And with Artist Profile Protection (currently in beta), artists now have greater control over what appears on their profile, which helps to ensure the music you see is coming from them.

From the Artist Profile Protection link:

Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse. That’s not the experience we want artists to have on Spotify, and that’s why we’ve made protecting artist identity a top priority for 2026. Today, we’re announcing a first-of-its-kind solution to a problem that’s affected streaming for years.

How the hell is that something that is only in beta in 2026 and not a standard feature? It’s currently optional, but they better automatically opt in verified “No AI” artists if the label is going to be worth anything. There should not be AI-generated songs from randos getting attached to a “No AI” artist.

Besides the data collection angle, Microsoft wants gamers on Windows instead of Linux so that there’s at least a chance they’ll buy games from the Microsoft Store.

Windows Update will also be improved, with the goal of making Windows 11 reliable enough so that a restart is only necessary once a month.

This isn’t just a matter of Windows 11 reliability, it’ll take big improvements in Microsoft’s quality control to stop needing to follow the monthly updates with emergency patches and hotfixes.

Google’s bound to do more layoffs, and any employee backlash to anything is mostly going to help management make up the list.