Co‑founder Yuhuai "Tony" Wu announced his exit from Elon Musk's xAI, marking the fifth departure from the company’s original 12‑person founding team. Recent exits include infrastructure lead Kyle Kosic, Google veteran Christian Szegedy, venture‑firm founder Igor Babuschkin, and former Microsoft employee Greg Yang, who cited health concerns. While the departures are described as amicable, analysts note a mix of factors such as Musk’s demanding leadership style, the pending IPO, product issues with the Grok chatbot, and controversies surrounding the company’s image‑generation tools. The talent turnover raises questions about xAI’s ability to retain key researchers as it prepares for an IPO. Leer más →

Yann LeCun’s newly launched venture AMI Labs has revealed that it will develop “world models” to create intelligent systems that understand the real world. The startup, headquartered in Paris with additional offices in Montreal, New York, and Singapore, is led by executive chairman LeCun and CEO Alex LeBrun, a former health‑AI founder. AMI Labs aims to apply its technology to high‑stakes fields such as healthcare, industrial automation, robotics, and wearable devices, emphasizing reliability, controllability, and safety. The company plans to license its models to industry partners while contributing to open research. Leer más →

Sequoia Capital is set to invest in Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude language models, as part of a multi‑billion‑dollar raise led by GIC and Coatue. The deal, valued at over $350 billion, signals a shift in venture‑capital strategy, with Sequoia backing competing AI firms simultaneously. Analysts view the round as a benchmark for private AI valuations and a catalyst for increased global capital flow into the sector, while European stakeholders watch for implications on regional AI ecosystems. Leer más →

Barret Zoph and Luke Metz, cofounders of the AI startup Thinking Machines Lab, have left the company to rejoin OpenAI. The move was announced by OpenAI’s applications chief Fidji Simo in an internal memo. A source alleged that Zoph was dismissed for sharing confidential information, a claim OpenAI did not verify. Mira Murati confirmed Zoph’s departure and named Soumith Chintala as the new chief technology officer. The departures also include Sam Schoenholz, who is returning to OpenAI, and follow the earlier exit of cofounder Andrew Tulloch to Meta. Thinking Machines Lab continues to develop its Tinker platform for customizing AI models. Leer más →

Anthropic announced a reshuffle of its executive team, moving Instagram co‑founder Mike Krieger from chief product officer to co‑lead its internal incubator, the Labs team, alongside Ben Mann. The company plans to double the size of the Labs group within six months, aiming to accelerate experimental AI product development. President Daniela Amodei highlighted the rapid pace of AI advancement as the reason for a new organizational approach. The shift comes amid intensifying competition among AI startups and tech giants, and Anthropic is reportedly preparing a major fundraising round. Leer más →

French AI startup Mistral AI announced the release of Devstral 2, a new generation coding model, alongside Vibe CLI, a command‑line interface designed to automate code tasks through natural language. The company highlighted the model’s size, hardware requirements, and open‑source licensing options, and noted that Vibe CLI can maintain persistent history and scan file structures to provide context‑aware assistance. Partnerships with Kilo Code, Cline, and Zed were mentioned, as well as the continuation of Mistral’s growth after a recent funding round led by ASML. Leer más →

Aaru, an AI‑driven synthetic research startup, closed a Series A round led by Redpoint Ventures. The financing featured a multi‑tier valuation structure that allowed the company to cite a headline valuation near $1 billion while offering more favorable terms to certain investors. The round size was disclosed as above $50 million. Founded in March 2024, Aaru generates thousands of AI agents that simulate human behavior to replace traditional market‑research methods. Its client roster includes Accenture, EY, Interpublic Group, and political campaigns. Leer más →

The New York Times has filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court accusing AI startup Perplexity of copying and distributing its articles without permission. The suit alleges that Perplexity’s crawlers deliberately ignored technical safeguards, such as robots.txt, to harvest content that the Times says is reproduced verbatim or in substantially similar form. The legal action follows earlier cease‑and‑desist notices and comes amid a broader wave of publisher lawsuits targeting AI firms for alleged copyright violations. Leer más →

Suno, the AI‑powered music platform that lets users generate songs from text prompts, announced a $250 million Series C financing that pushes its post‑money valuation to $2.45 billion. The round was led by Menlo Ventures and included Nvidia’s venture arm NVentures among others. Suno now reports $200 million in annual revenue and offers both free and paid subscription tiers for creators. At the same time, the company is fighting lawsuits from Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music, which allege the startup trained its models on copyrighted material without permission. The legal challenges highlight the broader uncertainty surrounding AI training data while investors remain bullish on Suno’s growth potential. Leer más →

Jeff Bezos is re‑entering an operational role for the first time since leaving Amazon, joining as co‑chief executive of the newly funded AI venture Project Prometheus. Backed by a $6.2 billion financing round, the startup aims to develop artificial‑intelligence tools for the physical economy, targeting engineering and manufacturing sectors such as computers, aerospace and automobiles. Bezos will share leadership with Vik Bajaj, a veteran of Google’s life‑sciences division and co‑founder of several AI‑focused companies. Project Prometheus already employs nearly 100 researchers drawn from leading AI labs, including Meta, OpenAI and Google DeepMind. Leer más →

Jeff Bezos is spearheading a new artificial‑intelligence venture called Project Prometheus, which aims to develop AI systems for the physical economy. The privately held company has secured $6.2 billion in funding, with Bezos contributing a portion and serving as co‑CEO alongside physicist and former Google X executive Vik Bajaj. Project Prometheus focuses on AI that learns from the real world to enhance engineering, manufacturing, vehicle design, and space technology. The firm has hired nearly 100 staff, drawing talent from leading AI firms, and lists its size as 51‑200 employees on its LinkedIn profile. Leer más →

Harvey, a legal artificial‑intelligence startup founded by Winston Weinberg and Gabe Pereyra, has attracted top venture investors and grown its valuation dramatically. The company now serves hundreds of clients across dozens of countries, offering AI‑driven drafting, research and document analysis tools. Harvey focuses on a multiplayer platform that handles complex permissioning and data‑residency requirements for law firms and corporate legal teams. While its revenue mix is shifting toward corporate customers, the firm remains seat‑based with plans for outcome‑based pricing as its workflows mature. The startup sees a vast, untapped market for AI in legal work. Leer más →

Gamma, the AI‑powered platform that creates presentations, websites and social media posts, announced a $68 million Series B round that lifts its valuation to $2.1 billion. Led by Andreessen Horowitz, the round also includes participation from Accel, Uncork Capital and other existing investors. Co‑founder and CEO Grant Lee said the company has reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue on a profitable basis and now serves roughly 70 million users. The funding will support further product development and global expansion. Leer más →

Inception, an AI startup focused on diffusion‑based models, announced a $50 million seed round led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Mayfield, Innovation Endeavors, Microsoft’s M12 fund, Snowflake Ventures, Databricks Investment, and Nvidia’s NVentures. Angel investors Andrew Ng and Andrej Karpathy also contributed. The company, led by Stanford professor Stefano Ermon, aims to apply diffusion techniques—traditionally used for image generation—to software development and natural‑language tasks. Its Mercury model has already been integrated into several development tools, and the team claims diffusion models can deliver higher token‑per‑second throughput and lower latency than conventional autoregressive systems. Leer más →

Sesame, a conversational AI and smart‑glasses startup founded by former Oculus executives, announced a $250 million Series B financing round. The company is now opening an early beta of its iOS app, giving select users hands‑on experience with its voice‑driven AI agent. Sesame’s leadership team includes Brendan Iribe, Ankit Kumar, Nate Mitchell, Hans Hartmann and other former Meta engineers. The funding will support development of lightweight eyewear that integrates the AI companion, which has already generated millions of minutes of conversation in early demos. Leer más →

Sunshine, the consumer AI startup founded by former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, is closing its doors and selling its assets to a newly incorporated company called Dazzle AI. An email to shareholders on September 17 indicated that 99 percent of shareholders have signed off on the deal. Mayer, the largest shareholder, said the move will allow the roughly 15‑person team to transition to Dazzle. The shutdown follows a mixed product history that included the Sunshine Contacts app and the later Shine photo‑sharing service. Leer más →

Paid, the London‑based AI startup founded by former Outreach CEO Manny Medina, closed an oversubscribed $21.6 million seed round led by Lightspeed. The company introduces a results‑based billing model that lets AI agent creators charge customers based on the measurable value the agents deliver, rather than traditional per‑user or subscription fees. Early customers include sales‑automation platform Artisan and ERP vendor IFS. Investors such as Lightspeed, EQT Ventures, and FUSE participated, and the round pushes total capital raised to $33.3 million, with a valuation reported to be above $100 million. Leer más →

Friend, a wearable AI startup, has poured more than $1 million into a massive subway advertising campaign across New York City. The effort features over 11,000 cards on train cars, 1,000 platform posters and 130 urban panels, creating a dominant visual presence in stations such as West 4th Street. CEO Avi Schiffman told Adweek the campaign is a high‑risk gamble aimed at sparking conversation about the device, which retails for $129. The ads have drawn mixed reactions, including vandalism and criticism from Wired, highlighting the tension between innovative AI products and public concerns about surveillance. Leer más →

Anton Osika, co‑founder and CEO of Lovable, addressed a packed audience at a major tech conference, highlighting the company’s rapid growth, its recent product releases, and a strategic focus on building the best platform for users rather than chasing valuation milestones. While investors are speculating about future funding rounds, Osika stressed that Lovable’s priority is delivering a secure, fast, and easy‑to‑use experience, leveraging multiple foundation models, and supporting a broad range of use cases from marketers to engineers. He also noted the company’s commitment to staying rooted in Europe despite its global ambitions. Leer más →

Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, announced a completed funding round of $13 billion that lifts its post‑money valuation to $183 billion. The company reported that its run‑word revenue surged from about $1 billion to more than $5 billion in less than nine months and that it now serves over 300,000 business customers. Large‑account customers increased sevenfold, and the Claude Code product generated over $500 million in run‑rate revenue, with usage growing more than tenfold since its full launch. The round was led by ICONIQ, Fidelity Management & Research Company and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Qatar Investment Authority, TPG, Altimeter, Blackstone, Coatue and General Catalyst. Leer más →