All the big entertainment apps are starting to look the same, and that's not an accident. For a decade, platforms fought over who would dominate a single format: music, video, podcasts, audiobooks. Now, powered by AI, they're fighting over something bigger ' becoming the app you default to whenever you have time to kill, no matter what form the content takes. There are several reasons why this is the case. The market for entertainment apps is reaching maturity, so growth has slowed, pushing companies to compete on time spent and revenue-per-user instead of new sign-ups. In addition, today's creators often work across formats, so it makes sense to provide a home for all their content, not just one piece of it. AI adds a third reason. It makes it easier for a single company to build and run several formats well, and the wider the content mix, the more time users spend in the app, which in turn drives both ad revenue and subscriptions. Netflix is one clear example of this trend, as the service over the past several years has added gaming, live sports and other events, and, more recently, short video clips and podcasts. The idea is to capture more of users' time, even when there's not a TV or movie they want to watch, as well as to find a way into the smaller bits of free time that people usually fill with scrolling social media, playing casual games, or watching TikTok or Reels....
In 1997, Garry Shandling's meta-sitcom, The Larry Sanders Show, aired an episode chronicling the behind-the-scenes preparations for a roast of the eponymous fictional late-night host. Though the event promises to celebrate Larry, it ends up being a disaster. Jerry Seinfeld drops out at the last minute. Bill Maher mainly performs jokes from his own act. Dana Carvey and Bruno Kirby use the stage to bicker with each other. Meanwhile, Larry quietly stews over barbs about his vanity and perceived homosexuality'mostly delivered by people he doesn't respect, who appeared only because they were cajoled or pressured. 'This is the worst fucking night of my life,' Larry eventually remarks, not long before before the prop comic Carrot Top, the evening's surprise guest, takes the stage to skewer him. Although Larry's publicist insists that the roast is a Hollywood rite of passage, the episode humorously illustrates how the industry has sapped all of the romance out of the showbiz tradition. Instead of being a raucous tribute to a friend, it's become something akin to a networking event, another venue to cultivate notoriety....
Like many young people of her generation, Fai Nur was what she called a 'chronically online teenager.' She obsessed over music groups, TV shows, and movies, and never missed the chance to talk about her interests endlessly online. When ChatGPT launched in 2022, she saw potential immediately. 'AI could finally let any user actually simulate any character, not just watch or talk about their favorite worlds, but live inside them,' she told TechCrunch. 'The role-play and immersion that fans had always wanted was suddenly possible at scale,' she said. She brought in her friend Amit Bhatnagar, who grew up building Minecraft games, and Pritesh Kadiwala, and the three of them began building Status AI: a gamified social media app where users can play any character in any universe. The app officially came out of stealth last year. To use the app, Nur said, users first craft a persona and are then transported into a social world built around them. 'A user can become a celebrity with millions of followers, step inside their favorite show or book, run for president, or go viral on the internet,' Nur said....
Take Microsoft, which is currently focused on getting corporate customers to pay for Copilot. But it's also been getting dinged on social media over Copilot's terms of use, which appear to have been last updated on October 24, 2025. Tom's Hardware noted that Microsoft isn't the only company using this kind of disclaimer for AI. For example, both OpenAI and xAI caution users that they should not rely on their output as 'the truth' (to quote xAI) or as 'a sole service of truth or factual information' (OpenAI). StrictlyVC kicks off the year in SF. Get in the room for unfiltered fireside chats with industry leaders, insider VC insights, and high-value connections that actually move the needle. Tickets are limited....
