Author: Art Ryan

Masayoshi Son is making his biggest bet yet: that his brainchild SoftBank will be the center of a revolution driven by artificial intelligence. Son says artificial superintelligence (ASI) — AI that is 10,000 times smarter than humans — will be here in 10 years. It’s a bold call — but perhaps not surprising. He’s made a career out of big plays; notably, one was a $20 million investment into Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba in 2000 that has made billions for SoftBank. Now, the billionaire is hoping to replicate that success with a series of investments and acquisitions in AI firms that will put SoftBank…

Staff at the UK’s leading artificial intelligence institute have raised concerns about the organisation’s governance and internal culture in a whistleblowing complaint to the charity watchdog. The Alan Turing Institute (ATI), a registered charity with substantial state funding, is under government pressure to overhaul its strategic focus and leadership after an intervention last month from the technology secretary, Peter Kyle. In a complaint to the Charity Commission, a group of current ATI staff raise eight points of concern and say the institute is in danger of collapse due to government threats over its funding. The complaint alleges that the board of…

Tesla’s recent decision to disband its Dojo supercomputer team and pivot toward inference-focused AI chip development marks a pivotal shift in its long-term strategy. This move, announced by CEO Elon Musk in 2025, reflects a recalibration of priorities amid evolving market dynamics and internal challenges. For investors, the implications of this restructuring extend beyond short-term operational adjustments, raising critical questions about Tesla’s ability to maintain its competitive edge in the autonomous vehicle (AV) and AI markets. The Dojo Dilemma: Ambition vs. Execution The Dojo supercomputer, initially hailed as a cornerstone of Tesla’s AI infrastructure, was designed to train machine-learning models…

Artificial intelligence has been a shot in the arm for digital advertising. Meta and Alphabet both reported sales and earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations, but the strength in digital ad spend was notable. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the earnings call that AI helped imbue “greater efficiency and gains across our ad system,” thus contributing to the 22% year-over-year increase of second-quarter sales that hit $47.52 billion. Meta finance chief Susan Li also told analysts during a follow-up earnings call on July 30 that the online ad market appears to have improved since April. In April, Li noted that Asia-based online retailers pulled back on their digital ad spending amid broader…

Capacity, the AI-powered support automation platform for contact centers, has announced more than $92 million in investments. Additionally, the company announed acquisitions of Call Criteria and Verbio Technologies, expanding Capacity’s capabilities in voice AI, quality assurance (QA) automation and speech analytics. The new investments in Capacity include $50 million from Chicago Atlantic, a private markets investment firm, and a Series D round close at $42.6 million. The company previously announced an initial $26 million fundraise in its Series D round, which was oversubscribed. Capacity will use the Series D proceeds to continue growth and product innovation as part of a compound startup strategy. “Support…

While tech rivals are splashing into high-profile AI acquisitions, Apple’s decision to wait and not rush into any headline-grabbing deals might actually underscore a deeper confidence in its own AI roadmap. “Open—but not desperate” Why slowing down might be smart Bottom Line Apple’s restraint in splurging on a major AI acquisition isn’t necessarily a red flag. Instead, it could reflect confidence in its existing trajectory. Users might not see the fruits of these efforts immediately—but when they do (perhaps with iOS 26.4 next spring), the payoff could be seamless, polished, and fully Apple-native.

Pinterest CEO Bill Ready told investors on the company’s second-quarter earnings call that the social app and inspirational bookmarking site could be considered an “AI-enabled shopping assistant.” However, he thinks that the agentic web, where AI agents shop on users’ behalf, is still far in the future. The remarks were made in response to a question about the agentic web, which could impact the search funnel and businesses like Pinterest, which positions itself at the early stages of the shopping journey — around the time when users are seeking ideas that could later turn into purchases. Investors are likely concerned that if…

Google announced on Friday that it’s giving Google Finance, its tool that provides financial information and business news, an AI update. Users will now be able to research their financial questions with AI, access advanced charting tools, and get real-time data and news. With the update, users can now ask detailed questions about finance and get a comprehensive AI response that includes links to relevant sites. Instead of having to look up individual stock details, users can ask complex questions in one go. As for the new charting tools, Google says these “will help you visualize financial data beyond simple asset performance. You can view…

Meta has acquired AI voice startup WaveForms for an undisclosed sum, The Information reports. It’s the company’s latest buy to strengthen its new AI unit, Superintelligence Labs, and Meta’s second major AI audio acquisition in the last month after it bought PlayAI. WaveForms, founded just eight months ago, raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz in a round that valued the company at $160 million pre-money, per PitchBook data. Two of the startup’s co-founders — former Meta and OpenAI researcher Alexis Conneau, and former Google advertising strategist Coralie Lemaitre — have reportedly joined Meta. While at OpenAI, Conneau co-created GPT4-o Advanced Voice Mode…

Tesla is breaking up the team behind its Dojo supercomputer, ending the automaker’s play at developing in-house chips for driverless technology, according to Bloomberg. Dojo’s lead, Peter Bannon, is leaving the company, and the remaining team members will be reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, per Bloomberg’s reporting, which cited anonymous sources. The disbanding of Tesla’s Dojo efforts follows the departure of around 20 workers, who left the automaker to start their own AI company called DensityAI. The new startup is reportedly coming out of stealth soon and is building chips, hardware, and software that will power data centers…

The world is in a race to deploy AI, but a leading voice in technology ethics warns prioritising speed over safety risks a “trust crisis.” Suvianna Grecu, Founder of the AI for Change Foundation, argues that without immediate and strong governance, we are on a path to “automating harm at scale.” Speaking on the integration of AI into critical sectors, Grecu believes that the most pressing ethical danger isn’t the technology itself, but the lack of structure surrounding its rollout. Powerful systems are increasingly making life-altering decisions about everything from job applications and credit scores to healthcare and criminal justice, often…

AI and data platform company Cloudera announced its acquisition of Taikun, a leading platform provider for managing Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With this move, Cloudera accelerates the deployment and delivery of the complete Cloudera platform, including Data Services and AI anywhere – from the public clouds to on-prem data centers to sovereign and air-gapped environments – all through a unified control plane. As enterprise IT environments become more complex and distributed, the need for reliable and scalable data infrastructure has become increasingly critical to support core operations and the growing demands of AI workloads. Cloudera is addressing this…

The event, which included the Gates Foundation as a core partner, aimed to create a strategic roadmap for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) to address key social and institutional challenges across the country. The Nigeria AI Scaling Hub recently hosted a “Visioning Workshop” at the Lagos Business School, bringing together leaders from government, academia, and the private sector. The event, which included the Gates Foundation as a core partner, aimed to create a strategic roadmap for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) to address key social and institutional challenges across the country. The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu…

GPT-5, the long-awaited upgrade to the ChatGPT AI chatbot, has been released by its maker OpenAI. It has been one of the most highly anticipated launches in Silicon Valley after OpenAI’s first offering ChatGPT – powered by its GPT-3 model – kick-started the current AI boom in late 2022. “GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive. “GPT-4, maybe it was like talking to a college student. But with GPT-5, now it’s like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand.” At the launch…

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Sports journalists are embracing the efficiency of artificial intelligence while maintaining accuracy and the human elements that define their storytelling. During a panel on “Reclaiming the Craft of Writing in the Age of AI” at the National Association of Black Journalists conference, ESPN senior NBA writer Mark Spears shared a funny story that highlighted the technology’s potential dangers when he asked AI what his net worth was. “According to AI, I have an estimated net worth of at least $19 million,” Spears said. “I looked at my bank account and a lot of zeros were off of…

Blaize Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BZAI, NASDAQ: BZAIW) (“Blaize”), a leader in programmable, energy-efficient edge AI computing, today unveiled the Blaize AI Platform, a purpose-built, edge-native solution engineered to efficiently and flexibly deliver multimodal intelligence for mission-critical workloads across a wide range of industries. With a focus on programmability and ease of deployment, the platform is designed to accelerate AI implementation without the complexity. With deployments already underway across Asia, the Blaize AI Platform is redefining how organizations execute and scale AI across distributed environments. Purpose-built for complex, multimodal workloads – including video, audio, and sensor fusion – the platform delivers a…

With summer in full swing, travelers must beware that artificial intelligence (AI) systems could spot mishaps and misbehaviors that might otherwise go unnoticed by a human employee. Car rental company Hertz, which also owns Dollar and Thrifty, is using AI to scan vehicles for damage, before and after a rental, automatically charging customers for what the system flags, according to The New York Times. That’s what happened to a couple who rented from Hertz at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the newspaper reported. A human employee cleared the car but the AI saw a dent and billed them $195 — $80 for the…

Elon Musk will reportedly let companies promote their brands within X’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. As the Financial Times (FT) reported Thursday (Aug. 7), Musk said during a live discussion with advertisers broadcast on the social media platform that the company would let marketers pay to show up in suggestions from Grok, X’s chatbot. “Our focus thus far has just been on making Grok the smartest, most accurate AI in the world and I think we’ve largely succeeded in that. So we’ll turn our attention to how do we pay for those expensive GPUs,” said Musk, referring to graphics processing units, the expensive chips required…

Shopify has launched three tools to make it easier for developers to embed the eCommerce functionality to whatever they are building, such as an app or chatbot. The new offerings are Shopify catalog, universal cart and checkout kit. These tools will let developers tap artificial intelligence (AI)-powered commerce without a lot of extra code or having to manage compliance. “Agents will become a common way people shop,” Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke said in a post on X. “We’re making that as easy as possible for the AI age.” The move expands Shopify’s reach, since more people are shopping using AI chatbots. This makes discovery of…

In a perfect world, profitability and innovation go hand-in-hand. For DraftKings, which is currently live in 25 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., covering 49% of the U.S. population, that was the story the company’s executives shared with investors during Thursday’s (Aug. 7) second-quarter 2025 earnings call. Amid an intensifying landscape for online sports betting and iGaming, DraftKings recorded $1.513 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2025, an increase of 37% year over year, alongside record net income and adjusted EBITDA. DraftKings Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Jason Robins cited “product enhancements” as driving the strong revenue growth. “We set records for revenue, net income…