Author: Art Ryan

​Zuxtra Network has unveiled MOON, the world’s first AI-powered digital marketing manager, marking a significant advancement in agentic AI technology. MOON is designed to autonomously handle various marketing tasks, including campaign creation, audience targeting, and performance analysis, aiming to streamline marketing processes and enhance efficiency.​ According to Zuxtra Network, MOON’s capabilities allow businesses to reduce operational costs and improve the effectiveness of their marketing strategies. The AI manager operates continuously, adapting to market trends and consumer behaviors in real-time.​ Industry experts view the introduction of MOON as a pivotal development in digital marketing, highlighting the growing role of AI in…

Retailers leveraging AI have reported increased productivity (33%) and significant cost savings (67%), making AI a critical tool for efficiency and profitability. Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept in retail—it is delivering real financial returns today. According to a new report by KPMG International, Intelligent Retail: A Blueprint for Creating Value through AI-Driven Transformation, more than 55% of retailers report an AI-driven return on investment (ROI) exceeding 10%, with 21% seeing gains surpassing 30%. The report highlights how AI is reshaping the retail landscape by enhancing customer experiences, optimising operations, and driving innovation. Retailers leveraging AI have reported…

Satya Nadella, chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft Corp., said Wednesday the company’s recent artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships with South Korean companies are based on his confidence in the country’s human capital and AI capabilities, which he believes will drive future economic growth. “You see a tremendous amount of productivity gains (through AI). And this is not just about Microsoft. It’s happening right here in Korea, with all kinds of customers everywhere,” Nadalla said in a keynote speech during the Microsoft AI Tour 2025 in Seoul. He introduced South Korean companies that have integrated Microsoft’s AI solutions, including Copilot, its…

On Tuesday, Google unveiled Gemini 2.5, a new family of AI reasoning models that pauses to “think” before answering a question. To kick off the new family of models, Google is launching Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental, a multimodal, reasoning AI model that the company claims is its most intelligent model yet. This model will be available on Tuesday in the company’s developer platform, Google AI Studio, as well as in the Gemini app for subscribers to the company’s $20-a-month AI plan, Gemini Advanced. Moving forward, Google says all of its new AI models will have reasoning capabilities baked in. Since…

During a livestream on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the first major upgrade to ChatGPT’s image-generation capabilities in over a year. ChatGPT can now leverage the company’s GPT-4o model to natively create and modify images and photos. GPT-4o has long underpinned the AI-powered chatbot platform, but until now, the model has been able to generate and edit only text — not images. Altman said GPT-4o native image generation is live today in ChatGPT and Sora, OpenAI’s AI video-generation product, for subscribers to the company’s $200-a-month Pro plan. OpenAI says the feature is rolling out soon to Plus and free users of ChatGPT, as…

As enterprises increasingly integrate AI applications across their operations, conversational AI tools are transforming customer engagement while significantly cutting costs. Gupshup, a conversational messaging platform which enables businesses to interact and transact with customers through various messaging channels like WhatsApp, SMS, and voice offering tools for building and deploying AI-powered chatbots and conversational experiences, sees a huge demand for its tools. Co-founder and CEO Beerud Sheth speaks with Ayanti Bera about AI adoption, market trends, and the company’s future. Excerpts: Over the past two years, we have made significant investments in expanding our Conversation Cloud. Last year, we introduced this platform to enable…

Crusoe Energy, a company that captures waste gas from oil to power high-performance compute, is selling its Bitcoin mining business to New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) to focus on artificial intelligence. In a March 25 announcement, Crusoe said it plans to sell its Bitcoin BTCUSD mining operation, including its digital flare mitigation business, to NYDIG, subject to regulatory approvals and other consents. The deal includes Crusoe’s 270 megawatts of power generation technology from more than 425 modular data centers across the United States and Argentina, along with 135 Crusoe employees who will join NYDIG, as no roles will be eliminated as…

The former CEO of Cruise, an autonomous vehicle startup acquired by GM, has raised $150 million for his new robotics startup. Kyle Vogt co-founded the Bot Company less than a year ago and has raised a total of $300 million. The latest round, led by Greenoaks, would give it a value of $2 billion, according to Reuters. The previous round, also at $150 million, was funded by Spark Capital, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and others. The Bot Company is developing artificial intelligence (AI) software and hardware for humanoid robots that can do household tasks. It hasn’t released a product or…

UiPath (NYSE: PATH), an enterprise automation and AI software company, today announced the launch of UiPath Test Cloud, a new approach to software testing that uses AI to amplify tester productivity across the testing lifecycle, designed for efficiencies and cost savings. Through Test Cloud, agentic testing for quality assurance teams becomes reality, equipping professionals with AI agents such as UiPath Autopilot and testing agents built with Agent Builder to act as collaborative partners throughout the testing lifecycle. In augmenting testers with AI, businesses can enable faster time to market, improve production stability, and deliver higher-quality software to customers. Manual testing…

Every corner Kentucky’s state government must identify uses for artificial intelligence (AI) under a new law signed by Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday. Senate Bill 4, proposed by state Republicans and passed with Democrats’ support, directs every “department, agency and administrative body” deliver a report to the Commonwealth Office of Technology “examining and identifying potential use cases” for artificial intelligence systems, including ones labeled high-risk. It also requires a benefits and risks assessment in that report. Professor Roman Yampolskiy studies AI safety and security at the University of Louisville. “While everyone else is developing more capable systems, I make sure…

Mark your calendars: April 23-24, 2025 — Dubai is about to become the epicenter of global AI innovation. Hosted at the luxurious Madinat Jumeirah, the Dubai AI Festival 2025 promises two immersive days packed with revolutionary ideas, futuristic tech, and bold conversations that could shape the next decade of artificial intelligence. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, industry leader, startup founder, or simply curious about how AI is changing our world, this is one event you won’t want to miss. 🤖 Why This Festival Matters AI has moved beyond buzzword status. It’s actively reshaping how we work, live, and connect. From…

CafeX ( cafex.com ) today announced the launch of its latest offering, CafeX AI – the private AI foundation that powers the CafeX Platform and its comprehensive suite of innovative services. This new initiative is underpinned by our unique AI Experience Transformation strategy, delivering secure, private AI services that drive intelligent automation, robust compliance, and transformative process re-imagination in regulated industries. CafeX AI is engineered as the foundational layer for the CafeX Platform, providing a unified ecosystem that supports: Driving Real AI Solutions at Speed and Scale “CafeX AI enables development of real AI-powered automations for regulated industries at speed and scale, directly addressing…

In his years at companies like Fiserv, Frank Bisignano has cultivated a reputation as a fixer. Now, the CEO says he aims to provide the same approach as the head of the Social Security Administration (SSA), the New York Times reported ahead of Bisignano’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday (March 25). “The objective is not to touch benefits,” Bisignano said in a recent TV interview. “The objective is to figure out, there could be fraud, waste and abuse in there. And we build AI to find fraud, waste and abuse for a living. It’s going to be a tech story.” The report notes that employees at…

The Indian police have implemented artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced technologies to track and monitor the criminals released from prisons. The Andhra Pradesh police in Vijayawada implemented an AI jail monitoring advancement to monitor recently released criminals and prevent them from engaging in antisocial activities. According to the police, if the AI detects some suspicious activity while tracking the criminals, they can immediately inform the local police about them to prevent further crimes. In the past, police lacked advanced technologies due to the absence of a system to monitor and track criminals who were released from prisons. However, now the…

Nvidia’s G-Assist was originally an April Fools’ prank in 2017 before becoming a real tech demo last year and a functioning AI assistant for RTX GPU owners today. Project G-Assist is now available inside the Nvidia app, and will help to optimize game and system settings, measure frame rates, and even change the lighting on connected devices. G-Assist works as an AI assistant through voice or text prompts, so you can ask questions like “How does DLSS Frame Generation work?” and the assistant will give you a ChatGPT-like output. Where it gets a lot more interesting is the ability to ask G-Assist to optimize games for…

The new model, DeepSeek-V3-0324, was made available through AI development platform Hugging Face, marking the company’s latest push to establish itself in the rapidly evolving AI market. Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek released a major upgrade to its V3 large language model, intensifying competition with US tech leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic. The new model, DeepSeek-V3-0324, was made available through AI development platform Hugging Face, marking the company’s latest push to establish itself in the rapidly evolving AI market. The latest model demonstrates significant improvements in areas such as reasoning and coding capabilities compared to its predecessor, with benchmark tests…

In a landmark move, the Abu Dhabi Government, Microsoft, and Core42 was made in the presence of H.H. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council, and Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority and member of the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council will create a unified, high-performance sovereign cloud computing environment capable of processing over 11 million daily digital interactions between government entities, citizens, residents, and businesses. Ahmed Tamim Hisham Al Kuttab, Chairman of the Department of Government Enablement—Abu Dhabi, Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft,…

Ant Group Co, a Chinese financial services company backed by billionaire Jack Ma, is using semiconductors made in China for cutting costs on training artificial intelligence (AI) models by 20 per cent. The results attained were even similar to those from Nvidia Corp. chips like the H800, according to the report. Ant is using its so-called Mixture of Experts machine learning approach to train the models. Its still using Nvidia for AI development, but is now relying mostly on alternatives including from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and other Chinese chips for its latest models. This marks Ant’s entry into the…

Western Union has partnered with HCLTech to enhance its financial services through an AI-driven platform operating model. The collaboration designates HCLTech as Western Union’s largest preferred partner, focusing on digital transformation, platform innovation, and operational efficiency. As part of the agreement, Western Union will use HCLTech’s AI-powered solutions, FENIX 2.0 and AI Force, to transition to a platform-centric model, enhancing agility and scalability. The partnership also aims to accelerate Western Union’s platform and channel transformation by utilising HCLTech’s digital, cloud, and AI solutions to improve customer experiences and support data-driven decision-making. Moreover, HCLTech will contribute its expertise in digital engineering to modernise…

BuildOps has raised $127 million in a Series C funding round to accelerate the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in its business platform for commercial contractors. The round makes the company a unicorn, with a valuation of $1 billion, and cements its position in the industry, BuildOps said in a Friday (March 21) press release. “I talk to contractors every day — HVAC pros, plumbers, electricians — and they’re busting their backs keeping our world running, but the deck’s stacked against them with staffing shortages, skyrocketing costs and tech that is stuck in the Stone Age,” BuildOps CEO Alok Chanani said in the…