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:
Browser Wars, Continued: Why Everyone Is Building Their Own AI Browser
The browser has evolved from a simple web gateway into the primary enterprise endpoint, handling over 70% of global traffic. Generative AI agents that can act autonomously inside browsers are turning them into intelligent workspaces, prompting incumbents and startups to launch AI‑enhanced browsers in 2025. Controlling the browser now means controlling the single point of access to SaaS applications, data, and workflows. Security concerns arise because these agentic browsers inherit user privileges, creating new attack surfaces.
OpenAI Chief Sam Altman Plans India Visit as AI Leaders Converge in New Delhi: Sources
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is slated to travel to India in mid‑February for a series of closed‑door meetings that will run alongside the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. The summit, scheduled for February 16‑20, will host top AI executives...
AI Investment Now Outpaces Consumption as Growth Engine
A useful reality check on AI and the economy. In early 2025, AI capex and consumer spending added roughly the same amount to net-new GDP. That’s striking, given that consumer spending still makes up about 70% of total GDP. But for growth...
Mixture of Experts Vision Transformer Achieves High-Fidelity Surface Code Decoding
Researchers introduced QuantumSMoE, a vision‑transformer‑based decoder that integrates a mixture‑of‑experts (MoE) layer to tackle surface‑code error correction. By embedding the toric code’s geometry through plus‑shaped patches and adaptive masking, the model captures local lattice interactions while maintaining global context. Experiments...
Asset Servicing Gains New Importance in an Increasingly Digital World
Asset servicing, once a back‑office function, is now a strategic priority for banks as AI, blockchain and a generational wealth shift reshape the industry. BNY Mellon highlights the rise of a hybrid workforce, deploying over 100 digital employees to automate...
What an AI-Written Honeypot Taught Us About Trusting Machines
Intruder used an AI model to draft a honeypot prototype, but the generated code mistakenly trusted client‑supplied IP headers, allowing attackers to inject payloads via spoofed headers. The flaw went unnoticed by static analysis tools like Semgrep and Gosec, highlighting...
Workday Is in a Race to Re-Define Vertical SaaS, Says Its CTO. How's It Going?
Workday’s CTO Peter Bailis highlighted the company’s single data and process model as a strategic moat, enabling AI to leverage embedded business context across its 11,000 customers. The firm also touts a robust security framework that extends organizational permissions to...
LAZ-FXAI: A New Paradigm in Intelligent Finance Driven by Academic Insight
LAZ‑FXAI, the new initiative of independent advisory firm LAZ‑FXAI, blends decades of financial expertise with advanced AI to improve decision‑making. Guided by CEO Peter Orszag and academic economist Professor Ronald Temple, the program injects macroeconomic research into its models. AI...
A Smarter Way to Approach AI Prompting
Generative AI’s rise has exposed costly hallucinations caused by vague prompts. The article proposes rubric‑based prompting as a systematic guardrail that defines decision rules, uncertainty handling, and failure behavior. By embedding concise rubrics alongside prompts, models prioritize accuracy over fluency...
StuffThatWorks Appoints Julie A. Ross as CEO and President
StuffThatWorks announced Julie A. Ross, former CEO of Advanced Clinical, as its new CEO and President. Ross will steer the company’s growth of its patient‑derived AI platform that leverages a self‑perpetuating engine of over 3 million patients and 1.3 billion structured data...
How Conversation Intelligence Enhances Modern Marketing Strategies
Conversation intelligence, powered by AI and natural language processing, analyzes customer interactions across voice, text, and chat channels to surface sentiment, intent, and behavioral patterns. Marketers leverage these real‑time insights to personalize messaging, fine‑tune campaigns, and align sales and marketing...
ExaGrid Announces All Flash/SSD Tiered Backup Storage Solution
ExaGrid has launched an all‑flash, SSD‑based tiered backup storage solution that ships with software version 8 and a unique front‑end Landing Zone paired with a non‑network‑facing repository tier. The new appliances—EX90‑SSD through EX540‑SSD—scale to over 17 PB in a single scale‑out...
The SRE Report 2026: Reliability Is Being Redefined
Catchpoint, now part of LogicMonitor, released the eighth‑edition SRE Report 2026, revealing that reliability is being redefined in the AI era. The study of 418 global SRE, DevOps and IT professionals shows speed, user experience and business impact have overtaken...
Lumos Achieves Efficient Fluorescent Molecule Design with Data-Physics Driven Generative Frameworks
Researchers introduced LUMOS, a data‑physics driven framework that directly links molecular specifications to fluorescent structures, bypassing traditional generate‑and‑screen cycles. By coupling a generative model with fast TD‑DFT‑based predictors in a shared latent space, LUMOS can simultaneously optimise multiple optical and...
December 2025 HubSpot Updates: Smarter Segmentation, Tighter AI Control, Less CRM Busywork
HubSpot’s December 2025 release adds operational upgrades that tighten data control and boost AI efficiency. Managers gain reCAPTCHA protection for live chat, a new Segment Analytics view, and AI‑driven Claude actions that can update CRM records on the fly. Administrators...
Key Tech
Today's Operator Links: https://lnkd.in/gMYc6eW5 1️⃣ Why AI Systems Are Easy to Trick - Barath Raghavan & Bruce Schneier 2️⃣ Search Traffic Didn’t Fall Off a Cliff - Ethan Smith 3️⃣ AI Rewards Structure Before Talent - Gabe Mays 4️⃣ The...
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Double Heated, Personal Intelligence in AI Mode, ChatGPT Ads & Apple Siri Updates...
Google Search experienced renewed ranking volatility, though Google offered no confirmation. OpenAI announced a pilot of ads within ChatGPT responses, charging advertisers per impression rather than per click. Google rolled out Personal Intelligence in AI Mode and upgraded AI Overviews...
Google Falls Back To Featured Snippets When AI Overviews Don't Generate
Google’s search team confirmed that when its AI‑generated Overviews cannot be produced, the engine falls back to traditional featured snippets. The fallback can look identical to an AI Overview, leading to user confusion. VP of Engineering Rajan Patel announced on...
Robo.ai Partners with The Ghazi Group to Power AI Compute Infrastructure Growth in MENA and Southeast Asia
Robo.ai Inc. has signed a three‑year Gold Reseller agreement with The Ghazi Group to distribute edge inference servers, CPU/GPU systems and AI infrastructure across MENA and selected Southeast Asian markets. The partnership targets the fast‑growing edge AI markets, which analysts...
RainFocus Introduces RainFocus Nexus, a Secure, Cloud-Agnostic System of Specialized AI Agents to Act As Teammates to Event Marketers
RainFocus unveiled Nexus, an AI‑driven collaboration layer that turns its event marketing platform into a team of specialized agents. The system introduces an orchestration layer, a context layer, and a unified system of record, enabling agents to automate configuration, guide...
Gemini Local Results Insights Into How Google Interprets Your Business
Google is testing a Gemini-powered update to its local search results, introducing AI‑generated headlines and content sections for businesses. The new format surfaces information Google believes it knows about a company, such as services, hours, and unique selling points. By...
Building a European Digital Stack: The Alternatives to US Big Tech You Should Know
Europe is mobilising a broad coalition of home‑grown firms to replace US big‑tech services across cloud, AI, collaboration and consumer tools. The European Commission’s recent open‑source consultation and Germany’s €23 million Sovereign Tech Fund signal a coordinated push for digital sovereignty....
Mass Data, Mass Surveillance, and the Erosion of Particularity: The Fourth Amendment in the Age of Geofence Warrants and Artificial...
On Jan. 16, 2026 the Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States v. Chatrie, asking whether bulk geofence warrants satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement. A geofence warrant compels a data custodian to hand over location records for every device within a...
Why AI Can’t Automate Science, According to a Philosopher
The Trump administration’s Genesis Mission seeks to train AI agents on federal scientific datasets to generate hypotheses and speed breakthroughs, reflecting a broader push to embed AI across research. Early results show AI can sift massive data and spot subtle...
Comscore 2026 State of Programmatic Report: CTV and Audio Expected to Drive Growth With Cross-Channel Performance Measurement Critical to Smarter...
Proximic by Comscore’s 2026 State of Programmatic Report shows 58% of media buyers will boost programmatic spend next year, with CTV and audio emerging as the sole channels slated for budget growth. CTV is projected to command 26% of media...
Machine Learning‐Optimized Electromagnetic Wave Absorption in Metal/C Nanocomposites
A combined genetic algorithm and machine‑learning workflow was applied to metal‑carbon nanocomposites, optimizing five synthesis variables across three evolutionary generations. The approach more than tripled the enhanced absorption bandwidth, raising it from 1.24 GHz to 4.08 GHz, while pushing the minimum reflection...
Percipience Achieves SOC 2 Type I Compliance
Percipience, an insurtech data and analytics provider, announced it has achieved SOC 2 Type I compliance, confirming that its security, availability, and confidentiality controls are properly designed. The audit, conducted by an independent firm, validated the company’s policies on access management, change...
How IR Teams Can Take Control of AI-Generated Answers in 2026
Investor relations (IR) teams are facing a new challenge as AI tools like ChatGPT become the primary source for investor research, often interpreting corporate disclosures before investors reach company websites. Notified’s President and CEO Erik Carlson will host a live...
CareCloud’s Wellsoft Ranked #1 EHR by Black Book 2026 for Emergency Medicine
CareCloud’s Wellsoft Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) was named the top‑rated emergency‑medicine EHR in Black Book’s 2026 specialty ranking. The award is based on nine months of surveys covering more than 33,000 physician practices and ambulatory facilities, emphasizing speed, throughput...
GWI Launches Agent Spark, the Human Insights Agent Built for Use in LLMs and Other AI Platforms
GWI unveiled Agent Spark, an always‑on insights agent that plugs its proprietary human‑grounded data into leading large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot. The tool can query more than 35 billion data points from 50+ countries in seconds,...
Case Study: How Competitive Intelligence Supported an AI Platform Company in Benchmarking Competitor Capabilities and Go-To-Market Strategy
Astute Analytica helped a global AI platform provider implement a tailored competitive intelligence program to benchmark rivals’ capabilities, pricing, and go‑to‑market strategies. The initiative mapped both established and emerging AI vendors, collected data from announcements, partnerships, and expert interviews, and...
RXNT Leads 2026 Gartner Digital Markets Across Five Categories
RXNT, a Maryland‑based ambulatory health‑tech firm, has been named a 2026 Gartner Digital Markets Leader, earning Shortlist and FrontRunner honors in five categories: Medical Billing, Practice Management, EMR, Mental Health, and Physical Therapy. The awards reflect both breadth—covering 23 Gartner...
KraneShares Cross-Lists KOID Humanoid Robotics ETF on Deutsche Börse Xetra Under Ticker KBOT
KraneShares announced the cross‑listing of its Global Humanoid & Embodied Intelligence Index UCITS ETF on Deutsche Börse Xetra under the ticker KBOT, joining existing listings on Nasdaq, LSE and Borsa Italiana. The ETF offers equal‑weight exposure to companies developing humanoid robots...
ITradeNetwork Collaborates with Google Cloud to Bring Gemini Enterprise and AI Agents to Food and Beverage Supply Chains
iTradeNetwork, the largest North American food and beverage trading network, announced a partnership with Google Cloud to embed Gemini Enterprise and Vertex AI agents into its Cerena Solution Suite. The integration will automate manual workflows such as order processing, enrich...
Study Finds Today’s AI Systems Almost Certainly Lack Consciousness — But The Door Is Not Fully Closed
A new study by Rethink Priorities introduces a Bayesian Digital Consciousness Model that evaluates subjective experience across systems. Applying it to modern large language models, humans, chickens, and the 1960s ELIZA chatbot, the researchers find strong evidence for consciousness in...
Playad Raises $5.4M in Pre-Seed Funding
Playad, a San Francisco AI creative platform, closed a $5.4 million pre‑seed round. The financing was led by BRV Capital Management and Mirae Asset Venture Investment, with angels such as Bora Chung and Jihun Yu joining. Playad’s technology lets teams generate and...
Elastic Agent Builder Expands How Developers Build Production-Ready AI Agents
Elastic has launched the general availability of Agent Builder, a platform that lets developers create secure, context‑driven AI agents in minutes by leveraging Elasticsearch’s unified search and analytics capabilities. The offering includes native data preparation, retrieval, ranking, custom tools, conversational...
AI Demands Ethical Curiosity: Not Every Question Deserves an Answer
AI challenges us to balance curiosity with conscience, because not every question worth asking deserves an answer
Cobalt Achieves CSA AI Trustworthy Pledge
Cobalt, a pioneer of Penetration Testing as a Service, has earned the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) AI Trustworthy Pledge by completing the STAR Level 1 CAIQ Self‑Assessment based on version 4.0.3. The certification aligns Cobalt’s practices with the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix,...
AI Poised to Add $4.4T, Reshape Jobs Worldwide
📊 AI is transforming business, education, healthcare, and the global economy at an unprecedented speed. But how big is the AI revolution really? In this video, I break down the most important AI facts, statistics, and trends that everyone needs...
Learning Skills Turns AI Advice Into Useful RNA‑seq Tools
Claude keeps suggesting outdated tools for my RNA-seq analysis. Then I learned about skills. Now it actually helps instead of creating work. https://t.co/yiFbouglo2
AI Partnerships, Ads in ChatGPT, and the "Most Amazing" Super Bowl Bet (516)
In this episode of *This Old Marketing*, Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose dissect three headline-grabbing AI developments: Apple and Google's multi‑year AI partnership, OpenAI’s plan to introduce ads into ChatGPT, and Salesforce’s bid to create the "most amazing" Super Bowl...
AI-Designed Drugs Double Phase‑I Success Rate
Phase I AI-discovered molecules show an 80-90% success rate in Ph1-to-Ph2 transition. *vs historic benchmark ~50% https://t.co/rC03gNjOPo https://t.co/AcK2XxfrW0
AI Agents: Cost‑Effective Workers Who Never Quit
"Why did we go all-in on AI Agents?" with @kylecnorton CRO @kylecnorton "I just got tired of paying folks six-figures, letting them work from home with plenty of agency ... and still quitting. The AI Agents aren't perfect. But they...
![Square 9 Launches Readiness Checklist [How AI-Ready Are Your Document Processes?] To Operationalize AI for Growing Businesses](https://hixhlmpcokxhartfkpyi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/thumbnails/f2d186380f88c1119d0aac90dab1f0ea.webp)
Square 9 Launches Readiness Checklist [How AI-Ready Are Your Document Processes?] To Operationalize AI for Growing Businesses
Square 9 Softworks introduced a 15‑minute readiness checklist titled “How AI‑Ready Are Your Document Processes?” to help growing businesses evaluate data quality, workflow prioritization, security, and change‑management prerequisites for AI adoption. The guide translates AI enthusiasm into concrete steps, offering...
Key Global Risks, Mobile Spend, and AI Investment Trends
I've just released my weekly wrap-up. 1️⃣ Risks to get ready to tackle, according to the WEF 2️⃣ Where did customers spend money on mobile app last year? 3️⃣ The state of AI investment worldwide 👉 https://t.co/5QeUE7tAmk — fgtrends
Leidos, OpenAI Deploying AI to Transform Federal Operations
Leidos and OpenAI announced a partnership to embed OpenAI’s generative and agentic AI models into federal agency workflows, aligning with Leidos’ NorthStar 2030 growth plan. The collaboration targets digital modernization, health services, national security, infrastructure and defense, promising secure, data‑protected...
The Memory Crunch Is Here. Modern Architectures Are the Way Out
AI-driven data centers are hitting a memory bottleneck as DRAM prices surge 170% year‑over‑year and DDR5 spot costs have tripled since late 2025. Traditional server designs that simply add more DIMMs can no longer keep pace because high‑capacity modules are...
FADEL Unveils FADEL AIVA™, Its AI Technology for Brand Compliance and Licensing Operations
FADEL introduced FADEL AIVA™, an AI platform that unifies generative, analytical, and predictive capabilities to automate brand compliance and licensing workflows. The solution embeds purpose‑built AI agents—such as a Reviewer Agent for product approvals and a Contract Ingestion Agent for...