FTI Consulting News Bytes – 13 February 2026

FTI Consulting News Bytes

This week’s newsletter spans online safety, continued market jitters around AI, investment trends, robotics innovation and the battle for Warner Bros Discovery. We start with the EU’s new cyberbullying crackdown, which leans on tougher Digital Services Act (DSA) rules and the AI Act to better protect young people online. We then look at turbulence in UK wealth management stocks following the launch of an AI powered investment tool. Elsewhere, Europe’s AI and defence start-ups are attracting billions as funding climbs to a post pandemic high. In China, Alibaba has entered the “physical AI” race with RynnBrain, an open source model designed to help robots understand and navigate the real world. Finally, tension around the merger plans which have captivated Hollywood intensifies as activist investor Ancora moves to block Warner Bros Discovery’s proposed deal with Netflix.

This week’s news

EU Commission launches action plan against cyberbullying

Pressure is mounting on online platforms to take stronger action against cyberbullying, as the European Commission announced new measures to address the issue, which, Reuters writes, has raised concerns around mental health, especially among young people. Euronews notes that EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said “Children and young people have the right to be safe when they are online […] Based on shared understanding of what cyberbullying is, we call for all Member States to develop coherent national cyberbullying policies.” The Commission’s action plan calls for targeting enforcement of existing EU laws, toughening rules under the DSA to protect minors from harmful content, and applying the AI Act to combat the use of deepfakes for bullying. It also aims to ensure children can block and mute any user, cannot be added to groups without consent, and includes a proposed EU wide app for victims to report cyberbullying to a national helpline. The announcement follows regulators’ findings last week that TikTok’s addictive platform design breaches the DSA and fails to safeguard users, highlighting growing pressure on social media platforms over screen time concerns.

Shares in UK wealth managers hit by the AI “contagion”

Shares in the UK’s largest wealth managers fell on Wednesday over concerns about potential disruption from a new AI-led investment tool. The Financial Times reports that investors were spooked after US-based wealth management platform Altruist launched a tool to help financial advisers personalise clients’ investment strategies, commenting that the tool has sparked fears about how the technology might “undermine the traditional industry”. The FT notes that the sell-off echoes similar pressures on software, data and analytics stocks, which saw declines after Anthropic released marketing, legal and finance additions to its Claude Cowork tool. Emmanuel Cau, head of European equities strategy at Barclays commented “The pace of AI innovation is so fast that basically every week there’s a new tool being launched – the market is looking for the next AI loser.” Cau added that the stocks which are perceived losers are being “indiscriminately” sold. 

Investors pour billions into Europe’s AI and defence start-ups

The Financial Times writes that investors are backing companies seen as critical to Europe’s economic competitiveness and security, pouring billions of euros into European AI and defence start-ups. Total European venture capital investment rose 5% to €66bn in 2025, according to PitchBook – a post-pandemic high – with gains driven by big deals for AI and defence companies. Several companies in those sectors are reportedly in talks to raise further funding at higher valuations, including Swedish legal AI start-up Legora, which is believed to be in discussion to raise funding at a $4bn valuation, and Munich-based satellite launcher Isar Aerospace. AI and defence-related companies are also benefiting from a push by officials to increase their technological and security independence, according to Siraj Khaliq, senior adviser at European deep-tech fund Kembara, who commented that the “sovereignty tailwind is not to be underestimated”.

Alibaba enters the “physical AI” market

Alibaba has launched an AI model called RynnBrain to help power robots that can understand the physical world and perform real‑world tasks. Bloomberg writes that the move is part of a growing trend among tech giants pushing into the robotics field, often referred to as “physical AI”. This category includes machines that rely on AI to interact with their environment, such as self‑driving cars. RynnBrain aims to build on the momentum Alibaba has achieved with its Qwen family of AI models, which includes scalable LLMs and large multimodal models (LMMs). The new machine is an open-source model that is common among Chinese tech companies, who use openness to expand developer adoption, in contrast to many US firms that keep physical AI technologies behind proprietary walls. RynnBrain is available in multiple versions on platforms such as Hugging Face and GitHub. The model can help robots map objects, predict trajectories and navigate cluttered environments, including complex spaces like a kitchen.

Activist Ancora joins the Netflix-Warner Bros saga

According to Reuters, activist investor Ancora Holdings has built a stake in Warner Bros Discovery and plans to oppose the media company’s deal with Netflix for its studios and streaming assets, in the “latest twist to the heated Hollywood takeover battle”. Ancora, which has a stake worth nearly $200mn, said that Warner Bros’ board did not adequately engage in talks with Paramount Skydance over a rival offer for the whole company, including cable assets such as CNN and TNT. “The currently proposed Netflix-WBD deal asks shareholders to accept inferior value, gamble on an uncertain spinoff and shoulder significant regulatory risk – despite the availability of a higher value and more certain $30 per share offer from Paramount,” the activist investor said. As a result, Ancora has said it would vote against the Netflix deal at a Warner Bros shareholder meeting expected by April unless the company reverses its recommendation backing the acquisition. 

Top Tweets of the Week

• Mark Gurman, Managing Editor at Bloomberg: The Vision Pro gets YouTube two years after launch. Next up: Netflix?
• Jeremy Kahn, AI Editor at Fortune Magazine: OpenAI appears to have violated California’s AI safety law with latest model release, watchdog claims.
• Stephanie Palazzolo, AI Reporter at The Information: VCs and founders have told me voice AI is on the verge of a breakthrough for months. Here’s why it’s so hard to get right, compared to text-based AI: https://t.co/PJq2OUUy8p 

Number of the week

128.8mn The number of viewers for Bad Bunny’s halftime show at the Super Bowl, surpassing the number of viewers for the game itself (124.9mn), according to The New York Times.