E96: 7/18/25
The US' $90B AI infra initiative, ChatGPT Agents, updates to Mistral's "Le Chat", xAI personas controversy, the Windsurf acquisition saga, Meta's Superintelligence Lab poaching continues, and more!
PNW AI News:
The AI2 Incubator has raised a $80M Fund III, according to an SEC filing, a sizeable step up from its $30M Fund II, to invest in the AI startups that the incubator spins out
Amazon launched "Kiro", a new AI software development tool that uses agents to automatically create and update project plans and technical blueprints, trying to put documentation on auto-pilot
UW scientists use AI to crack ‘undruggable’ proteins, as part of the lab led by Nobel laureate David Baker, opening door to new treatments with shapeshifting molecules
Amazon is investing another $100M in its AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, founded in 2023, aiming to help companies go from experimenting with AI to integrating it into core business operations
AWS unveiled Bedrock AgentCore in preview, a new enterprise platform of tools and services for deploying AI agents at scale
Jeff Bezos picks retired Amazon exec Tom Taylor as the new CEO of his $10B Bezos Earth Fund, investing in environmental innovation and AI to combat climate change
Amazon cuts hundreds of AWS cloud jobs after strategic review, but says AI wasn’t the main factor driving the decision, unlike other Amazon.com layoffs
Meta has recruited Matt Deitke, co-founder of Seattle-based AI startup Vercept, to join its newly formed Superintelligence Lab
Key AI Product/Research Updates:
OpenAI launched the new ChatGPT Agent, running on GPT‑4o, pushing the chatbot into autonomous territory with a modular system: Planner, Controller, Executor, Memory, and an Environment Interface
Mistral rolled out major updates to its "Le Chat" platform, including Deep Research, Voice Mode, multilingual reasoning, Projects, and new image editing capabilities
Elon Musk’s xAI just introduced AI companions for SuperGrok subscribers, featuring animated 3D avatars powered by its Grok model that can interact in real-time through voice conversations
Afterwards, xAI issued an apology for the controversy around offensive outputs, over-sexualized characters, etc.
OpenAI’s autonomous coding agent just placed second at the AtCoder World Tour Finals, with Polish (human) coder Psyho named the champion after a 10-hour showdown
Without warning, Anthropic hit Claude Code users have been hit with unexpectedly restrictive usage limits, concentrated among heavy users, many of whom are on the $200-a-month Max plan
OpenAI is reportedly developing ChatGPT agents that can create and edit spreadsheets or presentations directly in chat and bypass the need for suites like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace,
Reflection AI, founded by ex-Google DeepMind researchers, just launched Asimov, an autonomous agent built to deeply understand codebases, business logic, and team knowledge
AI music startup Suno released v4.5+, a new audio generation model with new song creation features including vocal swaps, playlist inspiration, and more
Startup Hume has launched EVI 3, its new speech-to-speech model that goes beyond voice cloning to capture speaking style and language, pushing toward “personality cloning”
Startup Lightricks launched LTX Video, its latest model that lets creators generate and direct long-form clips (up to 60 seconds) while streaming in real time
Key AI Business/Investment Updates:
Donald Trump announced over $92B in AI and energy investments at a Pennsylvania summit, saying America’s destiny is to be the “AI superpower”
Google is investing $25B in data centers and AI infrastructure across the PJM electric grid region, including $3B to modernize Pennsylvania hydropower plants
Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta’s plans to build multiple AI superclusters in Louisiana and Ohio, set to power its new Superintelligence Labs initiatives, up to 5 GW of capacity, costing >$100B over several years
Cognition AI, the creator of “Devin” coding assistant, just acquired rival Windsurf, bringing in all of its remaining employees and assets just days after Google’s $2.4B move to hire key talent and license the startup’s tech
Google hired Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and several researchers in the deal, coming in the wake of the coding startup’s $3B acquisition deal with OpenAI collapsing
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati raised a new $2B Seed for her startup, Thinking Machines Lab AI, also revealing that the secretive company will share its first product in “the next couple of months.”
Pre-product $2B seed round. The AI bubble is here!!
Anthropic is receiving interest from investors for a new funding round at a valuation of over $100B
Lovable founder Anton Osika announced a new $200M funding round that values the Swedish AI app-building startup at $1.8B, led by Accel
The US DoD awarded contracts of up to $200M to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI, aiming to increase AI adoption and tackle national security challenge
SpaceX is reportedly investing $2B in xAI as part of a $5B equity raise, becoming the latest Elon Musk-owned company to intermingle with his AI startup
Scale AI is laying off 14% of its staff in a restructuring, following the departure of CEO Alexandr Wang and other employees, as part of a $14B investment by Meta
PNW AI/ML/CV Fundings:
GeologicAI (Calgary, AB) raised $44M in Series B funding from BNH Ventures, Blue Earth Capital, Breakthrough Energy, and Rio Tinto
Cloud-based platform designed to host, visualize, and analyze geological, production, and other oil and gas data with AI – TFTD $84.8M
CEO: Grant Sanden
Augmodo (Seattle, WA) raised $37.6M in Series A funding from TQ Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and other existing investors
AI spatial computing for managing quality of in-store shelf stocks by leveraging smart badges on the retail workforce – TFTD $42.9M
CEO: Ross Finman
Portola (Beaverton, OR / San Francisco, CA) raised $20M in Series A funding from Khosla Ventures, Elad Gil, NFDG, and more
AI companions designed to help kids feel grounded in their daily life – TFTD $30M
CEO: Quinten Farmer
Quandri (Vancouver, Canada) raised $12M in Series A funding led by Framework Venture Partners, joined by FUSE, Defined Ventures, and Intact Ventures
AI platform building digital workforces to automate repetitive tasks in insurance brokerages – TFTD $22.0M
CEO: Jackson Fregeau
Duranta (Seattle, WA) raised $7M in Seed funding from Base10 Partners and Coalition Operators
AI software platform designed to streamline landscaping operations and quoting – TFTD $7M
CEO: Samuel Adeyemo
Zucca (Seattle, WA) raised $5M in Seed funding from PSL Ventures and Acre Venture Partners
AI platform for creating and launching food and beverage products faster with less spend and time - TFTD $5M
CEO: Karen Huh
Swear (Boise, ID) raised $2.4M in Seed funding from undisclosed investors
Digital media platform intended to use a multi-patented AI blockchain system to map and validate the origin of content – TFTD $2.4M
CEO: Jason Crawforth