Wednesday, 18 March 2026
Welcome to today's roundup of the most interesting developments in AI and technology.
Top Stories
Patreon CEO calls AI companies' fair use argument 'bogus,' says creators should be paid
Patreon CEO Jack Conte says AI companies should pay creators for training data, arguing their fair use defense falls apart when they license content from major publishers.
Read moreThis startup wants to make enterprise software look more like a prompt
The company has raised $12 million in seed funding to build an AI operating system for enterprise.
Read moreSequen snags $16M to bring TikTok-style personalization tech to any consumer company
With its Series A, Sequen is bringing its proprietary AI ranking and personalization technology to large consumer business.
Read moreMicrosoft hires the team of Sequoia-backed AI collaboration platform, Cove
AI collaboration startup Cove is shutting down after its team joined Microsoft, with service ending April 1 and customer data set for deletion.
Read moreFor effective AI, insurance needs to get its data house in order
A report from Autorek, a provider of AI solutions to the insurance industry has produced a report that describes operational drag in companies’ internal processes that not only affect overall efficiency but cause an impediment to the effective implementation of AI in insurance concerns. Insura
Read moreDOD says Anthropic’s ‘red lines’ make it an ‘unacceptable risk to national security’
The Defense Department said concerns that Anthropic might "attempt to disable its technology" during "warfighting operations" validate its decision to label the AI firm a supply-chain risk.
Read moreWhy Garry Tan's Claude Code setup has gotten so much love, and hate
Thousands of people are trying Garry Tan's Claude Code setup, which was shared on GitHub. And everyone has an opinion: even Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini.
Read moreThe Pentagon is developing alternatives to Anthropic, report says
After their dramatic falling-out, it doesn't seem as though Anthropic and the Pentagon are getting back together.
Read moreIndustry
BuzzFeed debuts AI slop apps in bid for new revenue
BuzzFeed unveiled new AI-powered social apps at SXSW, but its demos drew muted reactions.
Read moreAI's 'boys' club' could widen the wealth gap for women, says Rana el Kaliouby
AI investor Rana el Kaliouby warns that if women are shut out of AI funding and leadership, the consequences will be grim.
Read moreNiv-AI exits stealth to wring more power performance out of GPUs
The company raised $12 million in seed funding to measure and manage GPU power surges.
Read moreTrustpilot partners with AI companies as traditional search declines
Trustpilot is reported to be pursuing partnerships with large eCommerce companies as AI-driven shopping gains traction. In an interview with Bloomberg News [paywall], chief executive Adrian Blair said that AI agents acting on behalf of consumers require lots of information about the businesses they&
Read moreGoldman Sachs sees AI investment shift to data centres
Artificial intelligence investment is entering a more selective phase as companies and investors look beyond early excitement and focus on the data centre infrastructure required to run AI systems. Recent analysis from Goldman Sachs suggests the market is moving toward what the firm describes as a &
Read moreResearch & Products
Rebel Audio is a new AI podcasting tool aimed at first-time creators
Rebel Audio is a new all-in-one podcasting tool that allows creators to record podcasts, edit, clip content for social, and publish episodes, all without ever leaving the platform.
Read moreThe Gemini-powered features in Google Workspace that are worth using
From summarizing emails, drafting content, organizing data, and tracking meetings, here are all the best Gemini features in Google Workspace.
Read moreThe leaderboard “you can't game,” funded by the companies it ranks
Artificial intelligence models are multiplying fast, and competition is stiff. With so many players crowding the space, which one will be the best — and who decides that? Arena, formerly LM Arena, has emerged as the de facto public leaderboard for frontier LLMs, influencing funding, launches, and PR
Read moreMastercard keeps tabs on fraud with new foundation model
Mastercard has developed a large tabular model (an LTM as opposed to an LLM) that’s trained on transaction data rather than text or images to help it address security and authenticity issues in digital payments. The company has trained a foundation model on billions of card transactions, with
Read moreThe PhD students who became the judges of the AI industry
Artificial intelligence models are multiplying fast, and competition is stiff. With so many players crowding the space, which one will be the best — and who decides that? Arena, formerly LM Arena, has emerged as the de facto public leaderboard for frontier LLMs, influencing funding, launches, and PR
Read moreMistral bets on ‘build-your-own AI’ as it takes on OpenAI, Anthropic in the enterprise
Mistral Forge lets enterprises train custom AI models from scratch on their own data, challenging rivals that rely on fine-tuning and retrieval-based approaches.
Read moreGoogle's Personal Intelligence feature is expanding to all US users
Personal Intelligence allows Google's AI assistant to tap into your Google ecosystem, such as Gmail and Google Photos, to provide more tailored responses.
Read moreWorld launches tool to verify humans behind AI shopping agents
As AI agents take the reins for online shoppers, Sam Altman's unconventional startup is looking to expand its verification offerings to support agentic commerce.
Read moreGamma adds AI image-generation tools in bid to take on Canva and Adobe
The company's new product, called Gamma Imagine, will let users employ text prompts to create brand-specific assets like interactive charts and visualizations, marketing collateral, social graphics, and infographics.
Read morePicsart now allows creators to 'hire' AI assistants through agent marketplace
Picsart's AI agent marketplace will launch with four agents, then add more agents each week.
Read moreNTT DATA and NVIDIA bring enterprise AI factories to production scale
NTT DATA has announced an initiative to deliver NVIDIA-powered platforms designed to give organisations a repeatable, production-ready model for scaling AI. The offering integrates NVIDIA’s GPU-accelerated computing and high-performance networking with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, including
Read moreOpenAI's Frontier puts AI agents in a fight SaaS can't afford to lose
When OpenAI launched Frontier in February, the announcement was described as a platform for enterprise AI agents. What it actually signalled was a challenge to the revenue architecture underpinning the software industry. Frontier is designed to act as a semantic layer in an organisation’s exis
Read morePolicy & Ethics
OpenAI expands government footprint with AWS deal, report says
OpenAI has reportedly signed a partnership with AWS to sell its AI systems to the U.S. government for classified and unclassified work, marking an expansion beyond its Pentagon deal last month.
Read moreUS Treasury publishes AI risk Guidebook for financial institutions
The US Treasury has published several documents designed for the US financial services sector that suggest a structured approach to managing AI risks in operations and policy (see subheading ‘Resources and Downloads’ towards the bottom of the link). The CRI Financial Services AI Risk Man
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