Author: Art Ryan

Planning a South Dakota trip is becoming much more conversational. Travel South Dakota and the Black Hills & Badlands Tourism Association have partnered with Mindtrip to bring AI-powered trip planning directly into their official tourism websites. Instead of jumping between attraction pages, maps, saved links and separate planning tools, visitors can now ask questions, explore recommendations and begin building an itinerary from one place. The partnership also marks a notable milestone for Mindtrip. The company says this is its first simultaneous launch involving both a statewide tourism organization and a destination partner within the same state. Mindtrip AI Trip Planning…

Samsung Electronics is pushing artificial intelligence deeper into semiconductor manufacturing. This comes through a new strategic partnership with French AI company Mistral AI. The collaboration will focus on customized AI models designed for Samsung’s semiconductor operations. Rather than relying mainly on external cloud systems, Samsung plans to deploy AI inside its own infrastructure. This approach lets sensitive chip design and manufacturing data remain under tighter control. The partnership includes Mistral AI’s software and flagship Mistral Large model. Samsung intends to adapt the technology for semiconductor engineering, manufacturing optimization, defect detection and other highly specialized workflows. These will span across its…

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is making a major push into physical AI, with plans to deploy millions of robots, autonomous vehicles, and delivery drones across its logistics operations over the next five years. The plan reflects a bigger shift in artificial intelligence. Instead of keeping AI inside software, chatbots, and recommendation engines, JD.com wants to place intelligent systems directly into warehouses, delivery networks, and transportation operations. According to AI News, JD Logistics is targeting the procurement of 3 million robots, 1 million autonomous vehicles, and 100,000 delivery drones under its broader Physical AI Acceleration Plan. JD.com Pushes AI Beyond Software…

Snapchat is looking beyond the usual signals that drive digital advertising. Instead of waiting for someone to search for a product, visit a store or add something to a cart, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel believes artificial intelligence could help the platform understand what users may want before they clearly show buying intent. Spiegel outlined that direction while discussing Snapchat’s future, with AI-powered recommendations, creator partnerships and product discovery becoming increasingly important to the company’s advertising strategy. The idea is not simply to make ads more automated. Snap wants AI to help brands reach people at an earlier stage, before the…

Box is expanding its enterprise AI strategy through a deeper partnership with OpenAI, giving businesses a more direct way to use content stored in Box inside ChatGPT. The integration connects enterprise documents with AI-assisted work, allowing authorized users to search, reference, analyze, and work with Box content without constantly switching between platforms. The goal is to make company knowledge more useful inside AI workflows while keeping Box permissions, governance, and access controls in place. Box Content Is Coming Directly Into ChatGPT Enterprise information rarely lives in one neat system. It is usually spread across contracts, presentations, reports, policies, research documents,…

AI inference hardware startup Positron AI has raised $875 million in Series C financing, lifting its valuation to $5 billion as investors continue pouring capital into alternatives to traditional GPU-heavy AI infrastructure. The Reno, Nevada-based company plans to use the funding to advance its next-generation Asimov AI processor and expand development of its Titan inference systems. Qatar Investment Authority, which previously backed Positron, has returned as an investor in the new round. The financing comes only months after Positron raised $230 million in Series B funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion. That rapid increase shows how quickly…

The UK is preparing to rethink how artificial intelligence should be regulated inside healthcare, with a new set of recommendations calling for closer monitoring of AI medical tools long after they reach hospitals and clinics. The National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare has published a regulatory blueprint built around a problem that traditional medical-device rules were never really designed for: AI can change after deployment. An algorithm may perform well during testing, enter clinical use, encounter a different patient population and begin behaving differently. Some systems may also receive frequent updates or become more autonomous over time.…

French artificial intelligence company Mistral AI has raised €3 billion in a Series D funding round, giving the European AI contender fresh capital to expand its open-weight models, computing infrastructure and sovereign AI strategy. The funding values Mistral at more than €21 billion post-money, according to the company. Mistral also described the deal as the largest equity fundraising round completed by a European technology company. Samsung Electronics led the investment, while the Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, and existing investor PSG Equity joined as co-leads. The size of the round immediately grabs attention, but the bigger story is what…

Threads is giving creators a clearer look at what happens after they publish a post. Meta has updated the platform’s profile analytics display with AI-generated performance summaries and deeper audience information. The refreshed Insights experience is designed to do more than show raw numbers. It also tries to explain what those numbers may mean, including who is seeing posts, where engagement is coming from, and how recent content compares with a creator’s usual performance. For creators, publishers, and brands, that extra context can make analytics easier to use. A high view count is useful, but understanding whether those views came…

Meta has introduced Muse, a personal AI agent designed to do more than answer questions. The system can browse websites, complete forms, interact with connected services, help manage tasks and take selected actions on a user’s behalf. The launch signals a bigger shift in consumer AI. Instead of simply generating text or offering suggestions, Muse is built around the idea of delegation. A user gives it a goal, grants the necessary permissions and allows the agent to work through the steps. Muse runs on Muse Spark, Meta’s model for agentic tasks, and operates inside a dedicated cloud environment called Muse…

The UAE is putting more structure behind its push to bring autonomous AI into everyday government work, and this is a key part of the growing UAE FedAI ecosystem. The country’s Ministerial Council for Artificial Intelligence and Development has reviewed plans for FedAI, a national technical ecosystem. This new system is designed to give federal entities a secure environment for developing, adopting and operating Agentic AI solutions. The move comes as the UAE prepares for the next phase of its wider Agentic AI Project. The focus is shifting from assessing government processes to actually deploying AI across selected services, operations…

Egypt is working with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on a new five-year artificial intelligence strategy. The country is pushing deeper into AI adoption while trying to manage the risks that come with it. Ahmed Rostom, Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development, revealed the cooperation during the 15th AIM Congress in Dubai. The work is expected to cover responsible AI adoption, public awareness, government systems, regulation and secure data exchange. There is one important question still hanging over the announcement. Egypt already has a National AI Strategy covering 2025 to 2030. However, it has not yet…

Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute, or TII, has become the first institution in the Middle East to receive Qualcomm’s Tech for Good Grant. This recognition comes as part of the TII Qualcomm edge AI grant initiative. The collaboration will focus on bringing AI-powered predictive maintenance directly onboard autonomous aircraft, including cargo drones and future electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. The project will combine TII’s SADEED Prognostics and Health Management platform with Qualcomm’s Dragonwing IQ9 edge AI processor. The idea is straightforward but technically demanding: aircraft should be able to detect developing technical problems without having to rely on a…

ZainTECH has signed a multi-year strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) aimed at accelerating cloud adoption, modernization and AI development across Saudi Arabia. The agreement brings together ZainTECH’s regional technology expertise and AWS cloud services. This comes at a time when Saudi organizations are putting more money and attention into cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and data-driven operations. Government agencies and companies in financial services, energy and healthcare are expected to be among the main sectors targeted through the collaboration. ZainTECH and AWS Target Saudi Arabia’s Growing Cloud Market Saudi Arabia’s technology landscape is changing quickly. Cloud adoption…

Hotels have spent years collecting booking data, pricing information and customer behaviour signals. Most of that information, however, still helps operators understand what has already happened rather than what is likely to happen next. HBX Group and Swiss travel AI company Vorsee are trying to close that gap with a partnership focused on predictive intelligence and agentic AI for hotels. The collaboration will bring Vorsee ActionOS into parts of HBX Group’s hotel technology ecosystem, giving hospitality businesses access to forecasting tools and specialised AI agents inside platforms they already use. The aim is to help hotel teams spot changing demand…

London is becoming a real-world test bed for autonomous transport, and Uber is now part of that shift. The ride-hailing company has partnered with British autonomous driving firm Wayve to launch supervised robotaxi rides across the capital, giving passengers the chance to experience AI-powered driving through the regular Uber app. The service is starting small, with 15 all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles equipped with Wayve’s AI Driver technology. A licensed safety driver remains behind the wheel, but the cars handle much of the driving themselves. It is an early step, although one that puts autonomous ride-hailing much closer to ordinary…

AI agents are moving quickly from experimental tools into actual business systems, and that shift is creating a new security problem for companies that want automation without losing control of their data, applications or internal workflows. NeuralTrust is positioning itself directly inside that emerging market. The AI security company has opened a new London office as UK businesses show growing interest in deploying autonomous AI agents across enterprise operations. The move gives NeuralTrust a stronger physical presence in one of Europe’s most active technology and financial centres. It also reflects a broader change in the AI market. Companies are no…

Dubai is expanding its artificial intelligence ambitions deeper into the private sector, this time with a large-scale Agentic AI training programme aimed at helping businesses understand how autonomous AI systems could fit into daily operations. Dubai Chambers has introduced specialised Agentic AI training tracks for more than 14,000 private sector companies represented through Business Groups and Business Councils operating under Dubai Chamber of Commerce. The initiative reflects Dubai’s broader effort to move AI adoption beyond experimentation and into practical business use. Agentic AI differs from conventional generative AI because it can go beyond producing answers or content. These systems can…

Dubai Police is pushing artificial intelligence further into its day-to-day operations, but some of the most important changes are happening quietly behind the scenes. The force has deployed 36 robotic process automation robots across policing and administrative functions while completing 104 strategic and operational technology projects over the past year. The latest figures give a clearer picture of how Dubai Police is moving beyond isolated AI experiments and putting automation into regular workflows. The developments were reviewed during Lieutenant General Abdulla Khalifa Al Marri’s annual inspection of the General Department of Artificial Intelligence. The Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police examined the…

Artificial intelligence in logistics is starting to face a more practical test. Forget impressive demos for a moment. Can the technology actually move goods faster, reduce freight costs and give companies a return they can measure? MG Ship thinks it can. The logistics technology company has introduced a new AI-powered route optimisation and carrier recommendation module aimed at retailers, manufacturers and global shippers. Instead of simply tracking where a shipment is, the system analyses changing conditions and recommends how that shipment should move. That distinction matters. Supply chain AI has spent years being pitched around visibility and prediction. MG Ship…