Autotech Ventures Bets Big on Hard-to-Copy Logistics Startups
Autotech Ventures, a $600 million industrial‑focused VC, is targeting logistics startups that are hard to replicate, leveraging its deep network of global manufacturers and carriers. The firm highlighted investments in GenLogs, a data‑rich freight intelligence platform, and Augment, an end‑to‑end AI productivity suite, as examples of defensible, "n of one" businesses. Managing partners stress that fragmented, point‑solution AI tools face pricing pressure, while integrated platforms gain enterprise traction. Looking ahead, Autotech sees physical‑layer AI and robotics as the next frontier for value creation in supply chains.
ProEnergy Supply, OpenSolar Partner on Distributor Inventory Platform
ProEnergy Supply (PES) has launched an AI‑driven transactional gateway that integrates directly with OpenSolar’s new Shop platform, allowing solar designers to purchase equipment in real time. The solution connects live inventory to distributors’ ERP systems, reaching over 28,000 active solar...
Meta Pours $65 Million Into State Elections to Back AI-Friendly Politicians
Meta is committing $65 million to influence state elections across the United States, establishing four Super PACs that target both Republican and Democratic candidates. The spending begins in Texas, where Meta is building three AI data centers, and in Illinois, supporting...
NVIDIA Adds Cosmos Policy to Its World Foundation Models
NVIDIA introduced Cosmos Policy, a post‑trained robot control policy built on its Cosmos Predict‑2 world foundation model. By encoding actions, future states and reward signals as latent video frames, the single diffusion‑based model achieves state‑of‑the‑art results on the LIBERO and...
Accenture Ties Promotions to AI Tool Usage While some Employees Call the Tools "Broken Slop Generators"
Accenture has begun monitoring weekly logins to its generative AI tools and tying usage data to promotion decisions for senior staff. Employees must demonstrate regular AI adoption to be considered for leadership roles, while staff in 12 European countries and...
Exclusive: Plaid CTO Talks AI Strategy, New Foundational Model to Power Next Phase of ‘Intelligent Finance’
Plaid announced a new transactional foundational AI model, built in‑house from its de‑identified financial data, to power what it calls “intelligent finance.” CTO Will Robinson said the model moves Plaid beyond open‑finance connectivity toward smarter, personalized transaction insights and tighter...
The 'Last-Mile' Data Problem Is Stalling Enterprise Agentic AI — 'Golden Pipelines' Aim to Fix It
Enterprise AI is hitting a ‘last‑mile’ data bottleneck as messy operational data hampers model inference. Empromptu’s ‘golden pipelines’ embed automated ingestion, cleaning, labeling and governance directly into the AI application workflow, shrinking data‑preparation cycles from weeks to under an hour....
Freeform Raises $67M Series B to Scale up Laser AI Manufacturing
Freeform announced a $67 million Series B round to accelerate its metal 3D‑printing platform. The capital will fund the upgrade from the GoldenEye system to the AI‑native Skyfall printer, which will employ hundreds of lasers to produce thousands of kilograms of parts...
Belkasoft Advances AI-Assisted DFIR With Major Update To Belkasoft X And BelkaGPT
Belkasoft released a major update to its DFIR platform Belkasoft X and the offline AI assistant BelkaGPT. The upgrade adds context‑aware conversational Q&A, expands relevance scoring to up to ten artifacts, and introduces a GPU‑enabled BelkaGPT Hub for media processing. It...
Google Plans $15B Subsea Cable to Boost AI Infrastructure
Google announced a $15 billion America‑India Connect subsea cable project spanning five years and four continents. The initiative adds new landing points in Visakhapatnam and creates redundant fibre‑optic routes linking India to Singapore, South Africa, Australia and the United States. By...
Google AI Mode Works In 53 New Languages
Google announced that its AI Mode now supports 53 additional languages, bringing the total to just under 100. The expansion covers languages spoken by more than a billion people worldwide, ranging from major tongues like Hindi and Arabic to regional...
China’s AI Build-Out Forces a Rapid Shift to Liquid Cooling — Massive Clusters Put Pressure on Domestic Suppliers to Shift...
China’s rapid AI compute expansion is forcing a wholesale shift from air to liquid cooling in data centers. Dozens of domestic firms, led by Envicool whose shares have tripled, are scaling liquid‑cooling solutions to support 42 "10,000‑card" clusters delivering over...
Aurasell Launches AI-Native OS for GTM Workflows
Aurasell announced the launch of the world’s first AI‑native Go‑To‑Market Operating System (GTM OS) that layers intelligent, automated workflows onto any existing CRM such as Salesforce or HubSpot. The platform promises to double productivity and deliver measurable impact within two...
Artificial Intelligence Drives Autonomous Networks, Customer Service Gains
Nvidia’s State of AI in Telecommunications survey of 1,038 industry leaders shows AI is now a revenue engine, with nine‑in‑ten respondents reporting cost reductions and higher earnings. Autonomous networks top the AI use‑case list, accounting for 50% of reported ROI,...
How to Build AI Ready Knowledge Foundations: What Leaders and KM Teams Must Get Right
AI tools promise faster answers, but inconsistent results reveal a deeper issue. APQC research shows AI merely magnifies the quality of an organization’s underlying knowledge assets. Companies that invest in structured, high‑quality, governed content—taxonomy, metadata, and lifecycle management—see more reliable...
“AI Didn’t Create the Cracks in the System, It Exposed Them”: Q&A with Oz Etzioni, Clinch
In a Q&A with Clinch CEO Oz Etzioni, the interview highlights how AI has exposed deep fractures in traditional advertising workflows built on siloed point solutions. The surge in creative permutations and real‑time media demands has turned these fragmented systems...
Minky Couture Selects Domo AI, Data Products Platform to Boost Operational Visibility
Minky Couture, the Utah‑based luxury blanket retailer, has chosen Domo’s AI and Data Products Platform to unify data across inventory, supply chain, marketing, finance, and store operations. The platform will enable governed data products that deliver near real‑time performance tracking,...
Anthropic: It’s “Critical” To Bring Company Products to EHR
Anthropic is pushing its Claude AI model into electronic health record (EHR) systems, arguing that integration is essential for real‑time clinical value. The company highlighted a roster of 25 healthcare partners, including Abridge, Novo Nordisk, Genmab and Banner Health, to showcase both...
Using AI to Generate Passwords Is a Terrible Idea, Experts Warn
Cybersecurity firm Irregular found that popular AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini generate highly predictable passwords with low entropy. Tests showed repeated strings and narrow character selection, yielding only about 27 bits of entropy for a typical...
PromptSpy Ushers in the Era of Android Threats Using GenAI
ESET researchers have identified PromptSpy, the first Android malware that leverages Google’s Gemini generative AI to maintain persistence on infected devices. The AI receives a real‑time XML snapshot of the screen and returns JSON‑formatted tap instructions, allowing the app to...
The Geopolitics of AGI
RAND’s Geopolitics of AGI initiative released a webinar on February 19, 2026, examining how advanced artificial intelligence, including potential artificial general intelligence, could reshape global politics and security. Speakers Jim Mitre and Joel Predd outlined the strategic implications of an...
DBS Pilots System that Lets AI Agents Make Payments for Customers
DBS Bank, in partnership with Visa, has launched a pilot that enables AI agents to complete payments on behalf of customers using tokenised card credentials. The trial, dubbed Visa Intelligent Commerce, has already processed real‑world transactions such as food and...
OpenClaw: What Teachers Need To Know
OpenClaw is a free, open‑source AI agent that runs on a user’s computer, promising greater privacy than cloud‑based alternatives. Early adopters, especially tech‑savvy teachers, report that it outperforms rivals like Google Auto Browse in research and lesson‑plan summarization, though its...
Smarter Flood Monitoring: Cutting Delays and Costs
AI specialist Purple Transform and delivery partner Central Alliance deployed the SIYTE platform to unify flood‑monitoring sensors and cameras on Network Rail’s Western Route. The single web‑and‑mobile interface gave engineers real‑time visibility of the drainage ecosystem, replacing fragmented data silos....
MSD and Mayo Clinic Team up to Advance AI in Drug Development
Merck (MSD) and Mayo Clinic have launched a research partnership that blends Mayo's Platform architecture and multimodal clinical‑genomic data with MSD's virtual‑cell technologies. The collaboration gives MSD direct access to de‑identified imaging, lab, molecular and notes data to train and...
MSD and Mayo Clinic Team up to Advance AI in Drug Development
Merck & Co (MSD) and Mayo Clinic have launched a research partnership that leverages AI, advanced analytics, and multimodal clinical‑genomic data to accelerate drug discovery and precision medicine. The collaboration merges Mayo’s Platform architecture and de‑identified datasets—including imaging, labs, molecular...
Plato Closes $14.5M to Bring AI Automation to Wholesale Trade
Plato, a Berlin‑based startup, secured a $14.5 million seed round led by Atomico to embed generative AI into wholesale distribution. The company links AI directly to legacy ERP systems, turning historical sales data into automated quotes, revenue alerts, and risk flags....
UAE Data Centers: Powering the Middle East’s AI and Cloud Revolution
The United Arab Emirates is rapidly emerging as a pivotal data‑center hub for the Middle East and Africa, with live capacity surpassing 376 MW in 2025. Hyperscale players such as Microsoft, G42, and OpenAI are expanding AI‑focused facilities, targeting an additional...
Former US Presidential Candidate Has an Alarming Prediction for Your Job — Salaries Are About to Go Down
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang warned that artificial intelligence will sharply reduce salaries across the workforce, affecting both white‑collar and service‑sector jobs. In a Substack post he cited examples from dry cleaning to coding, predicting millions of layoffs within 12‑18...
Emergent Launches Vibe Coding App, Reaches $100M ARR in 8 Months
Emergent announced its AI‑powered mobile app, Emergent AI, as the company hit a $100 million annual run‑rate in just eight months, doubling from $50 million in a single month. The platform now supports over six million builders across 190+ countries who have created...
Claude Users Spike 11% After Super Bowl as Anthropic Mocks OpenAI's Move to Bring Ads to ChatGPT
Anthropic leveraged Super Bowl ad spots to highlight its ad‑free Claude chatbot, sparking an 11% rise in daily active users and a 6.5% lift in website traffic. The campaign propelled Claude into the top‑10 free apps on the Apple App...
Neom Partners with DataVolt on $5bn Hyperscale Datacentre Project for Digital Infrastructure
Neom has signed a landmark $5 billion agreement with Saudi‑based DataVolt to build the Kingdom’s first green‑AI hyperscale data centre in Oxagon. The facility will operate at net‑zero, powered entirely by renewable energy and equipped with advanced cooling to support generative...
Middle East Weekly: Baidu’s Apollo Go Operates Driverless Fleet at WGS, QIA Commits USD 2 Billion to Startups, Qatar Signs...
At the 2026 World Governments Summit in Dubai, Baidu’s Apollo Go deployed the event’s only fully autonomous ride‑hailing fleet, showcasing Chinese driverless technology on a high‑profile international stage. Meanwhile, Qatar Investment Authority announced a $2 billion expansion of its fund‑of‑funds program to...
TBWA Alum Launch AI-Native Shop with Hitachi as Founding Client
Two former Omnicom executives, James Sparano and Kevin O’Sullivan, are launching JK, an AI‑native creative and strategy shop that promises to shrink traditional planning cycles from months to days. The boutique is self‑funded and begins operations on Feb. 19. Hitachi has...
Dave Page: Building Ask Ellie: A RAG Chatbot Powered by pgEdge
pgEdge introduced Ask Ellie, an AI‑powered documentation chatbot built directly on PostgreSQL using the company’s open‑source extensions. The system follows a Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) pattern: Docloader ingests docs, Vectorizer creates vector embeddings, and the RAG Server retrieves relevant chunks and...
How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Consulting
AI is fundamentally reshaping consulting by replacing lengthy analysis and PowerPoint‑heavy engagements with faster, outcome‑focused projects. Firms are leveraging in‑house and public AI tools to accelerate insight generation, while clients increasingly use the same technology, shifting value from “what is”...
AI Adoption Is Rising in Retail, but Efficiencies Remain Surprisingly Underwhelming
AI adoption is accelerating in retail, with roughly 70% of firms reporting use of some AI technology. Despite this uptake, more than 80% of senior executives say AI has not noticeably affected employment or productivity over the past three years....
Accenture Links Promotion Prospects to Employees’ Use of AI
Accenture announced that regular use of artificial‑intelligence tools will be a visible factor in promotion decisions for senior roles. The firm is now logging weekly AI‑tool access, including its proprietary AI Refinery, as part of talent discussions. It has already...
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Chooses EBO’s Patient Portal
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust is rolling out EBO’s Intelligent Patient Portal (IPP) as part of its digital transformation, offering a conversational AI interface that guides patients through appointment management and care tasks. The portal is built on...
3 AI Fears in Higher Education
Across U.S. campuses, AI adoption is prompting unease rather than excitement, as leaders, faculty, and students grapple with rapid change. Students in computer‑science tracks fear AI will erode future job prospects, while staff worry about automation replacing knowledge‑work roles. Educators...
Zyphra Releases ZUNA: A 380M-Parameter BCI Foundation Model for EEG Data, Advancing Noninvasive Thought-to-Text Development
Zyphra unveiled ZUNA, a 380‑million‑parameter foundation model for EEG signals that uses a masked diffusion auto‑encoder to fill missing channels and boost spatial resolution. The model leverages a novel 4D rotary positional encoding to treat EEG data as spatiotemporal points,...
Elsevier ClinicalKey AI Adds NEJM, The Lancet, and HIPAA Compliance
Elsevier has upgraded its ClinicalKey AI platform by adding full‑text access to more than 130 top‑tier medical journals, including NEJM and The Lancet, and by integrating clinical guidelines from leading societies. The new version introduces real‑time traceability, linking AI‑generated answers...
4 Ways to Automate Plaud with Zapier
Plaud, an AI notetaker with wearable hardware, captures in‑person and virtual conversations and generates transcripts and summaries. By linking Plaud to Zapier, users can automatically route those outputs to file storage, note‑taking apps, task managers, and communication platforms. The integration...
AI Breakthrough Could Replace Rare Earth Magnets in Electric Vehicles
Scientists at the University of New Hampshire used artificial intelligence to compile a searchable database of 67,573 magnetic compounds, uncovering 25 previously unknown high‑temperature magnets. The AI system extracts experimental data from literature, predicts magnetic behavior, and records temperature thresholds....
Make in India, Think in Dialects: Why Sarvam’s AI Bet Feels Personal
At the India AI Impact Summit, Sarvam AI unveiled two indigenous large language models—30 billion and 105 billion parameters—trained from scratch on Indian languages. Both models employ a Mixture‑of‑Experts architecture to boost efficiency while keeping performance across reasoning, coding, and tool use....
How Clarins Reached 70% Conversion and Doubled Its Basket Size in Brick-and-Mortar Test of Shade-Matching Tech
Clarins piloted its AI Shade Finder in 20 French and UK stores, using an iPhone‑based spectroscopic tool to match foundation shades. The trial lifted conversion to 70% and doubled average basket size, while boosting associate confidence and prompting cross‑selling of...
Law Firm Introduces AI Chatbot for Job Interviews
London boutique Mishcon de Reya has deployed an AI‑powered chatbot to conduct first‑round graduate interviews. The tool, built by Bright Network, pulls data from each applicant’s submission to generate a customized conversation and produces a transcript for the firm’s early‑careers...
JioHotstar, OpenAI Launch ChatGPT Content Search
JioHotstar announced a partnership with OpenAI to embed ChatGPT‑powered voice discovery into its streaming app. The new multilingual cognitive search lets users speak natural language queries to receive context‑aware recommendations for both on‑demand and live sports content. The assistant also...
Figma's Answer to the AI Software Sell-Off
The episode examines Figma’s latest AI integration with Anthropic’s Claude Code, exploring how the partnership emerged organically and what it means for the design‑to‑code workflow. Host discusses Figma’s steep stock decline amid a broader SaaS AI sell‑off and probes CEO...
Agentic AI Era: Cloud Security Shifts From Asset Protection to Identity-First Zero Trust
At the ETCIO Cloud Summit, leaders from Starbucks India and Jio argued that cloud security must shift from protecting static assets to continuously validating identities, especially as AI agents and autonomous workloads proliferate in hybrid environments. They emphasized that bots,...