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🚀 Nvidia's licensing Groq's tech for potentially $20B, OpenAI admits AI browsers will always face prompt injection risks, and Alphabet's buying a power company for $4.75B to bypass grid bottlenecks. Meanwhile, ChatGPT launched its own Wrapped, and you might finally be able to change your Gmail address.
Industry moves
Nvidia to license AI chip challenger Groq's tech and hire its CEO
Nvidia struck a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Groq. As part of the deal, Nvidia will hire Groq founder Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other employees.
The numbers: CNBC reported that Nvidia is acquiring assets from Groq for $20 billion. Nvidia told TechCrunch this is not a company acquisition and didn't comment on the scope. But if CNBC's numbers are accurate, this would be Nvidia's largest purchase ever, positioning Nvidia to become even more dominant in chip manufacturing.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Nvidia's licensing Groq's tech instead of acquiring the company shows they want the innovation without the baggage. Hiring the founder and president brings chip design expertise in-house while avoiding regulatory scrutiny of a full acquisition."
OpenAI says AI browsers may always be vulnerable to prompt injection attacks
Even as OpenAI works to harden its Atlas AI browser against cyberattacks, OpenAI admits that prompt injections – a type of attack that manipulates AI agents to follow malicious instructions often hidden in web pages or emails – is a risk that's not going away anytime soon. This raises questions about how safely AI agents can operate on the open web.
Why this matters: If AI browsers are fundamentally vulnerable to prompt injection, they can't be trusted with sensitive operations. Attackers could hide malicious instructions in websites that trick AI browsers into leaking data, transferring money, or executing unauthorized actions.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "OpenAI admitting that prompt injection might be unsolvable is a huge UX problem. If AI browsers can be tricked by hidden instructions on websites, users can't trust them with anything important. The design challenge is showing users when an AI action is potentially compromised. But if you need constant verification, you've eliminated the benefit of AI automation."
Alphabet to buy Intersect Power to bypass energy grid bottlenecks
Google parent Alphabet is to buy Intersect Power, a data center and clean energy developer, for $4.75 billion in cash, plus the assumption of the company's debt. The acquisition will help Alphabet expand its power-generation capacity alongside new data centers without relying on local utilities struggling to keep up with AI companies' demand.
The trend: Microsoft, Amazon, and now Google are all investing in dedicated power infrastructure. AI's energy demands are so massive that public utilities can't keep up. Vertical integration into energy is becoming essential for AI companies.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "When tech companies buy power companies, it signals AI's energy demands are unsustainable with existing infrastructure. Alphabet's $4.75B purchase is infrastructure insurance – they're guaranteeing power for data centers because they can't trust utilities to deliver. For users, this is invisible, but it's why AI services stay online when everyone else faces rolling blackouts."
Waymo is testing Gemini as an in-car AI assistant in its robotaxis
Waymo is testing adding Google's Gemini AI chatbot to its robotaxis to integrate an AI assistant that would accompany riders and answer their queries, according to findings by researcher Jane Manchun Wong.
What Wong found: "While digging through Waymo's mobile app code, I discovered the complete system prompt for its unreleased Gemini integration. The document, internally titled 'Waymo Ride Assistant Meta-Prompt,' is a 1,200+ line specification that defines exactly how the AI assistant is expected to behave inside a Waymo vehicle."
Why this matters: Waymo's robotaxis already navigate autonomously. Adding a conversational AI assistant turns them into mobile concierge services. Riders could ask for restaurant recommendations, adjust routes, or get local information while traveling.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "In-car AI assistants are high-stakes UX. If Gemini misunderstands a destination or route change, riders can't easily fix it while moving. Waymo needs to design for voice clarity, confirmation flows, and easy corrections. The assistant needs to be helpful without being distracting or error-prone. That's a narrow design window."
Product reality check
Amazon's AI assistant Alexa+ now works with Angi, Expedia, Square, and Yelp
Amazon is adding new capabilities to Alexa+. The company announced Thursday it's adding four new integrations starting in 2026 that will allow the assistant to work with Angi, Expedia, Square, and Yelp.
What you can do: Book hotels, get quotes for home services, and schedule salon appointments, among other things. With Expedia, customers can compare, book, and manage hotel reservations, or tell Alexa their preferences to get personalized recommendations (e.g., "Can you find me pet-friendly hotels for this weekend in Chicago?").
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Alexa's integrations are only valuable if users trust the AI to complete tasks autonomously. The UX challenge is building confidence without requiring constant verification. If I say 'book me a hotel,' I need to trust Alexa picked the right one based on my preferences. That requires transparent decision-making and easy corrections. Get that wrong, and users revert to manual booking."
ChatGPT launches a year-end review like Spotify Wrapped
ChatGPT is releasing its own version of Spotify Wrapped. The OpenAI-owned chatbot is now rolling out an annual review feature called "Your Year with ChatGPT" to eligible consumers in select markets, including the United States, Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.
Why this works: Wrapped-style features drive engagement by turning usage data into shareable content. Users love seeing personalized summaries of their behavior, especially when they can share it socially.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Wrapped works for Spotify because music taste is identity. ChatGPT conversations are different – they're functional, personal, sometimes embarrassing. OpenAI needs to curate what gets surfaced carefully. If 'Your Year with ChatGPT' reveals too much, users will feel exposed instead of celebrated. Privacy and personalization need to balance perfectly here."
Splat's app uses AI to turn your photos into coloring pages for kids
The team at Retro, a photo-sharing app for close friends and family, is experimenting with how generative AI can be put to more creative uses. They built a new app called Splat, which lets you turn any photo into a coloring book page for kids.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Splat is a perfect example of AI solving a small, delightful problem. It's just making parents' lives slightly easier and kids happier. That's enough. Not every AI product needs to be a platform play. Sometimes, a single use case executed well is the entire product."
Google Disco Browser uses AI to generate custom interfaces
Google unveiled Disco, an experimental browser powered by Gemini 3 that transforms user prompts and open tabs into personalized, interactive web mini-apps called GenTabs.
What this means: Instead of navigating traditional websites, Disco generates custom interfaces based on what you're trying to do. If you're researching travel, Disco could generate a mini-app that compares flights, hotels, and activities in one interface.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Disco's custom interfaces are a bold experiment, but they risk creating cognitive overload. Users build mental models of how websites work. If every site generates a different interface based on AI interpretation, those models break. Consistency is underrated in UX. Sometimes, predictability beats personalization."
You may soon be able to change your Gmail address
Good news for anyone tired of or embarrassed by their current Gmail address: you may soon be able to change it without losing access to your old emails and files. As spotted by Google Pixel Hub on Telegram and reported in 9to5Google, a Hindi version of the Gmail support website states that Google is "gradually rolling out to all users" the ability to change the email address tied to their Google account, including changing to "a new email address that ends in gmail.com."
The catch: Email address changes will likely cause forwarding issues, lost contacts, and confusion. Google needs to handle migration carefully or users will regret changing.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Letting users change Gmail addresses is long overdue, but migration UX is critical. Google needs to auto-forward from old addresses, notify contacts of the change, and prevent account lockouts. If the transition creates friction, users won't adopt it. The design challenge is making the change feel seamless."
OpenAI is looking for a new Head of Preparedness
According to TechCrunch: OpenAI is looking to hire a new executive responsible for studying emerging AI-related risks in areas ranging from computer security to mental health. In a post on X, CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that AI models are "starting to present some real challenges," including the "potential impact of models on mental health," as well as models that are "so good at computer security they are beginning to find critical vulnerabilities."
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Hiring a Head of Preparedness after you've already shipped powerful AI is like installing airbags after a car crash. OpenAI's acknowledging risks they should have assessed before deployment. For product teams, this is a cautionary tale – if you're building AI that could impact mental health or security, hire safety experts before launch."
Design wins
Lazarev.agency helped LEX.Art boost engagement rate for artists and investors
Traditional art investments often left stakeholders in the dark regarding their returns. LEX.Art is rewriting the script, offering investors a clear and quantifiable view of their future returns and an opportunity to get constant revenue from their investments.
Our approach: When LEX.Art sought our expertise, they presented us with preliminary designs that held promise but needed refinement. Our journey began with a project discovery phase, during which we meticulously translated the client's vision into intuitive user flows. In the process, we identified and rectified illogical elements and flows, requiring us to rethink and optimize the user experience with new features and functionalities.
The result: A platform that makes art investment transparent, accessible, and financially sustainable for both investors and artists.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Art investment platforms fail when they prioritize aesthetics over clarity. LEX. Art needed flows that made complex financial relationships understandable. We simplified how investors track returns and how artists understand revenue sharing. When financial complexity is hidden behind clear UX, adoption goes up. That's where design becomes strategic."
Monopo's rebrand for NKORA puts the calm back into coffee culture
NKORA refuses to rush, and now its brand does too. Monopo's rebrand grows with the coffee chain, without sanding off the imperfections that make it human.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Coffee culture is often performative. NKORA's rebrand rejects that by embracing imperfection and calm. When branding feels human instead of aspirational, it resonates with people tired of curated perfection. That's smart positioning in a saturated market."
This week's reality check
Frog vs IDEO: how two icons of design thinking approach innovation differently
For more than three decades, Frog and IDEO have shaped how companies think about innovation, creativity, and human-centered design. Both firms helped establish the modern design consulting industry, both influenced the rise of digital product design, and both remain globally recognized for their research-driven, multidisciplinary approach. Yet their evolution has not been identical.
The difference: Frog now sits inside Capgemini Invent, giving it deeper engineering capacity and enterprise reach. IDEO, part of the Kyu Collective, has shifted its focus toward strategic innovation and organizational transformation, with a strong emphasis on human-centered methods.
When to choose specialized partners: Understanding how they differ helps you choose the right partner. Below is a strategically grounded comparison of Frog and IDEO, followed by guidance on when a specialized AI-native product partner like Lazarev.agency becomes the more effective choice.
Kirill Lazarev, CEO and Founder at Lazarev.agency: "Frog and IDEO pioneered design thinking, but their models were built for a pre-AI world. When your product is AI-native, you need partners who understand how probabilistic systems behave, how to design for model uncertainty, and how to build trust around unpredictable outputs. That's where specialized AI UX agencies outperform legacy consulting models."
11 fintech design companies startup founders should keep on their radar for 2026
Fintech products behave unlike anything else in digital. When built with intention, they steady people's decisions. When they're not… well, they do the exact opposite. In the fintech industry, everything rests on trust (mediated through the interface, no less). Users make financial choices under pressure, and every interaction either lowers their anxiety or spikes it.
Why this matters: At Lazarev.agency, we understand the high stakes of partnering with the right fintech design companies. In this article, our product design team has prepared a clear snapshot of how design influences fintech performance, a list of 11 best digital design partners, and comparison insights to help you choose the perfect-fit team.
Oleksandr Koshytskyi, Lead Designer at Lazarev.agency: "Fintech UX fails when designers don't understand financial anxiety. Users making money decisions need clarity. The best fintech design companies know that every ambiguous state, every unclear error message, every confusing flow costs conversions. That's why fintech design is high-stakes – mistakes are measured in lost trust and abandoned transactions."
Accenture vs Wipi9o: how to choose the right transformation partner in an AI-driven market
When enterprise teams evaluate large-scale transformation partners, Accenture and Wipro often rise to the top for the same reason: both firms combine global consulting reach with deep technical delivery. But beyond surface similarities, they operate with very different histories, strengths, and approaches to AI-enabled change.
The question: The question for most organizations is "which operating model aligns with the type of transformation we are trying to achieve?"
When to choose specialized partners: Below is a practical breakdown of Accenture and Wipro – what they offer, how they differ, and where a specialized AI UX design partner like Lazarev.agency fits into the picture when product-level innovation is the priority.
Danylo Dubrovsky, Senior UX/UI designer at Lazarev.agency: "Accenture and Wipro excel at enterprise transformation, but they're built for systems integration. When you need to build an AI product users love, you need designers who live in product development cycles"
What's coming next week
More acquisitions disguised as licensing deals, more AI risks acknowledged after shipping products, and probably another tech giant buying infrastructure to bypass utilities. We'll separate strategic foresight from reactive damage control.
🔥 Stay sharp. Stay with Lazarev.agency, your AI UX design agency.
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