The Association for Computing Machinery has awarded the prestigious Turing Award to Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton for their groundbreaking work on reinforcement learning. As reported by Cade Metz in The New York Times, the two researchers will share the $1 million prize that comes with what is often called the “Nobel Prize of computing.” …
Anthropic, an AI startup founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers including siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, has secured a significant $3.5 billion in Series E funding. This latest investment round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with a $1 billion contribution, values the company at $61.5 billion post-money. The funding attracted participation from several prominent …
Google has introduced a new “AI Mode” experimental feature in Search designed to handle complex, multi-part questions and follow-ups. As reported by Aisha Malik for TechCrunch, the feature enables users to explore topics in depth directly within Google Search, competing with services like Perplexity AI and ChatGPT Search. The new feature is initially available to …
Salesforce has unveiled Agentforce 2dx, a platform that enables AI agents to work autonomously across enterprise systems without constant human supervision. The system represents a shift from reactive AI interactions to proactive agents that monitor systems and initiate processes independently. Michael Nuñez of VentureBeat reports that this release marks a significant evolution from previous approaches …
OpenAI is exploring the launch of high-end AI research agents potentially priced at up to $20,000 per month, according to a report from The Information. Markus Kasanmascheff reports that these “PhD-level research agents” would target enterprise customers, offering advanced research capabilities and decision-making automation. The company is reportedly planning three pricing tiers at $2,000, $10,000, …
Contextual AI has released a new grounded language model (GLM) that reportedly achieves 88% factual accuracy on the FACTS benchmark, outperforming offerings from Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. According to Michael Nuñez from VentureBeat, the startup was founded by pioneers of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) technology. The new model specifically targets enterprise applications where factual precision is …
Salesforce has introduced AgentExchange, a marketplace for AI agents designed to automate business tasks. According to Michael Nuñez of VentureBeat, the platform launches with over 200 partners including Google Cloud, DocuSign, Box, and Workday. Salesforce positions this as the first trusted marketplace for enterprise AI agents, targeting what it estimates as a $6 trillion “digital …
Cohere’s research division has launched Aya Vision, an open-weight vision model supporting 23 languages. According to Carl Franzen’s report in VentureBeat, the model comes in 8-billion and 32-billion parameter versions and can analyze images, generate text, and translate visual content. Aya Vision outperforms larger models like Llama 90B while requiring fewer computational resources. The model …
Deutsche Telekom has announced plans to release an “AI Phone” developed in collaboration with Perplexity, the AI search company. According to Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch, the device will launch in 2026 at under $1,000, initially targeting European markets. The phone will feature AI capabilities integrated into the lock screen, with Perplexity’s technology enabling proactive assistance …
Google is introducing new capabilities to its AI assistant Gemini, allowing users to interact with videos and share their screens in real time. According to Ivan Mehta at TechCrunch, the “Screenshare” feature enables users to show Gemini what’s on their phone screen and ask related questions. For example, shoppers can get recommendations on what clothes …