The Vogue Business AI Tracker chronicles the most important AI developments impacting the industry and the world every week. From venture capital investments and startup launches to product releases and regulatory updates, don’t miss the important AI news.
April 1, 2026
news: OpenAI has completed a record $122 billion funding round at a valuation of $852 billion.
Why it’s important: ChatGPT maker has raised the largest funding round in Silicon Valley history, led by Softbank. Other investors and individual investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and DE Shaw, also participated in the round, contributing $3 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be under additional pressure to justify his $852 billion valuation to investors who are watching whether the technology company can deliver on its promises.
In a blog post announcing the round, OpenAI claimed that it is the “absolute leader in consumer AI,” adding that it had 900 million weekly active users and 50 million paying members as of March 2026. OpenAI also said search usage has nearly tripled in one year, and the six-week ad pilot generated more than $100 million in ARR. The company says its business side accounts for more than 40% of its revenue and is expected to reach parity with consumer business by the end of the year. “These are more than just growth milestones, they show that frontier AI is becoming part of people’s daily lives around the world,” OpenAI said in a post.
March 31, 2026
news: AI digital twin licensing company Alva launches in partnership with Elite World Group, Next Models, and H&M.
Why it’s important: The newly launched Alva markets itself as an AI talent company that creates, licenses, and secures “certified and unique” digital twins (dubbed “Alva twins”) of models, athletes, artists, and actors. For the launch, we partnered with Elite World Group, Next Models, and H&M. But the company says it also has major fashion and entertainment partnerships in the works.
It operates in one of the most controversial areas of AI. If a brand wants to use a model’s likeness in an AI-generated shoot, how can they make sure the model is credited? Alva said its new licensing solution allows talent to maintain full ownership and control over the Alva twin, while allowing brands to license and access it as a rights-cleared entity.
March 25, 2026
news: OpenAI revamps ChatGPT shopping features after rolling back instant checkout.
Why it’s important: OpenAI’s ChatGPT shopping ambitions have changed dramatically in recent months. After announcing last September that it would enable in-chat instant checkout and launching Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), a system that integrates various brands and Shopify sites with ChatGPT checkout, the company is pivoting away from developing this feature. The decision follows research that revealed users are less keen on completing purchases within apps and are using chatbots more for research and discovery. “We found that the initial version of Instant Checkout did not provide the level of flexibility we wanted to provide,” parent company OpenAI said in a blog post announcing the news.
Now, ChatGPT is refocusing the shopping experience on product discovery. The revamped rollout includes more visual exploration and discovery features, and encourages users to upload photos of the items they’re looking for. The chatbot will then provide comparisons of different product images, prices, and product details instead of the current text-centric results.
OpenAI said the speed, relevancy and product range of its shopping tools will be improved, and all merchants already integrated with ACP (including Shopify merchants as well as retailers such as Sephora, Nordstrom and Wayfair) will be automatically enrolled in ChatGPT’s new discovery layer. Importantly, brands can take control of the final step in the customer purchase process: checkout. “You can complete a purchase on a merchant’s online store through an in-app browser, so everything happens seamlessly, with the merchant’s brand at the center. This is AI shopping at scale,” said Mani Fazeli, VP of Products at Shopify.
