🚀 Google's killing its dark web report, Disney's giving OpenAI just one year of exclusivity, and Nvidia's doubling down on open source with an acquisition. Meanwhile, Adobe and Amazon are forging deeper AI ties.
Industry moves
Google's 'dark web report' feature will no longer be available starting in February
Google revealed that its "dark web report" feature will be discontinued starting February 16, 2026. Launched about a year and a half ago, this tool helped users monitor their personal information on the dark web, scanning data breach dumps and alerting them if their email addresses, names, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers appeared in compromised databases.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Google shutting down dark web monitoring signals they couldn't monetize it or it became too expensive to maintain. But users who relied on it for security alerts now have a gap. When platforms discontinue security features, they need to offer migration paths to alternatives. Silence creates vulnerability."
Nvidia bulks up open source offerings with an acquisition and new open AI models
Nvidia continues expanding its footprint in open source AI on two fronts: an acquisition and a new model release. The semiconductor giant announced Monday it acquired SchedMD, the leading developer of popular open source workload management system Slurm. Nvidia said the company will continue to operate the program as open source, vendor-neutral software.
What Slurm does: Originally launched in 2002, Slurm is designed for high-performance computing and AI workload management. SchedMD was founded in 2010 by lead Slurm developers Morris Jette and Danny Auble. Auble is the current CEO.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Nvidia's acquisition of SchedMD is about controlling the software layer that manages GPU workloads. When you own the workload manager, you influence how AI infrastructure is deployed.”
Disney's OpenAI deal is exclusive for just one year — then it's open season
Disney's three-year licensing partnership with OpenAI includes just one year of exclusivity, Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC. The company signed the partnership last week to bring its iconic characters to OpenAI's Sora video generator. Once that exclusive year is up, Disney is free to sign similar deals with other AI companies.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Disney's one-year exclusivity is a bet with an exit strategy. They're not committing long-term to OpenAI because they don't know if Sora will succeed or if better alternatives will emerge. For product teams, this shows how to test risky partnerships, commit enough to learn, but keep options open. That's strategic flexibility."
Product reality check
Adobe Firefly now supports prompt-based video editing, adds more third-party models
Adobe is updating its AI video-generation app, Firefly, with a new video editor that supports precise prompt-based edits. It's also adding new third-party models for image and video generation, including Black Forest Labs' FLUX.2 and Topaz Astra.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Prompt-based video editing is only useful if prompts map to exact edits. Adobe's challenge is building a system where 'make this scene brighter' means exactly what users intend. The gap between prompt and execution is where AI video tools fail. Close that gap, and you change video editing forever."
Creative Commons announces tentative support for AI 'pay-to-crawl' systems
After announcing earlier this year a framework for an open AI ecosystem, the nonprofit Creative Commons has come out in favor of "pay-to-crawl" technology, a system to automate compensation of website content when accessed by machines, like AI web crawlers.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Pay-to-crawl is elegant in theory but messy in practice. How do you price content? How do you prevent AI companies from just scraping without paying? Creative Commons is trying to build infrastructure for fair compensation, but enforcement is the hard part. Until there's a technical standard that AI companies actually adopt, this is aspirational."
Threads adds new communities, tests badges for highly engaged members
Meta's social network Threads is expanding the number of topics available through its communities feature. The platform initially launched over 100 communities in October. With today's expansion, Threads now has more than 200 communities, including team-specific spaces like Lakers Threads, Knicks Threads, and Spurs Threads.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Threads' community expansion is a quantity play, but communities need quality moderation and active participation. Reddit succeeds because communities are self-governed and have distinct cultures. Threads needs to figure out if they're building algorithmically curated topic feeds or actual communities with identity. Those are different products."
Zoom brings its AI assistant to the web with access to free users
Zoom released its AI assistant to the web today as part of its AI Companion 3.0 release. The company is also allowing free users to access the assistant's features, such as summarizing meetings, listing action items, or getting insights from meetings with limits.
What free users get: Basic plan users can use the AI companion within three meetings every month, which will each include a meeting summary, in-meeting questions, and AI note-taking capabilities. Plus, they can ask 20 questions through the side panel and the new web surface. They can also purchase a $10 add-on plan for more access.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Zoom's freemium AI strategy is smart product design. Give users enough access to see value, then gate heavy usage behind paid tiers. The test is whether three meetings per month is enough to build dependency. If users hit limits and feel frustrated instead of eager to upgrade, the pricing backfires."
Adobe & Amazon forge deeper AI partnership to transform creativity
Adobe and Amazon are deepening their AI-era partnership, using Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure to power creative tools and marketing platforms. This marks a major push to bring AI-driven content creation and customer experience orchestration to the mainstream.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Adobe-Amazon partnership is infrastructure politics. By running Adobe's AI tools on AWS, Amazon gains credibility as the AI infrastructure provider. Adobe gains scalability without capital expenditure. For users, this means Adobe's AI features are limited by what AWS can support. When your creative tools depend on cloud infrastructure, performance and reliability become someone else's problem."
Design wins
Lazarev.agency transformed a digital marketing platform into a user-centric and trustworthy solution
Fractal Protocol, a growing business in the digital marketing space, faced a challenge: their platform was becoming increasingly dense and complex, making it difficult for users to navigate, trust, and fully utilize its features. Lazarev.agency was engaged to overhaul the platform's visual language and user experience, aiming to make it clearer, faster, and more approachable without sacrificing the sophistication needed for advanced marketing operations.
The goal: Create a modern, scalable design system that builds trust, enhances clarity, and supports the platform's growth.
Results:
- 165% improvement in usability
- 33% boost in user satisfaction
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Fractal Protocol's challenge was typical of fast-growing platforms — feature bloat killed usability. We reorganized features so users could find what they needed without hunting. The 165% usability improvement came from clarifying information architecture."
Morson combines 19 brands into four in "fundamental reshaping"
The recruitment and consultancy company worked with Nokamo to reorganize the business and create a new visual and verbal identity. The consolidation reduces brand confusion and operational complexity.
Why this matters: When companies grow through acquisition, they accumulate brands. Consolidating 19 brands into four simplifies operations, reduces marketing costs, and clarifies positioning. But execution is risky, legacy customers tied to old brands might resist.
Anatomy creates people-first brand for Ireland's first health gallery
At a time when misinformation is on the rise, Dublin's Humanarium wants to be an accessible source of trusted information and debate. The brand positions health education as approachable and trustworthy instead of clinical and intimidating.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Health branding that prioritizes accessibility over authority is rare. Most health institutions default to clinical aesthetics that signal expertise but create distance. Humanarium's people-first approach signals trust through approachability. That's how you build engagement in spaces where people feel intimidated."
This week's reality check
AI conversational UX agencies analyzed: what they offer and what to expect
Ever seen a product outsmart its competitors simply because it finally learned how to talk to people? When Lazarev.agency partnered with Patrick Bet-David to build VTnews.ai, the secret wasn't the AI model scanning 130k+ articles a day (impressive, yes). The true advantage was the conversational assistant that decoded political chaos and translated it into "explain-it-like-I'm-busy" insights.
That's what top AI conversational UX agencies do. They design intelligent dialogue that keeps users coming back because the product finally feels like it gets them.
Key takeaways:
- Conversational AI UX is the IQ test for your product. If your AI can't hold a coherent, context-aware conversation, users will assume the rest of your system is just as confusing.
- The best AI conversational UX agencies, like Lazarev.agency, design cognitive shortcuts. Real professionals know how to cut decision time and make complex workflows feel intuitive through strategy and advancements in AI technology.
- Your AI's success depends less on model horsepower and more on UX. A well-designed conversation can rescue even a mediocre model, whereas a poorly designed one will sabotage the smartest AI on earth.
All you need to know about generative AI UX design agencies
AI innovation agencies are the reason some giants are suddenly acting like startups again. Microsoft's Copilot is the perfect example. Once the company matched its AI firepower with designers who could translate messy model behavior into human-friendly experiences, everything clicked. Overnight, a decades-old giant suddenly started acting like it had rediscovered its startup vitality.
Key takeaways:
- Generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) is your power move. When you apply it with strategic design thinking, your product finally earns its place in users' daily routines.
- Teams that truly understand AI UX shape how a product thinks and interacts with users. Top AI design agencies like Lazarev.agency, with a proven track record of intelligence-driven projects, create systems that anticipate user needs, guide decisions, and make elaborate AI feel intuitive.
- With the right partner, bringing AI into your product feels straightforward. They introduce a practical game plan, so your big AI ideas don't spiral into a lab experiment gone wrong.
What's coming next week
More partnerships, more AI features, and probably another platform killing a useful tool without explanation. We'll separate strategic moves from reactive pivots.
🔥 Stay sharp. Stay with Lazarev.agency, your AI UX design agency.
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