Artificial Intelligence

System1 Pushes Adjusted Gross Margin To 85% As MapQuest And Dogpile Become Infrastructure For AI Agents

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 17, 2026

System1 deliberately reduced marketing activity tied to search monetization during Q2 2026, contributing to a steep revenue decline but pushing adjusted gross margin to 85% as the higher-quality Products business became the majority of revenue and gross profit. At the same time, System1 is repositioning MapQuest and Dogpile as infrastructure for AI agents through new Model Context Protocol servers.

Xpander Raises $7.5 Million Seed Funding As Enterprise AI Agent Omni Scores 90.9% On GAIA Benchmark

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 17, 2026

Xpander has raised $7.5 million in seed funding to accelerate adoption of its vendor-neutral enterprise AI platform, while introducing Omni, an AI agent that achieved a 90.9% score on the GAIA benchmark. Pico Venture Partners led the financing, with participation from Emerge Ventures, Samsung Next and SeedIL.

QED Science: Interview With VP Of Product Guy Ronen About Validating Scientific Research With AI

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 17, 2026

QED Science provides an AI validity engine that breaks manuscripts and grant proposals into individual claims, tests each against the published literature, and scores them for originality and validity. The company also publishes The 1%, a blind ranking of the strongest new preprints in life science. Pulse 2.0 interviewed QED Science VP of Product Guy Ronen to learn more.

Cirrus Logic: Multiple 2027 Design Opportunities For AI-PC Smart Codec

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 16, 2026

Cirrus Logic is seeing considerable customer interest in its latest smart codec for AI-enabled PCs and is working with multiple customers on designs planned for calendar 2027, creating a potential new growth vector as the semiconductor company expands beyond its traditional smartphone exposure.

Datavault AI To Acquire CyberCatch For $94.5 Million To Add AI-Powered Cybersecurity To Quantum-Secured Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 16, 2026

Anthropic Reportedly In Talks To Acquire Decart AI For About $6 Billion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 16, 2026

Anthropic is reportedly in talks to acquire Nvidia-backed Decart AI in a potential deal valued at about $6 billion, as the Claude developer looks to expand its computing capabilities and meet growing demand ahead of a potential public listing, according to Bloomberg. The discussions remain at an early stage, and there is no guarantee that a transaction will be completed.

Vals AI Raises $40 Million Series A At $400 Million Valuation As Revenue Grows 8x

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 15, 2026

Vals AI raised a $40 million Series A at a $400 million valuation as the company scales an independent AI evaluation platform that measures how well frontier models perform on real-world professional tasks. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led the round, with participation from existing investors 8VC and Bloomberg Beta and new investors HRT Ventures and Next Ladder Ventures.

Lantern Pharma Says AI Cuts First-In-Human Drug Development Cost To $2 Million-$3 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 15, 2026

Lantern Pharma says its artificial intelligence-driven drug development model has enabled the company to advance new oncology programs from initial AI-derived insights to first-in-human clinical trials for approximately $2 million to $3 million per program, substantially below what management describes as typical industry development costs.

Relatient: Interview With CEO Jeff Gartland About Intelligent Patient Access And AI

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 14, 2026

Relatient provides intelligent patient scheduling and engagement technology designed to help healthcare organizations simplify scheduling, modernize patient experiences, and reduce manual burden across the patient access journey. The company supports over 150 million appointments each year and is expanding its platform across self-scheduling, voice AI, communication, automation, and other access workflows. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Relatient CEO Jeff Gartland to learn more.

Target Names First Chief AI Officer As It Pairs AI With UX To Drive Its Next Growth Chapter

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 14, 2026

Target is strengthening its artificial intelligence and user experience capabilities as part of its next phase of growth, naming Chandhu Nair as the retailer's first Chief AI Officer and moving Purvi Shah into a senior leadership role overseeing UX.

Google And Kaggle’s AI Agent Course Attracts More Than 353,000 Participants

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 14, 2026

Google and Kaggle attracted more than 353,000 registered participants to their five-day AI Agents: Intensive Vibe Coding Course, highlighting the rapidly growing developer interest in using natural language to build AI applications and agents.

Globant: Glob.AI ARR Jumps 61% In One Quarter To $52.8 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 14, 2026

Globant's Glob.AI annual recurring revenue reached $52.8 million in the second quarter of 2026, increasing 61% sequentially as the company accelerates its transition toward AI-driven services and new consumption- and outcome-based pricing models.

Slalom Names Dan Garrison Chief AI Officer To Advance Enterprise AI Strategy

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 13, 2026

Slalom has appointed Dan Garrison as Chief AI Officer as the global business and technology consulting company increases its investment in dedicated AI leadership and expands its efforts to help customers turn artificial intelligence initiatives into measurable business outcomes.

Applied Materials Posts Record $9.12 Billion Revenue While Expanding R&D Capacity In Singapore

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 13, 2026

Applied Materials reported record quarterly revenue of $9.12 billion while expanding its manufacturing and R&D capacity in Singapore with a new $500 million campus as accelerating artificial intelligence infrastructure investment increases demand for advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology.

OpenAI Names Dali Rajic Chief Revenue Officer As Business Customer Base Surpasses 2 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 13, 2026

OpenAI has appointed Dali Rajic as Chief Revenue Officer to lead its global revenue organization as the company expands enterprise adoption of its AI products.

Google Launches Gemini 3.7 Flash With Lower Pricing And Stronger Coding And Agent Capabilities

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 13, 2026

Google has launched Gemini 3.7 Flash, positioning the new AI model as its most capable Flash-series model yet for coding, AI agents, knowledge work, and web development.

SpaceXAI Launches Grok 4.6 With Stronger Agentic Coding And Long-Running Task Capabilities

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 13, 2026

SpaceXAI has launched Grok 4.6, its latest frontier AI model, with a particular focus on long-running agents, coding, knowledge work, and more ambitious interactive and visual projects.