Daily AI Briefing
The latest breakthroughs in AI — aggregated from top sources and paired with original analysis.
OpenAI is now valued at $1.25 trillion in a new round of funding that has raised another $11 billion, according to Bloomberg. That would make it one of the world's most valuable companies, not long after raising $122 billion from investors in March at a valuation of $852 billion. Echoing FT and Wall Street Journal reports from last week, Bloomberg says OpenAI is still pursuing additional investments that could increase the amount to $20 billion, and that it had initially hoped to raise as much
Tech stocks have lost trillions while voters have rejected the industry’s political champions. The billionaire-led boom is facing a democratic reckoning This week’s midterms showed that the political bill for the AI boom is falling due. The Democratic sweep intensified fears over runaway spending, mounting debt and resistance to datacentres, sending tech shares tumbling. On Thursday Wall Street suffered its worst day since the pandemic as $3.2tn was wiped from markets. Anthropic, developer of th
China's intelligence agency recruited Megaspeed executive Alice Huang to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to The New York Times. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) enlisted her to glean information about American AI chips and "potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China." Megaspeed is a customer of Nvidia's, and Alice Huang also has "relationships with executives at the highest levels of the A.I. chip industry," including leaders
OpenAI has reportedly raised an additional $11 billion as part of a funding round that hasn't closed yet but is expected to in the coming weeks.
SpaceX has declared that it’s going to make Starlink Mobile a “major” mobile carrier. The Elon Musk-owned company has already deployed thousands of direct-to-cell satellites, but its next big challenge is building out its 5G network here on Earth. As part of its plans to rival AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, SpaceX has inked a deal with Qualcomm, which will deploy its cellular technology across tens of thousands of 5G cell sites starting in 2027. SpaceX is also reportedly in talks to buy Boost Mobi
Seven small ideas explain it, including what the Seed, Steps and CFG settings in your image app actually do Continue reading on Towards AI »
Buying the 4K Blu-ray disc version of KPop Demon Hunters was already going to be a wise idea for some people, especially those who primarily keep their $26.99 Netflix Premium subscription just to watch the hit animated flick in 4K. But at just $24.99 from Barnes and Noble and Amazon instead of its original $49.95 price, it’s easier than ever to recommend. KPop Demon Hunters (4K Blu-ray) Where to Buy: $49.95 $24.99 at Amazon $49.95 $24.99 at Barnes & Noble The Criterion Collection version of
Asian and European markets follow US tech rout with many analysts predicting more waves of selling to come European and Asian stock markets fell sharply on Friday after the Democrats’ decisive victory in the midterms triggered a rout in US tech stocks a day earlier. A sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday was followed by sharp falls in Asian stock markets on Friday. The investor sentiment then reached London, where the market was, at one stage, poised for its worst day since March. Continue readi
Men allegedly impersonated voices and images of executives to convince employees to send large payments Three foreign nationals were arrested and charged with using AI to allegedly impersonate corporate CEOs and attorneys to steal over $100m, according to an indictment that was newly unsealed by the US Department of Justice. According to a press release from the United States attorney’s office for the southern district of New York, three men – Jacob Soall, Sharon Hazan, and Guy Sheetrit – were a
Tech industry fears delays to its multi-trillion dollar infrastructure buildout meant to power artificial intelligence Several newly elected Democrats and Senator Bernie Sanders have renewed calls for datacenter moratoriums in the days after the US midterm elections. The sweeping Democratic victory, which was buoyed in part by backlash to the tech industry, has added momentum to efforts to slow down the multi-trillion-dollar buildout of the controversial facilities. On the social media platform
Why learning to predict in latent space may be more important than generating pixels — and what comes next for intelligent robots. Continue reading on Towards AI »
Opening the black box of AI agents and building one from scratch. Continue reading on Towards AI »
Shure’s MV7 Plus is a popular podcasting and streaming mic. | Image: Shure While the Shure Mv7 Plus is popular with streamers and podcasters, it’s equally good at impressing your friends and coworkers on meetings and Discord calls. It’s currently marked down to $255 at various retailers, including Amazon, Guitar Center, and directly from Shure. That’s almost $50 lower than its usual price, and just a few dollars off Amazon’s all-time low. If you don’t already have a stand, both Amazon and Shur
In 2025, developers exposed approximately 28.65 million secrets on public GitHub — a 34% increase over the previous year. According to… Continue reading on Towards AI »
Separate actions also take place outside fence and across Europe in backlash against impact of AI boom Activists have stormed the site of a Microsoft datacentre being built in Amsterdam, as the backlash to the social and environmental harms of the AI boom spreads across Europe. Protesters from Geef Tegengas, a Dutch direct action group, clashed with police while breaking into a construction site at Westpoort, Amsterdam, where some members climbed a crane, lit flares and tied helium balloons to e
Security researchers found hundreds of servers hosting the penetration testing tool Artex exposed to the internet, allowing anyone access to the hacking tool.
Meta's Muse agents continue to get new features and integrations. Spaces promises to be a new way to interact with the AI helpers.
A massive permitting bill that could help energy projects come online much quicker and potentially lower utility bills for Americans is advancing with bipartisan support. And while it could be a catalyst for lots of clean energy, it could also speed up polluting projects and limit oversight of new data centers. With data centers demanding more electricity for AI, environmental advocates fear that developers could take advantage of the reforms to evade public scrutiny and rely more heavily on fos
Meta will now allow you to build customized, app-like experiences within Muse. The new feature, called "spaces," allows its AI assistant to build things like a shopping hub, school dashboard, music tracker, trivia game, and more, which you can interact with directly in the Muse app. Meta says you can create a new space by describing it. If you connect an outside app to Muse - like Gmail, Google Calendar, OpenTable, Notion, and others Muse works with - the AI assistant will continuously pull info
In one week, an app quietly added itself to developers’ AI agents, and a fake Claude Code extension planted an SSH backdoor. Here’s what… Continue reading on Towards AI »
Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry. The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a […]
Following the Melania documentary movie that premiered earlier this year, Amazon is now planning to release a two-part Prime Video series focusing on the first lady. The show, Melania: The Series, is set to debut on November 20th. "MELANIA, The Series reveals never-before-told stories, offering unprecedented insight into Melania Trump's life, including the extraordinary days immediately following the 47th Presidential Inauguration," according to a description in a press release. Here's what Amaz
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Someone at the White House appears to be running software that could enable outsiders to rent access on the presidential network for just "a few dollars," as reported by Krebs on Security and The Register. That's according to findings from the security firms Layer3 Intel and Synthient, which discovered residential proxy activity on the White House network. A residential proxy opens up a way for people to rent access to a home IP address and route their internet traffic through it, allowing them
European and Asia-Pacific markets slide after Wall Street rout, while latest US jobs report beats forecasts Could the AI bubble burst after Democrats’ midterms sweep? - The Latest Despite the sharp losses suffered on global stock markets around the world, most indices are still up for the year. The Nasdaq Composite index, for example, is still up 4.6% since the start of January – even though it’s more than 10% below its peak. “The tech sell-off has intensified, with the pain of the brutal sell
Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry. The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a […]
Global tech stocks have plunged after the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections, with fears of a slowdown in AI development. Major tech corporations including Apple, Tesla and Nvidia shed about $1tn in a single trading session. Is this stock market jitters, or a sign the AI bubble might be about to burst? Lucy Hough speaks to senior economics correspondent Richard Partington Continue reading...
Global tech stocks have plunged after the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections, with fears of a slowdown in AI development. Major tech corporations including Apple, Tesla and Nvidia shed about $1tn in a single trading session. Is this stock market jitters, or a sign the AI bubble might be about to burst? Lucy Hough speaks to senior economics correspondent Richard Partington – watch on YouTube Continue reading...
After Thursday’s share price plunge on Wall Street, could the volatility be the start of a huge market meltdown? Global financial markets have been thrown into a tailspin as investors bet on an AI slowdown after the US midterm elections. This is not the first time stock markets have wobbled in recent months due to concerns over a tech bubble. But could this volatility be the start of a huge market meltdown? Continue reading...
AI usage keeps climbing, but spending has stalled. Price cuts and smarter cost controls among the biggest spenders could challenge investor assumptions about AI hypergrowth.
Free full article for non-Medium members — here Continue reading on Towards AI »
While there’s no evidence linking AI to mass layoffs, the tech has already ‘changed worker psychology’ When artificial intelligence researcher Mrinank Sharma quit his job at Anthropic earlier this year, the news rippled across the internet. In his resignation letter, posted on X and viewed 15.3m times, Sharma warned of a world “in peril” from the technology he had helped build. “It is clear to me the time has come to move on,” he wrote. His next move: a poetry degree. Continue reading...
We’d like to hear from teachers and parents about how AI is changing communication between schools and families As AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude become increasingly common in everyday life, we are interested in how they’re being used in communication between parents and schools. Are you a school leader or teacher who has received AI-generated emails from parents, if so, what has been the impact? Or are you a parent who uses AI to help write emails to your child’s teachers? Continue readin
Physicl is trying to solve the sim-to-real gap with a pipeline originally built to market goods online.
UN conference this month seen as key moment after years of discussions on filling gap in governance of AI systems Plans to fill a gap in the global governance of autonomous weapons are in jeopardy as a group of nations led by Russia and the US move to use a UN conference this month to block proposals to negotiate a legally binding set of rules. The scale of the opposition will become clear at a diplomatic retreat starting on Friday before the seventh review conference on “certain conventional we
The clear-out at the newspaper seems driven less by politics than by a shift towards AI – and journalism will pay the price Nigel Farage has been writing columns for the Daily Telegraph since 2016, most of which have promoted the previously Brexit and now Reform UK party he leads, or accused his rivals of going soft on immigration. For this privilege the paper’s cash-strapped bosses paid him around £4,000 a month, adding up to nearly half a million pounds over the past decade. News broke this we
OpenAI is partnering with Hacktron to find vulnerabilities, test connections with third-party services, and strengthen defenses with frontier AI.
OpenAI introduces BioBasicsBench, a 100-task benchmark measuring how well AI agents interpret raw experimental data and handle everyday wet-lab science.
Letterboxd’s homepage. The New York Times Company is in talks"exclusive negotations" to acquire Letterboxd, the social network for film lovers, for around $330 million, The New York Times reports. The Times Company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and A24 were all recently rumored to be among those interested in buying Letterboxd. The negotiations with the Times Company have included the potential for Letterboxd's co-founders to stay in charge but report to a Times Company executive. Letterboxd w
The head of T-Mobile's parent company is casting doubt on SpaceX's plans to make Starlink Mobile a "major" carrier in the US. During an earnings call on Thursday, Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges says he takes the Elon Musk-owned company "super serious," but that it will cost at least $200 billion to pull off: He [Musk] has now bought 76 megahertz of spectrum. By the way, we have 400. So if you now say he can buy the spectrum prospectively, do your math. These are kind of triple-digit billions w
Airbnb says its upcoming AI agent will help travelers plan trips, compare options, manage bookings, and get assistance throughout their stay.
Perplexity is taking on OpenAI and Anthropic with its own work-focused AI agents. The startup's new always-on "Teammates" can take on multiple roles within a workspace, while pulling existing projects, skills, and memory from the Perplexity tools you already use. Teammates integrate with Perplexity Computer, an AI system that can deploy agents on your device to complete tasks. But Perplexity says Teammates "build on top" of Computer by offering the ability to collaborate and complete "ongoing, l