here's everything that matters.
This digest is about to hit harder than your favorite TikTok sound going viral. Let’s dive in.
Industry moves
The £31 billion AI gold rush
Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, and OpenAI just committed £31 billion to UK AI development. Trump's state visit became a tech investment showcase:
- Microsoft: $30B through 2028 ($15.5B in additional capital).
- Nvidia: £2B specifically for UK AI startups + $5B stake in Intel.
- Expected AI/quantum/nuclear tech collaboration deal between US and UK.
Meanwhile, crypto got zero attention. The UK is laser-focused on AI while keeping crypto "at arm's length."
"When tech giants make £31B bets, they need products that work. Every funded AI startup will need interfaces that don't make users want to throw away their laptops."
{{Kyrylo Lazariev}}
Your AI agent just bought you a camera
Agentic commerce is live. Amazon's "Buy for Me" and PayPal's Agent Toolkit are testing scenarios where you say "find me the best mirrorless camera under $2,000" and get a receipt without touching a single product page. The players building this:
- Amazon: Buy for Me (already testing)
- PayPal: Agent Toolkit for autonomous transactions
- Visa/Mastercard: Agent-specific payment rails
The UX death spiral: Browse → Compare → Cart → Checkout is becoming obsolete. The interface is now a conversation.
"We're not optimizing conversion funnels anymore. We're designing trust into AI decision-making. How do users know their agent picked the right camera? That's the new checkout experience."
{{Ostap Oshurko}}
Product reality check
Notion's first AI agent
What it does: Automatically generates meeting notes, competitor reports, feedback pages by pulling from your entire workspace. Creates and updates databases without human input.
Why it matters: This is human-agent collaboration done right. Users can see what's happening, interrupt the process, and understand the reasoning.
Meta's porn problem
Strike 3 Holdings is suing Meta for allegedly torrenting copyrighted adult videos to train AI models. The lawsuit claims Meta pirated content to advance "AI superintelligence" goals.
Reality check: This is the copyright fight that was always coming. Every AI company scraped questionable content. Meta just got caught first.
OpenAI's teen safety theater
Sam Altman announced age-prediction systems and parental controls. The liability questions around AI and minors are getting serious regulatory attention.
The problem: Age prediction tech is notoriously unreliable. This feels like a compliance theater before real regulations hit.
Huawei vs Nvidia's China lockout
Huawei unveiled SuperPoD Interconnect technology linking up to 15,000 graphics cards, including their Ascend AI chips. Direct response to Nvidia's China restrictions. Nvidia's lockout created space for local competition. Huawei is filling it fast.
Design wins
Flying Penguins platform: corporate learning redesign
Client problem: DISC-based facilitation platform serving facilitators and participants with completely different needs. The original product couldn't balance complexity with usability.
Lazarev.agency solution: Restructured the experience into separate journeys, robust tools for facilitators, intuitive flow for participants. Streamlined preparation, enhanced delivery, supported long-term development.
"B2B platforms fail when they try to serve everyone with one interface. We separated user journeys while maintaining system coherence. Facilitators get power tools, participants get clarity."
{{Oleksandr Koshytskyi}}
World illustration awards 2025
4,700+ entries from 85 countries. Professional overall winner: Chu-Chieh Lee's "Minus Plus Multiply" – a short film exploring human experience through 2D animation, stop-motion, 3D printing, pottery, and ceramics.
Ragged edge: empower → Tilt rebrand
London studio rebranded US fintech Empower as Tilt. Financial technology company "reshaping access to credit for millions of working Americans."
Why this matters: Fintech rebrands during regulatory uncertainty show confidence. Clean execution with strategic timing.
ITV's brand evolution with Studio Kiln
Two years after ITVX launch, ITV introduced a refreshed identity simplifying design system, elevating "Spark Yellow," and introducing "the apex" motif.
Insight: Streaming platforms are still figuring out visual identity. ITV's evolution shows iteration beats revolution.
Lazarev.agency client success updates
- Grand Founders raised $120,000 for humanitarian support improving 30,000+ lives globally.
- WellSet joined the 1501 Health investment vehicle program for holistic and mental healthcare companies.
This week's reality check
What luxury brands can learn from our ecommerce website redesign case
Luxury e-commerce lives or dies on impressions. First impressions, to be precise. Modern shoppers decide whether a site is worth their time in 50 milliseconds, barely the blink of an eye.
So, apart from polishing the visuals, an ecommerce website redesign should aim to remove every ounce of friction between curiosity and checkout for your online store to thrive.
When a fine wine, whisky and spirits boutique from London asked Lazarev.agency to rethink its online shop, only 10% of revenue came from digital orders, and cart abandonments hit triple digits on weekends. The brief was straight: "Turn the site into our best-performing boutique."
"Luxury brands think beautiful imagery sells products. Wrong. Beautiful imagery gets attention. Frictionless UX sells products. We redesigned their entire checkout flow, not just the hero section."
{{Kyrylo Lazariev}}
What's coming next week
Bigger agentic AI bets are incoming. Every major platform is building agents. The companies that figure out human-agent collaboration interfaces first will own their categories.
Our prediction: The next unicorn won't be an AI model company. It'll be whoever designs the best interfaces for humans working with AI agents.
