Author: Art Ryan

In this week’s artificial intelligence (AI) startup funding news, fresh capital flowed into companies focused on computing, operational efficiency and domain-specific AI tools. As reported by Bloomberg, the largest deal came from Unconventional AI, which raised $475 million in a seed round at a $4.5 billion valuation as it builds a novel computer optimized for AI workloads. The company was founded two months ago by former Databricks head of AI Naveen Rao and aims to rethink the architecture of AI computing by drawing inspiration from biology and analog physics. According to the report, Unconventional AI is designing systems that prioritize energy efficiency by exploring semiconductor-level…

Google denied a Monday (Dec. 8) report by AdWeek that the tech giant plans to bring ads to its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Gemini. “This story is based on uninformed, anonymous sources who are making inaccurate claims,” Dan Taylor, vice president, global ads at Google, said in a Monday post on X. “There are no ads in the Gemini app and there are no current plans to change that.” AdWeek had said earlier in the day, in a post on X promoting a paywalled article: “[Google] has told advertising clients in recent days that it plans to bring ads to its AI chatbot Gemini, according to agency buyers familiar with…

Qatar has established a new artificial intelligence (AI) company called Qai, joining larger Gulf nations that are channeling state resources into building domestic AI capabilities and expanding their influence in the global technology sector. The company will operate as a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s $524 billion sovereign wealth fund, according to Bloomberg. Qai will invest in AI infrastructure in Qatar and abroad and provide high-performance computing along with a connected suite of tools. The creation of Qai places Qatar alongside other Gulf states that have moved aggressively into artificial intelligence as part of broader economic diversification plans. The United…

Anthropic has teamed with consulting firm Accenture to help companies scale artificial intelligence (AI) projects. The collaboration, announced Tuesday (Dec. 9), has resulted in the Accenture Anthropic Business Group, which will provide training to around 30,000 professionals. “Our new partnership means that tens of thousands of Accenture developers will be using Claude Code, making this our largest ever deployment—and the new Accenture Anthropic Business Group will help enterprise clients use our smartest AI models to make major productivity gains,” said Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic. In addition, the companies are launching an effort to help chief information officers (CIOs) scale AI powered software, with…

Ulta Beauty reported strong third-quarter results, with digital engagement rising, eCommerce up in the mid-teen range and loyalty membership growing 4% to a new high. AI-driven personalization, social-led discovery and expanded app capabilities contributed to stronger conversion across channels. Early holiday results were positive, supported by consistent traffic and faster fulfillment. Ulta said digital performance was a central driver of Q3 growth, supported by a faster app, new checkout features and broader ship-from-store coverage. CEO Kecia Steelman noted that the digital business continues to gain momentum. “We have had three consecutive quarters of double-digit e-commerce comp,” she said, adding that “our investments to elevate…

Microsoft has pledged $17.5 billion for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing in India. The investment, which the company called its largest ever in Asia, was announced Tuesday (Dec. 9) after CEO Satya Nadella met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the country’s AI vision. “Microsoft’s investment in India focuses on three pillars—scale, skills and sovereignty—aligned with the Prime Minister’s vision of building a comprehensive ecosystem that drives AI innovation and access at a national scale,” the company said in its announcement. “Together, Microsoft and India are poised to set new benchmarks and drive the country’s leap from digital public infrastructure to AI…

The increasingly heated fight for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is, on its face, about libraries: HBO’s prestige slate, DC’s franchises and Warner’s studio machine. But the bidding war now featuring Netflix and Paramount is also a referendum on something less visible and arguably more defensible than IP: the consumer-facing algorithms that decide what gets watched, when and how often. Netflix reached a $72 billion equity deal for WBD’s studio and streaming assets, while Paramount Skydance has countered with a $30-per-share hostile bid, prolonging a contest already drawing regulatory scrutiny and pricing questions. Streaming has become one of the most refined subscription machines…

Safebooks has emerged from stealth and announced it raised $15 million in seed funding for its intelligent automation layer for quote-to-revenue finance operations. The Agentic Revenue Integrity (ARI) layer provides continuous monitoring, reconciliation and artificial intelligence-powered automation, eliminating the need for manual reviews, reconciliations and data entry, the company said in a Tuesday (Dec. 9) press release. The Safebooks platform reads documents in any format; validates they match what’s in the user’s customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and billing systems; catches discrepancies as they happen; and auto-remediates them, according to the release. It works on top of users’ existing systems, processes…

Google is facing an antitrust investigation in Europe tied to its artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The European Commission (EC) announced Tuesday (Dec. 9) that it is looking into whether Google had hindered competition by imposing unfair conditions on content creators, and by giving its own AI model an edge over competitors. The investigation will look at whether Google used web publishers’ content to provide generative AI-powered services to its search results page without properly compensating them or offering them the chance to refuse this use of their content. In addition, the competition watchdog is examining whether it used content uploaded to YouTube to train AI…

IBM said on Monday (Dec. 8) it plans to acquire Confluent for about $11 billion in cash for the real-time data streaming company in one of its largest acquisitions in the recent years. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2026, pending shareholder and regulatory approval. The company said Confluent will continue operating as a standalone business unit inside IBM after the deal closes. Confluent provides software that moves data between systems in real time. Its technology is rooted in Apache Kafka, the open-source framework developed by Confluent’s founders and widely used in enterprise applications. Bloomberg reported that Confluent has become a key provider of streaming data…

Finance leaders used to joke that accounts payable (AP) was where innovation went to die. Then, seemingly overnight, AP became one of the most aggressively optimized functions in the enterprise. A generation of fintechs, spanning Ramp, Brex, Bill, Navan, Airbase, and dozens more, have spent the past handful of years pouring machine intelligence into the guts of spend management. The result? AP workflows that once required armies of clerks have, for many firms, become nearly touchless. Thanks to advances in automation and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as API-driven integrations, vendor onboarding, invoice ingestion, spend categorization, anomaly detection, and payment timing…

The Department of Health and Human Services has released its artificial intelligence strategy. The new strategy, announced Monday (Dec. 8), is part of a broader plan to make artificial intelligence (AI) available to federal workers by integrating it into internal operations, research, and public health. “AI has the potential to revolutionize health care and human services, and HHS is leading that paradigm shift,” Jim O’Neill, the department’s deputy secretary, said in a news release. “By guiding innovation toward patient-focused outcomes, this Administration has the potential to deliver historic wins for the public—wins that lead to longer, healthier lives.” According to the release, the department’s AI…

Fashion brands are facing faster trend cycles and rising pressure to design, produce and personalize at the speed of consumer demand. Artificial intelligence (AI) has moved to the center of that shift, powering everything from creative workflows to the digital experiences shoppers interact with. At New York Fashion Week, designers showed how generative tools support early-stage creation. The Washington Post reported that labels feed silhouettes, fabrics and references into AI systems that return thousands of variations in minutes. Designers study proportion, drape and motion digitally instead of spending days on sketches and samples. The approach reduces waste and helps teams move quickly.…

Instacart has become the first grocery sector company to launch an app on OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This integration, announced Monday (Dec. 8), will also see Instacart offer an embedded shopping and checkout offering within ChatGPT conversations, and is designed to make it easier for users to get meal ideas and have the necessary products delivered to their door. “Instacart and ChatGPT are redefining what’s possible in AI-powered shopping,” Anirban Kundu, Instacart’s chief technology officer, said in a news release. “Built on Agentic Commerce Protocol, this experience brings intelligent, real-time support to one of the most essential parts of daily life: getting groceries to feed your family. Together,…

President Donald Trump said Monday (Dec. 8) that he will sign an executive order giving the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over artificial intelligence. “There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS. THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE…

The global sports industry has accepted a glaring inefficiency: the next global superstar might be playing right now in a remote village or an inner-city park, completely invisible to the professional ecosystem. Geography, travel costs, and the sheer logistical limits of human scouting networks mean that for every athlete discovered, more fall through the cracks. But the era of “right place, right time” is ending. Professional leagues and federations are now deploying computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms and video-based tools to widen the funnel and allow athletes from around the world to get measured, benchmarked and considered, even…

Italian robotics firm Generative Bionics has raised $81 million in new funding. The new funding round was one of the largest ever in Europe in the “humanoid robotics deep tech space,” Generative Bionics said in a Monday (Dec. 8) announcement. “Our mission is to build a future where intelligent humanoid robots collaborate daily with people, amplifying human cognitive and physical potential,” said Daniele Pucci, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “Our Physical AI enables us to design and manufacture human-inspired robots that create tangible value across multiple applications.” He pointed to analyses projecting that the humanoid robotics market will exceed 200 billion euros ($232 billion)…

A new OpenAI report found a majority of surveyed workers seeing positive results from artificial intelligence (AI). The AI startup on Monday (Dec. 8) released findings from its “State of Enterprise AI” report, which drew on real-world usage data from OpenAI’s enterprise customers, as well as a survey of 9,000 workers on AI adoption patterns. “For the first time, we’re sharing a comprehensive look at how enterprises are adopting AI, what workers say they’re gaining, and how organizational leaders are turning experimentation into measurable productivity and new capabilities,” the report said. Among the survey’s findings: 75% of workers said that using AI at work has…

Lagos, Dec 2, 2025 – The narrative for African enterprise has evolved. At the AI Forum Nigeria 2025, held at the Lagos Oriental Hotel, the consensus among decision-makers was clear: the era of “Digital Transformation” is over; the era of “AI-First Business” has begun. The Big Picture: Organized by OLAK Events, the forum convened leaders from Microsoft, Rack Centre, and Zoho to dismantle the “pilot purgatory” many companies face. The keynote by Alaa Dalghan, CEO of Cognit DX, challenged Nigerian executives to stop treating AI as an experiment and start building enterprise-wide architectures that scale. Key Takeaways: The Bottom Line: For investors and global partners, Nigeria’s commitment to foundational…

Bangkok, Dec 2025 – While much of the global AI conversation focuses on software, Thailand is betting big on physical infrastructure. At the recently concluded DigiTech ASEAN Thailand & AI Connect 2025, the focus shifted from theoretical digital adoption to tangible “Smart City” execution. The Big Picture: Held at the IMPACT Exhibition Center, the event convened 350 global tech brands and over 8,000 visitors. The standout narrative wasn’t just the exhibition, but the organizer’s own commitment: IMPACT Exhibition Management announced a THB 100 million investment to transform Muang Thong Thani into a smart city, deploying over 200 AI-powered systems for real-time traffic and security management. Key Takeaways:…