Baseten vs Google Cloud

Goodfire Launches Internal AI Agent Monitors

Goodfire, a startup specializing in AI interpretability, launched on Thursday a new type of AI agent monitor that inspects a model's internal signals rather than reading its output, aiming to detect rogue behaviors more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost. The monitors are available to customers of Baseten, an AI model hosting platform. Baseten's Base Labs had previously announced a safety partnership with Goodfire and Hugging Face. Goodfire's approach uses small probes that scan a model's internal activations at each step, triggering a closer AI review only when flagged. In tests on the Kimi K3 model, Goodfire's monitors caught 94% of malicious hacking sessions and cost about $51 for 1,500 sessions, compared to $233 for a cheaper model and $10,000 for a top-tier one. The company positions the solution for open models, which can be stripped of safeguards, and sees it as critical for inference-time guardrails.

• Goodfire launched internal activation monitors for AI agents on October 8, 2026.
• Monitors are available to Baseten customers.
• In tests on Kimi K3, monitors caught 94% of malicious hacking sessions.

Announcing our partnership with OpenAI

Baseten announces a partnership with OpenAI, as featured on their blog.

Baseten, Hugging Face, Goodfire Partner for AI Safety

Baseten's research arm, Base Labs, announced a partnership with Hugging Face and Goodfire AI to establish a safety standard for open-weight AI models. The collaboration aims to develop and publish methods for training and monitoring these models, making safety an integrated feature rather than an afterthought. This comes amid rising concern over 'abliteration,' a technique that removes safeguards from open models, with Hugging Face listing over 6,000 such models. The companies have not detailed technical specifics, but Goodfire's expertise in AI interpretability is expected to play a key role. This initiative seeks to leverage openness as an advantage for safety, providing transparent controls and encouraging community contributions.

• Baseten launched a safety infrastructure standard via Base Labs.
• Partnership with Hugging Face and Goodfire AI announced.
• Hugging Face hosts over 6,000 abliterated models.

Darshan Kantak Named Netflix VP of Ads Platform

Netflix has appointed Darshan Kantak as Vice President of its ads platform. He will lead the teams responsible for the advertising experience on the service, as well as the reporting and operational tools for the Netflix Ads Suite. Kantak previously served as VP of Product at Google Cloud's Applied AI and has held positions at Snap, Meta, Microsoft, and Yahoo. He will report to Amy Reinhard, President of Advertising. His appointment comes as Netflix adjusts its ad revenue forecast to $2.7 billion for 2026, citing slower-than-expected rollouts of some ad capabilities. The streamer also recently announced updates to its ad platform, including new measurement capabilities and expanded programmatic offerings. This move underscores Netflix's commitment to strengthening its advertising infrastructure.

• Darshan Kantak joins Netflix as VP of Ads Platform.
• He will lead product, engineering, and data & insights teams for advertising.
• Kantak previously was VP of Product at Google Cloud's Applied AI.

Microsoft reveals Azure revenue: $33.2B in Q1 FY2027

For the first time, Microsoft disclosed Azure's quarterly revenue in dollars, reporting $33.2 billion for the July-September quarter, up 48% year-over-year. This beat analyst expectations of $32.3 billion and surpassed Google Cloud's $30.7 billion, though Google Cloud grew faster at roughly double the rate. Azure now represents Microsoft's largest and fastest-growing product line, accounting for about 36% of total quarterly revenue. The disclosure comes as Microsoft introduced a new reporting segment, Agents and Infra, which includes Azure and Microsoft 365 cloud, generating $76.8 billion. This transparency allows investors to directly compare Azure with AWS and Google Cloud, intensifying the cloud race.

• Microsoft reported Azure revenue of $33.2 billion for Q1 FY2027 (July-September 2026), up 48% year-over-year.
• Azure revenue exceeded analyst expectations of $32.3 billion.
• Google Cloud reported $30.7 billion revenue for the same quarter, growing roughly twice as fast as Azure.

YouTube Q3 2026 Ad Revenue Hits $11.2B, Up 9.2%

Alphabet reported Q3 2026 earnings with total revenue of $127.6 billion, up 25% year-over-year, slightly missing analyst estimates. YouTube generated $11.2 billion in ad revenue, a 9.2% increase from the prior year. YouTube also contributed to the $14.3 billion in Google Services subscription revenue, which includes YouTube TV and NFL Sunday Ticket. Google Cloud revenue surged 103% driven by AI infrastructure demand. CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted that Alphabet is now on a half-trillion dollar revenue run rate, with AI investments boosting Search query growth. Gemini models are processing nearly 32 billion tokens per minute, and the Gemini app has reached one billion users. YouTube Music and Premium surpassed 150 million subscribers globally.

• Alphabet's Q3 2026 total revenue was $127.6 billion, up 25% year-over-year.
• YouTube ad revenue reached $11.2 billion in Q3 2026, a 9.2% increase year-over-year.
• Google Services subscription revenue (including YouTube TV and NFL Sunday Ticket) was $14.3 billion.