News/Business
Prepare for auto-onboarding and more as IT departments become HR teams for enterprise AI
Agentic AI is transforming enterprise systems by evolving from simple assistants to becoming the foundation of microservices architecture. This shift is creating a new paradigm where IT departments will function like HR teams for AI agents—recruiting, onboarding, and managing these digital workers alongside human employees. This development represents a fundamental restructuring of how enterprises approach problem-solving and workflow management. The big picture: AI agents are becoming the power behind enterprise microservices, functioning as independent components that can be assembled into complex workflows rather than existing as monolithic applications. "Agentic AI is the next step in breaking apart and solving problems,"...
read Mar 11, 2025Put a pin in this: Social media legend Pinterest pivots from views to conversions, boosting ad revenue to $3.65B
Pinterest has transformed its advertising approach from primarily selling views to directly driving clicks and conversions, bolstering its competitive position in the crowded digital ad market. The platform's strategic pivot toward performance marketing has yielded impressive results, with Pinterest reporting $3.65 billion in total revenue for 2024 as advertisers increasingly prioritize measurable outcomes over brand visibility across all stages of the marketing funnel. The big picture: Pinterest has evolved its advertising strategy to balance brand and performance marketing tools, with Chief Revenue Officer Bill Watkins highlighting the shift "from selling views to selling clicks, and ultimately selling conversions." The platform's...
read Mar 11, 2025AI market sees major shifts as new players challenge established giants
It's a cognitive crisis for AI adopters. But a crisis of abundance! The AI marketplace is experiencing significant shifts in 2025, with major disruptions in user preferences and competitive dynamics across text, image, and video generation technologies. New entrants have rapidly gained ground against established players like OpenAI and Anthropic, based on comprehensive usage data from Poe's platform of over 100 AI models. This market fragmentation points to a fluid ecosystem where technical excellence alone doesn't guarantee sustained leadership, creating complex choices for enterprise decision-makers navigating AI adoption. The big picture: Poe's newly released research offers rare visibility into actual...
read Mar 10, 2025Vurvey Labs launches “Vurbs” AI agents that evolve through continuous human interaction
Not to be confused with "Verbs," though the AI action is hot. Vurvey Labs is pioneering a significant shift in artificial intelligence by combining LLMs with continuous human insights. Their newly launched "Vurbs" represent AI agents that evolve through ongoing interaction with real people, addressing a fundamental limitation of traditional LLMs which remain static after training. This approach potentially solves a critical challenge in AI development by creating more dynamic, authentic AI personalities that can better model human behavior and provide enterprises with continuously refreshed consumer insights. The big picture: Vurvey Labs has launched "Vurbs," AI agents that evolve through...
read Mar 10, 2025Should AI-assisted creative work be priced lower? Small businesses debate ethics
The ethical pricing debate around AI-assisted creative work is gaining prominence as small businesses increasingly compete with larger retailers by leveraging artificial intelligence in their creative processes. The discussion centers on whether companies using AI assistance to produce creative work should charge lower rates than those relying solely on human effort – a question that touches on fundamental issues of value, transparency, and the evolving relationship between technology and creative industries. The big picture: The latest episode of Small Biz Trends' "Small Business Breakdown" examines whether creative companies should discount their services when using AI tools, highlighting the complex pricing...
read Mar 10, 2025IBM’s Granite 3.2 delivers enterprise AI with smaller models and lower costs
International Budget Machines? IBM's introduction of Granite 3.2 represents a significant step in making AI more accessible and practical for businesses. This smaller language model delivers enhanced reasoning capabilities and multi-modal features while maintaining performance comparable to much larger models. By focusing on efficiency and cost-effectiveness rather than simply scaling up model size, IBM is addressing key enterprise concerns about AI adoption barriers while making advanced AI capabilities available through both commercial platforms and open source channels. The big picture: IBM has launched Granite 3.2, a new generation of smaller language models designed to deliver enterprise-grade AI that's more cost-effective...
read Mar 10, 2025AI is reshaping e-commerce shipping with predictive logistics solutions
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing e-commerce logistics by addressing critical shipping disruptions that plague retailers in today's complex supply chains. As customer expectations for delivery speed and reliability continue to rise, AI-powered tools are becoming essential for predicting problems, optimizing routes, and maintaining customer satisfaction. These technological advances are transforming what was once a reactive industry into one that can anticipate and prevent logistics challenges before they impact the consumer experience. The big picture: Major retailers are leveraging AI-driven systems to maintain competitive advantages in logistics and minimize shipping disruptions. Walmart utilizes Pactum, an AI-powered system that automates supplier negotiations, streamlining...
read Mar 10, 2025Let’s go, escrow! How AI cut real estate response times from hours to seconds at GG Homes
AI and automation have created a significant competitive advantage for GG Homes in a traditional industry by transforming every stage of their real estate sales process. The company's approach demonstrates how AI can enhance efficiency while simultaneously creating more personal customer experiences—showing that technology adoption in sales environments can produce measurable business outcomes beyond just cost reduction. The big picture: GG Homes has built an automated workflow that connects multiple technologies to streamline customer communications, document processing, and transaction management from initial contact through closing. Their AI-enhanced system responds to initial customer inquiries within seconds, qualifying leads and scheduling appointments...
read Mar 7, 2025Broadcom’s AI business surges 77% as Q1 earnings beat expectations
For Broadcom, the chips are anything but down. Q1 earnings for the chipmaker have exceeded analyst expectations, marking significant growth in its AI business and validating its strategic focus on data center infrastructure. Broadcom's impressive performance, including a 25% revenue increase and substantial growth in AI-related sales, signals its emerging position as a key player in the expanding AI infrastructure market alongside its successful integration of VMware's software business. The big picture: Broadcom reported first-quarter earnings that surpassed market expectations and provided optimistic guidance for Q2, sending its stock up 16% in after-hours trading. The company achieved earnings per share...
read Mar 7, 2025Labor Department investigates $14 billion AI data labeling giant Scale AI over pay practices
U.S. labor regulators are investigating Scale AI, a critical player in the data labeling industry, for potential labor violations. The investigation, ongoing for nearly a year, examines whether the $14 billion startup backed by tech giants like Nvidia and Meta is complying with fair pay practices and working conditions. This probe highlights the growing regulatory scrutiny of AI infrastructure companies that power the development of advanced AI systems like ChatGPT. The big picture: Scale AI, valued at $14 billion, provides essential data labeling services that train sophisticated AI tools, including those developed by its clients OpenAI, Microsoft, and Morgan Stanley....
read Mar 7, 2025Huawei unveils AI-powered campus network solution for smarter enterprise connectivity
Huawei's latest campus network solution integrates AI to transform enterprise connectivity at a pivotal moment when AI-powered infrastructure is becoming essential for business operations. The Xinghe Intelligent Campus Solution represents a comprehensive upgrade focused on enhancing wireless capabilities, application performance, operational efficiency, and security measures – all designed to provide superior user experiences as organizations transition to AI-centric environments. The big picture: Huawei has unveiled its fully-upgraded Xinghe Intelligent Campus Solution at MWC 2025, focusing on four critical experience enhancements powered by AI integration. The solution aims to create future-proof campus networks optimized for the AI era with improvements to...
read Mar 7, 2025StubHub eyes $1 billion IPO golden ticket as live events rebound from pandemic slump
StubHub's potential IPO represents a significant milestone in the revival of tech public offerings amid market volatility influenced by President Trump's economic policy changes. While the ticketing marketplace has only held preliminary discussions with bankers, their reported goal of raising over $1 billion signals confidence in their post-pandemic recovery. This development, alongside similar explorations by companies like CoreWeave and Discord, suggests renewed Wall Street appetite for tech listings despite the slow start to the year's IPO market. The big picture: StubHub is testing the waters for a potential initial public offering that could happen before the end of 2025, looking...
read Mar 7, 2025Hard to Soft: Investors shift from chip stocks to apps, platforms as AI investment landscape evolves
Investors are shifting focus from semiconductor stocks to software companies in the AI investment landscape, marking a natural evolution in how capital flows through the artificial intelligence sector. This rotation reflects both market dynamics and the maturing AI ecosystem, as attention moves from the hardware infrastructure that powers AI to the applications and platforms that will deliver its practical value. The big picture: U.S. chip stocks that dominated last year's AI investment boom have faltered in 2025, while software companies are gaining momentum as investors seek new opportunities in the AI value chain. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index has dropped...
read Mar 6, 2025College-educated Americans earn up to $1,000 weekly fixing AI responses
The perennial notion of the side hustle is converging with AI and turning everyone these days into a minor editor. A new digital economy is emerging where college-educated Americans earn substantial side income by correcting and improving AI responses, with workers at Scale AI making up to $1,000 weekly for ensuring AI outputs remain accurate and human-like. This growing segment of AI-adjacent labor highlights how human oversight remains essential even as AI systems become more sophisticated, creating new earning opportunities for those with relevant expertise. The big picture: Scale AI, a $14 billion company, is increasingly turning to U.S.-based workers...
read Mar 6, 2025Roboflow helps 1 million developers make computer vision accessible across industries
Can you feel the flow? Computer vision startup Roboflow is making AI more accessible by democratizing visual technology for organizations across diverse industries. The company's platform has become a critical tool for developers and businesses looking to implement computer vision solutions without extensive technical expertise, highlighting a broader trend of specialized AI tools becoming increasingly user-friendly and practical for solving real-world problems. The big picture: Roboflow is on a mission to make the world programmable through computer vision, building tools that help businesses extract meaningful insights from visual data. The startup has gained impressive traction, with over one million developers...
read Mar 6, 2025YouTube warns creators of deepfake scam featuring CEO Neal Mohan
They're faking it until they're making it. Unfortunately, they're making it our problem. YouTube has raised alarms about a sophisticated AI-enabled phishing scam targeting content creators through deepfake videos of CEO Neal Mohan. The scam's emergence highlights the growing sophistication of AI-powered fraud, where deepfake technology is being weaponized to exploit the trust between platforms and their users, potentially threatening the creator economy that has become central to YouTube's ecosystem. The big picture: Scammers are using AI-generated videos of YouTube CEO Neal Mohan to deceive creators in a targeted phishing campaign designed to steal channel credentials. How it works: The...
read Mar 6, 2025Tech Mahindra unveils AI model for autonomous telecom networks using Llama 3.1
Tech Mahindra's new AI model for network automation represents a significant milestone in telecom infrastructure management, combining Meta's Llama 3.1 architecture with Nvidia and AWS capabilities. This development arrives as telecommunications companies increasingly seek autonomous solutions to manage their complex network operations, marking a shift from traditional manual oversight to AI-driven systems capable of handling both structured and unstructured network data. The big picture: Tech Mahindra has unveiled a Multi-Modal Network Operations Large Language Model that aims to transform traditional telecom networks into fully autonomous systems. The model leverages Meta's Llama 3.1 8b Instruct architecture, running on Nvidia AI Enterprise...
read Mar 6, 2025Report: Developer tools soar 72% while EdTech platforms plummet in AI market shift
The latest SimilarWeb Global AI Tracker reveals a dramatic reshaping of the AI market, with clear winners and losers emerging across sectors. Developer tools are experiencing explosive growth while traditional platforms in freelancing and education face significant declines, signaling a fundamental market reorganization as AI solutions replace conventional approaches. This data provides valuable intelligence for investors and strategists navigating the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem. The big picture: DevOps and code completion tools are dominating the AI landscape with 72% year-over-year growth, while educational technology platforms continue their decline, dropping 20% as AI alternatives gain traction. Key winners: Developer-focused AI tools...
read Mar 6, 2025EXL’s agentic AI platform provides conductor for multi-agent orchestra
EXL's agentic AI platform addresses the widespread enterprise challenge of AI integration by orchestrating multiple AI agents within business operations. This approach tackles core implementation hurdles—including excessive data requirements, customization needs, lack of expertise, and cost concerns—by creating an orchestration layer that seamlessly connects specialized AI systems within existing workflows. As organizations struggle to translate AI's theoretical potential into practical applications, EXL's framework demonstrates how orchestrated AI systems can deliver measurable business value through efficiency, accuracy and compliance. The big picture: EXL has launched EXLerate.AI, an agentic AI platform designed to help enterprises integrate AI into their workflows for tangible...
read Mar 6, 2025How Benchmark Mortgage uses Zapier to automate lending workflows
The integration of automation technology into mortgage operations demonstrates how financial institutions can enhance efficiency and client service in an increasingly competitive market. Benchmark Mortgage's implementation of Zapier represents a significant case study in how workflow automation can transform traditional lending processes, addressing common industry pain points like document management and client communication. The big picture: Benchmark Mortgage has leveraged Zapier's automation platform to streamline operations and improve client experiences in the mortgage lending process. Key details: The mortgage lender implemented automated workflows to reduce manual tasks and create more efficient processing systems. Automation technology helps Benchmark handle document management,...
read Mar 6, 2025ZTE unveils AIR DNA initiative to rebuild networks around AI at MWC Barcelona
ZTE's AIR DNA initiative represents a significant advancement in AI-driven telecommunications infrastructure, potentially transforming how mobile networks operate and deliver services. Unveiled at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2025, this comprehensive architecture reimagines network foundations with artificial intelligence as the central component, positioning the technology not merely as an add-on but as the genetic building block of future communications systems. The big picture: ZTE has launched AIR DNA, an end-to-end network solution that fundamentally restructures mobile networks around artificial intelligence as their core engine. The solution aims to reconstruct the architectural foundations of telecommunications infrastructure while redefining how intelligent networks will...
read Mar 6, 2025North American Solidarity: USMCA could help secure $3.5 trillion AI market against China
The USMCA presents a strategic opportunity for North America to solidify dominance in the rapidly expanding global AI market, which is projected to reach $3.5 trillion by 2033. With China actively challenging U.S. leadership through aggressive national AI development policies, the trilateral agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada offers a framework for regional collaboration that could secure North America's competitive advantage. This potential for cooperation becomes increasingly vital as AI transforms from an emerging technology into a foundational economic driver across industries. The big picture: The global artificial intelligence market is experiencing explosive growth, with projections showing a...
read Mar 5, 2025Anticipatory AI: Crunchbase transforms into prediction platform with 95% funding forecast accuracy
Artificial intelligence is going Nostradamus on us at a quicker and quicker pace. Crunchbase's transformation into an AI-powered prediction platform marks a significant evolution in how private company data is analyzed and leveraged. With claimed 95% accuracy in forecasting fundraising events, the company is positioning itself at the intersection of artificial intelligence and venture capital intelligence, potentially changing how investors identify promising startups before they become widely known. This shift from historical data provider to predictive market intelligence platform represents a broader trend of AI reconfiguring traditional business information services. The big picture: Crunchbase has relaunched as an AI-powered predictive...
read Mar 5, 2025Contextual AI’s new grounded language model beats Google, OpenAI on factual accuracy
Contextual AI's groundbreaking, er, grounded language model marks a significant shift in enterprise AI development, focusing on factual accuracy over general-purpose functionality. The startup's achievement of an 88% factuality score on the FACTS benchmark surpasses leading competitors like Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI, highlighting a potential solution to the persistent challenge of AI hallucinations that has hindered widespread business adoption. The big picture: Contextual AI's grounded language model (GLM) represents a specialized approach to enterprise AI, prioritizing factual precision over the broad capabilities offered by general-purpose models like ChatGPT. By the numbers: The company's GLM demonstrates superior performance in factual accuracy:...
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