WSJ Tech News Briefing The Wall Street Journal

Google plans to show artificial-intelligence-powered answers on its search engine starting this week in the U.S. WSJ reporter Miles Kruppa joins host Zoe Thomas to explain why the tech giant is making the change and how it could reshape the lucrative internet-search business. Plus, defense technology startups are seeing a surge in funding. But some of their Silicon Valley backers have deep ties to China. WSJ reporter Heather Somerville discusses investors’ conflicting strategies.



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Plus, regulators probe Waymo after self-driving car incidents. And Amazon appoints a new head of its cloud-computing unit. Zoe Thomas hosts.

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Bargain app Temu, owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD, is working to reduce its reliance on American shoppers as growth slows and scrutiny of TikTok grows. WSJ reporter Shen Lu joins host Zoe Thomas to explain Temu’s strategy. Plus, some governments are scaling back commitments to electric vehicles, afraid they could add to problems like inflation, job losses and high public debt. We’ll explore why EVs need to help the economy as well as the environment.



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 Plus: Squarespace plans to go private in a $6.6 billion deal. And France secures $16 billion in investment from tech giants. Zoe Thomas hosts. 



Correction: The firm taking Squarespace private is Permira. An earlier version of this podcast incorrectly said the firm was named Permia. (Corrected on May 14)

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Education tech company 2U set out to bridge the divide between for-profit online learning and highly reputable universities. Now it’s mired in debt and facing competition from former clients. WSJ higher education reporter Melissa Korn joins host Zoe Thomas to explain 2U’s long, steep fall. Plus, WSJ contributor Bart Ziegler shares strategies for getting the best answers from AI chatbots.



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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out his vision in October 2021 for the metaverse as a futuristic, more connected internet. In the years after that, the company now known as Meta had to build it. On the second episode of our special series about the metaverse, host Alex Ossola talks to employees who worked on developing the metaverse, explores how the user experience has changed since those early days and digs into the financial headwinds that have threatened to throw Meta’s mission off course. 

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