The State of AI – January 2026

We are living through the most significant technology transformation in human history.

In this episode, I break down the state of AI in January 2026—what's real, what's hype, and what it means for your career, your business, and your family.

What we cover:

• Elon Musk's Grok AI banned in 7 countries and under investigation in California
• Microsoft and OpenAI's $250 billion restructure—and what it signals
• OpenAI announces advertising in ChatGPT for 800 million users
• NVIDIA becomes the most valuable company on Earth at $4.6 trillion
• The truth about AI job losses (it's not what you think)
• Sovereign AI: Why nations are building their own AI infrastructure
• Anthropic's Claude Cowork and Claude for Healthcare launches
• The 4 things you need to do right now to stay ahead

Resources mentioned:

🔮 Netjeru Oracle – AI-powered oracle readings: rich-mgt.com/art 🎵 Crown & Code – Business rap: rich-mgt.com/music 📚 Support AI education: riched.co/donate

Connect:

Website: rich-mgt.com Nonprofit: riched.co

Keep learning. Keep building. Keep rebuilding.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

By crime, we rebuilt by AI, we rise this time, we rebuild by faith, we built by crime, we rebuilt Welcome to Rebuilt by AI, the Rich Ed Podcast. I'm Dwayne Richardson. We are living through the most significant technology transformation in human history. And I'm not being dramatic. In the last 30 days alone, NVIDIA became the most valuable company on Earth at$4.6 trillion. Elon Musk's Groc AI is under investigation in seven countries. Microsoft and OpenAI restructured their$250 billion partnership. OpenAI just announced advertising is coming to ChatGPT. And Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare, putting AI directly into your medical records. Meanwhile, over 50,000 Americans lost their jobs in 2025 with AI cited as the reason. But here's what nobody's telling you. Most of those layoffs are corporate spin, not actual AI displacement. Today, we're cutting through the noise. What's real, what's hype, and most importantly, what it means for you, your family, and your future. Let's get into it. Let's start with the chaos. Elon Musk's XAI has been on a wild ride. GROC 4 launched in July 2025 and quickly became one of the most powerful AI models in existence. But power without guardrails creates problems. In the past month, GROK has been banned or restricted in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Australia, Ireland, the UK, and France. The California Attorney General launched a formal investigation into XAI for large-scale production of deep fake, non-consensual, intimate images. The controversy centers on Grok's image editing feature that allowed users to digitally undress real people, including minors. An analysis of 20,000 Grok generated images found 2% depicted people who appeared to be children. XAI's response to media inquiries? An automated message that says Legacy Media Lies. That's it. But here's the twist. Despite all this, the US Department of Defense added Grok to its AI platform last month. The GSA signed a deal with XAI to bring Grok to federal agencies until 2027. Elon is playing both sides. Controversy for attention, government contracts for revenue. And just this week, Grok 4.20 won a live stock trading competition, beating OpenAI and Google models. Now let's talk about Microsoft and OpenAI. In October 2025, they finalized their restructuring. Microsoft now owns 27% of OpenAI, worth approximately$135 billion. Here's what matters. OpenAI is now a for-profit, public benefit corporation. The nonprofit mission is gone. OpenAI committed to purchasing$250 billion in Azure Cloud Services. And Microsoft no longer has exclusive cloud rights. OpenAI can now work with Oracle, Google, and others. The Stargate project aims to invest$500 billion in AI infrastructure over five years. The cozy Microsoft OpenAI relationship is becoming a competitive marketplace, but the biggest OpenAI news dropped three days ago. On January 16th, OpenAI announced they're bringing advertising to ChatGPT. Starting in the coming weeks, users on the free tier and the new$8 per month Go tier will see sponsored content at the bottom of their conversations. ChatGPT now has 800 million weekly active users. That's 800 million people asking questions, seeking recommendations, making decisions. And soon, advertisers can reach them at the exact moment of intent. When someone asks ChatGPT, what's a good CRM for a small business? That's not a passive scroll. That's active purchase intent. And now, businesses can place their products right there at the bottom of that answer. OpenAI is being careful. They say ads won't influence the actual responses. They won't sell your conversation data. No ads for users under 18. No ads in your health or politics topics. And if you pay for plus at$20 a month or higher, no ads at all. This is a direct shot at Google. Google makes over$200 billion a year from advertising. That's 80% of their total revenue. Their entire business model depends on being the place where people go to find things and buy things. Now ChatGPT is becoming that place. Analysts project AI driven search advertising will explode from$1.1 billion in 2025 to$26 billion by 2029. OpenAI said it directly. Ads can be transformative for small businesses and emerging brands trying to compete. AI tools level the playing field. Here's my take. Don't wait for the platforms. You can build AI powered experiences right now that capture attention and create value. That's exactly what we did with the NetJiro Oracle at rich-mgt.com slash art. When you visit the page, you enter your email. Then you get a personalized Oracle reading featuring 13 Egyptian deity cards. Each card has custom artwork, detailed interpretation, and voice narration powered by AI. You receive a unique three card spread every time. After the free reading, you see watermarks on the cards. You hear the voice lock, and you get an offer.$27 for the full deck with lifetime access, or$9.99 per month. This is what AI enables for entrepreneurs right now. Head to rich dash mgt.com slash art and see what's possible. Now let's talk NVIDIA. Jensen Huang is having a moment. At CES 2026 two weeks ago, the NVIDIA CEO unveiled the Vera Rubin Platform, six new chips designed for the next generation of AI. The Rubin GPU delivers five times the performance of Blackwell at one tenth the cost per AI token. His exact words, the chat GPT moment for physical AI is here, when machines begin to understand, reason, and act in the real world. Nvidia is now worth$4.6 trillion. That's more than the entire GDP of Germany. The question isn't whether AI is transforming our world, it's whether you're positioned to benefit from it.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Now, let's address the elephant in the room jobs. The numbers sound scary. Over 54,000 job cuts in 2025 were explicitly attributed to AI. Amazon cut 14,000 corporate roles, Microsoft eliminated 15,000 positions. Salesforce reduced staff by 4,000. All cited AI and efficiency as reasons. But here's what Oxford Economics found in their January report. Firms don't appear to be replacing workers with AI on a significant scale. We suspect some firms are trying to dress up layoffs as a good news story rather than bad news, such as past overhiring. Companies that hired aggressively during the pandemic boom are now trimming fat. AI is the convenient excuse that makes Wall Street happy. The real number? AI-related job losses represent just 4.5% of total layoffs. Compare that to 245,000 jobs lost to standard market conditions. But don't get comfortable. AMIT study found 11.7% of jobs can already be automated with current AI technology. Entry-level positions are most at risk. The unemployment rate hit 4.6% in November, a four-year high. AI isn't causing mass unemployment today, but it is changing which jobs exist and which skills matter. Are you evolving with it or waiting to be displaced? Here's a story that's not getting enough attention. The rise of sovereign AI. Sovereign AI means a country develops, hosts, and controls AI using its own infrastructure, data, and workforce. No dependence on American or Chinese tech giants. Why does this matter? Because right now, every time you use Chat GPT, Claude, or Grok, that data flows through American servers. American companies set the rules. American values shape the guardrails. Countries are saying not anymore. Japan committed tens of billions to domestic chip manufacturing, including two nanometer fabrication. India is procuring massive GPU clusters and launching its sovereign large language model next month. Canada invested$3 billion in a public AI infrastructure program with 50,000 GPUs reserved for sovereign use. In Europe, Spain launched Alia, a multilingual AI in Spanish, Basque, Catalan, and Galician. Portugal is building Amalia, set for public release in 2026. Nvidia's Jensen Huang called it sovereign AI, is the new infrastructure. Just like countries build their own roads and power grids, they're now building AI factories. The AI race is no longer just corporate, it's geopolitical. Now let me tell you about the AI company that doesn't make headlines for controversy. Anthropic. While Elon is fighting governments and Sam Altman is restructuring, Anthropic is shipping product. In late November, they released Claude Opus 4.5, their most advanced model. It outperforms GPT 5.1 and Google Gemini 3 Pro in coding, reasoning, and agentic tasks.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

But here's what's exciting. Claude Cowork. Launched January 12th, Claude Cower is the first truly autonomous digital colleague. It doesn't just answer questions, it does work. File management, document processing, workflow automation, and it built itself. Claude Code, their AI coding tool, was used to create Cowork. The AI is now building the AI. This week, Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare. You can now connect your Apple Health data, medical records, and insurance information to Claude. It will summarize your history, explain test results, help with prior authorization appeals, and prepare you for doctor visits. Microsoft just added Claude Opus 4.5 to their Foundry platform. It's also in GitHub Copilot and Copilot Studio. Anthropic might not have the brand recognition of ChatGPT, but if you're building anything serious with AI, Claude is quietly becoming the professional's choice. And yes, I use Claude. The AI you're hearing about this episode? We built it together. Alright, you've heard about the giants, the geopolitics, the controversies. But what does this mean for you, for your family, for your career? Here's my honest take. Number one, AI literacy is no longer optional. The World Economic Forum says AI skills are changing 66% faster than general job requirements. Employers pay up to 56% higher wages for workers with demonstrated AI proficiency. That's not a bonus anymore. That's baseline. The most valuable skill isn't coding. It's prompt engineering. It's knowing how to communicate with AI to get results. Critical thinking, creative problem solving, emotional intelligence, relationship building. 4. Start now. The learning curve must match the hiring curve. If you wait until AI is figured out, you've already fallen behind. And if you want structured guidance, check out what we're building at Rich Ed. Our nonprofit is focused on AI education and financial literacy because we believe everyone deserves access to these tools. That's the state of AI in January 2026. Before I go, head to rich-mgt.com slash art for your free oracle reading. Check out Crown and Code at rich dash mgt.com slash music and support AI Education at rich ed dot co slash donate. Thank you for listening to Rebuilt by AI, the Rich Ed Podcast. I'm Dwayne Richardson. Until next time, keep learning, keep building, keep rebuilding.