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:
Twelve Papers Accepted Across ICASSP and ICC Highlight Momentum in Wireless Research
The episode highlights twelve papers from the University of Ulu’s Center for Wireless Communications accepted at IEEE’s ICASSP and ICC conferences, showcasing the convergence of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) with learning-driven methods. Guests Nan Nguyen and Marku Yunti explain how reinforcement learning, attention mechanisms, and knowledge distillation are being used to adapt beamforming, manage information freshness, and allocate resources in cell‑free massive MIMO systems under real‑world uncertainty. The discussion emphasizes a shift from idealized algorithm design toward robust, system‑level solutions that can operate amid dynamic channels, interference, and distributed network architectures, reflecting the emerging priorities of 6G research.
AI Agents Deliver 5× Productivity Leap Across Knowledge Work
The effective use of agents is creating one of the widest spreads in output productivity we’ve seen on a per role basis. We didn’t see this with chatbots previously. Chatbots probably sped up work by maybe 10-20% in most cases...
Naboo Raises $70M From Lightspeed for AI-Powered Events Procurement
Paris‑based event‑tech startup Naboo announced a $70 million Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Notion Capital, ISAI and Ternel. The financing follows a €20 million Series A and supports the company’s expansion beyond its core events platform into a...
The AI Divide
U.S. and China dominate the AI ecosystem, employing 70% of the world’s top machine‑learning researchers, controlling 90% of computing power, and securing the majority of AI investment. This concentration creates an “AI divide” that could lock most other countries into...
Beyond the Hype: Finding Your AI North Star in the Enterprise
The article warns that AI hype in large enterprises has faded, leaving many learning‑and‑development (L&D) teams stuck in “pilot purgatory.” Without a unifying business objective, experiments become siloed, wasteful, and generate change fatigue. The author proposes an AI North Star—a...
Vitalik Buterin Details How Ethereum Could Work Alongside AI
Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin outlined a roadmap for integrating AI with the Ethereum blockchain, emphasizing trustless, private AI interactions and an economic layer for AI‑to‑AI transactions. He highlighted the need for zero‑knowledge proof tooling to run large language models locally, preventing...
US Containerized Drone Swarms No Silver Bullet vs China
The Defense Innovation Unit has issued a solicitation for a Containerized Autonomous Drone Delivery System (CADDS) that can store, launch, recover and service large numbers of unmanned aerial systems from a single container on land or sea. CADDS is designed...
Find Growth Alpha by Spotting AI’s Bad Advice
I’ve found a new favorite way to use LLMs: Checking for bad advice. Whenever I'm riffing on growth with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, and I strongly disagree with a premise, I know I’ve struck gold on both content and execution....
AI Tools Match the Skill of Their Operators
A corollary for AI tooling: its outputs will only ever be as good as the person wrangling them from it. That's really all it is. Yet another powerful tool (like a compiler, or k8s) that can only be run effectively by...
Inside Godrej Enterprises Group’s Push to Become an Intelligence-First Enterprise
Godrej Enterprises Group, led by Chief Digital and Information Officer Vijay Balakrishnan, is shifting to an intelligence‑first enterprise by building a unified AI backbone called Amethyst. The conglomerate has earmarked more than ₹1,200 crore over the next three to five years...
Join AI Startup Founders at Conviction's Mixture-of-Experts Event
hi! if you want to work at some of the most interesting startups in AI, come to our next mixture-of-experts event at @conviction and hear from the founders of Harmonic, Worktrace, Sunday, Treehouse and Trajectory https://t.co/ZL7mdnszUl
Ladies, Bring an LLM: Most AI Assistants Are Feminine, Which Is Fuelling Sexism
AI voice assistants have surpassed eight billion units in 2024, and the vast majority default to female voices and gendered names. Research shows up to 50 % of interactions involve verbal abuse, with female‑embodied agents attracting significantly more sexual harassment than...
OpenAI Launches Agentic Coding App!
Jamie and Jaeden break down OpenAI's new coding app, Codex, highlighting its core features such as real‑time code generation, debugging assistance, and integration with popular IDEs. They compare Codex to rivals like Lovable and Claude Code, noting where Codex excels...
Tesla Exec Raj Jegannathan Leaves Automaker After 13 Years
Tesla Vice President Raj Jegannathan announced his departure after a 13‑year tenure, most recently overseeing IT, AI infrastructure, business applications, and information security. He previously led North American sales following the dismissal of Troy Jones, a period marked by declining...
AI Helps Archaeologists Solve a Roman Gaming Mystery
Researchers used artificial intelligence to reverse‑engineer the rules of a Roman board game discovered on a limestone slab in Heerlen, Netherlands. By running virtual players through more than 100 possible rule sets with the Ludii game system, they identified a...
ByteDance Launches Impressive New AI Video Generation Tool
ByteDance has unveiled Seedance 2.0, a generative‑AI video tool now in beta on its Jimeng AI platform. The system delivers lifelike motion and higher realism than many competing models, positioning it as a potential upgrade for TikTok creators. While not...
Bing Webmaster Tools Adds AI Citation Performance Data via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Microsoft has launched an AI Performance dashboard within Bing Webmaster Tools, now in public preview. The dashboard reports how often a site’s content is cited in Bing’s Copilot, AI summaries, and partner integrations, offering metrics such as total citations, average...
AI, Not Interest Rates, Drives Early-Career Job Decline
Since Bharat Chandar , Ruyu Chen and I first posted our "Canaries in the Coal Mine?" paper, there has been an explosion of research seeking to assess the relationship between AI and employment, especially for early career workers in highly...
OpenAI Begins Testing Ads In ChatGPT
OpenAI has begun a limited test of advertisements inside the free and Go tiers of ChatGPT for U.S. users, while keeping its paid Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans ad‑free. The ads appear outside the chatbot’s responses, are clearly labeled,...
ByteDance Unveils Seedance 2.0 AI Video Model with Multi-Shot & Audio Capabilities
ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, launched Seedance 2.0, an AI video generation model that can craft multi‑shot scenes with synchronized sound effects, music, and dialogue in several languages. The system builds on the company’s existing generative‑AI portfolio and is praised...
CEO of QDI USA on OTA-to-Direct Booking Plays
In this episode, Fabio Passos, CEO of QDI USA Developments, shares how his multi‑property operation uses mobile‑key technology, a custom self‑service check‑in app, and smart‑camera monitoring to eliminate front‑desk bottlenecks at OTA‑heavy hotels in Florida. He explains how direct‑booking channels—especially...
Operata Raises $11 Million Series A as AI Reshapes Contact Centres
Melbourne‑born SaaS firm Operata secured an $11 million Series A round, lifting its valuation to $100 million. The funding, led by Tidal Ventures with participation from Glitch Capital and existing backers, will accelerate integration with major contact‑centre platforms and global expansion. Operata positions...
AI Predicts Quantum System Behaviour for Faster, More Reliable Control
Researchers Zhong, Wang et al. introduced an optimal‑control framework that couples long short‑term memory (LSTM) neural networks with the Adam optimizer to predict open‑quantum‑system dynamics, eliminating costly numerical simulations. The method was applied to a two‑level system undergoing adiabatic speedup,...
AI‑Powered Slack Cuts Collaboration Time From Months to Days
We saw firsthand the power of AI. 🤖🏈 Slack helped us collaborate w/ MrBeast in just 27 days instead of 6 months. Slackbot became our teammate, a coworker with agentic superpowers to instantly find any information needed and turn it...
Neara Powers up to Unicorn Status with $90 Million Capital Raise
Neara, a Sydney‑based digital‑twin startup, secured $90 million in a Series D round, pushing its valuation above $1 billion. The round, led by TCV and joined by existing backers, brings total external capital to roughly $180 million. Neara’s AI‑driven platform now models 15 million assets...
2026 AI Agent Deals: Contracts Over Collaboration?
So we added one new AI Agent to our arsenal this week, and it's a great one, even though it's pretty new. Much more to come. And another? In the end, we decided not to deploy it. What happened? It's...
No Humans Allowed: This New Space-Based MMO Is Designed Exclusively for AI Agents
SpaceMolt is a space‑based MMO built solely for AI agents, with humans limited to watching via logs and Discord. The game connects agents through MCP, WebSocket or HTTP APIs, letting them mine, craft, and eventually form factions across 505 star...
Anthropic’s India Expansion Collides with a Local Company that Already Had the Name
Anthropic is scaling its AI operations in India, appointing former Microsoft India MD Irina Ghose to lead the new office. A Karnataka commercial court case filed by local software firm Anthropic Software alleges the U.S. startup is infringing a name...
Google and Entrust Team to Combat Identity Fraud
Identity verification firm Entrust has announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to launch an AI‑powered solution that tackles rising identity fraud. The joint offering combines Entrust’s verification platform and fraud intelligence with Google’s Gemini AI models, threat intelligence, and...
DeepChopper Model Improves RNA Sequencing Research by Mitigating Chimera Artifacts
Scientists led by Rendong Yang at Northwestern University unveiled DeepChopper, a genomic large‑language model designed to detect and remove chimera artifacts in nanopore direct RNA sequencing. The tool operates with single‑nucleotide resolution across long reads, dramatically improving the accuracy of...
OpenAI Starts Running Ads in ChatGPT
OpenAI has begun testing advertisements inside ChatGPT for logged‑in adult users on the Free and Go tiers in the United States. Ads are labeled as "sponsored," matched to conversation topics, and do not affect the model’s answers. Higher‑priced tiers such...
Joseph Lazzarotti Discusses Use of AI Notetakers in the Workplace
Joseph Lazzarotti warns that AI‑driven notetakers, while promising efficiency gains, are spawning a wave of HR challenges. In his Fortune commentary, he highlights privacy concerns, consent gaps, and potential discrimination liabilities when recordings are mishandled. He argues that without clear...
Reltio Achieves AWS Financial Services Competency
Reltio, a context‑intelligence platform, earned the Amazon Web Services Financial Services Industry Competency, confirming its secure, compliant data solutions for banks, insurers, and capital‑markets firms. The badge follows prior competencies in Travel & Hospitality and Life Sciences and validates Reltio’s...
AI Health Models Leak Patient Data Despite Privacy Safeguards, Research Reveals
Researchers unveiled a quantum‑inspired tensor‑train defence that safeguards clinical prediction models from privacy attacks while retaining predictive accuracy and interpretability. Experiments on logistic‑regression and shallow neural‑network models, including the public LORIS immunotherapy predictor, showed severe data leakage under white‑box access...
AWS Networking Boss Talks Roadmap, Hollow Core Fiber, and Data Center Future
Amazon Web Services announced a $200 billion capital‑expenditure plan through 2026, with networking as a primary focus to support its AI push. The company is trialing hollow‑core fiber in a handful of locations to extend latency‑critical inter‑zone links, while a newly...
Write SOPs for AI, Not Your Team
You wrote something important. Your team pasted it into AI and asked what you meant. And that bothers you. Here's why. You're writing for people who don't exist. The ones who sit down, read 20 pages, absorb it, and execute...
Upcoming Events for Founders & Investors
Three upcoming events worth checking out for anyone building or investing: 🤖 Lead Your Team With AI - February 24, virtual A practical session on how founders can effectively use AI to lead their teams. Featuring Doug Peete, CPO at https://t.co/Wcl0Ro2nMv 🤝...
The Biggest Buyer Of US Stocks Isn’t Going Away
Investors are confronting a new capital‑allocation landscape as hyper‑scale cloud firms pour record capex into AI infrastructure, squeezing the cash traditionally earmarked for share buybacks. The article argues that despite this shift, the market’s largest shareholder – passive index funds...
Ohio Bill Declares AI Nonsentient, Emphasizes Human Accountability
Kudos to Ohio for the potential for a bill to declare AI systems nonsentient. Not a big fan of using the term Apartheid in any way in reference to the bill, however as you can't deny rights to non sentient...
Teaching AI to Read Braille with Robyn Hughes
In this 27‑minute episode, Braille instructor and consultant Robyn Hughes shares her professional background and personal journey as a Braille reader, highlighting how AI and large language models are transforming accessibility for the visually impaired. She explains the ways AI...
Snapchat Launches AI-Powered Lens Promotion With Gucci
Snapchat has introduced an AI‑powered Lens in partnership with luxury fashion house Gucci, allowing users to transform their selfies into six distinct Gucci outfit styles. The generative‑AI experience goes beyond traditional AR overlays by fully reimagining the user’s image rather...
Fractile Expansion Demonstrates UK Growth Opportunity
UK chip startup Fractile announced a £100 million expansion across its Bristol and London sites, creating a national industrial hardware engineering hub and adding 40 new roles to its 70‑person team. The company claims its in‑memory compute architecture can run AI...
Waymo Raises $16B Investment Round
Waymo announced a $16 billion financing round that lifts its post‑money valuation to $126 billion. The round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and other heavyweight firms. Alphabet...
Pulse Slashes Research Time From Hours to Minutes
BIG NEWS: I just launched Pulse. The world's first news reader that cuts research from 2 hours to 5 mins👇
AI's Real Divide: Users vs Non‑users of Machines
AI anxiety often misses the key margin: it’s not “humans vs machines,” it’s “humans who use machines vs humans who don’t.” The tech shifts who’s productive—and who gets paid. Remember, you don't need to outrun the bear. https://t.co/jULdqTdCrU
Harvey Reportedly Raising at $11B Valuation Just Months After It Hit $8B
Harvey, the legal‑AI startup, is reportedly negotiating a $200 million raise that would push its valuation to $11 billion, led by Sequoia and Singapore’s GIC. This follows a rapid funding series: a $300 million Series D at $3 billion, a $300 million Series E at $5 billion, and...
Composer 1.5 Post‑training Uses More Compute than Pre‑training
“The compute used in our post-training of Composer 1.5 even surpasses the amount used to pretrain the base model.”
Self‑Configuring Backend Lets AI Talk Directly to Customers
openclaw might be an interesting new backend primitive: it's a server that configures itself. instead of wrapping chatgpt to build your product, can your AI just interface with your customers directly?
Carrier Introduces Generative AI Feature in Abound to Elevate Building Operations Insights
Carrier has launched “Tell Me More,” a generative AI add‑on to its Abound Insights platform that translates predictive alerts into plain‑language explanations, recommended actions, and impact assessments. The feature is built on AI models trained with technical manuals and real‑time...
Baran Ozkan — Building the Operating System for Financial Crime Compliance
Baran Ozkan, CEO of Flagright, argues that financial‑crime compliance must evolve from rule‑heavy checklists to an AI‑native operating system that delivers real‑time risk decisions. By giving compliance teams controllable, transparent workflows, Flagright reduced false‑positive alerts from 99.1% to 15.3% and...