Industry
Funding, launches, M&A, and upstarts changing the competitive map.
Custom GPT Patient Simulators, Skill-Based Assessments, and a New Era of Student Engagement
How custom GPTs, real-world simulations, and hands-on projects are transforming business education
A field guide for learning, teaching, and building with AI.
How Dr. Joaquín Fernández Sande is empowering doctors to build and use AI tools for safer, more humane medicine
At a rural public university, Dr. Robert Voss uses AI to empower undergraduates, faculty, and educators with advanced research and planning capabilities—no big budgets required.
Ann McCrackin on bringing realism, feedback, and AI-powered roleplay to the law school classroom
How Quantic’s analytics lead uses AI to surface hidden student needs, deepen learning, and transform the educator’s role.
How an adversarial AI collaborator is transforming student learning in the subject growth, motor development and ageing
Christiane Reves on building an AI speaking partner for German learners that expands practice while keeping human connection central.
Brett Adcock's Hark secures $700M at a $6B valuation to ship multimodal models this summer and follow with hardware for a universal AI interface.
Anthropic is reportedly raising another $30 billion at a $900 billion valuation, surpassing OpenAI for the first time amid annualized revenue approaching $45 billion.
Anthropic commits $200M in grants, Claude credits, and support to develop AI tools for global health, vaccine research, farming, and education in low-income countries. The four-year pact aims to make AI accessible for public good.
AI-powered insurance platform Outmarket AI secured $17M from SignalFire, Fika Ventures, and others to scale operations. Backed by insurance networks, aims to revolutionize underwriting and claims.
Seyma Bozkurt Uzan on making algorithms memorable with ChatGPT, visual tools, and student creativity
The company is closing in on a massive funding round that would value it at nearly $900 billion, underscoring investor confidence in its frontier models and enterprise traction.
98 startups have reached unicorn status so far in 2026, with AI firms dominating the list including Ineffable Intelligence ($5.1B), humans& ($4.5B), and Ricursive Intelligence ($4B).
xAI has seen significant staff departures following its merger with SpaceX, raising questions about internal stability at the AI startup amid rapid expansion.
Origin Lab secured $8M seed led by Lightspeed Ventures to build a marketplace linking game studios' assets to AI labs training world models on physical interactions. Video games provide rich synthetic data for robotics and simulation training. Backers include SV Angel and ex-Twitch CTO Kevin Lin.
Anduril, a defense tech company specializing in AI-backed weapons, raised $5 billion valuing it at $61 billion, double its prior valuation. Led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, the funding supports autonomous drones, submarines, and major U.S. Army contracts amid accelerating military AI adoption.
Vapi, whose platform handles voice AI for enterprise including 100% of Amazon Ring's inbound calls, raised $50M in Series B funding led by Peak XV Partners, reaching a $500M valuation and total funding of $72M. The company has processed over 1 billion calls and seen 10x enterprise ARR growth.
Ex-Intel/AMD execs at Agrani Labs are seeking $100M to build Nvidia CUDA-compatible AI inference chips, challenging dominance in the space.
AI app-builder Lovable invested in Atech, a startup bringing intuitive 'vibe coding' to hardware development.
Khosla backs Synthetic, founded by ex-Bench CEO Ian Crosby, focusing on AI-powered data tools despite past startup failure.
InsurTech Outmarket AI raised $17M led by Permanent Capital Ventures to build AI platform integrating with agency systems for policy analysis and sales automation.
Cybersecurity startup Frame emerged from stealth with $50M to develop defenses against AI-powered impersonation attacks on identity systems, addressing rising deepfake risks.
Defense tech firm Anduril secured $5B in funding at implied massive valuation to advance AI-driven autonomy and surveillance systems. The round underscores surging investor interest in AI for national security amid global tensions. Company plans aggressive expansion in drones and software-defined warfare.
Global AI venture funding hit $255.5B in Q1 2026, blowing past all of 2025, driven by mega-rounds from OpenAI ($122B), Anthropic ($30B), and xAI ($20B).
Martha Stewart cofounded Hint, an AI platform that proactively monitors homes using public data and user docs to predict and prevent repairs.
Martha Stewart cofounded Hint, raising $10M seed led by Slow Ventures; the AI app monitors homes via public data and docs to predict maintenance, insurance, and repairs proactively. It scales via AI without human labor, launching on iOS/desktop this summer. Investors include Montauk Capital and Tusk Venture Partners.
Agentic security startup Exaforce secured $125M in Series B funding led by HarbourVest, bringing total to $200M, to expand its real-time AI security operations amid rising AI-powered threats.
Anthropic is negotiating to buy Stainless for $300M+, a platform used by OpenAI and Google for API integrations.
Real estate data firm Clear Capital bought AI-powered property analytics company Restb.ai to enhance valuation and risk assessment tools.
Amid valuation hype, Anthropic cautioned against unauthorized secondary markets offering its shares, citing risks to investors.
Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz's AI-focused VC firm A* raised $450M for its third fund, targeting early-stage AI startups amid booming investments.
Exaforce secured $125 million to build AI agents for autonomous threat response amid rising AI-driven attacks. The funding supports expansion as security shifts from human triage to AI-led operations.
Cybersecurity startup Exaforce secured $125M at a $725M valuation to build AI that detects and stops attacks in real-time. Backed by Khosla Ventures and others, it targets the growing threats in AI infrastructure.
Paris-based startup White Circle secured $11M seed funding from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral leaders to build real-time AI controls against jailbreaks and hallucinations. The platform has processed over 1B API requests for fintech and legal clients. Their KillBench research exposes biases in high-stakes AI decisions.
Crypto analytics firm Elliptic raised $120 million backed by Nasdaq and Deutsche Bank to expand AI-driven monitoring and risk tools.
Augustus launches as the world's first AI-native clearing bank, leveraging advanced models for real-time fraud detection and operations.
Hint, Martha Stewart-backed AI for personalized lifestyle advice, secures $10M from Slow Ventures. Aims to blend AI with human expertise for home, cooking, and wellness recommendations.
Forbes unveiled its annual AI 50 list, spotlighting the most promising artificial intelligence companies driving innovation.
SPAN is piloting a plan to deploy small AI inference nodes in 100 homes this year, aiming to decentralize compute and scale rapidly in 2027 amid booming demand.
Crunchbase highlights growing AI investments in Europe, with startups like Recursive and Ineffable raising big rounds amid ecosystem maturation.
Process intelligence leader Celonis buys AI decision platform Ikigai to enhance AI solutions for businesses.
CB Insights lists top AI startups emphasizing agentic AI and fintech applications, signaling maturation in specialized verticals.
Mira Murati's new venture releases preview of interaction-native AI with 200ms latency, multimodal fusion, and no VAD for fluid human-AI collaboration.
OpenAI Deployment Company promises early access to unreleased models but sparks debates on conflicts and reliability.
Riding AI stock surge, Robinhood confidentially files for growth-stage startup fund.
Startup Thinking Machines raises funds for breakthrough multimodal AI that processes audio in real-time without turn-taking interruptions.
Brazil's state bank BNDES has funded nearly 50% of national AI investments, totaling over $1B in support for local startups and projects.
Armature helps companies monitor, analyze, and optimize how AI agents experience their products.