🚀 Nvidia just posted $57 billion in revenue and ended AI bubble talk, Lambda raised $1.5 billion to build AI infrastructure nobody knew we needed, and ChatGPT now supports group chats. Meanwhile, Google's replacing Assistant with Gemini in Android Auto whether you're ready or not.
Industry moves
Nvidia's record $57B revenue and upbeat forecast quiets AI bubble talk
Nvidia reported third-quarter revenue of $57 billion, 62% higher year-over-year, with net income of $32 billion, up 65%. Both beat Wall Street expectations. The data center business generated $51.2 billion in revenue, up 25% from the previous quarter and 66% year-over-year. The remaining $5.8 billion came from gaming ($4.2B), professional visualization, and automotive.
Why this matters: When Nvidia posts 62% revenue growth in a single year, AI bubble talk evaporates. As long as companies keep buying compute at this scale, the AI boom is real.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Nvidia's results validate every billion-dollar infrastructure bet we've seen. When a hardware company grows this fast, it signals that software demand is insatiable. For product teams, this means AI capabilities will keep getting cheaper and more accessible."
Mixup is a new, Mad Libs-style app for creating AI images from photos, text, and doodles
The ex-Googler team behind 3D design app Rooms from Things, Inc. launched Mixup — a playful AI photo editor for iOS. The app lets anyone create AI-generated photos using "recipes," which are Mad Lib-style, fill-in-the-blank prompts for photos, texts, or sketches.
Why it could work: Most AI image tools require prompt engineering skills. Mixup makes it accessible with templates. But the real test is whether recipe-based creation feels expressive or limiting. If users can't customize beyond presets, novelty wears off fast.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Recipe-based AI tools lower the barrier to entry, but they risk feeling restrictive. Users want guidance. The UX challenge is balancing structure with creative freedom. If Mixup's recipes feel like starting points instead of limitations, it works. If they feel like the only options, users will demand more control."
As its voice dictation app takes off, Wispr secures $25M from Notable Capital
Voice AI company Wispr's dictation app, Wispr Flow, is seeing strong traction. After three months of usage, the average user writes more than 50% of their characters through the app. The company has reached 270 of the Fortune 500 companies and signed 125 enterprise customers per week recently.
Growth metrics: Since June, Wispr Flow has grown 40% month-over-month. Notable's Hans Tung, who backed Affirm, Airbnb, Slack, Coinbase, Anthropic, and TikTok, is joining Wispr's board as an observer.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Voice dictation only works when accuracy is near-perfect. One bad transcription kills trust. Wispr's growth signals they've crossed the reliability threshold where users trust it for professional communication. That's the UX tipping point, when a tool becomes invisible infrastructure instead of something you think about using."
Finland's NestAI lands €100M, partners with Nokia to build AI for defense applications
Finnish startup NestAI raised €100 million (about $115 million) led by Finland's sovereign fund, Tesi, and Nokia to build AI products for unmanned vehicles, autonomous operations, and command and control platforms. NestAI also struck a partnership with Nokia to develop "physical AI", using large language models and related technology for robotics and real-world applications.
Top funding rounds
This past week was exceptionally busy for very large startup financings. Lambda, a provider of AI cloud infrastructure, led with $1.5 billion in Series E funding. Predictions market Kalshi followed with $1 billion. AI, crypto, fintech, and biotech rounded out the list.
Top 10 rounds:
- Lambda: $1.5B, AI cloud infrastructure (San Francisco, led by TWG Global, $3.2B raised to date)
- Kalshi: $1B, predictions market (New York, $11B valuation, led by Sequoia Capital and CapitalG)
- Luma AI: $900M, multimedia AI (Silicon Valley, Series C led by Humain with AMD participation)
- Kraken: $800M, cryptocurrency (two tranches, $20B valuation with Citadel Securities $200M strategic investment)
- Physical Intelligence: $600M, robotics AI (San Francisco, $5.6B valuation, led by CapitalG with Jeff Bezos participation)
- Ramp: $300M, fintech (New York, $32B valuation, led by Lightspeed, fourth raise in 2025)
- Function Health: $298M, longevity (Austin, $2.5B valuation, Series B led by Redpoint)
- Genspark: $275M, agentic AI (Palo Alto, $1.25B valuation, $50M ARR in five months)
- Suno: $250M, AI music creation (Cambridge, MA, $2.45B valuation, Series C led by Menlo Ventures)
- Solve Therapeutics: $120M, biotech (San Diego, cancer therapeutics, led by Yosemite)
AI infrastructure (Lambda) and robotics AI (Physical Intelligence) dominate. Predictions markets (Kalshi) and crypto (Kraken) are back. Fintech (Ramp) raised its fourth round this year. AI music creation (Suno) and agentic AI (Genspark) show AI's expanding into creative and knowledge work.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "When AI infrastructure companies raise $1.5 billion, it signals that compute demand is accelerating. For product teams, this means you'll have access to more powerful AI capabilities, but also more competition from teams building on the same infrastructure. Differentiation will come from design and execution."
Product reality check
ChatGPT launches group chats globally
ChatGPT is rolling out group chats globally to all users on Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans. The feature allows users to collaborate with each other and ChatGPT in one shared conversation. Up to 20 people can participate in a group chat after accepting an invite. Personal settings and memory stay private to each user.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Group chats only work if AI knows when to participate. In human group chats, jumping in at the wrong time is annoying. ChatGPT needs to understand conversational context well enough to add value without disrupting flow. That's a much harder problem than one-on-one assistance."
Figma Make, powered by Google Gemini 3 Pro
Figma unveiled Gemini 3 Pro as a Figma Make experimental model. Each time Figma introduces a new AI model, it evaluates accuracy in design execution, reduces iteration, and expands creative exploration. In this test, Gemini 3 Pro excelled at exploring layouts and styles and demonstrated reliable performance in implementing interactions and motion.
The demo: Figma Chief Design Officer Loredana Chrysan and co-founder Dylan Field created a Thanksgiving-themed golden leaf Gratitude Board. Field requested SVG generation and physics-based animation in Make. The initial scene featured a gently fluttering leaf effect, which expanded into an interactive experience where guests' thank-you notes appeared as leaves, revealing content when hovered over.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "The leap from generating layouts to implementing interactions is massive. Most AI design tools create pretty pictures that developers can't use. If Gemini 3 Pro can generate functional SVGs with physics, it's crossing into production territory. That changes the designer-developer handoff completely."
Gemini starts rolling out to Android Auto globally
Gemini will replace Google Assistant in Android Auto, the smartphone projection technology integrated into millions of cars, trucks, and SUVs. Google announced the move Thursday, noting Gemini will roll out to Android Auto users who've upgraded from Google Assistant to Gemini on their phone.
What's new: Gemini enables users to speak naturally and have back-and-forth conversations to complete more complex tasks on the go. Users can ask questions about businesses along their route, like: "Hey, Google, I'm craving barbecue. Any good spots along my route that are open now, near my destination?" Gemini can offer more information about restaurants, including popular dishes or whether they're dog-friendly.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Google Assistant was predictable and reliable. Gemini's more powerful, but power means complexity. Google needs to nail reliability before adding conversational depth."
Google releases Nano Banana Pro, its latest image-generation model
Google is upgrading its image-generation model with new editing capabilities, higher resolutions, more accurate text rendering, and the ability to search the web. Dubbed Nano Banana Pro, the new model is built on Gemini 3, released earlier this week. Google claims Nano Banana Pro improves on its predecessor, Nano Banana, with more detailed images, accurate text, and text generation in different styles, fonts, and languages.
The test: Can it match or beat Midjourney and DALL-E? Google's been behind in image generation quality. Nano Banana Pro needs to deliver production-ready outputs.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Accurate text rendering in images has been a weakness across AI models. If Nano Banana Pro actually solves this, it's a huge step forward. Most AI-generated images with text look unprofessional. Fix that, and you unlock marketing, advertising, and design use cases that were previously off-limits."
Design wins
Lazarev.agency helped to digitize the $402B card collectibles market with pNFTs
CollectorCrypt aimed to modernize the collectibles market by addressing challenges related to secure storage, transparency, and exchange of collectible cards. Their Web3 marketplace leverages blockchain-backed pNFTs to ensure card authenticity and ownership, allowing collectors to manage, trade, and showcase assets confidently.
The challenge: Physical storage of collectibles, lack of transparency in transactions, and limited liquidity options. Collectors couldn't easily use their cards as collateral or trade them efficiently.
What we did: Lazarev.agency partnered with CollectorCrypt to optimize platform flows, focusing on shipment, tracking, collection management, and trading. Our goals were to simplify complex processes, reduce friction, and build trust among collectors while enhancing marketplace efficiency and transparency.
The result: A platform that offers secure vaults with insurance for high-value items, low-fee fast transactions, enhanced liquidity options (using cards as collateral for loans), and digital profiles that turn physical collections into digital assets with metadata NFTs.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Collectibles markets run on trust. When you're dealing with high-value physical items, every interaction point needs to reinforce security and legitimacy. We designed CollectorCrypt's flows to make authentication, storage, and trading feel transparent and safe. Blockchain verifies ownership, but UX builds confidence."
Time opens flagship store Time Seoul & Time Cafe
Korean fashion company Hanssem opened Time Seoul, the first flagship store of its brand, in Cheongdam-dong. Hanssem and design studio CFC jointly developed a new brand identity design and a store visual system. The brand identity is based on the spatial design concept "Timeless Nature" and the slogan "Poetic Synth."
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Flagship stores are brand statements. Time Seoul succeeds because the visual identity is experiential. When physical space, visual language, and brand philosophy align, customers remember the feeling."
Papelito, the unapologetic Brazilian personality
Papelito, a long-loved rolling paper brand in Brazil, has embraced free self-expression and humor as its core identity. Naturally capturing the daily lives and sensibilities of the younger generation, the brand has transcended smoking paper and become a cultural symbol. Papelito communicates with consumers with a direct tone and candid attitude, establishing its own uniquely Brazilian identity.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Brands that lean into cultural specificity instead of watering themselves down for mass appeal build stronger loyalty. Papelito's success shows that owning your identity, even if it alienates some audiences, creates deeper connections with the right audiences. That's a lesson for any brand trying to stand out."
This week's reality check
Design strategy firms: what they do, why they matter, and 7 leaders you should know about
Paul Rand described design as "the method of putting form and content together," noting that design defies a single definition. Design looks simple when it's done right. But once you try doing it, you realize how much strategy it takes to make simplicity work.
That's where design strategy firms come in. The best partners align form with function and bridge what users need with what businesses want. We reviewed the industry's top players, and only seven stood out for actually walking the talk.
Key takeaways:
- Process beats intuition. Mature agencies rely on research-driven systems that make design decisions measurable and repeatable.
- Partnership is the multiplier. Great outcomes come from close collaboration, and it's the core principle at Lazarev.agency, AI product design agency.
- Invest early, scale faster. Strategic digital design upfront saves teams from costly redesigns later and builds lasting competitive advantage.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "When strategy and design align, you build products that users understand instinctively and competitors can't copy easily. That's where sustainable competitive advantage comes from."
Fintech app design x-ray: 5 lessons from market leaders
When a tap can trigger financial transactions, the margin for confusion is zero. In the US finance industry, teams ship on mobile devices where users juggle financial information, approvals, KYC, and risk in seconds. The apps that win make complex choices feel safe, legible, and fast.
This article distills 5 repeatable patterns for fintech app design grounded in actual user behavior:
- Trust is a UX outcome: Visible control, clear states, and plain language beat slogans.
- Onboarding is a funnel: Optimize KYC like checkout to lift overall user satisfaction.
- Purposeful guidance helps users navigate complex financial data without hiding risk.
- Accessibility and inclusive copy broaden reach across devices and contexts.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Fintech UX is unforgiving. Users don't tolerate confusion when real money's involved. The best fintech apps make every state visible: pending, processing, completed, failed. Ambiguity breeds anxiety, and anxiety kills conversion. Clarity is the competitive advantage in finance."
What's coming next week
More infrastructure bets, more AI features that sound impressive in demos, and probably another product that promises to revolutionize something that didn't need revolution. We'll separate the billion-dollar breakthroughs from the billion-dollar distractions.
🔥 Stay sharp. Stay with Lazarev.agency, your AI UX design agency.
.webp)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)