Today's AI Pulse
Odyssey lands $310M Series B, valued at $1.45B
Odyssey announced a $310 million Series B round that values the AI lab at $1.45 billion. The round was led by Natural Capital and included backers such as Amazon, AMD Ventures, GV, EQT and IQT. In parallel, Odyssey struck a preferred‑cloud deal with AWS to use Trainium silicon for large‑scale model training.
Also developing:
Kia’s Electric Van Is About to Go on Patrol with AI Cameras and Drones
Kia Motors is set to launch the AI Patrol PV5, its first all‑electric van built on the modular E‑GMP.S platform, later this year. The vehicle will be offered in multiple configurations, from cargo to luxury camper, and a police‑specific version will begin pilot testing with the Korean National Police Agency in June 2026. Equipped with AI‑powered 4K cameras and a roof‑mounted drone featuring thermal imaging and 90× zoom, the van can detect weapons, fires and medical emergencies while providing aerial surveillance. The rollout signals Kia’s push into specialized electric commercial vehicles and public‑safety applications.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Says AI Success Is "More About Getting Intense Users and Intense Usage" Than Seat Counts
Microsoft posted a record $82.9 billion in Q3 revenue, with cloud sales climbing 29 percent to $54.5 billion and Azure expanding 40 percent year‑over‑year. Microsoft 365 Copilot surpassed 20 million paying users and now sees weekly engagement on par with Outlook, signaling AI is becoming a...
AI Is Now Part of the Fix for Retail Product Categorization Challenges
Retail product categorization sits at the crossroads of ERP, e‑commerce, POS and tax systems, creating a fragile data architecture that slows implementations and raises compliance risk. The blog explains that traditional manual mapping cannot keep pace with expanding catalogs and...
Elon Musk Seemingly Admits xAI Has Used OpenAI’s Models to Train Its Own
Elon Musk, testifying in federal court, hinted that xAI has used OpenAI’s models to train its own systems through a process called distillation. He described the practice as standard across the industry, acknowledging only a partial reliance on OpenAI’s technology....
At UToledo Health, Ambient AI Decreases Open Charts, Improves Documentation
UToledo Health piloted Nabla’s ambient AI documentation tool with 40 providers across multiple specialties. Over an eight‑week period the system captured real‑time clinical conversations, generating structured notes that were integrated into Epic, resulting in more than 3,000 documented encounters. The...
Boost AI Results with Simple Role‑Task‑Format Prompt
Simplest way to get better AI output: Use an RTF prompt. 1. Role 2. Task 3. Format Give it a job title, tell it what to do, tell it how to format the output. This alone will improve everything you get from...
Kohl’s Delves Into AI for Gift Finding, Aiding Associates
Kohl’s introduced a conversational AI Gift Finder for Mother’s Day, built on Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise. The tool lets shoppers describe a recipient’s interests, upload photos, receive tailored product suggestions and add items to the cart without leaving the chat....
LLMs Unlock Code‑Free Apps, Natural Installations, Knowledge‑Base Power
Fireside chat at Sequoia Ascent 2026 from a ~week ago. Some highlights: The first theme I tried to push on is that LLMs are about a lot more than just speeding up what existed before (e.g. coding). Three examples of new...
Challenge Any Public Statement, Regardless of Who Published It or When, with Aron D'Souza of Objection AI
Aron D'Souza, co‑founder of Objection AI, announced a platform that can challenge any public statement, regardless of source or timing, by leveraging the latest advances in artificial intelligence. The concept dates to a prototype he built two decades ago for...
Prompted Personas Can Trigger Unexpected Model Obsessions
OpenAI's report on its models' goblin-proclivities is fascinating. It seems that ChatGPT became quite goblin- and gremlin-obsessed not long ago. An investigation found this was tied to the "nerdy" persona made available to users. It's great that they made this...
LLMs End Code Rationing, Empower Yes Engineers
For 50 years, software engineering ran on code rationing. Writing code was expensive, so we rationed it carefully through roadmaps, RFCs, prioritization meetings, and scope reviews. This created a role: the No Engineer. No, that won't scale. No, we don't have...
Unlocking Unstructured Data: Building AI-Powered Support Triage with Data 360
The article outlines how Salesforce’s Data 360 platform, combined with vector databases and foundational large language models (LLMs), can transform raw support emails into structured, actionable case records in near real‑time. Traditional email‑to‑case rules rely on brittle keyword logic, leading...
Mythos, Not the Iran War, Is the Most Significant Geopolitical Warning of Our Time
Frederick Kempe warns that the geopolitics of artificial intelligence, not the Iran conflict, will shape the next era. He highlights Anthropic’s frontier model Mythos, which can autonomously discover thousands of software flaws affecting finance, communications and critical infrastructure. The piece...
Google AI Is Creeping Into Every App on Your Phone. Here Is How to Disable It
Google has woven its Gemini AI into nearly every Android app, from Gmail and Messages to Photos and Pixel‑only tools. While the integration offers new smart features, there is no universal toggle to turn the technology off across the device....
Distillation Deserves Fair‑use Protection for Open‑source AI
What people call "distillation" is a super common practice (you use other models to benchmark your model, to evaluate your inputs or to add a little bit to your datasets) that in my opinion should be covered by fair use...
Prioritizing Data Readiness in Federal AI Adoption
Federal agencies are accelerating AI adoption under White House executive orders, with the VA cataloguing more than 350 AI projects and CMS supporting thousands of AI‑enabled activities. Yet an EY survey shows only 26% of agencies have integrated AI enterprise‑wide,...
Amazon's AI-Generated Shopping Experts Now Let You Ask Questions
Amazon has upgraded its "Hear the Highlights" AI audio feature to let shoppers ask real‑time questions. The interactive Q&A appears as a raised‑hand icon in the product page, letting users type or speak queries that the AI host weaves into...
Taylor Swift And Rihanna TikTok Scams Are Surging
AI‑generated deepfake videos of celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Rihanna are flooding TikTok, prompting users to click fraudulent "TikTok Pay" or rewards links that harvest personal data. Copyleaks reports a sharp rise in these synthetic scams, noting that many clips...
Are We Losing Our Minds to AI?
Artificial intelligence is moving from a tool to a cognitive partner, handling tasks from drafting wedding toasts to legal analysis. Studies, including Anthropic's 80,000‑response survey, reveal a tension: professionals gain efficiency but also encounter AI unreliability and a sense of...
Today’s Podcast Episode: The White House AI Framework: Ambition, Preemption, and Uncertainty Ahead
The White House released its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence on March 20, 2026, marking a shift from the earlier principles‑based AI Action Plan toward a concise document that favors limited regulation and federal preemption of state AI laws. The framework...
Kenneth Suh Discusses How AI Is Reshaping Ethics and the Practice of Law
Kenneth Suh, a partner at Jackson Lewis, warned that AI hallucinations, data drift, and outright dishonesty pose emerging ethical and evidentiary risks for lawyers and corporate counsel. He highlighted how these technical flaws can trigger cybersecurity breaches, compromise data‑privacy obligations,...
Platform Modernization in Insurance: Why Now Is the Time to Accelerate
Insurance carriers are confronting a pivotal shift as AI reshapes platform design, turning modernization from a distant project into an immediate strategic imperative. Legacy monolithic core systems, built over decades, impede data integration and AI adoption, forcing insurers to confront...
Google and Amazon’s Biggest Profit Driver Last Quarter Was Their Anthropic Stakes—Which They Haven’t Sold
Alphabet and Amazon posted record quarterly profits, but more than half came from unrealized gains on their stakes in AI startup Anthropic. Alphabet’s profit jumped 81% to $62.6 billion, with a $28.7 billion equity gain, while Amazon’s net income rose 77% to...
Boomi Shifts to Data Activation, Tackles AI Semantic Gap
I haven't written about @boomi in a while. That changed when I noticed they stopped calling themselves an integration company sometime in Q1 2026. The new label is "data activation company" and it's not cosmetic. Integration Platform as a Service...
The State(s) of AI.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving from buzz to a foundational technology, reshaping fields as diverse as science, space exploration, robotics, finance, warfare, and media. Stanford University’s AI Index Report for 2026 provides the most comprehensive data set yet on AI...
Anthropic’s Supporters Tell Court “Novel” Fair Use Arguments Put Forward by Music Publishers Are “Unconstitutional”
Anthropic is fighting a copyright infringement suit by music publishers ABKCO, Concord and Universal Music Publishing, arguing that using copyrighted lyrics to train its Claude model qualifies as fair use. A coalition of tech trade groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation...
Klaviyo Brings Custom Skills to Customer Agent
Klaviyo launched Custom Skills for Customer Agent, letting businesses create bespoke AI-driven interactions on its existing CRM platform. The feature enables brands to define logic in plain language, build new skills from scratch, modify existing ones, and connect to any...
Superagent AI Launches Superagent 2.0
Superagent AI unveiled Superagent 2.0, a unified autonomous workforce platform for independent insurance agencies. The solution bundles AI‑driven agents, managed telephony, email deliverability, real‑time ACORD quoting, and pre‑built revenue workflows into a single environment. Agencies can now provision compliant phone numbers,...
Anthropic’s Claude Security Emerges From Closed Preview to Scan Your Codebases for Vulnerabilities
Anthropic has taken Claude Security out of closed preview, launching a beta version for Claude Enterprise customers while extending access to Team and Max plans soon. The AI‑driven tool scans entire codebases with parallel agents, validates findings to curb false...
Government Leaders See ‘Momentum’ in Agencies’ AI Adoption
Government agencies that were once limited to AI pilots are now scaling the technology across state, city and education sectors, according to statements at Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas. A Google‑commissioned survey shows 55% of public‑sector leaders already use...
AI-Powered Customer Experience Is No Longer Optional — and Businesses That Ignore It Are Paying the Price
Businesses that fail to provide instant, personalized support are losing revenue, as illustrated by a $4,000 contract lost when a prospect couldn’t reach a live agent. AI‑powered customer experience tools—chatbots, voice assistants, and predictive analytics—now handle up to 80% of...
Why Investors Are Telling Big Tech to, “Show Me the Money”
Earnings season put the AI mega‑trend under a microscope as Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta reported Q1 results. All four beat earnings estimates, but investors rewarded Alphabet’s 63% cloud‑revenue jump and penalized Meta for offering vision without clear AI‑driven earnings....
Enterprise AI Dashboards Shifting From Hacky Code to Secure UI
The cool thing about Agents and Agentic Workspaces is just how user friendly you can envision the UI becoming. In my opinion, the "hacker" era of AI where every investor who wants to use AI has to be in an IDE...
Frequent AI Users Spot Synthetic Writing Instantly
"Load bearing," "I keep coming back to," "Not X, but Y" A curse of using AI a lot is that you realize how much of the writing around you is just AI, now People who don't use AI have been unable...
Health Systems Add Multiple AI Vendors for Specialty Precision
Mayo Clinic partnered with Abridge initially - and now is adding Ambience for specialty care. That’s MORE point solutions - not less. What’s going on here? Recently I spoke to a CMIO whose health system is also planning to add a...
Today's Top Marketing AI News Roundup
ICYMI Top #Marketing #AI News Stories today: https://t.co/sRsnE2jbmK Top stories from @martechismktg @MarketingBrew @lawdotcom @TrialsArena @AdobeForBiz @Digiday and more. https://t.co/OvYgSnlBe7
AI Boosts Cybersecurity Demand, Not Replacement
$CRWD + Claude deal reiterates what the street has gotten wildly wrong. AI doesn’t replace Cybersecurity platforms. It accelerates demand and cyber risk. 🚀
AI Automates Tedious Data Work, Boosts Revenue
This is the kind of AI use case that looks innocuous but is the tip of the iceberg. "Tedious, repeatable yet always unique and focus-requiring data aggregation, analysis, and presentation." If a process can be described like this, it is an AI...
AI Narrative Fixes Future, Limits Human Agency
Especially insightful post from Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social . AI discourse sees an inevitable future determining our current actions instead of our actions and possibilities shaping an open-ended future https://t.co/vzGwRzpBVr
AI Removes Unwanted Elements From Vintage Photos Using Copilot
Did you know that AI can help you get rid of unwanted elements in old photos? Then you can try to improve on things, as I demonstrate to amusing effect with Microsoft Copilot and a vintage 70s photo... https://t.co/of8ByS8iHT #photos...
China Tests Truck‑mounted Nuclear Power for AI Data Centers
Truck-mounted nuclear ‘power bank’ enters testing as China explores portable reactors capable of running AI data centers. https://t.co/rFt1tElfKe
Cloud Business Powers Big Tech AI, Investments Paying Off
The cloud business is now the main flywheel driving Big Tech’s #AI engine. And the payback on all the infrastructure investments may be creeping into view, despite “the financial strain of the data centre boom starting to show.” Via @RichardWaters @FT https://t.co/0A9jTNjPLF
Combine MCP, RAG, and Agents for Strategic Advantage
MCP vs RAG vs AI Agents 👇 MCP → connects tools RAG → connects knowledge Agents → execute tasks Not competitors. A stack. The advantage? How you combine them. Where are you investing first? #AI #Agents #RAG #Tech https://t.co/iuOIfqHY86
Use Support Tickets to Track AI Mentions Efficiently
The best way to source prompts to track your AI mentions is in your customer support tickets.
Microsoft's AI Spend Secures Enterprise Agent Stack
Full report on $MSFT now up @DiligenceStack. Now all three CSP growth thesis reports are finalized. The durability of the cycle foundation set, so we can focus on tracking progress now :) Microsoft’s AI Capex Is Buying the Enterprise Agent...
Falkor's GraphRAG SDK Tops Benchmark, Now Open Source
Falkor's new GraphRAG SDK just took #1 on GraphRAG bench and yes it's open source 😆
Taylor Swift's Trademark Playbook Shields Athletes From AI Deepfakes
AI is exploiting athletes’ identities, it will only get worse as AI gets better and NIL protections aren't enough. Enter Taylor Swift’s trademark strategy to protect her NIL. It offers a potential roadmap for athletes battling deepfakes and AI misuse: https://t.co/4TdMv2PYiY.
Hermes Model Hierarchy Fixed: Primary Claude CLI, Multi‑Fallback
Hermes wasn’t exactly following my model hierarchy rules but all is well now. 😌 Testing this right now: Primary: Claude CLI Fallback: OpenAI oAuth Fallback 2: Qwen 3.6 Fallback 3: Claude API https://t.co/GrmxUICq3Q
10th Annual RAaIS Brings Top AI Talent to London
little over a month til our 10th annual @raais in london ft talent from the best and brightest in ai from big labs, startups, and academia been at this for a while :) https://t.co/XYFkHTqJ1f
AI Agents Can Now Auto‑Create Cloudflare Accounts and Deploy Apps
What could go wrong? :) -> Cloudflare says AI agents can now create Cloudflare accounts, start paid subscriptions, register domains, and deploy apps on behalf of users