Afternoon Brief, October 2nd 2026
Apple is restricting the Mac permission lean on most. OpenAI fired three safety researchers and Meta is parting with the Virtue AI team it hired. Google has in orbit. Supabase bought the database company that gives each agent its own.
Apple tightens macOS Full Disk Access, citing AI agents
Apple said Friday that it will add controls requiring more explicit user action before an app can be granted , the macOS permission that opens files, mail, messages and browsing history. "As AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially," the company said. It did not name a macOS version or a date.
Two recent incidents sit behind the move. An Inc. columnist reported that Meta's Muse synced his Messages database, more than 187,000 rows, with Full Disk Access switched off; Meta says Messages access needs both that permission and a separate connector, and that macOS would block it otherwise. Wired also reported a flaw in OpenAI's ChatGPT Mac app that could expose sensitive data. Apple's change is a platform owner answering a dispute between two agent makers and a reporter before anyone has established who was right. SourcesBB
OpenAI cuts ties with three safety researchers over confidential information
OpenAI parted with three members of its safety team, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. A spokesperson said they "mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures." The Journal reported the information went to an outside AI-safety organization. OpenAI has not named the group, and neither has the Journal. The company did not identify the researchers.
The firings follow a month of OpenAI incidents in which its agents reached outside systems, and a California subpoena served this week. OpenAI said it has internal channels for safety concerns and needs to move faster on security. SourcesBB
Google's four orbital TPUs run for 15 minutes before they must cool
A SpaceX Falcon 9 carried Google's first Project Suncatcher satellite to low Earth orbit on Thursday from Vandenberg. The refrigerator-sized prototype, built with Planet, holds four Trillium-generation TPUs and about a kilowatt of solar power. Radiators can shed only so much heat in a vacuum, so the chips run Gemini in bursts of roughly 15 minutes before shutting down to cool. Google expects about a year of data.
Google's own economics paper in Joule gives the scale of the real thing. It assumes Starship flies about 1,800 times over a decade, 180 a year at 200 metric tons each, with launch cost near $200 per kilogram by 2035. That cost assumes SpaceX keeps cutting prices about 20% a year. SourcesBB
Supabase raises $150 million and buys Turso to give each agent its own database
Supabase announced $150 million led by GIC, with CapitalG, IronArc and SquarePeg, four months after a $500 million Series F. It is also acquiring Turso, whose architecture provisions a database per agent on demand; Superhuman and Sauna.ai are customers, and founder Glauber Costa becomes Supabase's head of agentic services. Supabase says it now adds more than 1 million users and 4 million databases a month, and that 70% of new databases are created by agents or AI tools. Those figures are the company's own. SourcesAB
General Intuition raises $220 million at $6.2 billion for models that learn from gameplay
The Medal spinout, which builds trained on game footage, closed a round from Valor, Atreides, Seven Seven Six, Point72, Khosla and General Catalyst. Its was $2.3 billion at a $320 million three months ago. Its MIRA model remains a research demonstration for a single game. A commercial version is with select customers in robotics, simulation and entertainment, and the money goes to hiring researchers. SourcesBB
Personal-agent startup Instinct raises $1 billion at $10 billion with 14 employees
Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue led the Series C, which Crunchbase ranked the largest round of the week. Instinct's agent books travel, pays bills and cancels subscriptions from its own phone number and computer. The company quadrupled its valuation from $2.5 billion in a month and launched invite-only in August. Its founder said more than half of transactions are travel. SourcesBB
Microsoft pushes usage-based Copilot billing back a month, with a 4,000-credit default cap
Microsoft told partners on Thursday that usage-based billing will be on by default for new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licenses sold through CSP resellers starting December 1st, moved from November 2nd. The default spending limit is 4,000 Copilot Credits per user per month, so a 100-seat customer could consume up to 400,000 credits before an admin acts. It excludes eleven markets at launch, including Germany, France, India and Brazil. The metered products named are Copilot Cowork, Work IQ APIs and GitHub Copilot Harness. SourcesA
British Columbia's Greens propose a province-wide pause on AI data centers
Green leader Emily Lowan proposed Friday pausing construction and operation of AI data centers until a public-interest audit and a regulatory framework exist, citing strain on the provincial hydro system. The party also wants safeguards for AI in schools and workplaces. It is a platform proposal from an opposition party, not legislation. SourcesB
Sources
- B Apple says it's tightening macOS 'Full Disk Access' controls due to new risks from AI agents, TechCrunch
- B Meta denies its Muse AI agent read a journalist's private messages, The Next Web
- B OpenAI cuts ties with 3 safety researchers, WSJ reports, TechCrunch
- B OpenAI reportedly fires 3 researchers, Forbes
- B Semafor: Meta parts ways with Virtue AI
- B Google Project Suncatcher reaches orbit, Tech Times
- B Google thinks SpaceX's Starship has to launch 1,600 times before space data centers get off the ground, TechCrunch
- A Supabase announces $150M in new funding and Turso acquisition, PR Newswire
- B The Week's 10 Biggest Funding Rounds, Crunchbase News
- B World model startup General Intuition closes $220M investment, SiliconANGLE
- B Viral AI agent Instinct raises $1B Series C at a $10B valuation, Yahoo Finance
- A October 2026 announcements, Microsoft Partner Center
- B B.C. Greens propose AI data centre moratorium, Terrace Standard