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:
Far-Right Dweebs Are Getting Scammed by an AI-Generated Waifu
An AI‑generated character named Amelia, originally a spoof from the UK‑funded educational game Pathways, has become a viral far‑right meme on X. Extremist users amplify her image, posting thousands of messages daily and framing her as an anti‑woke, nationalist figure. The meme’s popularity spawned a branded cryptocurrency, $AMELIAJAK, which was promoted by an Elon Musk retweet and quickly exhibited classic rug‑pull characteristics. The scheme is draining the wallets of followers while exploiting online radicalization channels.
Great Refractor Initiative Looks to AI to Harden Critical Code
The Great Refactor initiative proposes using AI to automatically translate vulnerable C and C++ open‑source code into Rust, targeting 100 million lines by 2030 with a $100 million investment. Rust’s memory‑safety design could eliminate roughly 70 % of software vulnerabilities that stem from...
Assembled Rolls Out Automated Schedule Generation for Customer Support
Assembled Inc. launched general availability of its agentic AI schedule generation feature for customer support teams. The new Schedule Generation board automates workforce scheduling, replacing spreadsheets with AI‑driven optimization, compliance and scaling. Early adopters like ServiceTitan, Backcountry.com and Preply report...
AI Tool AlphaGenome Predicts How One Typo Can Change a Genetic Story
Google DeepMind unveiled AlphaGenome, a deep‑learning model that can process one million DNA bases in a single context, doubling the reach of its predecessor Borzoi. The system predicts eleven genomic functions at single‑base resolution, delivering a 14.7% improvement in gene‑activity...
PVH Deploys OpenAI to Amplify Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger Brands
PVH Corp., the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, has partnered with OpenAI to embed enterprise‑grade AI into its data‑driven operating model. The collaboration will integrate OpenAI APIs and ChatGPT Enterprise to create custom tools for product design, demand planning, inventory...
Vitamin Shoppe Debuts AI-Powered Advisor in New NYC ‘Innovation Store’
The Vitamin Shoppe opened an Innovation Store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side featuring an AI‑powered interactive advisor that delivers real‑time inventory checks and personalized product guidance. The space also includes a dedicated events area, same‑day delivery through Instacart, DoorDash and...
Mercedes‑Teams Partnership Clashes on Brand Coherence
Mercedes is integrating Microsoft Teams into the 2026 all-new CLA Coupe. Let’s set aside the obvious safety question of video meetings while driving for a second. Here’s the thing that makes me scratch my head... Mercedes is a luxury performance...
What Happens to AI Hiring When the Uniform Guidelines Disappear?
The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, a 50‑year standard for validating hiring tools, face possible rescission, creating uncertainty for AI‑driven recruitment. In January 2026, Eightfold AI was hit with a class‑action lawsuit alleging it compiles consumer‑report‑like dossiers without notice,...
China Greenlights 400,000 Nvidia H200 Chip Imports for Tech Giants, According to Reuters
China has granted ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent permission to import over 400,000 Nvidia H200 AI chips, the company’s second‑most powerful accelerator. The approvals were announced while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was on a multi‑city visit to China and come with...
DeepSeek Boosts OCR Performance With Alibaba Open-Source AI
DeepSeek has released DeepSeek-OCR 2, replacing its CLIP‑based architecture with Alibaba's lightweight Qwen2‑0.5b model. The new system improves OCR performance by 3.7% and achieves a 91.09% score on OmniDocBench v1.5. It compresses document pages into 256‑1,120 visual tokens, dramatically lowering...
Home Depot’s Key to Great AI Experiences? Ensure It Remains an Authority
Home Depot is moving beyond a wait‑and‑see approach, actively shaping how AI agents interact with shoppers. The retailer insists that its AI‑driven chat and voice assistants uphold the same brand voice and service standards as an in‑store associate. It is...
BoldVoice Raises $21M in Series A Funding
BoldVoice, a New York‑based AI voice‑coaching startup, closed a $21 million Series A round led by Matrix with participation from Flybridge, Xfund, Corazon Capital, Alumni Ventures, Umami Capital and Y Combinator. The funding will accelerate its global rollout and the development of proprietary...
ICE Launches Reddit Signals and Sentiment Tool for Investors
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has introduced Reddit Signals and Sentiment, a data‑analytics suite that converts millions of Reddit posts into structured market signals. The service, accessible via ICE’s consolidated data feed, provides real‑time and historical sentiment scores along with daily trend...
LinkedIn Will Let You Show Off Your Vibe Coding Chops with a Certificate
LinkedIn announced a verified‑skills program that issues AI‑focused certificates based on real‑time usage of partner tools such as Descript, Lovable, Replit and Relay.app. The AI engine evaluates usage patterns, outcomes and proficiency to generate a badge that appears on a...
Franny Hsiao, Salesforce: Scaling Enterprise AI
Salesforce’s EMEA AI Architect leader Franny Hsiao warns that most enterprise AI pilots fail because they are built on isolated, “pristine island” data environments lacking production‑grade infrastructure and governance. She advocates embedding end‑to‑end observability, guardrails, and human‑in‑the‑loop controls from the...
Starr Adopts Five Sigma AI to Transform Claims Operations
Starr, a global investment and insurance firm, has selected Five Sigma’s AI Claims Management Platform and its multi‑agent AI expert, Clive, to overhaul specialty claims operations. The AI‑native solution will embed intelligence across the entire claims lifecycle, from first notice...
Chip Firm ASML to Slash 1,700 Jobs and Posts Record Profit for 2025 Thanks to AI Boom
ASML posted a record €9.6 billion net profit in 2025 on €32.7 billion of sales, propelled by surging AI‑driven demand for its extreme‑ultraviolet lithography tools. The Dutch chip‑machine maker announced a 4 % workforce reduction, cutting roughly 1,700 jobs to streamline engineering and...
Rogo Raises $75M in Series C Funding
Rogo, a New York‑based AI platform built specifically for finance, announced a $75 million Series C round. The financing was led by Sequoia Capital and featured participation from Henry Kravis, Wells Fargo, and existing backers such as Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, Tiger Global...
Search Shifts From Keywords to AI‑Driven Entity Understanding
Suddenly, thousands of people in the search marketing space suddenly talk like this across all social media posts and comments: “This really encapsulates the ontological reorientation we’re seeing in search and information retrieval. We’re moving from deterministic keyword frameworks toward probabilistic,...
Bedrock Data Extends DSPM to Atlassian Confluence, Mapping SaaS Data to AI Inference Risk
Bedrock Data announced native Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) support for Atlassian Confluence, enabling automatic discovery of spaces, pages and blogs. The platform classifies unstructured content for PII, secrets and intellectual property, resolves inherited permissions, and maps that data to...
Sperax Joins Forces with Google Cloud: Accelerating AI-Integrated DeFi Tools for Seamless User Experiences
Sperax, the DeFi protocol behind SperaxOS and the auto‑yield stablecoin USDs, has announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate AI‑integrated financial tools. The collaboration introduces the open‑source Model Context Protocol, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to...
Domo Launches App Catalyst to Turn AI Ideas Into Production-Ready Business Applications
Domo unveiled App Catalyst, a new feature of its AI and Data Products Platform that lets users describe an app in natural language and instantly receive a production‑ready, pro‑code framework. The tool pulls data from major cloud warehouses such as...
MNTN’s Latest Innovation, QuickFrame AI, Scales Rapidly With New AI Video Features Including Consistent Characters, Products, and Locations Across Campaigns
MNTN unveiled major upgrades to its QuickFrame AI platform, enabling brands to generate professional TV and social video in minutes. The new release introduces reusable brand building blocks for products, characters, and locations, director‑level controls, an effects library, and an...
Incubeta Launches New Agentic AI Products to Help Brands Understand What Truly Drives Marketing Performance
Incubeta unveiled two agentic AI solutions—Creative Performance Index (CPI) and OutperformBI—to give marketers clearer insight into what truly drives campaign results. CPI analyzes granular creative elements such as branding, calls‑to‑action, and emotional cues, linking them directly to live performance data...
Palladyne AI Awarded U.S. Air Force Contract to Advance Swarming Capabilities for Integrated Cross-Domain Operations
Palladyne AI secured a contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to develop its HANGTIME program, aimed at unifying autonomous systems across space, air, maritime and land. The effort will deploy the company’s patented SwarmOS™ platform to enable drones, ships...
Show HN: Sandbox Agent SDK – Unified API for Automating Coding Agents
The Sandbox Agent SDK introduces a Rust‑based server and TypeScript client that let developers run AI coding agents—Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and Amp—inside isolated sandboxes while controlling them over a unified HTTP/SSE API. By normalizing disparate agent interfaces into a single...
‘AI Is There to Support Teachers as an Assistant, Not to Replace Them’: Google VP of Education on How Gemini...
Apera AI Accelerates 4D Vision Deployments with Launch of Apera Vue 9.52 and 4X Faster Apera Forge AI Training
Apera AI unveiled Vue 9.52, adding programmable Autopilot, range‑finding pipelines, and enhanced TCP visualization to streamline 4D Vision robot setup. The release also accelerates its Forge AI training platform, delivering up to four‑fold faster model training in as little as six...
Datatruck Raises $12M to Scale AI-Native Operating System for Long-Haul Trucking
Datatruck Inc. announced a $12 million Series A round led by Avenue Growth Partners to accelerate its AI‑native operating system for long‑haul trucking. The platform unifies dispatch, load management, compliance, accounting and driver communication into a single system of record. Embedded AI...
NovaUCD and CeADAR Open Applications for 2026 AI Ecosystem Accelerator Programme
NovaUCD and CeADAR have opened applications for the 2026 AI Ecosystem Accelerator, a six‑month programme aimed at Irish AI‑first start‑ups that have market validation and are seeking to close a funding round in 2026. The accelerator, now in its third...
Apiiro Introduces Guardian Agent to Secure AI-Driven Software Development
Apiiro Ltd. launched Guardian Agent, an AI‑driven application security agent that prevents vulnerable and non‑compliant code generation. The solution continuously monitors software architecture, attack surface, runtime exposure, and policy compliance, rewriting prompts to secure AI coding assistants in real time....
AI that Generates Gives Way to AI that Executes? Genpact Prepares for Autonomous Agents in the Enterprise
Genpact’s "Autonomy by Design" research finds enterprises are eager to move from "AI that generates" to "AI that executes," but only 12% feel prepared. Executives anticipate autonomous AI decision‑making in strategic functions within three years, yet integration complexity and workforce...
Claude Apps: How Anthropic’s New Interactive Apps Can Up Your AI Productivity
In this episode, Jordan Wilson explores Anthropic’s new Claude Apps, interactive tools embedded within the Claude LLM that aim to streamline AI‑driven workflows. He explains the Model Context Protocol (MCP) that powers these apps, walks through enabling them, and compares...
AI for Wealth Management Firm Zocks Lands $45 Million Investtment
Zocks, a privacy‑first artificial‑intelligence platform for wealth‑management advisors, announced a $45 million Series B round. The round was co‑led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and QED Investors, with participation from Illuminate Financial and existing backers such as Motive Partners, Expanse Venture Partners, Entrée...
Kipu Health Survey: AI Becomes Essential in Behavioral Health
A new Kipu Health survey shows AI moving from experiment to expectation in behavioral health. Adoption jumped 59% year‑over‑year, with 27% of organizations using AI in 2025 and many planning further rollout. Clinicians report that AI frees up to three...
Figure AI Shows Robot that Really Puts Its Hip Into Dishwasher Duty
Figure AI unveiled Helix 02, a humanoid robot governed by a single neural network that controls its legs, torso, arms, and fingers in real time. In a four‑minute kitchen demo, the robot completed 61 autonomous actions, including loading and unloading a...
Amaze To Sponsor SoCom 2026
Amaze Holdings announced its official sponsorship of the second‑annual SoCom Conference, a premier social‑commerce event in Venice Beach on Feb. 26, 2026. The partnership underscores Amaze’s focus on creator‑led retail as the global social‑commerce market heads toward a $5.2 trillion valuation by 2030,...
Crypto Loses Speculative Edge as AI and Robotics Attract Capital: Delphi
Delphi Digital reports that speculative capital is migrating from cryptocurrency to artificial intelligence and robotics, eroding crypto’s traditional role as the go‑to high‑risk asset class. Over the past year Bitcoin fell about 12% while the Global X Robotics and AI...
The Secret to Successful AI Outcomes? It’s Data, Says Hitachi Vantara CTO Jason Hardy
Hitachi Vantara CTO Jason Hardy says data quality is the single most critical factor for successful AI outcomes, emphasizing robust data governance and context‑aware accuracy thresholds. He warns that many enterprises launch AI pilots without clear goals, leading to wasted...
Hackers Hijack Exposed LLM Endpoints in Bizarre Bazaar Operation
Researchers at Pillar Security uncovered a large‑scale cyber‑crime operation dubbed “Bizarre Bazaar” that hijacks exposed LLM endpoints. Over 40 days they logged 35,000 attack sessions, showing attackers exploit misconfigured AI APIs to mine cryptocurrency, resell access, exfiltrate data, and pivot...
Acquiring Existing Startups Cuts Risk, Boosts Execution
One of the reasons people are successful acquiring startups is simple: they’re not starting from zero. Zach Simmons is a good example of this. Instead of building something new from scratch, he acquired Appraiva (@appraiva) on @acquiredotcom which already had real...
Model Failures Stem From Data, Not Algorithm Power
1/ You think your ML model fails because it’s “not powerful enough”? No. It’s your data. Garbage in, garbage out. Here’s what most AI scientists miss when using public RNA-seq or single-cell data 👇 https://t.co/dVezFRLHkW
Decart's Lucy 2.0 Transforms Live Video in Real Time Using Text Prompts
Decart unveiled Lucy 2.0, a real‑time video transformation model that operates at 30 fps in 1080p with near‑zero latency. Users can swap characters, insert products, alter clothing, or completely change environments using simple text prompts and reference images while the stream runs....
IXCells and Rosebud Biosciences Partner on Organoid-Based Rare Disease Models
iXCells Biotechnologies is integrating Rosebud Biosciences’ AI‑driven organoid platform with its iPSC‑based iPSCore system to deliver scalable, three‑dimensional human tissue models. The partnership combines iXCells’ modular stem‑cell production with Rosebud’s reproducible organoid generation and characterization capabilities. Together they aim to...
The Gen Z/Boomer Sales Conflict - Can AI Be a Generational Equalizer?
A new Clari‑Salesloft study of 2,000 U.S. sales leaders reveals a $56 billion productivity loss driven by generational conflict between Baby Boomers and Gen Z reps. Boomers cling to relationship‑first, in‑person selling, while Gen Z adopts digital‑first, AI‑heavy tactics, creating friction in communication,...
Molecular Language Model Achieves 100x Faster Quantum Hamiltonian Prediction
Researchers introduced MGAHam, a multimodal molecular language model that predicts quantum Hamiltonian matrices directly from SMILES strings. By aligning SMILES with latent geometric representations and applying a modality‑compensation layer, the model reaches a mean absolute error of roughly 7×10⁻⁵, matching...
Innovaccer and Snowflake to Drive Enterprise AI Adoption Across Healthcare
Innovaccer and Snowflake announced a deep integration of Innovaccer’s Gravity platform with Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud and Cortex AI services. The partnership lets healthcare payers, providers, and life‑science firms run production‑ready AI workflows across clinical, revenue‑cycle, and patient‑engagement domains. Gravity...
Manage the Emerging Costs of Agentic Commerce by Taking a Cue From Drop Shipping Strategy
The episode examines the emerging costs of "agentic commerce"—shopping experiences that happen inside answer engines like ChatGPT—highlighting OpenAI’s 4% fee for Shopify merchants and the resulting 7%+ transaction cost when using native checkout. It draws parallels to early drop‑shipping, urging...
Masumi Network: How AI-Blockchain Fusion Adds Trust to Burgeoning Agent Economy
Masumi Network, a collaboration between NMKR and Serviceplan Group, launched as a framework‑agnostic platform that lets autonomous AI agents collaborate, monetize services, and exchange value with verifiable trust. Built on the Cardano blockchain, the network equips each agent with a...
SKADI and HelloGard Robotics Partner to Embed Autonomous Cybersecurity in Robotics
SKADI Cyber Defense and HelloGard Robotics announced a strategic partnership to embed autonomous cybersecurity directly into AI‑powered robots and connected automation systems. The collaboration will co‑develop cross‑platform security solutions for Windows, Android and Linux that protect robotic operating systems, AI...