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Businesses Bet Big On Artificial Intelligence Going Into New Year; Kara Swisher On Banning Social Media For Teens Under 16. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 02, 2026 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:31:46]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: The explosion of artificial intelligence was, of course, a massive story in 2025, and it is definitely not going away in the New Year. CNN's Dana Bash spoke to on-podcast host and Pivot co-host Kara Swisher about all things AI, social media regulation, and what she thinks 2026 will bring to the tech world. Here's part of their conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Just about a year ago, tech giants lined up at President Trump's inauguration. It was a very clear signal just how important that they would be in President Trump's second term. But tech hasn't just exploded in Washington.

Artificial intelligence is, of course, everywhere. It's gotten so big that Time magazine named the architects of AI its 2025 person, people of the year. So what does it all mean for 2026 and far beyond?

Who else would I like to talk to about this other than my friend Kara Swisher, co-host of the Pivot podcast, and is joining me now. Hey, Kara, thank you so much --

KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hey, how are you doing, Dana?

BASH: -- for being here. So --

SWISHER: No problem.

BASH: -- I do rely on you to try to explain AI and all the things around AI to me. But --

SWISHER: Sure.

BASH: -- it really is -- it feels like we've been saying we're on the cusp of it being everywhere for a long time, but like I think now it really is.

SWISHER: Yes.

BASH: Healthcare, personal communications, you name it. We're starting the New Year, it's here.

SWISHER: Sort of. Sort of.

BASH: Sort of?

SWISHER: I mean, people aren't using it -- people are using it much more. It's sort of like when people really started using the internet. It's sort of a similar kind of thing. Suddenly, everybody was using email. Suddenly, everyone was using websites. You'd say, I have a www in front of my name, if you recall.

And so I think it's just the usage. Now, AI has been around for decades and decades, right? And it's already been in a lot of stuff you're using on the internet. You just don't know it. They don't call it that. What's happened is this compute power has increased, the data has increased, the ability of chips to do things, and, you know, of course, the learning of it has increased.

But what's really interesting is most of what's going on is spending by the tech companies in order to get you to use it and make businesses out of it. Because right now, none of these are in actual in business even if they have a lot of subscribers, it's still well short of the money they're spending. Very similar to the beginning of the internet, too.

BASH: So how does that play out in 2026? They're spending money to get us to spend money. What's that going to look like for us as consumers?

SWISHER: Right. Well, I think regular businesses have to figure out how it fits in with their businesses, like CNN. How does it work -- what does AI do for CNN to both save money and attract more audience, for example? How do they do that? Like, any business has to sort of start asking -- or has already started asking those questions.

The other thing is there's going to be some IPOs of some of these companies this year, possibly OpenAI and some others. And so you're going to see how investors think of these things because the spending is off the charts in terms for data centers, for chips to build these businesses. And the early internet looks quaint in comparison.

The amount of money lost here, it's in the trillions. And there's no really clear path of the business yet. And I don't mean to say it's not going to be one. It's just there's not going to be this many players as there are right now. There'll be many fewer, actually.

[12:35:04]

BASH: Yes. We're waiting to see who the Myspace is of this technology.

SWISHER: Yes. I have some ideas of any.

BASH: Like who?

SWISHER: You know, there's just too many of them. There's Grok, I suppose. I don't think people use it as much. It's smallish --

BASH: That's X's Elon.

SWISHER: -- but it's not nothing. It's X. Yes, it's not nothing but, you know, he's playing with it too much. I think it has to show utility. I mean, do you use AI? I mean, think about it. What do you use it for?

BASH: Ish. Ish. I'm starting to.

SWISHER: Ish, right.

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: Ish, that's --

BASH: I'm definitely at the www phase of it. That's exactly what you said.

SWISHER: Yes.

BASH: Can we just talk about Washington?

SWISHER: Yes, and that's actually -- it'll be interesting.

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: But yes, sure. Yes.

BASH: Because --

SWISHER: Here we are.

BASH: -- Washington completely and totally whiffed, to borrow a word from Susie Wiles, on social media, totally whiffed on social media. That ship --

SWISHER: Whiffed.

BASH: -- has sailed. Is there any sense, despite the talk, that they have any understanding of how to regulate AI?

SWISHER: I think they have an understanding. They don't want to regulate AI, that recent executive order, although I think it's meaningless because those states will push back the executive order that states couldn't regulate AI, was a play not to regulate at all, because they have no intention of actually doing policies except get out of our way, right?

And so that, to me, was a real play by the tech industry and the payoff for that January inaugural visit, which was get out of our way so we can figure this thing out and spend as much money. And meanwhile feather the nests of the Trump family, whether it's through crypto or whatever. And so I think the regulation is no regulation. And I think it's really rather explicit. And that's why states will fight back --

BASH: What do you think of that? Should there be? SWISHER: Yes. Yes. Everything is regulated. Planes are regulated. And one of the things that's interesting here is the liability. Like, there's a lot of -- as you know, I've been focusing a lot on kids who are using chatbots who commit suicide. I've been interviewing their parents and other experts. And, you know, there's a lot of liability with some of this stuff as it rolls out.

And the question is, do they get the same protections, the 230 protections, which they don't actually. And, you know, you're seeing a lot of copyright cases that -- or copyright deals, like Disney just did a deal with OpenAI. So you're -- and then sent a cease and desist to Gemini at Google. So you're going to see a lot of -- a lot more action ahead of time rather than getting rolled over like last time.

But, yes, of course, there should be privacy legislation. There should be -- if you're giving advice as an AI to someone's mental health, you should have the same rules around you as a therapist does.

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: Why do you get off? Therapists can be arrested. So that's our lawyer or financial adviser. You know, it's just to like, you know, what is this rash? Even then, you know, if it misdoes it and you rely on it. So I don't know. What did I just use it for? I can't recall.

I don't know. Do the birds eat oats? I have some stale oats and I put it outside --

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: -- and it gave an excellent answer --

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: -- that kind of thing.

BASH: And they were right. AI was right.

SWISHER: I hope so. I gave the birds oats. I didn't recheck it somewhere else. I think it's fine. I think (INAUDIBLE).

BASH: You mentioned, you know, chatbots and teens, which is just, it's horrible what's happening. Related to that, but not that exactly, is the question that you talk about, Scott Galloway talks about, Jonathan Haidt, we've been talking about it for a very long time, which is in the social media platforms, and when do we get to the point where there is some guardrails for our kids.

SWISHER: Right.

BASH: Australia did it. First country to say that no children under the age of 16 can be on a social media platform. I mean, is there any chance that anything close to that can happen, or is it back to what you were saying originally about the tech giants going into the White House and saying, stay out of our space? SWISHER: Stay out of our hair. I mean, it's interesting because it's a bipartisan issue. You have people like Marcia Blackburn, you have Ron DeSantis --

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: -- and you have people on the left, too. So a lot of people are concerned. And more recently because of the -- it's so obvious, including the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, that kid was extremely online.

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: I mean, a young adult, he's not a kid. You know, these extremely online isolated young men is something we have to think about. It's all linked together. And so the question is what -- like, liability will take care of a lot of stuff in a lot of ways, which is why we have so many problems with the media (ph) because we can't sue them.

But you do have to have some basic regulation around safety. And I think Australia's is rather far and a lot of people have a lot of legitimate criticism about that, including how to check it and, you know, kids find a way around it, but that's OK. They find a way around cigarettes and drinking.

And we still say as a society we won't be drinking until we're 18. Even if you do, I don't know if you did, Dana, I did. So I think it's just a question of how far we want to go with it. At this point, because we've done no legislation, Scott and I are more for, let's just ban it. Let's see how that goes. Because how it's going now is not great.

[12:40:06]

BASH: I didn't drink until I was 21. I don't know what you're talking about.

SWISHER: Wow. Well --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: We have much more of Dana Bash's conversation with Kara Swisher up next, including the Republican Party after Trump.

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MATTINGLY: Dana Bash's conversation with tech whisperer Kara Swisher also delved into politics, President Trump's second term, and Elon Musk's involvement in the federal government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Let's talk about one of your --

SWISHER: Yes. BASH: -- one of your favorite subjects, not-so-favorite subjects, Elon Musk.

SWISHER: Yes.

BASH: Because you were saying at the very beginning of the Trump administration --

SWISHER: I hear he's on (INAUDIBLE) recording with (INAUDIBLE).

BASH: Yes, well, she said she's not really sure now. But at the beginning of the administration, when he was jumping into DOGE, you said, this isn't going to last, and of course, you were right.

SWISHER: Yes.

BASH: Listen to what he said about his experience last month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:45:07]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you do DOGE again knowing what you know now?

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: I mean, the thing is, like, I think instead of doing DOGE, I would have basically built you know, work to my companies, essentially. So -- and the cars, they wouldn't have been burning the cars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: What does that tell you?

SWISHER: Well, that's a no, I guess. They're burning -- burning the cars is hardly the problem Tesla has, although the stock is at an all- time high, I think, this week. It's a meme stock at this point. But, you know, the car business has fallen off for people who don't like Elon Musk. And also, he doesn't like to say it, but he hasn't done much innovation.

The only thing he's done is the Cybertruck, which is repellent to consumers. So he really didn't focus on doing -- you know, and China's making all these fantastic cars around the world and selling them around the world. So he did miss an opportunity. At the same time, he handled it like he was a monarch and thoughtlessly, as again, let's quote Susie Wiles, it was no sane person would have done it the way he did it.

And of course, Trump led him. And so that's ultimately President Trump's fault. But, you know, he just thought he could come in and do whatever he felt like. And I think the moment I felt like, are you kidding me was, it was the chainsaw thing. The whole visual of the chainsaw was sickening about people's lives or comparing federal workers to Hitler and Stalin.

It was also so cruel and unnecessary, and it's going to cause deaths across the world, what he's done. He will be -- he will -- this will show -- years from now, history will not treat him well.

BASH: Kara, let's talk a little politics. What about --

SWISHER: All right.

BASH: -- President Trump's first year in office surprised you the most, in a second term?

SWISHER: How much money he made in tech?

BASH: That's surprised you?

SWISHER: Yes, how much money the family managed to -- no, I didn't think they'd be quite that graspy and greedy. I mean, they're not billions of dollars but, you know, the family does it. Especially around crypto, I thought that was -- you know, and of course, they're like, well, it's transparent, as opposed to the -- it makes the Biden's look like pikers, the stuff they accuse them of.

So I was sort of surprised how corrupt and grifty around tech the Trump family has been, I'll be honest with you. I'm sort of shocked by it. But, you know, I guess not. It's, you know, I get while the gettin's good, I suppose.

BASH: And because there's so much, there is just so much on a daily basis, which is by design, I'm sure, it gets covered.

SWISHER: Yes.

BASH: You talk about it, we talk about it. But like you were saying, if it was a Biden or somebody else, it would have been, you know, five alarm fire.

SWISHER: Well, that's always the case. If by -- if Obama had done this, and what about the tan suit? And so like, that's -- it's not, it's Donald Trump and --

BASH: Or even another Republican.

SWISHER: So I think -- anybody, anybody else. Everyone sort of has built in that he's a creep. And I think actually the most recent thing with Rob Reiner was sickening. I thought he wouldn't go quite that far. But I thought actually, right before I thought, he will, he'll say something terrible right now, because Reiner was so opposed to him.

But I didn't think he -- I don't know how he managed to link it back to himself. I mean, he's very effective at using online to keep us distracted. And I don't just think it's distracted. It's -- I think they -- speaking of AI, I think they go, what can we do today that will get the media running after this thing? And I think they've effectively used.

I'm surprised that people are still -- I would watch what he does, rather than what he tweets, or what he throws (ph), or whatever the hell he's using over there. But that's what I would -- I think -- I'm surprised the media still, like, doesn't get the game here for all of them, by the way. It's not just him. It's Vance tries to do it kind of claudishly (ph).

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: And, you know --

BASH: I do think it's different in the second term. And that there has been a lot of actual actions and policy that --

SWISHER: Right.

BASH: -- we cover.

SWISHER: That's what I'm saying.

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: Yes.

BASH: And not just the stupid stuff he says, except for when he goes --

SWISHER: No, no, I'm just -- every time he says a kooky thing, but I agree.

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: No, I think one of the things that's actually, what the media's done well is the photos and the pictures, especially around immigration, and even the destruction of the White House of the East Wing. I think there's a lot -- we're in a very visual in media culture right now. And I think it's not been a good thing for Trump because I think -- people are seeing a lot of this stuff, whether it's on media, or it's on social media.

You know, the -- all these videos that go around about the brutality of the -- when they take people, these are people that do not have criminal records. People seeing this all day long. And same thing with the White House. There's something very visual about the White House.

Same thing with Epstein. There's a lot of pictures now. There's a lot of photos. There's a lot of, huh, what was he doing there? And I think -- and by the way, guess who started off this new focus on Epstein was when Elon broke up with Trump.

BASH: That's right.

[12:50:03]

SWISHER: He was the one that said, wait and see what's in there. I think, talk about someone who's done real damage to Trump in that regard.

BASH: Yes. Yes, that's a really good point. Is there any policy that Donald Trump has put in place, I would say for the most part, it would have to be an executive order because Congress is stuck --

SWISHER: Doing nothing, yes.

BASH: -- that you think has been good?

SWISHER: Yes, I think the idea -- I'm not -- you know, the stuff around these chips to China, I thought that was -- like, directionally, a lot of the stuff he did originally around China was this is our biggest rival and we have to be very careful was always -- I always thought it was -- I thought he did it claudishly, as in many things, but I thought the -- identifying the problem, which is China, was correct.

But then he managed to like flip and, you know, who knows where TikTok is at this point. You sort of give me to Jensen Huang, who just shows up and I guess pets him at the White House. You know, a lot of this stuff is worrisome, because he directionally had that.

The other thing is, I think the -- I think the Biden administration absolutely was unduly hostile to some in tech, and probably should have spent a lot more time thinking of smaller startups and things. And so when you're a little more -- you don't want to give away -- you see he's giving away everything, but there's a medium.

But the idea that we should celebrate American tech is a really important one --

BASH: Yes.

SWISHER: -- but not this -- not buying your way into it, because now the startups, I'm a big fan of startups, I'm a big fan of innovation. But again, he's, you know, he's defunded all these amazing universities where all these ideas come from and these people are leaving. I was just at the University of Pennsylvania, looking at the mRNA laboratory there, and they're leaving.

These are young scientists are so disheartened. And so I think he's actually -- he set us back in that -- in research, basic research, not just medical, but technological. And people leaving -- people thinking about leaving. And these are the people that will invent the next thing. And so that's -- I don't -- I think he says he wants to help that, but then he's doing with the thing is not quite as -- quite the same.

BASH: And on the sort of tech capitalists, the tech bros, the billionaires, who have -- you're right, that they got very, very angry and anxious about the way that they felt they were treated by the Biden administration. It's not just that they want to have access --

SWISHER: Well, they're very sensitive people.

BASH: -- to the current administration. How does JD Vance play into all of that? Because he has relationships with a lot of those guys. He was a venture capitalist.

SWISHER: Yes. Well, sort of. Yes. BASH: Ish.

SWISHER: OK. If you say so. You know, he didn't -- he wasn't very successful is what I -- I always joke that a squirrel could have made money the time he was doing it and he didn't. But, you know, I always like -- I think Rachel Maddow calls him Peter Thiel's failed intern, which makes me laugh.

You know, he's very close to them. He's very close and I think they will --

BASH: Right.

SWISHER: -- probably be backing him would be my guess. Although they certainly, by the way, let me warn JD Vance, they'll cut and run if they don't get what they want and they will back someone else. They don't have -- you know, these are not held values. And if they don't think JD Vance can hurt them, which I think a lot of people wonder about exactly, you definitely know Trump can hurt you, right?

And so I think we'll see, but he is quite close to Musk. He's very close to many of the others and he's tech friendly. But although I've never really heard him, like it's -- what's really interesting is, I've never -- he has kids. He doesn't talk about safety. He doesn't talk about -- you know, he doesn't really listen to anybody, but people he agrees with, which is sort of something he accuses the left of doing.

Like, I would love to have a discussion about tech with him. Not that he's going to call me, but like, you should talk to your critics, so.

BASH: Last question, who are you going to keep -- who are you going to be keeping your eye on in the political world in 2026, going into 2028 and that field, on both sides?

SWISHER: Yes. Well -- yes, you know, you can't count out Newsom because he's really raised his value a lot through his social media. Speaking of someone who's really has a perfect game. I have to say -- I don't know. We'll see if it translates into votes, right, but I have to say he's kept -- he's -- I hate to say this, but he's been very promiscuous on social media in a way that's effective for him raising his profile.

And I think -- and it's funny and it's aimed at young people. He's been on podcasts and, you know, he's very active and I think that's probably pretty smart. We'll -- again, I'll see if it works, like see if voters, real voters who vote -- think this is funny or works. I do think -- you know, I think in -- on the -- on, you know, it's probably will be JD Vance, but I don't think he's as effective online at all.

I think he's somewhat repugnant online because he seems so mean. You know, some of the others are interesting. I'm trying to think of someone I think is -- you know, you might see none of them are very -- none of the Republicans, I'm trying to think.

[12:55:07] Well, I am blanking, the guy who left Congress, who was so smart, he was on the China committee --

BASH: Gallagher, Mike Gallagher.

SWISHER: I think he's really special in a lot of ways in that regard. I don't agree with him on a lot of stuff, but I have to say, I thought he was -- that's the kind of person they need to suddenly appear.

BASH: I think he's a palantir now, Kara.

SWISHER: He's a -- I don't -- well, that's fine. I don't, you know, you got to work somewhere, right?

BASH: Exactly.

SWISHER: You got to make your bones somewhere.

BASH: All right, Kara.

SWISHER: Some things that palantir does are fine. Not crazy behavior on stage, but some things they do are fine, some are, so.

BASH: It's always good to talk to you. This was fun. We just kind of got to, you know --

SWISHER: Good to talk to you. Thank you.

BASH: -- shoot the, you know what.

SWISHER: Yes.

BASH: And --

SWISHER: Shoot the shit, yes.

BASH: There you go.

SWISHER: Oh, we can't say shit on CNN.

BASH: No, you said it. It's totally fine. Happy New Year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Thanks for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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