Author: Advanced AI Editor

(Bloomberg) — The biggest and most closely watched US power auction is set to offer an early glimpse of what the AI boom will cost consumers. Most Read from Bloomberg PJM Interconnection LLC, which operates the largest US grid and is home to the biggest concentration of data centers in the world, is scheduled to release the results of its annual power sale Tuesday. The auction, which determines how much generators will get paid for generating capacity at new and existing power plants, is also an indicator of how high consumer utility bills will be. Last year PJM procured supplies…

Stock markets are shrugging off big macroeconomic risks.Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images Stock markets are at records despite macroeconomic risks. Investors are cautious about President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and global economic issues. Momentum and AI hype drive tech gains, while Fed rate cuts support stock growth. Stock markets are shrugging off major risks and smashing records — so much so that even seasoned investors are scratching their heads. On Friday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 closed little changed after notching record highs on Thursday. Both indexes are hovering near the all-time highs they reached earlier this month, continuing a rebound…

Image Credits:Ben Sanders “My whole life has been preparing me for this moment,” Ben Sanders said when asked about why he launched his emergency response startup Hyper. The company announced Monday a $6.3 million seed round led by Eniac Ventures, as well as an official emergence from stealth. As a child, he so wanted to become a police officer that he had his mother sew yellow stripes on his navy sweatpants. He wore that with an officer’s rain hat for an entire year. As he grew up, he worked at the intersection of tech and government and once ran for…

Image Credits:Betaworks New York City-based Betaworks has closed its $66 million Fund III, which will focus on investing in early-stage AI companies. Betaworks has been investing in AI since at least 2016 and, through its investment program Camp, has backed companies such as Huggingface and Granola. Jordan Crook, a partner at the firm (and former TechCrunch employee), said the new fund will focus on agents, native AI interfaces, and application-layer AI. “Around these themes, we will continue to do straight seed investing and the Betaworks Camps,” Crook said. Fund III will seek to invest in at least 25 pre-seed to…

Mixus co-founders. Left: Shai Magzimof. Right: Elliot Katz. | Image Credits:Mixus AI companies are pushing agents as the next Great Workplace Disruptor, but experts say they’re still not ready for prime time. AI agents often struggle to make decisions by themselves, hallucinate frequently, can’t cooperate with other agents, fail at confidentiality awareness, and integrate poorly with existing systems. Industry pioneers like Andrej Karpathy and Ali Ghodsi have said that, like the deployment of autonomous vehicles, humans need to be in the loop in order for agents to succeed. A startup called Mixus wants to address that with its AI agent…

(Bloomberg) — Artificial intelligence company Reka AI raised a $110 million funding round from investors including Nvidia Corp. and Snowflake Inc. — a deal that more than triples the startup’s valuation to over $1 billion. Most Read from Bloomberg Reka AI makes large language models, the technology underpinning much of the generative AI craze, and says it can do it more efficiently than competitors. The startup was founded in 2022 by researchers from Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. It was previously valued at about $300 million in a 2023 investment round, according to PitchBook data. The investment comes…

Image Credits:Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto / Getty Images Google Photos is getting major AI chops. On Wednesday, Google announced a handful of new features that will allow users to get more creative with their photo memories, including an option to turn photos into videos, and “remix” photos into different styles, like anime, comics, sketches, or 3D animations. The app will also centralize access to its creative tools — including both AI-powered and traditional tools — in a new “Create” tab in the Photos app. The two newly launched features will be housed in this tab, alongside other tools that let you create…

This story was originally published on CX Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily CX Dive newsletter. AI is transforming how consumers expect brands to interact on social media, an Emplifi report released Wednesday found. Emplifi, a social media and customer engagement platform, surveyed nearly 900 frequent social media users. Over half of surveyed consumers still prefer human support, and one-quarter say they prefer AI-powered support. However, when asked about their experiences with AI-powered support, 71% of consumers surveyed said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their experiences. More and more consumers are interacting…

(Bloomberg) — Alphabet Inc. said demand for artificial intelligence products boosted quarterly sales, and now requires an extreme increase in capital spending — heightening pressure on the company to justify the cost of keeping up in the AI race. Most Read from Bloomberg Google’s parent company said 2025 capital expenditures will be $85 billion, or $10 billion greater than an earlier forecast. Although Alphabet beat expectations for second-quarter revenue and profit, its stock initially sank in after-hours trading, then rebounded after Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai explained that the investments are necessary in order to keep up with customer needs.…

(Bloomberg) — SK Hynix Inc. outlined plans to speed up spending on advanced memory production equipment after reporting record earnings, reflecting surging AI demand. Most Read from Bloomberg The South Korean company notched a bigger-than-expected 68% jump in operating income in the June quarter. It now aims to accelerate planned investments after gauging potential demand from initial negotiations with customers seeking high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in 2026, according to executives. Demand for advanced memory is expected to continue to grow with customers launching new products in the second half of the year. The emergence of ChatGPT is prompting nations around the…