Tales of two formidable AI competitors

• FCC regulators approved the $8.4 billion merger between Paramount Global (No. 147) and Skydance Media more than a year after the deal was first announced. The approval comes less than a month after Paramount settled a lawsuit with President Donald Trump, agreeing to pay him $16 million related to allegations of unfair editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 election. Read more
• Northern Trust (No. 269) CEO Michael O’Grady denied reports, originally published in June by the Wall Street Journal, that the bank was approached by Bank of New York (BNY) (No. 113) to discuss a merger. His comments followed warnings from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) that a potential merger could violate antitrust laws.
• Union Pacific (No. 177) and Norfolk Southern (No. 346) have acknowledged that they are in “advanced” merger talks, although questions remain about whether the deal will be approved by regulators. Last week’s edition of Fortune 500 Digest noted that the merger was being discussed, according to Associated Press reporting, but neither railroad company had confirmed. The companies, if merged, could create a west-to-east coast-to-coast railroad in the U.S.

• Alphabet (No. 7) saw revenue of more than $96 billion, beating Wall Street’s expectations and marking a 14% year-over-year increase. CEO Sundar Pichai praised Search specifically, which he credited with double-digit revenue growth.
• General Motors (No. 18) reported that tariffs put in place by the Trump Administration amounted to a $1.1 billion hit, while its net income of $1.9 billion was down from $2.9 billion in the same period a year ago.
• Tesla (No. 43) missed Wall Street’s expectations with $22.5 billion in revenue for Q2, down about 12% from the same quarter last year. During the company’s earnings call, CEO Elon Musk expressed optimism about the company’s Robotaxi service in Austin and offered vague hints about a new, “more affordable” Tesla model on the way.
• IBM (No. 68) posted $16.98 billion in Q2 revenue, a year-over-year increase of almost 8%. Software revenue missed analyst expectations despite growing 10%, however, which CEO Arvind Krishna attributed to clients who “reprioritized their spend to the hardware” in the company’s earnings call.
• Capital One Financial (No. 82) held its first earnings call since acquiring Discover in May. Chairman and CEO Richard Fairbank noted that the company is “fully mobilized and hard at work on integration,” but added that integration will cost more than the $2.8 billion the bank had expected. Overall, Capital One posted $12.5 billion in net revenue, up 25% from the previous quarter.
• Intel (No. 86) CEO Lip-Bu Tan emphasized the need for cost-cutting in a memo to employees on the same day it reported a net loss of $2.9 billion. “Over the past several years, the company invested too much, too soon—without adequate demand,” Tan wrote. “There are no more blank checks. Every investment must make economic sense.”

Other earnings calls that took place this week: Verizon Communications (No. 30), Lockheed Martin (No. 59), Charter Communications (No. 79), Coca-Cola (No. 97), Halliburton (No. 194), Keurig Dr Pepper (No. 284), Blackstone (No. 321), Chipotle Mexican Grill (No. 372), and many more.

• At Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore this week, Tan Su Shan, CEO of DBS Group Holdings (No. 7 on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500), recounted a sobering warning she received upon being appointed to her new role. “The day my CEO role was announced, I’m in a WhatsApp group with my board. I get a WhatsApp saying that even the CEO’s job will be replaced, or can be replaced, by AI.”
• Most large language models are “a bit like a Fulbright scholar who is interested in Asia as their area of study,” said Kalika Bali, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research India, in another session. “They know a lot about the [subject], but they miss the culture. It’s an outsider’s gaze into the culture of a country.”

See all Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore 2025 coverage.