Feb 14, 2026 · 24-Hour AI Briefing: Grok Hits 17.8% US Share, Alibaba’s CoPaw Goes “Local-First,” Micron Doubles SSD Bandwidth with PCIe 6.0
Three threads tightened in the last 24 hours: Grok is moving from novelty to mainstream contention via distribution; personal assistants are being redefined around privacy and controllable deployment; and datacenter storage bandwidth is re-emerging as a hard limiter in AI infrastructure.
1) Apptopia: Grok’s US market share reached 17.8% last month, up from 14% in Dec and 1.9% in Jan last year
Commentary:
This curve matters more than the raw points: 1.9% → 14% → 17.8% is a transition from “edge experiment” into the core competitive tier, and it looks like sustained climbing rather than a one-off spike. The distribution advantage is obvious—Grok sits inside X’s high-frequency feed loop, where “scroll → ask → keep consuming” becomes habitual. For news and real-time discourse, it behaves like a native “ask while reading” feature rather than a separate chat app.
But rapid growth comes with equally visible risk. Grok has faced regulatory scrutiny over unsafe or inappropriate generations; a “shock value” brand can pull attention short-term while eroding long-term trust. And versus Gemini / ChatGPT, there’s still a perceived gap in overall capability and reliability. Getting a seat at the table is step one—turning traffic into durable retention and monetization is the real test.
2) Alibaba Cloud’s Tongyi team introduces CoPaw, a more user-friendly personal assistant that supports both local and cloud deployment, with plans to open-source on GitHub
Commentary:
CoPaw is positioned as more than an OpenClaw clone: it doubles down on a “local-first, multi-channel, proactive heartbeat” philosophy, and strengthens both its memory system (ReMe) and extensible skill framework (Skills). The real battleground here isn’t parameter count—it’s delivery: privacy, controllability, deployment friction, and reliable integration with personal data and workflows. Local deployment directly addresses “data stays with me,” while cloud deployment keeps onboarding friction low.
This looks like a meaningful consumer-facing move from Alibaba Cloud. If the open-source release includes not just a UI shell but the plugin/skills layer and security/permission model, it can become a reusable base for personal agents. Would you actually run a local-first assistant like this?
3) Micron begins volume production of PCIe 6.0 SSDs for servers and datacenters: up to 28GB/s read and 14GB/s write—about 2× PCIe 5.0 NVMe
Commentary:
The headline numbers map cleanly to PCIe 6.0’s bandwidth doubling, and Micron’s message is “system-level optimization” via vertical integration (NAND, controller, DRAM cache, firmware). The practical impact is straightforward: in strong sequential workloads—data prefetch and training checkpoint writes—single-drive bandwidth at this level can shrink critical windows and increase effective cluster utilization.
It also targets a real pain point: as compute accelerators scale, I/O starvation becomes more expensive. GPU time is too costly to waste on slow feeds and flushes. Platform maturity and power/thermal tradeoffs still matter, but the direction is clear—high-end enterprise storage is back on the AI critical path, and Micron is leaning into that position.
Most important AI events in the last 72 hours:
The throughline is “delivery.” Distribution, deployability, and infrastructure throughput are becoming as decisive as model quality. The next question is whether Grok can convert momentum into trust—and whether local-first assistants like CoPaw can break out of demos into daily habit.