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. A curated list of alternatives—from Crypt.ee’s cloud to Mistral AI’s language models—illustrates the growing ecosystem ready to serve European users and regulators.
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...
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,...
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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...
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...
SutiCLM Redefines Contract Management With AI-Powered Automation and Intelligence
SutiSoft launched SutiCLM, an AI‑driven contract lifecycle management platform that automates drafting, negotiation, approval, and storage. The solution uses generative summarization, clause suggestions, risk detection, and conversational AI to cut cycle times and lower compliance risk. Executives claim the tool...
Agileday Raises €6.4M to Scale AI Solutions for Professional Services
Finland‑based Agileday closed a €6.4 million Series A round, led by Newion and joined by Specialist VC, Vendep Capital, and Business Finland. The startup offers a people‑focused professional services automation (PSA) platform that merges talent management, resource allocation, timesheets and project financials...
Iboss Unveils AI-Powered SSPM Capability to Reduce SaaS Risk
iboss introduced an AI‑powered SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) capability within its Zero Trust SASE platform. The solution connects to SaaS apps via native APIs, continuously scanning configurations, permissions and data exposure. AI analysis prioritizes misconfigurations and risky sharing, presenting...
Qure.ai Receives Grant From Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Qure.ai, a New York‑based AI diagnostics firm, secured a multimillion‑dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The undisclosed funding will finance health‑equity projects, including an open‑source multimodal medical database and AI‑driven point‑of‑care ultrasound algorithms for early TB and pneumonia...
AI Tools for Business Made Simple for Solopreneurs and Small Teams
Halper is an AI‑powered communication and scheduling platform designed for solopreneurs and small teams. It operates inside Instagram Direct and WhatsApp, automatically reading voice messages, answering queries, and booking appointments without any setup. The tool consolidates multi‑channel conversations into a...
Finextra & ACI Worldwide Release New Survey Report on the Global State of Fraud and Financial Crime
Finextra and ACI Worldwide released the "AI in Action" global survey, analyzing responses from 154 industry leaders on AI‑driven fraud prevention. Over half of organisations (51%) already run AI solutions, with another 47% planning deployments within two years. The study...
Banking’s Empty Raincoat
The article revisits Charles Handy’s "empty raincoat" metaphor to critique the current wave of AI adoption in banking. While banks have digitised operations, the addition of intelligence often creates hollow processes staffed by people whose roles lack purpose. The author...
Mapping Neurodevelopment in Preterm Infants Using Machine Learning
A multidisciplinary team applied deep‑learning algorithms to longitudinal MRI and EEG datasets from preterm infants, creating a predictive model of brain maturation. The model achieved over 85% accuracy in forecasting neurodevelopmental outcomes such as cognitive delay and cerebral palsy. By...
Opus + GPT-5.2 Game Build
Ray streamed the creation of a 5v5 multiplayer soccer game from scratch, completing a functional prototype in six hours despite no prior Rust or game‑dev experience. He leveraged a suite of AI agents—Gemini for sprites, Cursor and Droid for feature...
Inferact Launches with $150M in Funding to Commercialize vLLM
Inferact Inc. launched with a $150 million seed round that values the startup at $800 million. The company will commercialize the open‑source vLLM inference engine, known for its PagedAttention memory‑saving technique and quantization. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed and Databricks’ VC arm,...
Chinese AI Is a Risk for Europe. So Is Shunning It
Chinese startup DeepSeek has launched an AI model that rivals top U.S. systems at a fraction of the cost, prompting the company to target Europe as its primary export market. While the EU has moved to restrict access over fears...
OpenAI Is Coming for Those Sweet Enterprise Dollars in 2026
OpenAI has appointed Barret Zoph, a former VP of post‑training inference, to lead its enterprise division as the company seeks to recapture lost market share. Zoph returned after a stint at Mira Murati’s Thinking Machine Labs, positioning him at the forefront of...
Are AI Agents Ready for the Workplace? A New Benchmark Raises Doubts
A new white‑collar benchmark called APEX‑Agents, released by Mercur, tests AI agents on real consulting, banking and legal tasks. Leading models, including Gemini 3 Flash and GPT‑5.2, achieved only about a quarter of queries correctly, with most responses wrong or missing. The...
"Exactly the Opposite of What AI and Mission-Critical Workloads Require": Dell VP Says Recycling Enterprise SSDs to Save Costs Could...
Dell’s Vice President of Unstructured Data Solutions warned that reusing enterprise SSDs—often called flash reclamation—poses a serious reliability threat as AI and other mission‑critical workloads demand consistent, high‑performance storage. Recycled drives suffer accelerated wear, increasing the likelihood of component failure...
Doctors’ Views on AI Chatbots in Clinical Decisions
A recent survey of 1,200 physicians across the United States reveals that 68% view AI chatbots as useful adjuncts in clinical decision‑making, while 22% remain skeptical about their reliability. Doctors cite faster information retrieval and patient education as primary benefits,...
Scaling PostgreSQL to Power 800M ChatGPT Users
OpenAI scaled a single‑primary Azure PostgreSQL flexible server to serve 800 million ChatGPT users, leveraging nearly 50 read‑replicas across global regions. By combining aggressive query tuning, connection pooling with PgBouncer, and off‑loading write‑heavy workloads to sharded Cosmos DB, the platform now handles...
The ‘App’ Era Is Dying — Welcome to the ‘Agent’ Era
The article declares the end of the traditional app era, ushering in an “Instruct/Verify” era where users command AI agents to perform tasks. It outlines two parallel shifts – an interface shift turning super‑apps into conversational operating systems, and a...
White House Uses AI to Alter Protester’s Face So That She’s Sobbing, Instead of Looking Brave, During Arrest
The White House shared an image on X that had been altered with generative AI to make civil‑rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong appear sobbing during her arrest, despite the original photo showing a stoic pose and bright pink lipstick. The...
Microsoft Releases VibeVoice-ASR: A Unified Speech-to-Text Model Designed to Handle 60-Minute Long-Form Audio in a Single Pass
Microsoft unveiled VibeVoice‑ASR, an open‑source speech‑to‑text model that processes up to 60 minutes of continuous audio in a single pass using a 64K‑token context. The model jointly performs automatic speech recognition, speaker diarization, and timestamping, delivering structured transcripts that capture who...
OpenAI CMO Responds to "Woke AI" Accusations by Citing Co-Founder Brockman's $25 Million MAGA Donation
OpenAI’s chief marketing officer, Kate Rouch, pushed back against accusations that the company is a "Woke AI" by highlighting her own Republican background and a $25 million MAGA donation from co‑founder Greg Brockman. The criticism originated from MAGA activist Katie Miller,...
LiveKit Raises $100M in Series C Funding at a $1 Billion Valuation
LiveKit announced a $100 million Series C round that values the San Francisco‑based real‑time communication platform at $1 billion. The round was led by Index Ventures with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Hanabi Capital. LiveKit will use the capital to...
How Machine Learning Improves Satellite Object Tracking
Machine learning is now central to satellite‑object tracking, where algorithms scan thousands of orbital coordinates to flag collision risks far earlier than traditional radar. With over 12,000 active satellites, manual monitoring is infeasible, prompting platforms like Orb to blend telescope,...
Elon Musk's AI Chatbot Grok Flooded X with Millions of Sexualized Images
Elon Musk’s X‑integrated AI chatbot Grok generated at least 1.8 million sexualized images in a nine‑day span, according to analysis by the New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Roughly 65 % of a 20,000‑image sample depicted sexualized adults or children,...
State of Louisiana and Persona AI Launch Humanoid Pilot at SSE Steel Fabrication
Louisiana and Houston‑based Persona AI have signed an MOU to launch a humanoid robotics pilot at SSE Steel Fabrication in St. Bernard Parish. The program will collect movement and task data in a live steel‑fabrication environment to validate rugged humanoid...
Pharma Bets Big on AI Platforms with Flurry of New Year Deals
In early 2026 pharma giants Eli Lilly, GSK and Pfizer announced multi‑year AI platform agreements with start‑ups Chai Discovery, Noetik, and Boltz. Chai’s de novo antibody design model, Chai‑2, claims double‑digit success rates—over 100‑fold better than prior methods—while Noetik secured a $50 million...
Why AI Is Making Attack Surface Management Mandatory
Amit Sheps of CyCognito warns that AI is rapidly expanding enterprise attack surfaces, making traditional vulnerability hunting insufficient. He stresses that without continuous external discovery and clear ownership mapping, security teams cannot prioritize true risk. AI both creates new entry...
Ecommerce Trends: Why AI Choices, Charges and Friction All Matter for Returns
The FedEx‑Morning Consult 2025 holiday‑season survey shows online retailers expect higher return volumes in 2026, with 40% of merchants now charging return fees—a jump from 25% in 2024, especially among small businesses. Consumers are sensitive to these fees; 59% say...
EBay Bans Illicit Automated Shopping Amid Rapid Rise of AI Agents
eBay has revised its User Agreement to expressly forbid third‑party “buy‑for‑me” agents and large‑language‑model (LLM) chatbots from placing orders on its platform without explicit permission. The new clause, effective February 20 2026, expands the previous ban on generic bots to specifically target...