Quick Read
- Haredi rabbis declared a communal fast in January 2026, citing concerns that AI devalues the spiritual process of learning.
- Anthropic’s Claude Cowork business tools recently caused a market dip for several SaaS companies, including Salesforce and Atlassian.
- Alphabet’s shares dropped over 6% following the Claude Cowork announcement, despite Google’s own Gemini 3 LLM update in November.
- Amazon plans to invest $200 billion in capital expenditures during 2026, primarily for data centers supporting AI through AWS.
- The Jewish value of “ameilut” (toil) is being highlighted as a crucial human experience that AI cannot replicate.
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence continues to reshape global markets and societal values in early 2026, evidenced by recent market shifts following new AI tool releases and a notable communal fast by Haredi rabbis protesting AI’s impact on traditional learning. While tech giants like Amazon and Google are committing billions to AI infrastructure and development, the financial sector is experiencing volatility as new AI-powered business tools challenge established software providers, simultaneously prompting a deeper societal reflection on the essence of human effort and spiritual growth.
AI’s Spiritual Crossroads: The Haredi Fast
In a significant cultural and religious development, Haredi rabbis declared a communal fast last month, expressing profound concern over the escalating influence of artificial intelligence on spiritual life and traditional learning. Their apprehension centers on the idea that AI, by making knowledge instantly accessible, undermines the sacred process of scholarly toil. As one Haredi leader conveyed, the ability to generate a d’var Torah for a Sabbath meal at the push of a button diminishes the spiritual value derived from opening a book, engaging with its text, formulating questions, and diligently seeking answers. This perspective emphasizes that the sanctity of learning lies not just in the end result, but in the arduous, contemplative journey.
This religious stance is rooted in the obscure yet crucial Jewish value of ameilut (עֲמֵילוּת), or toil. While less recognized than values like chesed (kindness) or tzedakah (charity), ameilut is interpreted by authoritative commentators like the 11th-century Rabbi Rashi to mean ‘toiling in Torah study.’ For Haredim, this concept underpins a life dedicated to deep, often difficult, textual engagement. They contend that AI tools like ChatGPT, which transform knowledge from a developed pursuit into a consumed commodity, are antithetical to this approach, paradoxically making true learning harder by making information too easy. This highlights a growing philosophical divide between technological convenience and the perceived intrinsic value of human struggle and effort.
Market Volatility Amid New AI Tool Rollouts
The business world is concurrently grappling with the immediate economic ramifications of rapid AI innovation. The recent release of business-focused tools for Anthropic’s Claude large language model (LLM), particularly Claude Cowork, triggered significant market volatility. Shares of several software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, including Salesforce, Intuit, and Atlassian, saw substantial declines in the wake of the announcement, with year-to-date drops ranging from 27.9% to 41.6% as of February 2026, according to reporting by Yahoo Finance. Investors expressed anxiety that these companies’ business clients might reduce spending on expensive SaaS platforms if AI tools could streamline tasks more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Even tech giants were not immune to the market’s jitters. Google parent company Alphabet experienced a more than 6% drop in its shares in the week following the Claude Cowork rollout. This occurred despite Google’s own significant strides in the AI race, including the November release of Gemini 3, an advanced LLM that introduced agentic AI capabilities and an updated Nano Banana image generator. Gemini 3 had previously seen a substantial increase in paid subscribers, many reportedly defecting from OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The market reaction indicates investor concern that Claude Cowork could now poach these same subscribers from Google, intensifying the competitive landscape for LLM providers.
Amazon and Google’s Expanding AI Footprint
Despite the market’s immediate reactions, major technology players are doubling down on their AI investments. Amazon, often not primarily seen as an AI stock, plays a pivotal role through Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing platform. AWS provides the essential computing power necessary for developers to create and run AI models, making it a critical backbone of the generative AI landscape. While Amazon’s stock declined by approximately 7% since 2025, its revenue and earnings have grown significantly, leading to a more reasonable valuation at 26.5 times forward earnings, according to The Motley Fool.
During the fourth quarter of 2025, AWS sales grew at a 24% pace, marking its fastest growth rate in over three years. This acceleration signals AWS’s increasing prominence as a platform for AI model development. Looking ahead, Amazon has announced plans to invest a staggering $200 billion in capital expenditures during 2026, with the majority allocated to data centers. This massive investment underscores the company’s commitment to expanding its computing infrastructure to meet the surging demand for AI processing capabilities, positioning Amazon to capitalize on the continued growth of the AI sector. Google, too, continues its aggressive push, with Gemini 3 demonstrating its commitment to advanced LLM capabilities and competing fiercely in the evolving AI ecosystem.
The ongoing developments in early 2026 underscore a critical juncture for artificial intelligence, where its transformative power is simultaneously driving unprecedented technological investment and economic shifts, while also prompting fundamental questions about human purpose and the intrinsic value of effort in an increasingly automated world.