# Strategic Acquisitions, AI Marketing Backlash, and Streaming Growth

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-08-05

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
Bending Spoons on Tuesday said that it's agreed to buy spreadsheet and database startup Airtable for $1.28 billion in straight-up cash.
Founded in 2013, Airtable has so far raised over $1.4 billion over multiple funding rounds.
At its peak during the boom days of 2021, it was valued at over $11 billion, but earlier this year its shares were set to be trading on the secondary markets.
at a valuation of $4 billion.
With its current net cash and cash equivalents balance, Airtable is now valued at about $2.25 billion, Bending Spoon said.
In January, Airtable unveiled a new product line under the Super Agent moniker, an orchestration platform that can help users sign up a team of AI agents to do tasks.
The company's CEO, Howie Liu, said at the time that Airtable serves over 500,000 organizations, including 80% of the Fortune 100.
Bending Spoons, which went public at an $18 billion valuation in July, typically acquires companies that are trading at a decent discount to their private valuations, trims the staff, streamlines products, and tries to make them run profitably.
The company has so far acquired several notable brands, including Evernote, WeTransfer, Eventbrite, and Vimeo.
OpenAI's first-ever influencer brand trip is sparking, well, online backlash as tensions over the use of AI continue.
You see, over the weekend, OpenAI took what appears to be a handful of influencers to a luxury retreat in upstate New York for what was called Summer Club.
Well, there, the creators were treated to farm-to-table dinners, wellness activities like beekeeping, and classes on how to better use OpenAI products.
One creator posted about making a website, while another took a photo of a brochure that said Painting Workshop on it.
The videos were aesthetic and lighthearted, as you can imagine, but many of the comments...
were not.
One influencer, for example, who posted about going on the trip on her TikTok and Instagram, had comments from people insinuating she sold her soul for a nice hotel room or asking if she could do a video reconciling her trip with AI Data Center's environmental impact.
When reached for comment, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said that OpenAI works with a range of creators as part of a broader marketing effort to help people understand more practical ways to use ChatGPT.
There's also more to the timing of the trip that struck people.
You see, OpenAI is set to strike a $500 billion deal to build a data center in Ohio during a time when the socio-ecological impact of AI data centers has taken center stage.
The irony was not lost on some commenters that OpenAI held a brand retreat in a luxury resort nestled in nature.
Other commenters also noted OpenAI's $200 million contract with the Department of Defense.
as a reason the brand trip evoked ire.
On Tuesday, Spotify said it's zoomed past 300 million subscribers for the first time.
The streaming service also reached 777 million monthly active users in the second quarter, 12% more than a year earlier.
Now, notably, the company saw its subscriber base swell by 9% in the quarter, despite raising subscription prices in several regions this year.
The platform has tried to diversify its offerings by introducing fitness content, narrations of magazines, integrating concert ticket sales, and even selling physical books.
The company reported quarter revenue of 4.8 billion euros, 5.52 billion dollars, up 14% from a year earlier.
Spotify has focused strongly on building AI features in the last few months.
It's released tools to create personalized podcasts based on content from different sources.
It even launched a Notebook LM-like feature as an experimental desktop app in May.
The streaming service has also added AI-powered Q&A and briefing generation features to podcasts, partnered with Eleven Labs for an audiobook creation tool, and struck a deal with music labels to allow users to make fan-generated remixes.
Last month, they launched a new conversational AI assistant, which lets users steer content on the app using, you guessed it, prompts.
The platform is seeing its subscriber counts grow despite increasing backlash against this hosting of AI-generated music.
To appease its users, though, Spotify has added a verification system for artists, and last year introduced optional labeling for AI-generated music, a keyword, optional.
In the absence of effective systems for identifying AI music, users are resorting to alternative services like soullessmusic.com and slop tracker 404 Media reported last month.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Ivan Mehta, Dominic Midori-Davis, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow.
Same tech time, same Crunch channel.
And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.