OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, is under intense pressure in 2026 after burning through about $9 billion last year and projections pointing to a possible $17 billion cash burn this year. Despite reporting more than $20 billion in 2025 revenue and claiming around 800 million weekly users, only a small fraction pay, while the firm is tied to $1.4 trillion in data center commitments. Investors are increasingly focused on costs, monetization and a potential IPO targeted for late 2026 or early 2027, amid growing competition from rivals like Anthropic and shifting market sentiment on AI funding.

Sentient Labs has opened SENT token airdrop claims starting January 22, 2026, rewarding early contributors to its open-source AGI coordination network. The SENT token powers governance, incentives, and collaboration across Sentient’s GRID intelligence network, with eligible users able to claim tokens via the official portal and trade SENT on BingX after claiming.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos that, within three to five years, billions of autonomous AI agents could use crypto and stablecoins to handle routine payments. He argued that stablecoins are the only practical foundation for AI-native economic systems, a view echoed by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, while new protocols from Coinbase and Google aim to support this emerging form of AI-driven commerce.

On January 23, 2026 (UTC), Changpeng Zhao argued that as AI automates more work, crypto, tokenization and DeFi will become core to digital economic activity. He predicted AI agents will pay with crypto rather than cards, and warned that 99.99% of current AI tokens lack real utility.

On January 22 2026, Orlando Bravo of Thoma Bravo described how venture capital firms are aggressively funding AI startups at soaring valuations driven by fear of missing out. Anthropic’s valuation climbed from $183 billion in September 2025 to $350 billion in a $10 billion round, while OpenAI reached $500 billion and global venture funding hit $425 billion in 2025 with AI firms capturing nearly half of that capital. Bravo expects AI to disrupt less than half of software companies but still sees it as transformational for business software, even as investors struggle to separate sustainable projects from hype.

Valeo and Solana-based Natix are collaborating on an open-source multi-camera World Foundation Model designed to learn and predict motion for autonomous driving. They will release models, datasets, and training tools for developers, with an initial version expected within the next couple of months. The initiative targets safer, transparent deployment of physical AI systems.

On January 22, 2026, Elon Musk joined Larry Fink on stage at the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos for his first appearance there, discussing AI, robotics, energy and space. Musk argued that AI and humanoid robots could unlock "sustainable abundance" but warned that electricity, not chips, may become the main bottleneck as global power capacity grows slower than AI compute demand. He emphasized SpaceX's mission to make life multi-planetary and described future robots caring for children and elderly parents, while predicting more robots than humans over time.

On January 22 2026, US lawmakers advanced the AI Overwatch Act to tighten oversight of advanced AI chip exports linked to Donald Trump's plan for Nvidia sales to China. The bill, which passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, would require congressional approval for sensitive AI chips that could enhance foreign military capabilities and targets potential sales to Chinese firms such as Alibaba and Tencent.