OpenAI announced Monday that it has bought Hiro Finance, an AI‑driven personal finance startup founded by serial entrepreneur Ethan Bloch. The deal, confirmed by both parties, will see Hiro shut down its consumer app and transfer its roughly ten‑person team to OpenAI. Backed by Ribbit Capital, General Catalyst and Restive, Hiro offered users scenario‑based budgeting powered by a model trained for financial math. While terms remain undisclosed, the acquisition signals OpenAI’s push to deepen its foothold in the fintech space and expand talent ahead of its next growth phase. Read more →

OpenAI, fresh from a $122 billion funding round and an anticipated IPO, is grappling with a cascade of executive departures, halted projects and mounting legal pressure. The AI lab’s recent Pentagon contract, the abrupt cancellation of its video‑generation app Sora, and a looming lawsuit from co‑founder Elon Musk have sparked questions about the company’s stability and its path to profitability. Read more →

Poke, the messaging‑first AI assistant from The Interaction Company, launched publicly in March and now lets users automate daily tasks through iMessage, SMS, Telegram and limited WhatsApp. Backed by Spark Capital, General Catalyst and a roster of tech angels, the ten‑person startup raised an additional $10 million, valuing the company at $300 million. Users can create or adopt “recipes” that handle everything from calendar management to smart‑home control, all via plain‑text commands. Poke’s model‑agnostic architecture, multi‑layer security and flexible pricing aim to make agentic AI accessible to a broad audience. Read more →

High‑net‑worth families are stepping into the AI arena, investing directly in startups instead of routing money through venture‑capital firms. Arena Private Wealth recently co‑led a $230 million round for AI chip maker Positron, marking a shift toward active participation in early‑stage deals. The move reflects a broader sentiment among family offices: exposure to AI is now a top strategic priority, and missing the wave could be riskier than any single investment loss. Read more →

AI-powered coding assistants have accelerated software output dramatically, but the speed boost is outpacing security resources. A financial services firm using the Cursor tool saw monthly code production jump from 25,000 to 250,000 lines, creating a backlog of one million unreviewed lines. Security experts warn that the shortage of application security engineers leaves firms exposed to vulnerabilities, especially as developers download entire codebases onto personal laptops. Companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Cursor are now racing to embed automated review features, yet human oversight remains essential. Read more →