February 12, 2026

World domination

Hi there,

Here is this week's Hot or Not.

Hot: Anthropic’s deal activity

Anthropic tripled its partnerships year-over-year and made its first acquisitions and investments in 2025. 

Across its recent deals, the company is locking down the infrastructure that makes AI deployable in high-stakes environments: 

• Identity and permissions
• Security and governance
• Interpretability and debugging
• Developer workflow capture

CB Insights customers can track where the AI leader is going with Anthropic’s Strategy Map.

Not a CB Insights customer? Start your free trial to access Anthropic’s Strategy Map and thousands more.

Not: Quick exits

Tech startups are taking nearly 17 years to reach an exit via M&A, up 22% from 2015.

IPO timelines have also increased by 30% since 2015. Companies are staying private longer thanks to abundant private capital and a frosty IPO market. 

Overall M&A and IPO activity grew slightly in 2025 year-over-year, but remained below 2021’s peak. 

See how private markets are evolving in CB Insights' State of Venture 2025 report.

Hot: World models for AVs

Waymo just unveiled the Waymo World Model, built on Google DeepMind's Genie 3. This allows the company to generate realistic 3D simulations for its autonomous vehicles, reducing the need for real-world testing miles.

Earnings call mentions of "world models" spiked in Q4'25, up from near zero in early 2021, as companies across robotics and AVs converge on physical AI as a competitive edge.

See how world models are reshaping autonomous vehicles and robotics in our 2026 Tech Trends report.

Not: Human accountants

Goldman Sachs announced a partnership this week with Anthropic to automate accounting and compliance tasks, marking a shift away from traditional back-office staffing.

In fact, financial services leads all industries in AI agent deployment, scoring a fifth of all partnerships with agentic tech companies due to the document-heavy nature of the workflows.

Compliance, real-time intelligence, and document processing dominate early, full-scale deployments.

See how AI agents are reshaping work in our 2026 Tech Trends report.

The +1

Source: u/vishesh_07_028 via Reddit

Debt to society. WTF is this?

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

Co-Founder & Exec Chair

P.S. Want to know our 2026 fintech predictions? Register for our briefing here. 

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