Top Companies' AI Moves
Jul 29, 2026

The Gist
Major tech and Fortune 500 companies are deepening their AI investments this week: Kroger launched an AI meal-planning assistant to boost shopping engagement, Disney switched from GitHub Copilot to OpenAI's Codex for coding tasks, and Booking.com expanded into new markets with AI-driven personalization. Meanwhile, security and infrastructure companies are signaling that traditional approaches are becoming outdated, with CrowdStrike warning that conventional patching can't keep pace with AI-accelerated threats, while legal and enterprise teams are shifting focus toward practical, problem-solving AI rather than flashy technology-first implementations.
Today's Stories
- 1
ON Semiconductor cheaper than Vertiv for long-term AI play
Two AI infrastructure stocks—Vertiv, which supplies power and cooling for data centers, and ON Semiconductor, which makes power and sensing chips—trade at different valuations despite both being Nvidia partners. ON Semiconductor is pursuing a $7 billion(約1.1兆円) acquisition of edge solutions company Synaptics to build out its physical AI capabilities. AI spending will likely shift from cloud-based model training and inference (phase one) to edge AI—inference performed by robots and electric vehicles near where data is collected (phase two). Vertiv leads in phase one, but ON Semiconductor is positioning itself for the long-term phase-two boom. ON Semiconductor's data center business is expected to double in 2026, and the Synaptics deal gives it sensors, power management, control technology, and edge computing in one package—a full stack for industrial robotics and autonomous systems.
ON Semiconductor's data center business is forecast at $500 million(約800億円) of its nearly $6.5 billion(約1兆円) total revenue in 2026. The critical question is whether management can successfully integrate Synaptics and capitalize on the shift to physical AI infrastructure.
- 2
Kroger launches AI meal-planning assistant to drive shopping
Kroger has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) shopping assistant that helps customers plan meals and add items to their cart, marking the grocer's entry into AI-powered commerce tools for grocery shopping. The AI assistant may help Kroger increase basket size and customer engagement by simplifying meal planning and shopping—a move that signals how retailers are turning to AI to enhance the in-store and digital experience and compete as e-commerce alternatives grow.
The rollout scope, pricing, availability on Kroger's app and website, and whether the tool drives measurable gains in customer spending and loyalty will indicate whether AI-driven meal planning becomes a standard grocery-retail feature.
- 3
Disney ditches GitHub Copilot, adopts OpenAI's Codex
Disney is dropping Microsoft's GitHub Copilot and two Amazon AI coding tools (Kiro and Q) in August in the US, while adopting OpenAI's Codex. The company will keep access to Anthropic's Claude Enterprise and Cursor. Eight Disney tech employees told Business Insider they rarely or never used GitHub Copilot; one said it produced "needlessly complex" code requiring cleanup, and another noted access had "lapsed for lack of use." The shift reflects Copilot's broader adoption struggles against rivals like ChatGPT and Claude, and signals which tools are winning with major enterprise customers.
OpenAI's Codex is being prepared for adoption at Disney, though no timeline for introduction was given. Claude and Cursor have become the dominant tools among Disney staffers—one high-level engineer said their usage was "probably around 80% Claude at the terminal when coding."
- 4
CrowdStrike: Traditional patching now obsolete against AI-accelerated threats
CrowdStrike executives stated in an interview that traditional patching schedules are no longer viable because AI has compressed the time between vulnerability discovery and functional exploit creation to minutes. The company emphasized that 82% of attacks now rely on legitimate processes and valid credentials rather than malware, and that the average breakout time in Latin America has dropped from 48 minutes to 29 minutes. Organizations must abandon legacy patching cycles and shift to risk-based prioritization focusing only on vulnerabilities with active, validated exploits in the wild. The democratization of AI—allowing individuals with minimal programming knowledge to create sophisticated attack scripts through natural language prompts—has expanded the pool of capable threat actors, making speed of response critical to survival.
CrowdStrike's strategic priorities include expanding its agentic Security Operations Center (where AI agents automatically triage detections), enhancing real-time identity protection with dynamic access revocation mid-session, and strengthening browser-level and cloud infrastructure protection—areas the company identifies as growth opportunities in Mexico and Latin America.
- 5
Legal teams need problem-first AI, not tech-first tooling
Kimberly Harlowe, Senior Director of Litigation Support and Technology at Altria, outlined a framework for corporate legal departments to adopt AI strategically. The approach prioritizes identifying specific business problems before selecting tools, designing modular infrastructure to swap solutions as AI evolves, and scaling through outside counsel partnerships rather than internal-only automation. Nearly 87% of General Counsel report active AI use, but barely half have a formal rollout roadmap. A problem-driven strategy—starting with low-risk internal wins like organizing legacy documents, then scaling to outside counsel workflows—helps legal leaders earn executive buy-in by anchoring pitches in cost savings or reclaimed capacity, not software features.
The framework emphasizes building a 'plug-and-play architecture' that avoids locking departments into single-vendor ecosystems, since AI solutions shift every six months. High-impact use cases for outside counsel include automated deposition summaries and discovery drafts, with success tied to aligning law firms around standardized tools and maintaining human review at each step.
- 6
Booking.com expands to Oceania and Korea with AI and authenticity focus
Booking.com is deploying a strategy for expansion into Oceania and Korea that centers on AI integration, authentic user-generated content, and direct collaboration with local regulators. The move reflects how major travel platforms are now tailoring regional strategies around both technology (AI to personalize search and booking) and trust-building (authenticity, local regulatory partnership) rather than a one-size-fits-all global approach. For travel businesses and accommodations in these regions, this signals both opportunity (more visibility through a major platform) and the need to meet stricter content and compliance standards.
The company's success in Oceania and Korea will likely signal whether regulatory collaboration and AI-driven authenticity can become a replicable playbook for other markets where Booking.com seeks to strengthen its position.
What to Watch
As ON Semiconductor scales its data center ambitions and integrates Synaptics, investors should watch whether the company can capture meaningful share of the physical AI infrastructure boom. Meanwhile, across retail, cybersecurity, legal tech, and travel—from Kroger's AI meal planning to CrowdStrike's autonomous security agents to Booking.com's regulatory partnerships—the winners will be those who balance automation's efficiency gains with the human oversight and interoperability that markets increasingly demand.
Sources
- Should You Ignore Vertiv? Why ON Semiconductor May Be The Better AI Infrastructure Stock Today
- Kroger Debuts AI Shopping Assistant for Meal Planning
- Disney is ditching Microsoft's GitHub Copilot and adding OpenAI's Codex
- Traditional Patching Is Not Viable in the AI Era: CrowdStrike
- Building a Practical Legal AI Roadmap
- Booking.com's playbook for Oceania and Korea includes AI, authenticity, and regulatory collaboration
- Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) Stock May Be 48% Below Fair Value On Fresh AI Drug Discovery News
- AI Is Teaching Tractors to Think Field by Field, Not Farm by Farm
- Anthropic, OpenAI now bringing in more money than Starbucks and McDonald’s combined
- Amphenol Is Best-of-Breed in Interconnect With Surging Growth From AI
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