Amazon drops data center NDAs, and AI agents want your credit card

Amazon says it will stop using NDAs when negotiating data center deals with local governments, following a similar move from Microsoft earlier this year. Secrecy has fueled community backlash against AI infrastructure, with opposition leading to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums from New York to San Francisco. Meanwhile, a wave of startups is betting that consumers will hand AI agents access to their inboxes, files, and credit cards — if they can get websites to let them in. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Sean O’Kane, and Rebecca Bellan dig into whether ditching NDAs will change how data center deals get done, why trust may be the real product for personal AI startups, plus a couple of deals of the week. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: The White House’s plans to make plans with its new Super Intelligence Force Ghost’s $3,499 computer built to run AI agents around the clock, and why the Equity crew doesn’t see it going mass market Tab, Underdog, and Hark pitching privacy as their product, plus the business model that could turn your agent into a salesperson United, Apple, and Amazon putting up walls against outside agents Lambda’s reported $4 billion raise, and the single customer behind $35 billion of its backlog Uber’s $2.3 billion all-cash deal to get into the office catering space with ezCater We’ll see you next week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Get 25% off your tickets with code Equity25, and we’ll see you on the Builders Stage Tuesday at 9 am. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 0:55 Trump’s “superintelligence force” and the great AI rebranding 3:19 Amazon drops NDAs on data center deals 9:17 Why the AI industry has a communication problem 12:51 Personal AI agents: finding money in your inbox 15:27 Ghost’s $3,500 computer built for personal AI 19:16 Trust is the product: privacy-first agent startups 27:36 Lambda’s $4B raise and the neo cloud backlog problem 31:22 Uber’s $2.3B move into catering 35:10 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices