Today's SaaS Pulse
OpenAI acquires Ona to embed secure workspaces for autonomous AI agents
OpenAI announced the acquisition of Ona, a 79‑person cloud development environment provider, to embed secure, persistent workspaces for autonomous AI agents. Ona’s platform has seen a 13‑fold rise in weekly agent sessions across banks, pharma firms, and sovereign wealth funds. Analysts estimate the deal value between $450 million and $500 million.
Also developing:
By the numbers: NinjaOne raises $400M Series C extension
Show HN: DeepDream for Video with Temporal Consistency
The deepdream-video-pytorch fork adds RAFT optical flow and occlusion masking to the original PyTorch DeepDream implementation, enabling temporally consistent video hallucination. A new CLI, video_dream.py, warps previous dream frames into the current frame, producing smooth transitions and reducing ghosting. The tool recommends a single iteration per frame, dramatically cutting compute compared to frame‑by‑frame processing. It also supports multi‑GPU scaling, customizable blending, and extensive Dream parameters, making high‑quality AI‑generated video more accessible to developers and artists.
Invite the Right Stakeholder Early to Solve Problems
Most work problems are easy to solve once they reach the right person. The trouble starts when they don’t get there directly. I was on a call yesterday where a small, solvable issue had already picked up unnecessary weight. I’ve...
Coralogix Gains US Department of Education Support in Push for FedRAMP Moderate
Coralogix announced that the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid will sponsor its pursuit of FedRAMP Moderate authorization, positioning the company to offer its AI observability platform to federal agencies. Achieving the moderate level would make Coralogix the first...
Gmail Debuts a Personalized AI Inbox, AI Overviews in Search, and More
Google introduced an AI‑powered Inbox for Gmail that surfaces "Suggested to‑dos" and "Topics to catch up on," giving users a personalized task overview. The rollout also adds AI Overviews in Gmail search, allowing natural‑language queries to retrieve answers directly from...
Gmail Is Getting a Whole Host of AI Updates to Try and Solve Your Most Irritating Workplace Tasks
Google announced a suite of AI-powered upgrades for Gmail, branding the rollout as the start of the "Gemini era." New tools include an AI Inbox that flags priority messages, AI Overviews that condense email content into brief answers, and an...
Protege Raises $30M to Grow Governed Marketplace for AI Training Data
Protege Health Inc., founded in 2024, raised $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz to expand its governed AI‑training data marketplace. The platform connects data owners with AI developers, offering high‑value datasets such as video, audio, and de‑identified health records. Funding will accelerate...
SAP Tosses some Compatibility Pack Users a (Short) Lifeline
SAP announced a five‑month extension, moving the expiration of S/4HANA Compatibility Pack usage rights from 31 December 2025 to the end of May 2026. The extension applies only to customers who have already begun migrating to native S/4HANA capabilities or cloud solutions. SAP...
Where Agency Revenue Is Heading: Fewer Big Retainers, More Mid-Market Retainers, and Longer Engagements
The 2025 State of Digital Agencies survey shows agencies are holding clients longer, with 31% retaining them for over three years and 19% for two to three years. Retainer contracts dominate, rising to 85% of engagements, yet 86% of monthly...
Beeper & Day One
Beeper, the all‑in‑one messaging hub, rolled out a September update that adds Google Voice, on‑device LinkedIn, Instagram typing indicators, and full Telegram custom‑emoji support. The company also unveiled its premium model built on local bridge technology, highlighted at an Automattic‑hosted...
How to Get Dangerously Good at AI in 99 Seconds With Better Prompts
The post argues that AI’s value hinges on how users prompt it, not on model sophistication. It introduces a four‑part prompt framework—role, context, command, format—that transforms vague queries into actionable outputs. The author also recommends system prompts and a personal...
Databricks' Instructed Retriever Beats Traditional RAG Data Retrieval by 70% — Enterprise Metadata Was the Missing Link
Databricks unveiled the Instructed Retriever, a new architecture that claims up to a 70% boost over traditional Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) on complex, instruction‑heavy enterprise question‑answering tasks. The improvement stems from propagating full system specifications—user instructions, metadata schemas, and examples—through every...
AI Agents Enable Cheap, Limitless Experimentation and Rapid Iteration
A deeply under-appreciated economic benefit of AI agents is the ability to experiment and throw away things at near 0 cost. Most projects traditionally get stuck on a one way train based on initial decisions that get made early on....
Epicor Sets Timeline to Sunset On-Prem ERP as Cloud Becomes the only Path Forward
Epicor announced a phased sunset of its on‑premise ERP suites—Kinetic, Prophet 21 and BisTrack—with final releases slated between 2026 and 2028 and active support ending by 2029. The company will shift all new functionality, AI agents and platform enhancements to Epicor...
Cyera Researchers Detail Critical ‘Ni8mare’ Vulnerability Allowing Full Takeover of N8n Instances
Cyera researchers have disclosed a critical vulnerability in the n8n workflow automation platform, catalogued as CVE‑2026‑21858 and rated 10.0 on the CVSS scale. The flaw, dubbed “Ni8mare,” stems from improper handling of the Content‑Type header in webhook and form requests,...
Why AI Agents Fail — and How Process Intelligence Makes Them Work
Enterprises are struggling to extract value from AI agents because they lack process intelligence, the contextual map that lets agents act safely and efficiently. Gartner predicts over 40 % of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by 2027 due to high...
SaasRise Mastermind Recap - Jan 7, 2026
The SaasRise Mastermind on Jan 7, 2026 delivered actionable benchmarks for cold‑email funnels, partner‑manager compensation, and affiliate programs. It recommended specific conversion targets, variable pay structures, and commission tiers for B2B SaaS firms scaling beyond $1‑2 M ARR. The session also covered trial...
IBM's AI Agent Bob Easily Duped to Run Malware, Researchers Show
IBM's AI coding assistant Bob, released in a closed‑beta, was shown to be vulnerable to prompt‑injection attacks that let it execute malicious commands. Researchers from PromptArmor demonstrated that both the command‑line interface and the IDE could be tricked into running...
Make Your B2B AI Agent Truly Conversational by 2026
Can your customers truly talk to your B2B app -- for real? As well or better than ChatGPT or Claude? Can your customers just tell your app what they want it to do -- and it goes off and does...
AI Wealth Strategist Offers Elite Strategies Free
The founders of Paperspace (YC W15) just announced Autonomous (@a____t____g), an AI-native wealth strategist that brings elite strategies used by the ultra-wealthy, now available to everyone at 0% advisory fees. Millions of people already ask AI what to do with money....
ChatGPT Health
OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Health, a secure, dedicated interface that merges personal health data with ChatGPT’s conversational AI. The service adds purpose‑built encryption, isolated storage, and a strict no‑training policy to protect sensitive medical information. Users can link electronic medical records...
Predictable Growth Requires Continuous Engagement, Not Linear Pipelines
This shows up often in deal reviews: A lead gets marked as lost after a few quiet weeks, so the team moves on. Then the same account comes back. A different contact. A different question. The same underlying problem. Nothing...
Your AI Agent's Success Depends on Your Training
"The best AI startups do the AI training and onboarding for you. In a sense, that's not new. What is new is your AI agent will fail if no one properly trains it. It's on you to make it awesome. ...
From Guesswork to Guardrails: Kubernetes Container Rightsizing
Container rightsizing adjusts Kubernetes CPU and memory requests to reflect real usage, eliminating the drift caused by static, early‑stage settings. Oversized requests waste capacity, inflate node counts, and can force larger instance types, while undersized settings risk performance issues. The...
Weekly MRR Growth Is All You Need Until $5M
The only metrics that matter at each stage of SaaS: $0-500K ARR: Weekly MRR growth rate $1-5M ARR: Weekly MRR growth rate $5-10M ARR: Churn + Top of funnel growth Yes, it’s the same metric twice, but weekly MRR growth rate is the ONLY...
Automation Isn't AI: Clarify Value Before Overhyping
Lately, I’ve noticed many founders and operators confusing process automation with AI. And honestly, I get why. Boards are pushing executive teams to “integrate AI” into their products and operations. The hunt for efficiency begins. Some of those opportunities lead...
Operations Shift: Assistants to Autonomous Multiagent Systems
Enterprise AI is moving from simple assistants that merely aid human tasks to autonomous agents that execute within guardrails, and finally to coordinated multi‑agent systems that own end‑to‑end outcomes. The article outlines a three‑phase roadmap over the next two years,...
The 5 AI Features CIOs Should Demand of ITSMs in 2026
AI is becoming a core, embedded component of IT service management, not a peripheral add‑on. Freshworks research shows IT staff lose nearly seven hours weekly to fragmented tools, highlighting the productivity gains AI can deliver. CIOs are urged to evaluate...
Five Years of Growth Leads to Strategic Exit
After Sarah Rowell and Scott Mackenzie spent five years increasing Kantola Training Solutions' revenue, client retention, and learner engagement, they saw the market starting to consolidate and decided to make a strategic move to maximize value; either through acquisition or...
The Capabilities CIOs Should Demand From IT Asset Management Software in 2026
Organizational complexity costs average firms 7% of revenue, with software waste accounting for $1 of every $5 spent. IT asset management (ITAM) solutions combat this waste by delivering unified visibility, lifecycle automation, and tight ITSM integration. CIOs should select platforms...
Lead by “Calling Up” To Unlock Team Potential
There's a difference between calling someone out and calling someone up. I think about this constantly as a leader. Calling out says "you're wrong." Calling up says "you're better than that." When someone on my team misses a step or...
AI Overviews Slash Organic Clicks by 60%
Nobody’s clicking anymore. And it's not because they're bouncing. They’re finishing their journey before they ever reach you. Pew analyzed browsing behavior from March 2025 and found: when an AI Overview appears, people click a traditional search result 8% of...
Microsoft Scraps Exchange Online Spam Clamp After Customers Cry Foul
Microsoft has abandoned its planned 2,000‑per‑day external recipient limit for Exchange Online after strong customer pushback. The original 2024 policy aimed to curb spam and compromised accounts by capping outbound emails for new tenants, with a phased rollout to existing...
Growth Starts With Human Insights, Not GTM Plans
Most companies build upside down... They start with: - product ideas - GTM plans - launch calendars …and hope the market catches up. But strong growth doesn’t start at the top. It starts here 👇 Human insights. Why? Bc value...
B2B Buyers Are Non‑Linear—Adopt a Customer‑Centric Flywheel
B2B buyers don't move in a straight line. But your funnel assumes they do. That's the problem. The traditional marketing funnel says buyers move through: Awareness → Consideration → Decision → Purchase Clean. Linear. Predictable. Except that's not how anyone...
New Solution Gives Real-Time Insight Into Bot Traffic
Hydrolix has launched Bot Insights, a real‑time platform that detects, classifies, and alerts on every bot, crawler, and AI agent accessing a website. The solution ingests massive bot traffic data in seconds, offering full‑fidelity analytics without sampling and supporting long‑term...
Integration Tops Martech Vendors' Evaluation Criteria
My annual reminder to #martech vendors that integration is a top criterion when marketing ops professionals evaluate your product. 😀 Data from the latest State of the Marketing Operations Professional report, published in November 2025, produced by Mike Rizzo and...
HEY Calendar Year View Aligns Weekends for Clearer Layout
Updated the HEY Calendar Year view so weekends line up. A bit clearer, more recognizable structure revealed. We also pushed a number of other fixes plus a better layout for wider/larger screens. Before and after attached below. https://t.co/Kta1nvyfKe
5 Interesting Learnings From Motive at $500,000,000 ARR. And The Match Up With Samsara.
Fleet‑management startup Motive filed its S‑1, revealing $500 million ARR and a growth rate of about 27%, while rival Samsara, now public, reached the same ARR milestone with 76% growth and recently achieved GAAP profitability. The two companies differ sharply in...
Speed Replaces Moats: Gaps Define Today's Leaders
There are no moats anymore. Yesterday's product moats are today's Claude prompts. There are only current gaps, headstarts, and leaders and laggers. And there is speed. No one can rest on their laurels. Act accordingly.
AI Platforms to Grow 10× by 2030, Inference Leads
AI Platforms market will surge more than 10x by 2030, driven by the enterprise adoption of model training, inference, and AI agents. It highlights the power shift from hyperscalers to emerging independents and the rise of inference as the dominant...
5 IT Leaders Share New Year’s Resolutions for 2026
In 2025, IT leaders rushed to embed generative AI, yet only 15% saw earnings uplift, prompting a strategic reset for 2026. Executives now pledge to balance AI deployment with human intelligence, tightening technical debt and refining human‑AI operating models. Resolutions...
Top Reps Handle the Heavy Lifting; Is Your Team?
A great sales rep does most of the work for the prospect: Does the scheduling Does the demos Solves the problem Helps sell other stakeholders Follows up Simplifies deployment AI can do some of this now. But how much of it does your team really do?
Elo – A Data Expression Language Which Compiles to JavaScript, Ruby, and SQL
Elo is a new data‑expression language that compiles to JavaScript, Ruby, and SQL while preserving identical semantics. It targets no‑code and low‑code tools, letting non‑technical users manipulate data safely through a pure‑data model and built‑in schema validation. Features include first‑class...
Phishing-as-a-Service Kits Doubled in 2025 as Tactics Evolve
In 2025 phishing‑as‑a‑service (PhaaS) kits doubled, intensifying threats for security teams. New actors such as Whisper 2FA and GhostFrame introduced evasive tools, while incumbents like Mamba and Tycoon refined existing capabilities. Multifactor‑authentication bypass and URL obfuscation each featured in 48% of...
Barracuda Report Finds Phishing Kits Doubled in 2025 as Attacks Grew More Evasive
Barracuda Networks’ 2025 Threat Spotlight reveals that phishing‑as‑a‑service kits doubled in number, fueling a surge in sophisticated attacks. Ninety percent of high‑volume campaigns relied on rented kits, many of which now embed AI‑generated content, MFA bypass, and malicious QR codes....
HSBC App Takes a Dim View of Sideloaded Bitwarden Installations
HSBC’s UK mobile banking app is refusing to run on devices where the open‑source password manager Bitwarden is installed via the F‑Droid sideloading catalog. Customers who installed Bitwarden outside Google Play reported being locked out of the HSBC app. HSBC...
37signals Treats Open Source Like a Teaching Hospital
37signals operates as a teaching hospital when it comes to open source. We're not just trying to cure our own problems, but to raise the bar for practitioners everywhere. https://t.co/gh3jJtozFJ