Author: Art Ryan

Hospitality technology company UniFocus has launched Claira, a new AI-native platform designed to bring hotel workforce management, daily operations and performance data into one connected system. Announced on September 15, 2026, UniFocus Claira targets a familiar problem inside hotels: labor planning, scheduling, housekeeping, maintenance and reporting often live across different systems. Claira brings those functions together and adds artificial intelligence that can surface insights, recommend actions and respond to questions from hotel teams. The platform is particularly aimed at select-service hotels and hospitality management groups. UniFocus says this segment has historically had limited access to enterprise-grade workforce technology built specifically…

Former OpenAI researcher Diogo Almeida has taken TypeSafe AI out of stealth with Jev, the startup’s first “System One Model” designed to make fast, structured decisions directly inside software. Jev is not trying to become another chatbot. Instead of generating long, open-ended answers, the model is built around predefined choices that software developers set in advance. It then evaluates incoming information, selects from those available options and returns confidence scores alongside its answer. TypeSafe says this narrower approach allows Jev to run much faster and at a far lower cost than general-purpose large language models. The company is pitching the…

Egypt is scaling up its national artificial intelligence training efforts with a new partnership involving Intel. Together, they aim to train one million citizens every year. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has signed a memorandum of understanding with Intel covering a three-year training programme focused on artificial intelligence, digital trust and responsible technology use. Moreover, the initiative is designed to reach a wide section of Egyptian society. It does not limit access to developers or technology professionals. Students, workers, jobseekers, young people and government employees are expected to be among the main participants. Therefore, the scale of the…

Jordan has taken another step toward building domestic artificial intelligence infrastructure with the launch of Klstrai. This is a locally hosted AI compute platform operating from the Aqaba Digital Hub. The platform is designed to give government agencies, businesses, startups and developers access to AI computing resources. These resources are available without requiring them to build and maintain expensive infrastructure of their own. Klstrai is already hosted and operational at the Aqaba Digital Hub. Its launch gives organizations in Jordan a local option for running AI workloads. Additionally, it enables organizations to keep greater control over where their data is…

The UAE has concluded the eighth edition of the UAE AI Camp, marking another step in the country’s effort to expand practical artificial intelligence skills among students, professionals, entrepreneurs and members of the wider community. Organised by the National Programme for Artificial Intelligence in collaboration with the National Programme for Coders, the camp brought together participants from different backgrounds and experience levels. In addition, sessions were designed to make AI more understandable, useful and relevant to daily work and study. The programme focused on more than technical theory. Workshops explored how artificial intelligence is already changing business operations, education, cybersecurity,…

The UAE is giving manufacturers a more direct route into artificial intelligence and advanced factory technology. The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT) has launched Factory Forward UAE, a national initiative designed to accelerate technology adoption across the country’s industrial sector. Instead of manufacturers navigating separate programmes, experts, technology providers and financing options, the initiative brings much of that support together under one platform. Factory Forward is aimed at factories that want to modernize operations but may not know where to begin. That could mean identifying where AI makes sense, assessing existing systems or finding funding for a larger…

Artificial intelligence is moving deeper into hotels and tourism businesses, but the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) does not want the conversation to revolve around software alone. Its latest push is about the people expected to work alongside it. CHTA has released the AI Workforce Transformation Guide for Caribbean Hospitality: Practical Strategies for People Management, Learning and Leadership, the third edition in its AI Guidebook Series. The new resource focuses on preparing hospitality employees, managers and business leaders for an industry where AI increasingly becomes part of everyday work. Rather than treating AI adoption as another technology upgrade, the…

OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind have been holding discussions around AI safety for several weeks, bringing together three of the most influential companies building frontier artificial intelligence systems. The talks were confirmed by OpenAI global policy chief Chris Lehane and come at a time when concerns around increasingly capable AI models are moving closer to the center of industry and government debate. The companies remain fierce competitors, but they are also facing the same question: how far can AI capabilities advance before stronger safeguards become unavoidable? The discussions are reportedly focused on independent evaluations, common safety standards and possible mechanisms…

Artificial intelligence is no longer being treated as a clever add-on for travel websites. At Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2026 in Dubai, the conversation has moved deeper, with industry leaders looking at AI as part of the infrastructure that could eventually hold the global travel ecosystem together. The ATM 2026 Future Stage opened with discussions around how AI is moving beyond chatbots, recommendation engines and automated customer service. Attention is shifting toward travel discovery, operations, distribution, data, governance and the connections between airlines, hotels, destinations, governments and technology companies. That makes the conversation much bigger than simply using AI to…

Japan’s next home robot might not walk through the front door. It could already be hanging from the ceiling. Tokyo-based startup MW is developing a new kind of AI-powered home where robotic arms travel along ceiling-mounted rails and take on everyday household chores. Instead of putting a humanoid robot into a conventional house, MW is approaching the problem from the opposite direction: build the house around the robot. The company calls the concept MW Living Home. Its robotic system, known as MW bot, uses articulated arms equipped with grippers to interact with household objects. The idea is to eventually automate…

Abu Dhabi-based healthcare group M42 is expanding its use of artificial intelligence through plans to adopt Oracle Health Data Intelligence. This is a platform designed to bring clinical, genomic and real-world healthcare data into one environment. The system will work alongside Oracle Health Foundation EHR across M42’s healthcare network. The aim is to give clinicians and researchers a stronger data foundation for AI-powered insights and chronic disease management. Furthermore, it will support population health programs and precision medicine. The first major deployment will focus on diabetes care. M42 plans to use the platform to improve patient engagement, support earlier intervention…

The UK is preparing for a much more complicated era of artificial intelligence in healthcare. The National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare has published 44 recommendations for a future regulatory framework covering AI used across the health system. The proposals include continuous monitoring, cybersecurity requirements, workforce training, patient transparency and clearer rules around responsibility when AI contributes to harm. The recommendations arrive as AI tools move deeper into clinical environments. They are already being used for disease detection, clinical decision support and medical documentation, while consumer-facing health apps and AI chatbots are creating another layer of regulatory…

Dubai is pushing artificial intelligence deeper into one of its busiest industries: real estate. The Dubai Land Department (DLD) has launched an AI-powered Initial Registration platform designed to automate key parts of property registration for real estate developers. The system can read documents, extract information, fill application fields and, in eligible cases, approve registration transactions automatically. Rather than adding another standalone government portal, DLD is bringing several processes into one digital environment. Project registration, real estate transaction registration and escrow account management can now be handled through the same platform. The idea is fairly simple. Less repetitive paperwork, fewer disconnected…

Dubai is putting artificial intelligence deeper into the machinery of tourism as the city looks toward the next stage of travel technology. The focus is moving beyond chatbots and recommendation engines. Instead, Dubai wants AI to connect data, infrastructure and visitor services. As a result, the travel experience can become more predictive, personalized and seamless. That vision was highlighted at Arabian Travel Market 2026. There, Dr Marwan Al Zarouni, CEO of AI at Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism, discussed how artificial intelligence could reshape the way destinations plan, operate and communicate with travellers. Dubai Wants AI to Redesign Travel,…

Pinterest is rebuilding some of the infrastructure behind its AI search and discovery tools, and the performance gains are significant. The company has introduced a new multimodal AI foundation developed with NVIDIA, combining NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, NVIDIA Dynamo and Pinterest’s own visual embeddings. The infrastructure is designed for AI systems that need to understand both images and language, which is becoming increasingly important as Pinterest expands visual search, conversational discovery and AI-assisted shopping. Pinterest says benchmark testing showed roughly 7.3 times faster overall latency, while response startup speed improved by around 85 times when the system used precomputed visual representations…

Artificial intelligence is no longer sitting on the edge of international commerce. It is starting to shape how goods are produced, how services cross borders and how businesses make decisions inside global supply chains. That was the message coming out of the World Trade Organization’s first World Trade & Tech Day, held on September 14 under the theme “AI and Trade: Turning Potential into Progress.” More than 600 people registered to attend the event in person, with roughly the same number signing up online, as governments, technology companies, academics and trade specialists gathered to examine what AI means for cross-border…

Microsoft AI has opened its draft Humanist AI Code of Conduct for public review, giving researchers, developers and the wider technology community a chance to comment on how advanced AI systems should be governed. The proposal moves beyond broad statements about responsible AI. It outlines practical rules around model autonomy, shutdown controls, human oversight, AI personhood and machine-to-machine communication. The core principle is simple: humans should remain in control, even as AI systems become more capable. The draft is tied to Microsoft AI’s wider Humanist Superintelligence strategy, which argues that highly advanced AI should remain subordinate to human interests rather…

Oman is putting renewable energy at the center of its artificial intelligence infrastructure ambitions. State-backed clean energy platform O-Green plans to develop more than 200 megawatts of AI-ready data centre capacity by 2028, with projects expected across Oman, Spain and other international markets. The strategy links data centre expansion directly with O-Green’s renewable energy and battery storage portfolio, giving the company a route into one of the fastest-growing areas of global AI infrastructure. The move comes as demand for AI computing continues to push electricity requirements higher. For countries hoping to attract data centre investment, access to reliable power is…

OpenAI will not make its stock market debut in 2026. CEO Sam Altman has ruled out an IPO this year, saying the company has more urgent work ahead as concerns around advanced AI systems, alignment and industry-wide safety continue to grow. The timing matters. OpenAI has been moving toward a potential public listing and confidentially filed for an initial public offering earlier this year. But the company behind ChatGPT now appears unwilling to add the pressure of public markets while the AI industry wrestles with a much bigger question: how quickly should frontier models keep advancing? Altman told Fortune that…

Chinese President Xi Jinping is pushing artificial intelligence much deeper into the BRICS agenda, positioning AI cooperation as part of a broader effort to strengthen technology ties among emerging economies. Speaking during the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Xi called for greater collaboration in artificial intelligence, open-source technologies, digital infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. The proposals show that China wants BRICS cooperation to move beyond broad political commitments and into more practical technology development, including AI training, cloud infrastructure and large language models. The initiative also arrives as Beijing looks for new ways to expand its technology influence across developing…