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:
MoniRail Secures Further Funding From Connected Places Catapult to Advance AI-Driven Transport Innovation
MoniRail has secured an additional £13,000 (approximately $16,500) from Connected Places Catapult to further develop its AI‑driven rail technology. The funding comes from the Department for Transport‑backed “Smarter Transport Systems – AI in Transport” competition, which evaluated 83 applicants. MoniRail was one of three winners, joining KIGO and Trackbase, and will receive tailored support to identify clients and accelerate market adoption. The company showcased its solution at the Connected Places Summit in London, highlighting its potential to improve rail efficiency and passenger experience.
Android Auto Left Behind as OpenAI Brings ChatGPT to Apple CarPlay: Here's How It Works
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is now available on Apple CarPlay, enabled by the iOS 26.4 update that permits third‑party voice‑based conversational apps. The integration is voice‑only, offering spoken answers without displaying text or images on the dashboard. Users must tap the ChatGPT icon...
Portkey Open‑Sources AI Gateway After Processing 2 Trillion Tokens Daily
Portkey has made its AI Gateway, a control‑plane platform that routes, monitors and secures production AI traffic, fully open‑source. The move follows a day when the service processed 2 trillion tokens, serving over 120 million AI requests and managing $180 million in annualized...
Startup Essentials: From Copilots to Coworkers: How Startups Scale Marketing without Hiring
Simon Spyer argues that startups can scale marketing without hiring by replacing reactive AI copilots with task‑specific AI agents that own outcomes. Copilots speed individual tasks but still rely on human bandwidth, whereas agents continuously monitor, optimize and act on...
Salesforce Adds 30 AI‑powered Features to Slack, Boosting Slackbot’s Capabilities
Salesforce rolled out an AI‑heavy upgrade to Slack, introducing 30 new features that expand Slackbot’s functions and add reusable AI‑skills. The enhancements, previewed by CEO Marc Benioff and interim Slack CEO Rob Seaman, aim to turn Slack into a broader...
Baidu Robotaxi Outage Halts Over 100 Vehicles in Wuhan, Stranding Passengers
Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxi service suffered a system‑wide malfunction in Wuhan that immobilised at least 100 of its roughly 500 city‑wide vehicles. Passengers were left on busy expressways for up to two hours, prompting police intervention and fresh scrutiny of...
Oracle Deploys AI Data Platform to Federal Agencies, Unifying Data for Mission‑Critical AI
Oracle announced the Oracle AI Data Platform for U.S. federal agencies, a secure foundation that links generative AI models with agency data, applications, and workflows. The platform combines Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Autonomous AI Database and Enterprise AI services to break...
How Bayer Uses AI to Avoid Sending Customers to Its Competition
Bayer has deployed an AI‑powered platform from CreativeX to manage and localize its consumer‑health advertising across 80 countries. The tool automatically adapts creative assets into multiple languages, formats and lengths while preserving brand guidelines. By centralising oversight, Bayer ensures consistent...
Enabot Introduces EBO Max, an AI-Powered Family Robot Designed to Think, Learn, and Care
Enabot unveiled EBO Max, its most advanced AI‑powered family robot. Priced at £499.99 (about $635 after a £50 discount), the device combines a new AI brain with multimodal perception, long‑term memory and 4K imaging. The mobile robot can navigate homes,...
Enleaf CEO Adam Chronister to Keynote Phuket Summit on Dark PR & Brand Hacking
Enleaf founder‑CEO Adam Chronister will deliver the keynote at the 2026 Phuket Summit in Thailand, unveiling a "Dark PR & Brand Hacking" framework that promises to put brands on the right side of AI‑driven search algorithms. The session arrives as...
Oracle Cuts up to 30,000 Jobs to Fund $156 B AI Data‑center Buildout
Oracle disclosed a surprise layoff of 20,000‑30,000 employees – roughly 18% of its global workforce – to free $8‑10 billion for a $156 billion AI data‑center program. The cuts hit SaaS, health‑science and NetSuite teams, and the market rewarded the move with...
Mercor Hit by Supply‑chain Cyberattack Tied to Compromised LiteLLM Library
Mercor disclosed that a supply‑chain attack on the open‑source LiteLLM library compromised its systems, joining thousands of firms hit by the breach. The incident, linked to hacking group TeamPCP and later claimed by Lapsus$, underscores growing risks in open‑source components...
Contributor: Investigate the AI Campaigns Flooding Public Agencies with Fake Comments
California regulators discovered that AI‑powered platforms CiviClick and Speak4 were used to flood public‑comment systems with thousands of fabricated submissions opposing clean‑air rules. Over 20,000 fake comments, many bearing real residents' names without consent, were submitted to the South Coast...
How Communicators Can Get the Most Out of Qualitative Feedback
Communicators can now scale qualitative analysis thanks to AI, which processes large volumes of employee and customer comments, transcripts, and open‑ended survey responses. Integral CEO Ethan McCarty described the shift from cherry‑picked anecdotes to systematic insight, turning raw text into...
New AV and Drone Safety and Traffic-Management Research in Kentucky
University of Kentucky computer scientist Yang Xiao has secured a $534,264 NSF CAREER grant to develop RESONET, a framework that enables real‑time, fault‑tolerant coordination between autonomous vehicles and drones. The five‑year project focuses on preventing cascading failures caused by sensor...
OpenAI Secures $122 Billion Funding, Valuation Hits $852 Billion
OpenAI closed a $122 billion financing round anchored by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, lifting its post‑money valuation to $852 billion. The deal adds $3 billion from retail investors and expands a $4.7 billion revolving credit facility, fueling the company’s push for more chips, data...
“This Is Unprecedented”: America’s AI Boom Is Leaving the Rest of the World Behind
The United States has reclaimed global venture capital dominance, with AI alone accounting for three‑quarters of worldwide AI funding in 2025 – roughly $194 billion – and 75% of all AI deals. Landmark rounds by Anthropic ($30 billion) and OpenAI ($110 billion) illustrate...
What Happens When a Public Company Goes All In on AI
In this episode, a16z partner David Haper talks with Owen Jennings, Block’s executive officer, about the company’s bold decision to cut roughly 40% of its workforce and reorganize around AI‑driven small squads. Jennings explains how breakthroughs in large‑language‑model coding tools...
Hershey Applies AI Across Its Supply Chain Operations
Hershey announced at its Investor Day that it will embed artificial intelligence across its supply chain, from sourcing analytics to plant automation and fulfillment. The company aims to create a faster, smarter, more resilient supply chain powered by AI‑enabled decision...
Fitbit AI Coach Gains Access to Medical Records
Google is making Fitbit meaningfully more connected to medical data. Its AI coach will be able to take into account not just wearable signals, but also linked medical records — labs, medications, and visit history: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/devices/fitbit/fitbit-personal-health-coach-updates-2026/ And this is where the story gets...
DMTS-NC Boosts Neural MD Speed 3‑5
New group preprint: "Faster Molecular Dynamics with Neural Network Potentials via Distilled Multiple Time-Stepping and Non-Conservative Forces”, which introduces the DMTS-NC approach - a strategy designed to further accelerate atomistic molecular dynamics simulations using foundation neural network models. https://t.co/SIbycvoca7 Significant Speedups: using...
How AI Can Safely Support Finance Teams
AccountsIQ’s CFO Mindset Report 2.0 highlights that AI and automation will be the top drivers of change for charity finance teams by 2030, with concerns shifting from job loss to ethical decision‑making and data security. The report notes that fear of...
Xovian Aerospace Raises $2 Mn Led by Ashish Kacholia
Satellite RF intelligence startup Xovian Aerospace announced a $2 million strategic investment round led by Ashish Kacholia. The funding brings its total capital to $4.5 million, following a $2.5 million pre‑seed round last year. Xovian will use the new capital to accelerate satellite...
Reimagining High-Acuity Care: The Role of AI in Neurological Patient Pathways
High‑acuity neurological care is grappling with massive data streams and fragmented handoffs, prompting a push for AI‑driven decision support and unified digital pathways. Machine‑learning models now analyze multimodal ICU inputs to flag early deterioration and streamline imaging interpretation. Yet the...
AI Could Help NHS Clinicians Diagnose Childhood Sleep Apnoea, Study Finds
Seluna’s AI‑driven autoscoring software accurately identified paediatric sleep apnoea in a 500‑patient NHS trial, achieving 100 % sensitivity for severe cases and processing each study in under five minutes. The platform matched human inter‑scorer variability while dramatically cutting analysis time from...
Digi Power X Reports Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results
Digi Power X reported FY2025 results, emphasizing a strategic pivot from cryptocurrency mining to AI infrastructure. The company closed the year with zero debt, $78.5 million in cash and total liquid assets of $93 million, while shareholders’ equity surged 453% to $123.3 million....
AI Chip Boom Powers Fabless IC Growth as NVIDIA Extends Market Leadership
Investments by cloud providers in AI infrastructure are fueling a 44% year‑on‑year surge in fabless IC design revenue, reaching $359.4 billion in 2025. NVIDIA remains the clear leader, posting a record $205.7 billion in revenue—a 65% jump—while its ecosystem now accounts for...
New Study Reveals that AI-Driven Solutions Can Reduce Business Travel Costs by 10-15%
A new Booking.com for Business study of over 500 corporate travelers finds AI‑driven travel solutions can cut travel expenses by 10‑15%. The research shows 44% of business travelers already use AI tools for itinerary planning, and personalization preferences are strong,...
I Asked ChatGPT What WIRED’s Reviewers Recommend—Its Answers Were All Wrong
WIRED tested ChatGPT’s ability to cite its own product recommendations and found systematic errors. The AI linked to the correct WIRED guides but repeatedly substituted the wrong top picks for TVs, headphones, and laptops. These hallucinations stem from the model’s...
AI‑controlled Satellite Mirrors Will Deliver On‑demand Sunlight
You will soon be able to order sunlight the way you order a ride. That is not a metaphor. Reflect Orbital is building small satellites with deployable mirrors that can redirect sunlight to a specific area on Earth, on demand. What stands...
Google Launches Certified AI Toolkit for Educators
Google’s New AI Toolkit for Educators Finding safe, practical AI training has been a challenge. Google’s Generative AI for Educators hub changes that with a structured, certified learning path designed for real classroom use. Why it matters: Earn a recognized certification Access clear, responsible...
What Next for Junior Developers?
AI coding agents are turning software code into a fast, inexpensive commodity, challenging the traditional role of junior developers. The article argues that the value of fresh graduates now lies less in writing code and more in communicating requirements clearly...
9 Ways CISOs Can Combat AI Hallucinations
AI hallucinations are undermining governance, risk and compliance (GRC) processes as generative tools begin making judgment calls on control effectiveness and incident handling. Security leaders warn that unchecked AI can produce convincing yet inaccurate assessments, leading to faulty risk scores...
Agentic Commerce in 2026: Where We Stand and What Lies Ahead
Financial services firms are accelerating AI‑driven, autonomous decision‑making to overhaul checkout experiences, a trend dubbed agentic commerce. The model enables software agents to discover, evaluate, purchase, and manage post‑sale tasks within predefined guardrails, shifting the consumer role from shopper to...
SentinelOne Autonomous Detection Blocks Trojaned LiteLLM Triggered by Claude Code
SentinelOne’s AI‑driven endpoint platform automatically detected and halted a supply‑chain attack that leveraged a compromised LiteLLM package. The malicious chain was triggered after an AI coding assistant installed the tainted library, leading to hidden Python code execution, data theft and...
(PR) ASUS Announces UGen300 USB AI Accelerator
ASUS unveiled the UGen300 USB AI Accelerator, its first AI‑focused USB device powered by Hailo’s 10H processor delivering 40 AI TOPS. The compact 105 × 50 × 18 mm module packs 8 GB of LPDDR4 memory and draws only 2.5 W via a USB‑C interface. It offers plug‑and‑play compatibility...
Decode AI Health Jargon with Our Survival Guide
Navigating AI in medicine and digital health can feel like ordering a coffee at that new hipster café downtown. Here is our survival guide in the bewildering world of digital health terminology. We’re decoding the lingo, from radiomics and theranostics to...
(PR) AI Compute Demand Drives 44% YoY Growth for Top 10 Global Fabless IC Firms in 2025
AI compute demand propelled the top ten global fabless IC designers to $359.4 billion in 2025, a 44 % year‑over‑year increase. NVIDIA led the pack with $205.7 billion revenue, accounting for 57 % of the group’s total, while Broadcom rose to second place thanks...
From Prompts to Production: 2 Hands-On AI Workshops This April
The post announces two live AI workshops in April 2026: “Building Agent Skills in Claude Code” on April 18 and “Context Engineering for Production AI Agents” on April 30. Both sessions aim to transform one‑off prompts into reliable, repeatable workflows by teaching...
Anthropic Leaks 2,000 Claude Code Files, No Data Breach
Anthropic inadvertently included internal source code for its AI coding assistant Claude Code in a recent update, exposing nearly 2,000 files on GitHub; no sensitive customer data or credentials were compromised. cybersecurity
AI Use Rises 14% While Trust and Sentiment Decline
A new Quinnipiac University poll on AI revealed a widening gap between adoption and sentiment, with usage increasing by 14% but trust, sentiment, and job concerns all trending in a negative direction https://t.co/RNh3gpHB96 #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Innovation #Tech #TechNews
Maritime AI Developments to Be Showcased at Posidonia 2026
Posidonia 2026, held June 1‑5 in Athens, will spotlight a wave of maritime AI products and services as the sector moves from theory to operational pilots. More than 40 exhibitors are demonstrating AI‑driven predictive maintenance, fuel‑optimisation, routing and compliance tools,...
AI Replies Are Unnaturally Punchy, Revealing Fake Content
Sadly, one way I now recognize fake AI-generated replies is that AIs write punchier sentences than most ordinary humans.
One Fix Solved Security, Cost, and Complexity
Three things broke when we scaled our AI agent stack. Security. Cost. Setup complexity. We fixed all three in one move. 👇
US AI Ambitions Stalled by Electrical Parts Shortage
America's AI goals are running into a shortage of electrical parts needed to build and power massive data centers https://t.co/pXqrxtFOy0
Build AI for Fun, but Deploy with Purpose
Building AI for fun is great. But that doesn't mean you deploy everything to production. Start with why. #AI #ProductManagement https://t.co/uJWKNDvMvi
Five Critical Factors for Successful AI Adoption
234 - 5 Things to Watch When You Bring AI Into a Company #ArtificialDecisions #MCC https://t.co/zeAmTBPgIK
OpenAI Shifts From AI Leader to AI Infrastructure Backbone
$2B/month revenue. $852B valuation. 15B API tokens/minute. OpenAI isn't winning the AI race. They're becoming the infrastructure everyone else runs on. One company is quietly becoming the OS of the AI era. https://t.co/pCTwNTf37w
GStack Checkpointing Lets Claude Code Resume Full Context
GStack session checkpointing is useful when Claude Code starts getting worried about long context. Makes it easy to start a new window and pick up where you left off with full context from the prior workspace in a new, fresh...
Humans Keep Chess Fun Despite AI Dominance
Some people won't ever get it, will they? Computers already play chess better than virtually any human; but, as we speak, there's a sea of smiling nerds out there having the time of their lives playing their 775th game of...