Author: Art Ryan

Esri has launched its Survey123 Smart Assistant, an AI-powered enhancement designed to simplify and accelerate field data collection for the rail industry. The tool delivers real‑time accuracy, consistency, and user-friendly guidance for teams working trackside. 🛠 Smarter Surveys with AI Insight Why It Matters for Railways Rail infrastructure projects depend heavily on precise, consistent data for design, maintenance, and safety decisions. With Survey123 Smart Assistant: By automating repetitive tasks and embedding AI-guided logic, Survey123 Smart Assistant turns fieldwork into a smarter, more efficient, and consistent part of rail operations.

Duda, a white label website building platform for agencies and SaaS companies, today revealed new AI capabilities empowering web professionals to create the next generation of web experiences. Duda Copilot, a Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, AI-Powered Widget Builder, and the ability to create a site from a file will enable agencies and SaaS platforms to better serve their clients with high-performing websites at scale. Duda is the first platform to integrate llms.txt across all existing and future published websites, ensuring that its clients’ one million sites are fully optimized for both traditional search engines and emerging AI-driven search experiences.…

OpenAI has officially unveiled Sora, its groundbreaking text-to-video model, designed to generate high-quality videos up to a minute long using just text prompts. This technology is now accessible to developers via the Amazon SageMaker AI integration—allowing for fine-tuning and deployment through Bedrock APIs. ✨ What Sora Can Do 💻 Compare with InVideo AI While Sora focuses on long-form, prompt-driven cinematic quality, InVideo AI serves as a user-friendly tool for short marketing videos, offering: This makes it ideal for social media content, corporates, and education—complementing rather than replacing OpenAI’s narrative video benchmarks. 🚀 Why This Is a Big Deal Bottom line:…

Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab has hired Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab artificial intelligence researchers Mark Lee and Tom Gunter for its Superintelligence Labs team, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, as it intensifies its pursuit for top AI talent. The social media giant is among several technology companies that have struck high-profile deals and doled out multi-million-dollar pay packages to fast-track development of machines that could surpass humans intelligence. Lee recently left Apple and has started at Meta, while Gunter is set to join soon, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Their exit follows Ruoming Pang, who previously left Apple for a multi-million-dollar compensation…

The startup behind the viral AI coding app Cursor is snapping up top talent from AI enterprise startups in a bid to bolster its competition with Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot and win over businesses looking to supercharge their employees with AI coding tools. In one recent case, Cursor maker Anysphere struck a deal to acquire the AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) startup Koala, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. As part of the deal, Cursor will bring on several of Koala’s top engineers to build out a dedicated enterprise-readiness team. However, the entire Koala team will not be joining Anysphere, and…

Privacy-focused browser DuckDuckGo is rolling out a new setting that lets users filter out AI images in search results. The company says it’s launching the feature in response to feedback from users who said AI images can get in the way of finding what they’re looking for. Users can access the new setting by conducting a search on DuckDuckGo and heading to the Images tab. From there, they will see a new dropdown menu titled “AI images.” Users can then choose whether or not they want to see AI content by selecting “show” or “hide.” Users can also turn on the filter…

Meta has refused to sign the European Union’s code of practice for its AI Act, weeks before the bloc’s rules for providers of general-purpose AI models take effect. “Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI,” wrote Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan in a post on LinkedIn. “We have carefully reviewed the European Commission’s Code of Practice for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models and Meta won’t be signing it. This Code introduces a number of legal uncertainties for model developers, as well as measures which go far beyond the scope of the AI Act.” The EU’s code of practice — a voluntary…

While OpenAI has cemented its lead in the U.S., Perplexity is taking a different route — quietly expanding into India to compete in the next phase of AI adoption. The search-focused AI startup is rapidly adding millions of users in the world’s second-largest internet and smartphone market, positioning itself for mass-market scale. This week, Perplexity partnered with Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator after Reliance Jio, to offer a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription — normally worth $200 — to all 360 million Airtel subscribers. Airtel confirmed to TechCrunch that the deal is exclusive, meaning no other telco in the country…

A criticism about AI safety from an OpenAI researcher aimed at a rival opened a window into the industry’s struggle: a battle against itself. It started with a warning from Boaz Barak, a Harvard professor currently on leave and working on safety at OpenAI. He called the launch of xAI’s Grok model “completely irresponsible,” not because of its headline-grabbing antics, but because of what was missing: a public system card, detailed safety evaluations, the basic artefacts of transparency that have become the fragile norm. It was a clear and necessary call. But a candid reflection, posted just three weeks after he left the company,…

Netflix has used artificial intelligence in one of its TV shows for the first time, in a move the streaming company’s boss said would make films and programmes cheaper and of better quality. Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive of Netflix, said the Argentinian science fiction series El Eternauta (The Eternaut) was the first it had made that involved using generative AI footage. “We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper,” he told analysts on Thursday after Netflix reported its second-quarter results. He said the series, which follows survivors of a…

Data center infrastructure provider Vertiv (VRT) on Thursday announced an agreement to buy Great Lakes Data Racks & Cabinets for $200 million. Vertiv stock rose on the news. Westerville, Ohio-based Vertiv said the acquisition will enhance its capacity to deliver pre-engineered, AI-ready rack solutions for data centers. Vertiv provides power, cooling and other infrastructure for data centers, communication networks and commercial and industrial facilities. reat Lakes designs and builds customized data rack enclosures and other infrastructure products for data centers. Headquartered in Edinboro, Pa., Great Lakes has manufacturing and assembly facilities in the U.S. and Europe. “Our combined capabilities enable us to…

Security executives are concerned about flaws in AI agents but also eager to see them replace humans in some roles, according to a new report. Dive Brief: Dive Insight: AI is creating a range of new cybersecurity challenges for CISOs, from newly effective attacks to newly vulnerable technology platforms. The issues dominating CISOs’ minds are securing AI agents (which 37% of respondents mentioned) and ensuring that employees’ use of AI tools conforms to security and privacy policies (36%). Beyond AI-powered phishing and malware development, the report shows, executives are also worried about the unintended security consequences of their own companies’…

TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab, the world’s main producer of advanced AI chips, posted record, forecast-beating quarterly profit on Thursday but warned that future income might be hit by U.S. tariffs, though perhaps not until the fourth quarter. Saying demand for artificial intelligence was getting stronger and stronger, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co predicted another leap in sales for the third quarter and hiked its revenue outlook for the full year. It also noted that key client Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab had recently been allowed by the U.S. government to resume sales to China of its H20 AI chip. “China is a big market, and…

A coalition of funders, including the Gates Foundation and Ballmer Group, will spend $1 billion over 15 years to help develop artificial intelligence tools for public defenders, parole officers, social workers and others who help Americans in precarious situations. The funders announced Thursday that they will create a new entity, NextLadder Ventures, to offer grants and investments to nonprofits and for-profits to develop tools for those who often manage huge caseloads with few resources. “The solutions that we’re investing in, the hundreds of entrepreneurs that are going to bring forward solutions that incorporate leading edge technologies, are going to do it by coming alongside…

Hopes £225m Isambard-AI in Bristol will unleash new era of technological, medical and social breakthroughs Britain’s new £225m national artificial intelligence supercomputer will be used to spot sick dairy cows in Somerset, improve the detection of skin cancer on brown skin and help create wearable AI assistants that could help riot police anticipate danger. Scientists hope Isambard-AI – named after the 19th-century engineer of groundbreaking bridges and railways, Isambard Kingdom Brunel – will unleash a wave of AI-powered technological, medical and social breakthroughs by allowing academics and public bodies access to the kind of vast computing power previously the preserve…

OpenAI is launching a new general purpose AI agent in ChatGPT, which the company says can complete a wide variety of computer-based tasks on behalf of users. OpenAI says the agent can automatically navigate a user’s calendar, generate editable presentations and slideshows, and run code. The tool, called ChatGPT agent, combines several capabilities from OpenAI’s previous agentic tools, including Operator’s ability to click around on websites, as well as Deep Research’s ability to synthesize information from dozens of websites into a concise research report. OpenAI says users will be able to interact with the agent simply by prompting ChatGPT in natural language. ChatGPT…

The massive AI deal between the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is reportedly on hold before it can be finalized due to national security reasons. The deal, which gives the green light to the UAE to buy billions of dollars’ worth of AI chips from Nvidia and other semiconductor companies, is on hold due to concerns in the U.S. that these AI chips could end up in China, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources. This potential chip smuggling was a concern when the deal was initially formed, according to The Wall Street Journal, but officials from the UAE…

Mistral AI has updated Le Chat with voice recognition, deep research tools, and other features to make the chatbot a more helpful assistant. The company believes that the best AI assistants should help you dive deeper into your thoughts and maintain the flow of conversation. As Mistral AI put it, chatbots are at their best when they “let you go deeper in your thinking, keep your conversation flowing, and maintain contextual continuity.” A standout feature, albeit somewhat playing catch-up with rivals, is the ‘Deep Research’ mode. Think of it as turning Le Chat into your personal research assistant. When you…

Mark Zuckerberg has a history of making audacious bets that reshape entire industries – and losing spectacularly when they don’t pan out. After burning through US$46 billion on the metaverse with little to show for it, the Meta CEO is now doubling down with an even more ambitious wager: superintelligence AI. This time, however, the stakes are higher, the competition more fierce, and the potential rewards more transformative than anything Meta has attempted before. With nine-figure compensation packages and infrastructure investments that dwarf even the metaverse spending spree, Zuckerberg’s superintelligence AI gamble represents Silicon Valley’s most expensive talent war –…

The U.S. National Science Foundation has teamed up with Voltage Park for the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, or NAIRR, pilot, an effort that seeks to provide educators and researchers better access to tools for AI research. Under the partnership, Voltage Park will be donating cloud computing resources worth one million hours of use on high-end NVIDIA H100 graphics processing units to support AI research projects in areas like science, health, climate, and engineering, the NSF said Wednesday. What Is the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot? The NAIRR pilot is a two-year test program aimed at shaping plans for a full…