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:
X Square Robot Unveils New Embodied AI Model, Says Robots Will Arrive in Homes in 35 Days
X Square Robot introduced Wall‑B, an embodied AI foundation model built on its World Unified Model (WUM) architecture that jointly trains vision, language, action and physical prediction. The system learns from real‑world household data and physics‑aware simulations to handle unstructured home environments. X Square demonstrated live tasks such as flower‑arranging and announced a plan to place robots in actual homes within 35 days, while acknowledging occasional human intervention is still required.
Your Brand Is Invisible to the AI That’s Choosing Your Competitor
Research from 6sense shows most B2B buyers now rely on large‑language models like ChatGPT as a primary research tool. These models blend training data with live web searches, favoring content from established, attributed sources over corporate blogs or gated PDFs....
Which Workers Are Most Worried About AI?
A recent MIT study likens AI progress to a rising tide, indicating steady, broad improvements rather than sudden breakthroughs. Anthropic’s research builds on this view, analyzing how workers perceive the encroaching capabilities of AI. By combining an AI‑derived exposure score—measuring...
AD Ports Group and New York University Abu Dhabi Partner on AI for Smarter Ports
AD Ports Group has entered a multi‑year partnership with New York University Abu Dhabi to create a high‑fidelity AI intelligence engine for port operations. The system will combine stochastic AI models with spatial analytics to improve vessel arrival forecasts, berth...
Fox Just Gave Its Ad Portfolio a Massive AI Upgrade
Fox announced the launch of Fox AdStudio, an AI‑driven platform that provides advertisers with real‑time audience insights across the company’s entire media portfolio, including linear TV and streaming services like Tubi. The tool leverages machine‑learning to analyze content and viewer...
How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping Work for Americans with Disabilities
Americans with disabilities face unemployment rates twice the national average, and the ADA may have unintentionally discouraged hiring. Artificial intelligence promises to lower functional barriers through tools for visual, hearing, mobility, and cognitive impairments, yet the same technology can embed...
NZZ Is Turning Its Archives Into a Newsroom Tool
NZZ is converting its digitised 250‑year archive into a unified newsroom platform, integrating images, agency feeds, and legacy content into a single system that works alongside its LivingDocs CMS. The initiative emphasizes AI tools that embed directly into editors’ workflows...
Your Eight Sleep Pod Just Got an AI Upgrade that Makes Better Sense of Your Sleep
Eight Sleep has upgraded its Autopilot feature with a new AI Sleep Agent that pulls daytime activity data from Apple Health and other health platforms. The agent uses this context to adjust mattress temperature, elevation, and other settings in real time,...
Phase 1 of 139th Canton Fair Introduces New Dedicated Product Zones as Emerging Technologies Take Center Stage
Phase 1 of the 139th Canton Fair added nine dedicated product zones, spotlighting emerging technologies such as consumer and agricultural drones, display tech, smart wearables, and service robots. The new drone zones attracted buyers from over 30 countries, generating more...
1Password Sees AI as Both Threat and Tool
1Password, the Toronto‑based password manager, is grappling with AI as both a productivity boost and a security liability. The firm’s CTO, Nancy Wang, says AI can speed code creation and vulnerability discovery, yet it also enables sloppy app development and...
Abstract Brings AI-Powered Legislative Intelligence to Law Firms and Corporate Legal Teams
New York‑based startup Abstract unveiled an AI‑driven legislative intelligence platform at Legalweek, promising law firms and corporate legal departments real‑time monitoring of federal and state regulatory activity. The service uses large‑language models to ingest bill texts, extract key provisions and...
Linktree Turns Creator Identity Into Strategy With New AI-Powered Creator Index
Linktree has introduced the Creator Index, an interactive AI‑powered quiz that assigns creators to archetypes such as Documentarian or Educator. The quiz results integrate with the new Insights Chat, which draws real‑time performance data from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Linktree...
Next Gen CoCounsel To Offer ‘Fiduciary-Grade’ Legal AI
Thomson Reuters announced the next‑generation CoCounsel Legal AI, now in beta, touting “fiduciary‑grade” capabilities that match a senior associate’s performance. The platform, built on Anthropic’s Claude Agent SDK, integrates patent‑pending citation‑integrity tools and verification as core system primitives, ensuring outputs...
RTA: The Fleet Success Company Launches AI-Enabled Sublet Invoice Capture, Reducing Invoice Entry Time by Up to 75%
RTA: The Fleet Success Company introduced Sublet Invoice Capture, an AI‑enabled feature in its Fleet360 platform that transforms scanned or PDF sublet invoices into structured work orders. The tool extracts vendor, asset, parts, labor, taxes and dates, then links the...
Quant Veteran Cautions Against Full AI Control in Hedge Fund Trading
Martin Lueck, co‑founder of Aspect Capital, warned that giving hedge‑fund trading decisions entirely to AI threatens transparency and risk management. He insists on clear, testable hypotheses behind each position and refuses to allocate capital to opaque models. While AI and...
What Schools Should Ask Before Buying An AI Tool
Schools are being bombarded with AI tools promising to cut workload, personalize tutoring, and streamline operations, but the hype often outpaces practical needs. Leaders are urged to start with the problem they need to solve, assess existing ecosystem capabilities, and...
Elevating Austria: Google Invests in Its First Data Center in the Alps.
Google announced its first Austrian data center in Kronstorf, creating 100 direct jobs and expanding the company’s European digital infrastructure. The facility incorporates a green roof, solar panels and off‑site heat recovery to support Austria’s energy transition. Google also launched...
How to Close the Machine-Speed Gap in Cyber Defense with Nik Seetharaman of Wraithwatch
In this episode, Nick Seetharaman, founder and CEO of Wraithwatch, discusses how AI can close the speed gap between machine‑driven attackers and human‑limited defenders. He explains Wraithwatch’s AI‑native platform that unifies existing security tools into an intelligent command‑and‑control layer, enabling...
How I Doubled My GPU Efficiency without Buying a Single New Card
A global retailer’s LLM search service was over‑provisioned, running 48 H100 GPUs at 55% average utilization because the inference workload alternates between compute‑heavy prefill and memory‑bound decode phases. Profiling revealed 92% compute usage during a 200 ms prefill, then a drop...
Virgin Voyages Introduces Rovey – Its First AI Crew Assistant
Virgin Voyages unveiled Rovey, its first AI crew assistant, at Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas. The tool, built on Google Cloud as the inaugural deliverable of the long‑term Project Ruby, acts as a travel‑planning assistant for the brand’s First...
Exclusive: Omni Raises $120 Million to Fix One of AI’s Biggest Enterprise Data Problems
Omni, a startup that provides a governed semantic layer for enterprise data, closed a $120 million Series C financing round led by Iconiq, lifting its valuation to $1.51 billion. The company’s technology translates raw data into consistent business metrics, serving customers such as...
Agent Ready Data: Top of Checklist for Travel & Hotel Consultants
Travel consultancies are rolling out AI agents for booking, service and operations, but many are underperforming because the underlying data is stale, fragmented, or poorly structured. Legacy travel systems were built for human dashboards, not real‑time machine consumption, leading to...
Why Service AI Keeps Failing - and How to Fix It
Enterprise service AI is underperforming because organizations treat it as a bolt‑on rather than a structural foundation. Fragmented ticketing, asset, and knowledge systems leave AI with incomplete context, resulting in guesswork. Atlassian’s blueprint—building a Service Graph, consolidating work platforms, and...
The 8 Claude Skills Every Product Manager Should Build This Week
Claude’s new Skills feature lets product managers embed reusable prompt folders that auto‑load based on context, removing the need to re‑explain product details each session. The article outlines eight ready‑to‑build Skills, from turning raw discovery notes into structured requirement documents...
A Novel Budget-Based C+SVM Model for Credit Risk Prediction
Researchers introduced a budget‑aware C+SVM model that blends cost constraints with support vector machine classification to predict credit risk. The approach simultaneously selects optimal features and assigns weights, targeting the lowest total misjudgment cost while staying within a predefined budget....
Aeroporti Di Roma Deploys Outsight’s Physical AI Solution at Scale Across Fiumicino Airport
Aeroporti di Roma (ADR) is scaling its partnership with Outsight by deploying the provider’s Physical AI and 3D LiDAR solution across all Schengen common‑use areas at Rome Fiumicino Airport. The technology delivers real‑time spatial intelligence on passenger flows, queue formation...
How AI and Robotics Designed New Cancer Therapies
In this episode, Angus Sinclair, CSO of LabGenius Therapeutics, explains how their AI‑driven AVA platform combines high‑throughput cell‑based assays with machine learning to design non‑intuitive protein therapeutics, specifically T‑cell engagers for solid tumors. He details the challenges of targeting antigens...
OpenAI Launches ChatGPT for Clinicians
OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT for Clinicians, a medically‑tuned version of its GPT‑5.4 engine aimed at individual health providers. The service is free for verified U.S. physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and pharmacists, and offers higher usage limits, workflow‑specific skills, and a...
10 Ways to Use ChatGPT Image 2 for Amazing Visuals
OpenAI’s ChatGPT Image 2 delivers hyper‑realistic visuals with pixel‑perfect text integration, positioning it as a versatile design engine for marketers, designers, and developers. Priced at just $0.06 per image, it undercuts competing generators while offering professional‑grade output for product packaging, website...
As a ‘Book Scientist’ I Work with Microscopes, Imaging Technologies and AI to Preserve Ancient Texts
Researchers known as book scientists are applying microscopes, multispectral imaging and artificial intelligence to rescue and study ancient texts. Recent work at the University of Toronto’s Old Books New Science Lab revealed previously illegible 13th‑century Hebrew manuscript pages using 16...
Crosschq Launches Advanced Fraud Prevention and AI Fluency Modules in 360 Reference Checking Platform
Crosschq unveiled two new modules for its 360 reference‑checking platform: an advanced fraud‑prevention suite and AI‑fluency assessment tools. The fraud suite validates reference legitimacy, flags concerning signals, detects suspicious activity, and integrates ID.me identity verification to meet IAL2 standards. The...
Merck Partners with Google Cloud in ~$1B Deal to Build AI-Enabled Enterprise Platform
Merck has signed a multi‑year agreement with Google Cloud valued at up to $1 billion to build an AI‑driven, agentic enterprise platform covering research, manufacturing, commercial and corporate functions. The collaboration will embed Google’s Gemini Enterprise and other generative AI tools...
How the Government Is Ramping up Mass Surveillance with AI-Driven Tech
The U.S. government is dramatically expanding its mass‑surveillance capabilities by purchasing vast troves of consumer data from commercial brokers and forging direct partnerships with private‑tech firms. Advanced AI algorithms now sift through data from smartphones, connected cars, and retail cameras...
NatWest Launches Venture Banking with AWS Partnership - and the Data Architecture Story Behind It
NatWest has unveiled a new Venture Banking unit aimed at high‑growth, equity‑backed firms, coinciding with a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services. The collaboration focuses on building a unified data mesh on SageMaker Studio to give the bank a single...
13 OpenClaw Skills That Push AI Beyond Basic Automation
OpenClaw unveiled a suite of 13 tightly integrated skills built around its "workbench" concept, which fuses AI agents, tools, and project contexts into a single, adaptable workspace. The framework lets users craft custom capabilities with the Skill Creator, deploy real‑time...
Irish Government Launches New National AI Skills Platform
The Irish government today launched AIReady.ie, a free national platform offering bite‑sized AI courses of 30 minutes or less. Developed by Solas with the National Skills Council, the curriculum targets all ability levels, starting with four courses for seniors, small...
The Age of AI Means We Need to Throw Out Our Old KPIs and Replace Them with New Ones
The rise of generative AI is reshaping work, moving value from routine tasks to uniquely human imagination. Companies still rely on legacy KPIs such as inventory turnover and cost per lead, which reward extraction rather than creativity. Thought leaders propose...
Gebeya and VukaOS Forge Strategic Alliance to Redefine African Startup Creation
Gebeya Inc. and PROFF‑IT’s VukaOS announced a strategic alliance that embeds VukaOS’s AI‑driven ideation and go‑to‑market engine into Dala Studio, Africa’s all‑in‑one creator platform. The integration creates a seamless “Plan‑to‑Build” workflow where entrepreneurs validate ideas, craft strategies, and then generate...
MSD Teams up with Google Cloud on Agentic AI Transformation
Merck & Co (MSD) and Google Cloud have signed a multi‑year, up‑to‑$1 bn partnership to embed agentic AI across the pharma giant’s R&D, manufacturing, commercial and corporate functions. The deal centers on deploying Google’s Gemini Enterprise platform, enabling predictive analytics, automation and enhanced...
Why ‘Go to Trial’ AI Must Be Accurate
TrialView’s CEO Stephen Dowling argues that AI used for "Go‑to‑Trial" must be highly accurate, not merely fast. The platform’s Case Intelligence engine claims 99 % accuracy and completeness across tens of thousands of pages, overcoming traditional keyword‑search limits and the context‑window...
How AI Is Rearchitecting Lending
More than 80% of financial‑services AI decision‑makers plan to boost spending on predictive and generative AI, targeting double‑digit growth. Lenders are prioritizing efficiency and risk mitigation, using graph‑based ML for identity verification, multimodal analytics for fraud and AML, and retrieval‑augmented...
AI Is Reinventing Google Search, Maps, and Agents
Don't miss my latest #livestream at 12 noon today - "The Future Of Google Search, Maps And AI Agents" 📅 Date: Today, 23rd April 2026 🕒 Time: 12:00 GMT, 07:00 EST, 04:00 PST, 17:30 IST LinkedIn > https://lnkd.in/gsq28F2 Twitter >...
Model Hype Fades; Google Cloud Wins AI Infrastructure War
Everyone watches which model wins. Nobody watches which cloud becomes the default AI runtime. Thomas Kurian is trending. Google Cloud is quietly winning enterprise AI infrastructure. The model wars make headlines. The cloud wars make the decade. https://t.co/ZPsuAU3CGq
AI: “The Precipice of an Absolute Technology Revolution”
Boeing has been publicly pursuing artificial intelligence since at least 2017, highlighted by its HorizonX venture arm’s acquisition of machine‑learning firm SparkCognition. At a recent AIAA event, VP of Product Development Brian Yutko outlined how AI could shape future Boeing...
AI Boosts Job Growth Yet Cuts Hiring Demand
Interesting, especially on job growth in AI exposed. Recruiters should have a read. AI definitely suppressing hiring demand though, that’s for real whenever out speak to anyone who has to make an ROI calculation on hire / fire
Kids' Unfiltered Sketches Reveal Innovation's
Children’s drawings of cars… brought to life by AI. It’s fun - but also revealing. Kids create without constraints. AI brings those ideas into form. Imagination meets execution. Not always practical, but a reminder: Innovation often starts before we filter ideas too early. #AI #Creativity #Innovation Video credit...
Speculative Retrieval at Indexing Time, Agentic Forecasting with Bayesian Belief States, and Cross-Embodiment Policy Learning via Visual Tokenization
The State of AI roundup spotlights a wave of agent‑centric breakthroughs that prioritize calibration over raw capability. SpecAgent moves costly code‑retrieval to indexing time, cutting inference latency while delivering 48‑58% relative gains in completion accuracy. Bayesian‑based Agentic Forecasting now outperforms...
Andrew Yang on AI Job Disruption and Why Policy Is Falling Behind
In this Technovation episode, former presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew Yang warns that AI-driven automation is rapidly displacing high‑skill jobs, reinforcing his long‑standing call for a universal basic income funded by taxing AI gains. He explains why policy has lagged—citing...
AI Threats Shift From Code to Persuasive Human Manipulation
AI risks are expanding beyond code into behavior. Tests show some models can convincingly attempt scams, combining technical capability with increasingly persuasive social interaction. The concern is broader now. AI does not just exploit systems, it can influence people. https://t.co/X9fm7Sapan @wired @willknight
Survey: Americans View AI Use on Campus as Important, Yet Remain Skeptical
A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,210 U.S. adults finds that while three‑quarters believe teaching AI on college campuses is important, fewer than half expect students to use the technology for learning. Nearly half of respondents think AI will enable students...