BIGGEST AI RAISES THIS WEEK
- OpenAI $11B
- Zipline $1.5B
- Fal $1.3B · Series FGlade Brook, Coatue
- CesiumAstro $730M · Series D
- Applied Compute $350MNvidia Corp
- Nominal $240M · Series BLightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners
TOP INVESTORS · 30 DAYS
- Seedcamp 4 deals · $19.7M in rounds
- Y Combinator 3 deals · $92.9M in rounds
- Heartcore 3 deals · $24.4M in rounds
- Lightspeed Venture Partners 2 deals · $265M in rounds
BITCOIN, ETHEREUM, STABLECOINS AND THE RULES
BTC $74,472 ▼0.6%ETH $2,112 ▼1.4%SOL $85.80 ▼2.0%XRP $1.09 ▼2.0%24 hr · CoinGecko
Trump Media swings to $410 million profit in Q3, driven by crypto gainsBitcoin faces U.S. CPI test as analysts warn inflation relief may not be enoughBinance CFO leaves the company to tokenize real assetsHIVE, MARA mine more Bitcoin but earn less as crypto prices fallCanada opens bank stablecoin access, but strips deposit guaranteesMore crypto news →Amundi puts European stocks on Ethereum, but access terms stay hiddenHere’s what happened in crypto todayShould you leave Australia to avoid paying 47% tax on crypto gains?Elizabeth Warren vows scrutiny of prediction markets, Trump family crypto ventures as Senate Banking chairRobinhood backs tokenization of its stock on OKX–ICE platform even as most companies opt outDOTS · MUSE · GROK BOT · INSTINCT · GEMINI SPARK · OPENCLAW
MUSE Meta launches Muse Ember, a small AI model built for the repetitive work agents actually doDOTS I tested OpenAI’s Dot and Anthropic’s Duet for weeks – and all I got was one helpful notificationMANUS Web Summit 2026 opens tonight: Manus AI, blocked from Meta by Beijing, takes Lisbon stageDOTS Apple plans to turn Siri into an AI agent to take on ChatGPT Dots, Meta Muse: reportGROK BOT Musk Admits Grok Bot Economics Are Unsustainable — Just 3 Days After Saying 'No Need to Save'More AI agent news →MUSE Meta releases Muse Ember, a new lightweight model for agent executionMUSE Muse Ember: Meta unveils its smallest model yet with 1M-token context for cheaper agentsGROK BOT Grok Bot Usage Limits Draw Complaints as Musk Vows to InvestigateGROK BOT Grok Bot users hit weekly limits as Musk says serving costs ran too highDOTS OpenAI’s Dots are coming up against the price of privacy and the price of computeAG TECH, FOOD AND THE MONEY BEHIND THEM
FUNDING India’s AltM Nabs $10.3M to Upcycle Agricultural Waste Into Fossil-Free Cosmetics, Textiles & MoreAI The food safety deadline that doubles as an AI foundationROBOTS Finite Robotics to solve labour and knowledge gap in apple thinningROBOTS Who is to blame if an agricultural robot kills someone?AI Can drones and AI make farmers more money?More farm & food news →Sabanto links autonomy to Precision Planting’s 20|20 for unmanned plantingTHE WEEK'S AI WRITING, ONE POST PER WRITER
NOTABLE ESSAYS
- Software 2.0Andrej Karpathy · Nov 2017IN TODAY'S NEWS: AI AND CODING
- The Intelligence AgeSam Altman · Sep 2024IN TODAY'S NEWS: AI AND ENERGY
- Policy on the AI ExponentialDario Amodei · Jun 2026IN TODAY'S NEWS: AI LAWS
MEDICINE, WELLNESS, HOSPITALS AND THE FDA
Hospitals write off $132B as AI fails to move the needle with financesAWS pledges $100M in cloud, AI credits to close health equity gapsWhat does AI governance really mean in healthcare?AI chatbots aren’t therapists. But can they finally get men to open up?Missing the Point: Isolation Alone Will Not Build AI SafetyMore AI in health →STAT+: Why the latest heart drug failures should make us all more skeptical of AI hypeThe Big Challenge for AI in Healthcare Comes After ApprovalDebunked Episode 31: CVS Health Restructure, AI ROI Report Findings, FTC Warning LettersSTAT+: As more doctors consult chatbots, health systems can block them — or buy inSTAT+: What the midterms could mean for the future of health AIAI LABS
Image: AWS Machine Learning
How skills and agents work in AWS Quick Exploring the world's languages with Language Explorer Single-shot and agentic retrieval with Amazon Bedrock Managed Knowledge Base Introducing Claude Fable 5.2 on AWS Nemotron-Personas-Finance-Japan: A Synthetic Dataset Capturing Japan's Demographics and Financial ContextPractice Makes Precise: At CoRL, NVIDIA and Partners Reveal How Robots Rehearse Delicate Work in Simulation Control Room: A central system to track and stop model workloads across our research infrastructure Your Experts Have Partners. There's HOPE for Keeping Them Together More AI labs news →NVIDIA Announces New Planned Investments in Korean Startups at the MSIT-NVIDIA AI Startup Partnership Forum CodeRabbit scales agentic software development and ships 20x more
Kuken Industries searches 70 years of drawings in minutes Korea Advances Physical AI Across Industries With NVIDIA From Chips to Skills, NVIDIA and Korea Expand Sovereign AI Collaboration ToyBlocks: A controlled world for robot learning and evaluation Measuring how AI agents handle everyday wet-lab science
Egyptian and Nigerian English join the Open ASR Leaderboard Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash: Fast and cost-effective with longer clips Detecting signs of hypertension using wearable sensors Le Chonk brings the brains. Studio puts it to work.
CHINA Chinese traders still confident of Nvidia GPU access amid Jensen Huang scandal South China Morning PostNVIDIA’s GR00T 2 transfers human skills to robots with just five task demonstrations Interesting EngineeringINDIA AI demand unlikely to be derailed by Nvidia CEO controversy: Taiwan supply chain executives Economic TimesHere’s what Trump said he knew about Jensen Huang The VergeThe race is on to sue Nvidia TechCrunchJensen Huang pulls out of ElevenLabs Summit amid Nvidia controversy TechCrunchJensen Huang’s affair with alleged Chinese spy puts Nvidia’s China ambitions under scrutiny TechCrunchThe future of AI hinges on… Jensen Huang’s sex life? The Verge
ANTHROPIC · OPENAI · GOOGLE · GROK · CHINA · OPEN MODELS
CHINA Alibaba's Qianwen Office 2.0 Brings AI Agents Into Team Workspaces and Event-Triggered TasksOPENAI ChatGPT Enterprise now available in AWS MarketplaceGOOGLE Google Gemini routes personal Drive files and emails to human annotatorsCHINA Tencent's AI chief says AI bioweapons are coming, but closing off models isn't the answerCHINA Chinese AI firms want Silicon Valley’s top minds. Poaching them won’t be easyMore LLM news →OPENAI OpenAI reportedly raises an additional $11 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuationOPENAI Partnering with Hacktron to find vulnerabilities in OpenAI’s systemsGROK Trump Asked Grok AI About Invading Venezuela. Democrats Want His Chat HistoryNEW IN HAVE I BEEN PWNED
Harvard: 850,537 accountsAfD: 345,439 accountsAssurance Retraite: 70,372 accountsGîtes de France: 117,574 accountsBreach data: Have I Been Pwned (CC BY 4.0)
AI COMPANIES AND PRODUCTS THAT SHUT DOWN OR WENT BANKRUPT
Tesla to wind down Cybertruck production as Elon Musk focuses on robotics and AILAWS, RULES AND GUIDANCE FROM GOVERNMENTS
Nancy Pelosi’s replacement is ready to regulate AIMedical Devices; Hematology and Pathology Devices; Classification of the Digital Cervical Cytology Slide Imaging System With Artificial Intelligence AlgorithmStronger laws for police using facial recognition technologySMALL TEAMS TAKING ON THE GIANTS
GOOGLE I replaced Notion with TickTick on my Google Pixel to get faster daily task managementADOBE The best Adobe Illustrator alternatives for all budgets and skill levelsADOBE I ditched Inkscape for an open-source Illustrator rival built with AITHE BIG APPS I tried 5 open-source Canva alternatives for a month, and only one stuckTHE BIG APPS Axon Enterprise vs. Figma: Do Tasers or Cloud Services Make for a Better Stock Buy for 2027?More David and Goliath stories →GOOGLE iPhone 13 Mini-Sized Enough Phone Features Replaceable Battery, Android 17 and $399 Price TagMICROSOFT VS Code running inside a terminal? Unraveling the mechanics of the new tool 'terminal-code'GOOGLE Unclickbait – Replace clickbait YouTube thumbnailsAI NEWS
Photo: AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey / MIT Technology Review
The backlash about data centers might really just be about electricity The Work Moves Outward Apple’s $50 Intelligence Usage Packs extend access to some AI features Bytedance's Seedream 5.5 promises pixel-stable image editing across 100 rounds without color drift Instagram’s Effect Builder makes new filters from AI promptsClaude Code is accidentally exposing secrets all over GitHub Anthropic joins AI’s natural gas frenzy, buys $3.4B worth of turbines Medium’s new TK app brings AI assistance directly into the writing process More AI news →Nvidia CEO's affair becomes a national security problem Jensen Huang Hired a PR Firm Known for Handling Sex Scandals Last Year
Innovating with AI in the special chemicals industry Google ships four TPU variants in one year as it ramps up competition with Nvidia Authors Can Defend Against AI Allegations With ‘Paper Trail’ Tools. Is It Enough? Bikers and Bug-Lovers Join Forces to Fight a New Google Data Center I Used NYT Cooking’s New AI-Powered Recipe Modifier, and It’s Actually Pretty Good
World Models Will Soon Be Inescapable. Here’s What You Need to Know “Does Meta think we can’t read?” Meta abandons sketchy commercial terms update. Could potential AI clones of GTA VI force a quicker official port? I watched a humanoid robot clean my apartment. It felt like a taste of the future. Google: Schools can keep search while skipping Gemini, but AI search is non-negotiable
Agility Robotics' Nasdaq debut invites scrutiny of humanoid robot market
GET THE APP
Put the DeFoor Report on your home screen. One tap, opens like an app. Free, no app store.
On iPhone or iPad: tap the Share button (the square with an arrow), then Add to Home Screen.
SUBSCRIBE: the weekly email, or add the Report to your AI →
REPORT THE NEWS: send us a tip →
WHO'S HIRING, WHO'S CUTTING, AND THE WORK ITSELF
Qantas to Cut 850 Jobs After Tech Deal With Accenture -- UpdateMore Gen Zs are Ditching Entry-Level Jobs to Start Businesses Relying Heavily on AIAI-Driven Tech Layoffs Could Trigger a 1.6 Million Job RecessionHow TD SYNNEX Is Preparing Employees To Work Alongside AI AgentsWhite-Collar Hiring Hit Its Fastest Pace Since 2022 Despite AI Job FearsMeta cut 8,000 jobs and canceled 6,000 planned hires while budgeting up to $135 billion for AIPwC plans to certify workers in critical thinking as AI changes their jobsIs AI taking white-collar jobs? What the latest numbers tell usMore AI and jobs news →The AI boom isn't wiping out white-collar workers — but it's changing the skills you need to get aheadAI Didn’t Fix Hiring. It Built a Bigger Black Hole | OpinionFearing AI disruption, white-collar workers are quitting their jobsThe jobs said to be most threatened by AI are actually increasingHoliday hiring and AI in focus with October jobs report on deck92% of staff can reskill for AI, HR says – but half of companies still hire outsideAI's Workforce Gap And The Lessons We Keep ForgettingHow Friday’s jobs report could be a tiebreaker for Wall Street’s AI tradeNOW HIRING
1,298 open AI roles · 412 new this week · most wanted: Solutions & customer · top pay $850K
TARGET Lead Applied Data Scientist - Recommendations (Contextual Bandits, Reinforcement Learning) 1000 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis,MN 55403-2542CURSOR Software Engineer, ML Platform Palo Alto, CACITI Applied AI Lead Engineer for Banking Technology 2 LocationsOPENAI Android Engineer, Growth San FranciscoCAPITAL ONE Manager, Product Manager, Audit Insights & Innovation, AI and Data Engineering 2 LocationsAll active AI listings →Hiring for AI? List your jobs →SCHOOLS, TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND CAMPUSES
After a Cyber Incident, IREs Get K–12 Schools Back on TrackNew AI ‘Ultimatum’ Sparks Concern Over Google’s Power in California SchoolsOpinion: Ditch School-Issued Laptops and Bring Back Computer LabsEmployers want AI skills. Here’s how colleges are adding them without new hires.New in AI: UChicago Rethinks Writing, EIU Students Want Faculty RulesMore AI education news →Can AI Tell How Well Teachers Notice? Researchers Are Testing It.How to navigate AI adoption — with faculty and student inputGoogle will turn off its search engine for schools by default. Is it an AI ‘ultimatum’?Google: Schools can keep search while skipping Gemini, but AI search is non-negotiableNational AI Research Report Covers How Tools Are Used in ClassroomsTOP TECH, AI & BUSINESS PODCASTS THIS WEEK
RISING FAST Hard Fork up 557% on last week · now #4
- 1All-In: Midterm Blood Bath, $4T AI Sell Off, Data Center Freeze, What’s Next for Trump1.3M views this week · 2 episodes ▲1
- 2Prof G Pod: Scott Galloway: Sell When Business Is Booming518K views this week · 5 episodes ▼1
- 3Moonshots: Anthropic’s IPO in Question, Midterms Hit AI, Nasdaq Drops 5%, and RSI Accelerates454K views this week · 2 episodes
- 4Hard Fork: Why Tech Billionaires Couldn't Buy the 2026 Election188K views this week · 1 episode NEW
- 5Dwarkesh Podcast: Which AI is the best liar?149K views this week · 1 episode NEW
Tesla exec hints at a wild fix for Robotaxi’s biggest weather problemVideo: Boston Dynamics put wheels on Atlas, and now it’s pulling off 360-degree jumpsTesla Robotaxi enters its newest city, reaching San AntonioFrom TractEasy to TLD Robotics: A new chapter in autonomous airport operationsNature Will launches 50-billion-parameter AI model for dexterous robot handsMore robot news →Boston Dynamics adds wheels to Atlas humanoid to test whole-body controlOpinion: Supervised autonomy in robotics starts with the robot’s worst dayHow to minimize Wi-Fi roaming interruptions for autonomous mobile robotsTesla launches Robotaxi in San Antonio with a 274 sq mi geofence on paperHOLLYWOOD, MUSIC, TV AND GAMES
David Ellison Is Very Bullish On AI’s Creative PotentialCAA Wants to Create an AI-Generated Celebrity Advertising MachineDisney bets on Adobe's Firefly to create brand-safe AI models for its entertainment empireCinematographers’ Favorite Festival Is All About AI This Year — but Artists Still Hate the Tech6 Hours of YouTube and 85 handtyped pages of notes on LLM Inference – Start hereMore AI entertainment news →Rotor Videos opens Artist Unlimited to any artist from $9.99 a month, with unlimited release visuals and a library of 17M+, non-AI-generated clipsUnity reports "strongest ever" Q3 results driven by its AI-powered ad network VectorONLINE AND BRICK-AND-MORTAR
Levi’s claymation holiday campaign celebrates handmade craft amid AI bloatAmazon debuts text-to-shop AI agent featureWHSmith deploying Wildix AI platformHow enterprise brands are retooling commerce platforms to capture AI shoppersWalmart, Zipline reach agreement to add 300 drone delivery sitesMore AI retail news →Most online shoppers want a human, not a chatbot when needing helpBUILDERS & RESEARCH
Image: Simon Willison
llm-anthropic 0.31 Claude Fable 5.2 scores 65 on Artificial Analysis, highest so far Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2 Forcing a Letter Suppresses Refusal: Mechanistic Evidence from WMDP FinEvolveKG: Controlled and Attributable Prompt Evolution for Financial Knowledge Graph ConstructionCompression of Emotion in Language Model Representations Contextuality and Contradictions: Exploring Real-World Identifications of AI-Generated Writing RL-ATTACK: A Generalized Black-Box Adversarial Attack on Language Models via Reinforcement Learning More builders & research →The Web Is More Than Enough, by Paul Ford Hide your slop PR descriptions behind
parse_number() as a SQLite extension: C vs Rust Goldman Sachs is pulling Claude Code from its bankers and traders Goodbye Claude, hello Pi datasette #3046: Don't serve link: rel=next HTTP headers to Firefox for HTML pages Claude Code's "Don't Ask Again" exposes passwords in 1,122 public GitHub files