Hallucination Station: Issue 13

This week's biggest new in AI

Author

Rob Somers
October 31, 2025

🌟 Editor's Note
Congrats on joining the community! If you like what you see then please share with your friends so we can iterate and improve and bring you the best newsletter possible! I’d also love to hear your feedback so please reach out to [email protected]!

🚀 This Weeks Top Stories in AI

🎵 Licensed‑AI makeover: UMG + Udio rewrite the music creation rulebook

  • Universal Music Group (UMG) and Udio have settled their copyright litigation and signed “industry‑first” licensing deals that give the AI platform access to UMG’s recorded music and publishing catalogue.

  • The new AI‑powered music creation service, launching in 2026, will be subscription‑based and train its models solely on authorized and licensed music — enabling users to customise, stream and share creations in a protected “walled‐garden” environment.

  • The partnership signals a major shift in how artists, rights‐holders and AI companies collaborate — balancing artist compensation, rights licensing and generative AI innovation in music.

📉 Amazon announces major corporate restructuring

  • Amazon plans to cut approximately 14,000 corporate jobs, about 4% of its corporate workforce, with the round starting this Tuesday.

  • The cuts are part of a broader effort, with sources suggesting the number could rise to 30,000 roles (≈10% of corporate staff), as Amazon seeks to reduce bureaucracy and streamline operations.

  • Amazon leadership cites the surge in artificial intelligence adoption and the need for faster innovation as key reasons for the restructuring—even while the company continues to invest heavily in AI and holiday-season hiring.

🤖 Meet Cursor Composer: the AI‑powered multi‑file dev tool

  • Composer is a feature in Cursor that enables developers to write or modify multiple files at once, switching dev workflows from single‑line edits to full‑stack app changes.

  • Using high‑level prompts (like “build me a blog system”), Composer can generate project scaffolding and boilerplate, but users still need to review, refine, and debug the output.

  • For optimal results: give clear instructions, keep tasks small, and always checkpoint changes — AI accelerates but doesn’t replace developer judgement.

🚀 OpenAI gears up for a trillion‑dollar debut

  • OpenAI is preparing an initial public offering that could value the company at up to $1 trillion, making it a contender for one of the largest IPOs ever.

  • The company is exploring filing as early as the second half of 2026, with potential public listing in 2027, and has discussed raising at least $60 billion in the offering.

  • This move follows a restructuring that reduces reliance on Microsoft and positions OpenAI to access fresh capital for its ambitious AI infrastructure and expansion plans.

🦄 Other Bits

🔥Meme-while in AI

(Coming next week - send me your favorite AI memes)

🏆Tool of the Week (not sponsored)

I recently made the switch from Jira to Linear for my personal projects, and I must say, it’s been a game changer. This isn’t a sponsored post btw - it’s just a really good product!

Linear – Plan and build products

Linear streamlines issues, projects, and roadmaps. Purpose-built for modern product development.

linear.app

Did You Know? The first computer bug was literally a bug—in 1947, Grace Hopper found a moth trapped in a Harvard Mark II computer, coining the term "debugging" in the process.

Till next time,