Nvidia’s succession search and Microsoft’s recovery

This morning’s briefing leads with Nvidia’s succession search and growing US pressure over chip exports. It also covers Microsoft’s recovery, demand for Anthropic’s IPO, and new releases from OpenAI and GitHub.

Nvidia plays down CEO speculation as chip export pressure grows

What happened. On 13 November, Nvidia’s board said it was choosing a search firm and had not formally engaged any candidates. That followed the Financial Times report that Arm chief executive Rene Haas had been approached, Reuters reports. Nvidia did not confirm the reported approach.

Finance chief Colette Kress continues as interim chief executive while retaining her existing role. Nvidia’s 12 November announcement says the search will consider internal and external candidates.

Bessent said Treasury, State, the Pentagon and the US trade representative favoured blacklisting Megaspeed, while Commerce had failed to follow through. US officials suspect Megaspeed of diverting advanced chips into China in breach of US law, CNN reports.

Nvidia shares closed Friday about 2% lower and Arm about 5% lower, according to Reuters.

Why it matters. Reuters reports that analysts expect a shift from Huang’s personal oversight of engineering, China export negotiations and AI investments towards more institutional leadership. Axios argues that Nvidia’s financial backing is harder to replace than its chips.

The succession therefore concerns both computing supply and the investment supporting AI expansion. For organisational buyers, immediate operational continuity is a separate question: board chair Harvey Jones says he expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue uninterrupted. That is the company’s assurance. Its 17 November results are the next scheduled opportunity to hear from management.

People are asking

**Has Arm’s chief executive been appointed?

** No. The reported approach is not an appointment, and Nvidia says candidates have not been formally engaged. Reuters explains.

**Who is running Nvidia?

** Colette Kress is interim chief executive and remains chief financial officer, according to Nvidia’s filing.

**Does this mean ChatGPT or Claude will stop working?

** Nvidia’s board expects customer commitments and operations to continue. Its announcement is a continuity assurance, rather than a status report on those services. Read the statement.

Microsoft reports broad recovery as AI connections return

What happened. Microsoft apologised on 13 November and reported broad recovery following disruption to Outlook, Teams and Copilot. It said a fault introduced during an earlier network capacity upgrade surfaced following a subsequent network change, and ruled out cyber activity and AI agents as the cause, ABC News reports.

OpenAI’s Microsoft connector incident is resolved, with affected services reported to be operating normally.

Anthropic’s record puts the main Microsoft 365 connector and Claude for Outlook impact between 16:03 GMT on 12 November and 16:40 GMT on 13 November. Its 21:49 GMT resolution notice still warned of occasional errors or delays during Microsoft’s recovery.

Anthropic also resolved a separate Claude, API and Claude Code incident at 15:38 GMT on Friday. That incident included delayed and skipped routine runs; its record does not attribute the cause to Microsoft.

Why it matters. The OpenAI and Anthropic records show different AI products failing when their tools depended on Microsoft services. Our analysis is that having several chatbot suppliers can leave the same underlying dependency in place.

Australian Computer Society chief executive Prins Ralston called for a national review of IT dependence, warning that small businesses may lack a workaround when Outlook fails, ABC reports. For workplace teams, recovery checks should cover the complete workflow, including document retrieval and whether scheduled work actually completed.

People are asking

**Did an AI agent cause the outage?

** Microsoft says no. It attributes the disruption to a technical network problem, according to ABC’s report.

**Are ChatGPT’s and Claude’s Microsoft connections back?

** Both providers marked their incidents resolved. Anthropic’s last connector notice retained a warning about occasional upstream errors or delays. See the OpenAI and Claude records.

**What about missing Claude scheduled tasks?

** A separate incident reported late and skipped routine runs. Its resolution notice does not say every skipped run was repeated, so check the task’s run history before relying on an expected output. Read that incident record.

Anthropic’s IPO draws six times the available shares in orders

What happened. Anthropic’s IPO had orders for six times the available shares by the end of Thursday, compared with about twice on Tuesday, Reuters reported on 13 November, citing people familiar with the offering. Details and demand could change; Anthropic declined to comment.

The proposed offer comprises 825 million Class A shares at US$70–US$78 each, with an application to list on Nasdaq as ANT. Existing shareholders are selling some of those shares, according to Anthropic’s announcement. Its IPO website expects pricing on 18 November and trading to begin on 19 November, in US Eastern time, subject to regulatory clearance.

Filed figures show third-quarter revenue of US$16.956 billion, operating expenses of US$17.523 billion and an operating loss of US$567 million. Net loss was US$23.291 billion, including US$21.936 billion from revaluing financing instruments.

Why it matters. Reuters says investors are questioning whether Claude can extend its success in coding to broader knowledge work and sustain premium prices against comparable rival models.

Operating results reversed from a US$974 million profit in the second quarter to a US$567 million loss in the third. Anthropic attributes this principally to expensive short-term computing capacity and non-cash donation-matching charges in its prospectus.

Our analysis for organisational buyers is that commercial adoption, supplier economics and performance on a particular task deserve separate assessments. Demand for shares answers a different question from whether Claude is suitable for an organisation’s work.

People are asking

**What does six times subscribed mean?

** Reported orders were six times the shares available. It does not mean the offering has completed or demand cannot change. Reuters explains.

**Is Anthropic profitable?

** It reported both an operating loss and a net loss for the third quarter. These are different accounting measures. See the filing.

**Does all the money raised go to Anthropic?

** No. Anthropic receives no proceeds from existing shareholders’ sales, according to its offering announcement.

New releases

ChatGPT Wallet. ChatGPT Wallet is rolling out to eligible US Pro subscribers aged 18+ with a US billing address and supported US-issued credit cards, letting their dot agent pay after biometric approval. More

Codex CLI. Codex CLI 0.169.0 adds multiple side-chat tabs to its opt-in terminal workspace and can reopen saved local conversations after a restart. More

GitHub Copilot. Gemini 4 Hydrogen is rolling out to Copilot Pro, Pro+, Max, Business and Enterprise at US$1.50 per million input tokens and US$7.50 per million output tokens under usage-based billing. More

GitHub Copilot. GitHub plans six model retirements on 14 December 2026, including Gemini 4 Argon, Gemini 3.8 Flash and Claude Fable 5; individual annual subscribers retain Claude Haiku 4.5. More

GitHub Copilot app. GitHub Enterprise Server support is generally available in Copilot app 1.2.0 and later for repositories, issues and pull requests, with a licensed cloud account or configured model provider required for requests. More

Elsewhere in AI

Amazon has agreed to become datacentre developer Fermi’s anchor tenant, reviving a deal after failed talks and boardroom turmoil, the Financial Times reports. Read

India’s government is backing Sarvam to develop home-grown AI models as the country seeks to avoid becoming a “digital colony”, the Financial Times reports. Read

University of Helsinki researchers used Claude to identify previously overlooked mathematical results in logician Kurt Gödel’s notebooks, The Guardian reports. Read