📈 Data to start your week

Software engineering ↓ AI infrastructure spending ↑ Remote work & startups ↑

Hi all,

Here’s your Monday round-up of data driving conversations in AI and tech this week — all in less than 250 words.

---

Today’s edition is brought to you by our sponsor, ElevenLabs – the complete AI Audio Developer platform. Build low-latency AI voice agents that sound human and can handle unpredictable conversations in the noisiest environments. Get started free.

---

1. Engineers on ice ↓. Leading US AI companies have cut software engineering hiring.

   

2. Unreasonably expensive ↑. Reasoning makes Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash 150x more expensive than 2.0 Flash due to token costs.

3. $3 trillion AI forecast ↑. Morgan Stanley projects cumulative AI infrastructure spending (data centers, power and grid) will exceed $3 trillion by 2028.

4. OpenAI leads enterprise AI ↑. Corporate usage has accelerated since the start of the year.

   

5. China leads key tech ↑. Chinese firms now command 58% of the global EV market and dominate solar, driven by the Made in China 2025 strategic plan.

   

6. Remote work spurs startups ↑. Increased remote work directly leads to employees launching higher-quality startups – thanks to the time and security for experimentation.

7. Millennials earn more ↑. The top 5% of millennial households earned over $300,000 in 2023, surpassing inflation-adjusted top boomer earnings from 1990.

8. AI posts flood Reddit ↑. A surge in AI-generated Reddit posts is suspected — as indicated by increased em-dash usage. 😉

Thanks for reading!

---

Today’s edition is sponsored by ElevenLabs.

ElevenLabs is powering human-like voice agents for customer support, scheduling, education and gaming. With server & client side tools, knowledge bases, dynamic agent instantiation and overrides, plus built-in monitoring, it’s the fastest way to launch conversational experiences. Get started free.