The AI Cookbook: AI Tools | Enterprise AI | Leadership

E97: Weekly AI Recap – Agentic Standards, Gemini for DoD, Shopify’s AI Rebuild


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Your buddy says: “AI was boring this week.”

You say: “Bro… no.”

Because this week quietly reshaped the foundations of AI — from military adoption, to global chip wars, to enterprise software rewriting itself around AI.

In this Weekly AI Recap, Malcolm covers the stories that matter beneath the hype:

🔥 1. The Agentic AI Foundation – Competitors Become Collaborators

Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft — normally trying to destroy each other — suddenly join forces.

They launch the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation to create shared standards for AI agents.

What they contributed:

  • Anthropic: Model Context Protocol (MCP) → now open source
  • OpenAI: Agents.md coding instruction standard
  • Block: Goose — a local agent framework
  • Microsoft & Google: Support adoption across enterprise ecosystems

Why it matters:

This is the “plumbing” layer of AI — and it just got standardized.

The barrier to building enterprise AI agents dropped overnight.

🔥 2. The US Military Deploys Google Gemini (GenAI.mil)

The Department of Defense (now “Department of War” under Trump) launches a custom Gemini platform:

👉 gen.ai.mil

👉 3+ million personnel

👉 $200M/year contract

Capabilities:

• Document formatting

• Research

• Image/video analysis

• Secure AI assistant for unclassified workflows

Every major AI company — OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI — signs defense contracts.

Signal:

AI is now national defense infrastructure, not a toy.

🔥 3. Yann LeCun Leaves Meta – The “World Models” Bet

Meta’s Chief AI Scientist (and Turing Award winner) Yann LeCun leaves to build a startup focused on world models, arguing:

  • LLMs can’t understand physical reality
  • AI must learn physics, objects, movement, spatial reasoning
  • Robotics requires more than text patterns

Meta declines to invest.

LeCun says Meta is “focused on the wrong spectrum of applications.”

A major philosophical split inside the AI world.

🔥 4. Shopify & Adobe Rebuild Their Products Around AIShopify

Sidekick is no longer a helper — it’s the new interface:

  • "Build me a custom app" → Done
  • "Create this automation" → Done
  • "Change my store theme" → Done
  • No code needed

Plus: Agentic Storefronts

→ Shopify automatically syndicates your products across ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, etc.

Shopping now happens inside AI assistants, not websites.

Also: SimGym

→ AI shoppers simulate UX & checkout behavior before launch.

Adobe

Photoshop, Express, Acrobat now run inside ChatGPT.

Chat becomes the software interface.

Traditional apps become capabilities invoked by AI.

Malcolm’s insight:

“Every software company must choose: Stay a standalone app… or become a capability inside AI.”🔥 5. Trump Reopens Chip Exports + $160M GPU Smuggling Ring

The US uncovers a $160M Nvidia GPU smuggling operation to China — organized, widespread, and not exactly “a guy with GPUs in a suitcase.”

Simultaneously:

  • Trump reverses Biden’s chip bans
  • Nvidia allowed to sell H200s to China
  • China restricts domestic H200 access to protect its chip industry

Nvidia adds location verification tech to Blackwell chips — a “GPS for GPUs.”

European data centers are uneasy:

“If the US can track them… can they kill-switch them?”

AI chips have become geopolitical weapons.

🔥 6. EU Opens Antitrust Investigation Into Google (Again)

Focus:

How Google uses publisher content (newsrooms, blogs, creators) to train AI Overviews without compensation.

Potential fine: 10% of global revenue = ~$35B.

At the same time:

EU considers loosening data center permitting, realizing they’re falling years behind the US and Asia in infrastructure rollout.

EU = cracking down + accelerating at the same time.

🔥 7. GPT-5.2 Rumors

Rumors suggest GPT-5.2 may drop today — December 11 — with the claim:

“The best coding model ever released.”

If it happens, Malcolm will dedicate an entire episode next week.

🔥 KEY TOPICS COVERED
  • Agentic AI Foundation & cross-company standards
  • MCP, Agents.md, Goose, Linux Foundation
  • US Military ↔ Google Gemini (GenAI.mil)
  • Yann LeCun’s departure from Meta
  • World models vs LLMs
  • Shopify Sidekick & Agentic Storefronts
  • Adobe AI → Chat-as-UI
  • Trump policy shift on Nvidia chips
  • $160M GPU smuggling ring
  • Nvidia’s location telemetry
  • EU antitrust investigation
  • GPT-5.2 rumors & impact

💬 NOTABLE QUOTES
  • “Just because there’s no Gemini 5 doesn’t mean nothing happened.”
  • “This is the plumbing of the AI age.”
  • “GenAI.mil makes Gemini the default AI assistant for 3 million workers.”
  • “LLMs understand text — not the world.”
  • “AI is becoming the interface. Apps are becoming capabilities.”
  • “AI chips are now geopolitical instruments.”
  • “Stop being monogamous with your AI models — even the US military isn’t.”
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Intro: “This week was not boring.”

01:00 – Agentic AI Foundation

05:00 – US Military launches Gemini platform

10:00 – Yann LeCun leaves Meta

15:00 – Shopify & Adobe rebuild around AI

20:00 – Trump, China & GPU smuggling

26:00 – EU antitrust investigation

30:00 – GPT-5.2 rumors

32:00 – Closing thoughts

🔗 WHERE TO FIND MALCOLM

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmwerchota/

Website: https://www.werchota.ai

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@werchota

X: https://x.com/malcolmwerchota

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/malcolmwerchotaai

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/malcolmwerchota

✉️ CONTACT

Direct: [email protected]

Podcast Team: [email protected]

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https://www.werchota.ai/ai-fit-academy

🔎 SEO TAGS (EN)

AI news, AI recap, December 2025 AI, Pentagon AI, Google Gemini military, Nvidia GPU smuggling, China chip ban, Yann LeCun leaves Meta, world models, Shopify Sidekick, Adobe AI, GPT-5.2 rumors, AI infrastructure, AI agents, MCP, Agents.md, enterprise AI

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The AI Cookbook: AI Tools | Enterprise AI | LeadershipBy Malcolm Werchota