BIGGEST AI RAISES THIS WEEK
- DeepSeek $15BCATL
- Nvidia-backed Nebius $3.5B
- Tenstorrent $1.5B · Series ETrace Capital, Innovation X
- Flapping Airplanes $1B · Seed
- Legora $550MAtreides
- ASI $325M · Series C
TOP INVESTORS · 30 DAYS
- South Park Commons 3 deals · $72M in rounds
- Forerunner 2 deals · $113M in rounds
- Abstract Ventures 2 deals · $110M in rounds
- Forgepoint Capital International 2 deals · $78.5M in rounds
BITCOIN, ETHEREUM, STABLECOINS AND THE RULES
BTC $80,539 ▼0.2%ETH $2,341 ▼1.3%SOL $101 ▼0.4%XRP $1.30 ▲1.3%24 hr · CoinGecko
Kraken wants to be your bank, but who will protect your money?Firedancer makes bounty hunters burn 1 SOL even for duplicate bug reportsCircle’s new USDC auctions let institutions collect the fees others pay to cash outCrypto longs lose $404 million in four hours as bitcoin briefly slips below $80,000Strategy, Strive face balancing act between bitcoin buying and preferred stock dividendsMore crypto news →Crypto under weekend pressure, bitcoin slides below $80,000 on U.S. Middle East evacuationsWhy McDonalds, Microsoft and Google saying no to tokenized stocks isn't a dealbreakerHong Kong’s Biggest Bank Puts a Stablecoin in 3 Million WalletsWells Fargo and five others object to OKX-ICE tokenized stock listings: ReportNetanyahu Considering Crypto Plan to Dodge Banking Sanctions on IsraelDOTS · MUSE · GROK BOT · INSTINCT · GEMINI SPARK · OPENCLAW
INSTINCT Instinct AI assistant manages tasks via messengersCLAUDE Anthropic unveils Claude Duet, its answer to AI agents like DotsGROK BOT Grok Bot Hits Penn Station: What the NYC Ad Push MeansMUSE Meta's Muse Could Transform Its AI Business. But Can It Make Money?CLAUDE Anthropic's Claude Duet AI agent manages work across thousands of connected apps — here’s howMore AI agent news →CLAUDE Anthropic previews Claude Duet personal AI agent for subscribersGROK BOT Grok Bot can now control your lights, calendar and messagesGROK BOT Grok Bot now adds app controls: reminders, messaging and smart home commandsMUSE Personal agents like Meta's Muse could fuel AI’s growth — and challenge Amazon and AppleMUSE Meta's Muse AI Is Winning Over Older Adults. Privacy Experts Are WorriedAG TECH, FOOD AND THE MONEY BEHIND THEM
ROBOTS FIRA USA draws agtech and robotics industry and growers to Yakima ValleyROBOTS Dutch robot builder AIGRO declared bankruptROBOTS Kubota and Agtonomy introduce autonomous M5L tractor for specialty cropsFUNDING Pythag Tech Gets $4.25M to Make Cultivated Meat Production Faster & Cheaper with AIROBOTS FieldSense FSR500: lightweight spraying robot designed for easy farm repairsMore farm & food news →AI Pharma, Mouthfeel & Anti-AI: Oatly Releases 2026 Future of Taste Trends Report & New LookbookROBOTS Layoffs at Carbon Robotics as firm “realigns costs due to broader economic conditions”AI Lumi AI finds new home at Newforma as agentic analytics gathers paceAI Penn State team develop AI tool to advance food sciencePTx on Precision Ag Retrofits, Targeted Spraying, and AutonomyTHE WEEK'S AI WRITING, ONE POST PER WRITER
NOTABLE ESSAYS
- The Future Is for EveryoneMark Zuckerberg · Aug 2026
- Policy on the AI ExponentialDario Amodei
- The Adolescence of TechnologyDario Amodei · 2026
MEDICINE, WELLNESS, HOSPITALS AND THE FDA
STAT+: AI drug firm Pathos raises $237 million, pushing valuation to $3 billionDevelopers, not doctors, should be held accountable for generative AI medical devices, providers sayAMA Calls for Risk-Based GenAI Oversight to Protect Patients and Support Responsible InnovationFDA Official Believes GenAI-enabled Tools Will Need to Be Assessed Like a PhysicianClaude designed protein binders against scorpion neurotoxinsMore AI in health →UPMC Enterprises Invests in VeloSource to Expand AI-Enabled Clinician Staffing PlatformAI LABS
Image: Google Research
Bringing foundational models to the front lines of TB screening Multi-Turn Reinforcement Learning on Amazon SageMaker AI: A hands-on guide Rapidly scaling online storage to serve over 1 billion ChatGPT users (Part II) Orchestrating SageMaker AI endpoint auto scaling with AWS CDK Visualize points and routes with GeoJSON in Amazon Quick Sight layer mapsLitPivot: Developing research ideas through dynamic contextualization within the literature landscape Securing our frontier model training environment Kazakhstan Expands Compute for Its AI Future More AI labs news →Does Your Model Run on AWS Trainium? Look It Up Turning Database Grading into RL Rewards: Post-Training Agents with ThinkingBox
ON THE RISE
WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE ARE BUILDING
The next young builder featured here could be someone you know.
Know a young person building with AI? Tell us →Build more responsive apps with the Decisions API NVIDIA Unveils Minerva to Bring End-to-End Observability for AI Factories Beyond tree cover: mapping the world’s forest types Ensemble forecasting with IBM Granite time-series models What FDE means at OpenAI
Leading European Financial Services Organizations Embrace Open Models to Build Proprietary Intelligence NVIDIA Cosmos Opens New Tools to Train, Evaluate and Deploy World Models Broad access through consistent standards How AT&T is rethinking in-house legal work with OpenAI Empowering frontline maternal care with AI-assisted ultrasound
Mistral Advances AI for Engineering with NVIDIA Voxtral 3
ANTHROPIC · OPENAI · GOOGLE · GROK · CHINA · OPEN MODELS
OPENAI Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt calls OpenAI and Anthropic modern colonial trading companiesOPEN MOSS-Image Passes 1 Million Downloads in Four Days and Tops Hugging Face Text-to-Image TrendsCHINA Qwen's Jiang Guanjun Lays Out a Personal Agent Framework Built on Models, Memory and EcosystemCHINA Baidu Health Adds a Video Health Camera and Doctor Matching, Says AI Services Top 50M Monthly UsersOPENAI Three fired OpenAI safety researchers say they were never told what they actually leakedMore LLM news →GROK Forced to pick, Grok’s AI model chooses Republicans. OpenAI’s picks Democrats.CHINA OpenAnolis Builds Anolis OS 27 Agent-Native as Alibaba Cloud Says Agents Write 95% of New CodeOPEN MiHoYo team open-sources GameScaling models that control games through keyboard and mouse actionsOPEN Hugging Face’s New AI Biology Model Lets You Chat With DNAANTHROPIC Claude Now Works with Google Docs, Sheets, and SlidesANTHROPIC Claude DuetANTHROPIC Show HN: Omnara – Open-source alternative to Claude Managed AgentsNEW IN HAVE I BEEN PWNED
Assurance Retraite: 70,372 accountsGîtes de France: 117,574 accountsCrunchbase: 559,908 accountsSharecare: 318,185 accountsBreach data: Have I Been Pwned (CC BY 4.0)
AI COMPANIES AND PRODUCTS THAT SHUT DOWN OR WENT BANKRUPT
We Investigated Character.AI and Found a Horror Show. Now It’s Bankrupt.12 Million Monthly Users Couldn't Prevent Character.AI’s BankruptcyWebsites shut down globally after AI finds cybersecurity flaw affecting 70% of the internetSurvey shows Google shutting down Assistant for Gemini could be one of its bigger blundersAn AI chatbot files for bankruptcy. Is it a bad omen for the industry?LAWS, RULES AND GUIDANCE FROM GOVERNMENTS
Virginia governor orders statewide plan to address AI cyberattacksSwedish government offices to ban ChatGPT and ClaudeOpenAI urges Newsom to strengthen California’s AI safety law with additional safeguardsAI’s hidden storage bill: What inference leaves behindWhat’s new in Homeland Security’s updated AI policyMore AI policy →AI sovereignty: preserving UK agency in an AI-enabled worldSMALL TEAMS TAKING ON THE GIANTS
MICROSOFT After using 4 Microsoft 365 alternatives for a month, one is a clear winnerMICROSOFT I finally found a Microsoft Office replacement I don't hateGOOGLE iPhone Duo Size Comparison vs. 2026’s Best Android FoldablesTHE BIG APPS Uber rival inDrive eyes 2027 robotaxi tests in Central Asia with Pony AI and NvidiaMICROSOFT My top 5 Linux alternatives to Windows (none of them are Mint)More David and Goliath stories →OPENAI Gerty: Private ChatGPT alternative that sets itself up on your MacADOBE Can free AI clones really replace Photoshop? I put LightCraft and PhotoCraft to the testTHE BIG APPS I replaced Notion, Obsidian, and Todoist with Anytype; now I handle my notes and tasks in one appMICROSOFT I tried the free PowerPoint clone on Linux – and it beats LibreOffice and Google SlidesADOBE I tried the free Adobe Acrobat clone – and finally have a pro PDF editor on LinuxAI NEWS
Image: The Verge
Pennsylvania will require labels on AI-generated ads The Work Moves Outward Block’s new voice model sounds eerily human AI makes junior patent attorneys instantly better but may quietly stunt their professional growth Block's new AI model Dessa was trained entirely on human speech to catch emotions text-based models missHere are the top AI agents that can live in your text messages The PHP Meltdown Shows How AI Makes Bugs More Exploitable OpenAI's isolated AI agents found ways to talk to each other through CPU cache More AI news →OpenAI says it will no longer train its AI models on the live internet, citing “significant risks” OpenAI now trains its frontier AI models with no internet access
Updated Google privacy policy says your Gmail might be used for advertising Jack Dorsey’s Block made an AI model that talks to you like an awkward new friend From Toast to Bessemer: Who founders will hear from at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 Intel gets waiver after worries fuzzy US ban on foreign-made robots may hit fabs The iPhone Duo should have been an iPad
Now Google says it might use your Gmail and Google Photos data to target ads Designing an AI serving harness built to last The Social Society Helping Women Join the AI Boom The Foundations of Scalable AI Hackers got a four-day head start on epic PHP2Shell vulnerability
Meet Mori, a Cute Robot Mushroom That Doesn’t Really Say (or Do) Anything Making the case for context-aware AI Hackers Exploited the PHP Vulnerabilities Days Before They Were Patched OpenAI's latest AI models are coming to Google Cloud and Antigravity Judge rejects Trump’s wild claim EPA can dismiss data center pollution lawsuits
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WHO'S HIRING, WHO'S CUTTING, AND THE WORK ITSELF
How Dropbox plans to prevent AI brain rot in its workersCIOs unprepared for agentic workforce shiftFearing Mass A.I. Layoffs, Some in Congress Eye Ways to Aid WorkersAI could take your job. Here's how Congress wants to help workers.Goldman Sachs sees AI-fueled layoffs displacing nearly 10% of workersUber doubles down on ChatGPT for workers after last month's layoffsLayoffs linked to changes in corporate AI spendingBarclays is latest to redirect spending toward AI as it trims its workforceMore AI and jobs news →VetClaims.ai Surpasses 80,000 Veterans’ Claims Developed, Expands AI-Powered Services With 438-Person WorkforceThe best enterprise AI is the AI employees barely noticeWorkforce gaps keep supply chain AI stuck in pilot modeAmerican Express is cutting 5% of its workforce to 'prepare for AI'Electronic Arts lays off 400 in latest blow to beleaguered gaming industryCEOs say they’re not yet seeing transformational change from AIAI is splitting HR into 2 archetypes, study showsGoldman Sachs: Next Recession Could Trigger AI LayoffsNOW HIRING
1,334 open AI roles · 365 new this week · most wanted: Solutions & customer · top pay $850K
INTEL Deep Learning Hardware Engineer 2 LocationsPERPLEXITY Member of Technical Staff (AI Software Engineer, Agents) San FranciscoTARGET Principal Applied Data Scientist - Search and Browse (NLP, Vector Search, LLMs) 2 LocationsFIGURE Developer Productivity Intern [Winter 2027] San Jose, CAWELLS FARGO FCRM FCAMS Model/Non-Model Management - Analytics Consultant Hyderabad, IndiaAll active AI listings →Hiring for AI? List your jobs →SCHOOLS, TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND CAMPUSES
NYC’s AI ban confusion: what’s allowed and what’s banned in city schoolsOpinion: Educators Need to Engage With AI in Order to Learn the Best Ways to Use ItAI is stealing students’ ability to think critically–Journalism 101 may be an antidoteI run an edtech platform I hope you barely useThe Trump official who compared ed-tech to the tobacco industryMore AI education news →How K–12 Districts Can Use Student Voices To Guide Ed Tech PurchasesHow AI Is Breaking the Way We Reward High-Achieving StudentsHigh schoolers oppose full-day cellphone bans amid safety concernsIPS board candidates discuss school closures, AI, and legislative funding at forumTOP TECH, AI & BUSINESS PODCASTS THIS WEEK
- 1All-In: AI Cyber Panic, Ken Griffin’s Bubble Warning, The Fall of France?673K views this week · 3 episodes
- 2Moonshots: SpaceX’s AI Business Up 830%, OpenAI Agents Lie, and Startup Turns Mercury Into Gold582K views this week · 2 episodes
- 3Prof G Pod: AI Stock Market Crash: Are We Repeating 1873?353K views this week · 5 episodes ▲2
- 4Hard Fork: A Spoiler-Filled Guide to 'You Can See Everything'193K views this week · 1 episode
- 5a16z Podcast: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on the Infrastructure the AI Era Needs181K views this week · 4 episodes NEW
Subaquatic robot leverages biomimetics for natural movementNHTSA proposes cyan lights for robotaxis, following Mercedes/ChinaEka Robotics raises $150M to scale its vision-force-action model for robotsJensen Huang Brings Four Robot Ducks On Stage in Berlin. A Day Later, Preorders Pass 20,000Hottest toy for Christmas? Nvidia CEO plays with adorable Microduck robots, 20,000 sellMore robot news →Intel gets waiver after worries fuzzy US ban on foreign-made robots may hit fabsTesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselvesCanton Fair at 70: Service robots get dedicated zone as buyers demand real-world performanceUnitree Unveils Fearsome Bodyguard RobotRobot Talk Episode 167 – Automating construction, with Jan PetršHOLLYWOOD, MUSIC, TV AND GAMES
Anthropic Sued For Stealing Elvis Presley Music to Train AI: ‘Deeply Protective of These Iconic Songs’From Spotify’s giant profits to yet another legal fight for Suno…it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe new human-crafted Apple Music brand matters in an AI worldVivrato: 97% of studio leaders use AI in some form during development in EU and North AmericaONLINE AND BRICK-AND-MORTAR
Walmart unveils AI agent shopping controls, spending limitsEtsy updates AI use policies to emphasize craftsmanshipWalmart welcomes external AI agents — with some guardrailsMore than a Store: Can AI plan my Thanksgiving meal?AI boosts discovery but reviews still seal the deal, new research showsMore AI retail news →Target’s holiday push stresses affordability, exclusives and an AI assistantBUILDERS & RESEARCH
Image: Simon Willison
battledrones v14: Compass Rose, a four player map Quick Study Introducing Kimi K3.1 Pro Donating Agent Skills to the Agentic AI Foundation Quoting Armin RonacherClaude Duet Today's PHP Security Release, and How We're Strengthening PHP Security Using LLM for confidence scoring is a bad idea More builders & research →Using Claude to reduce the attack surface of code