A policy analysis from the perspective of mid-2026 Canada was the first country in the world to launch a national AI strategy. That distinction, announced in 2017 and backed by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), was a genuine act of foresight. Nearly a decade later, the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (PCAIS) stands as both a celebrated…

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Welcome to AI Insider’s The Week Ahead in AI. See the key developments and events we’re watching May 17- 23. Weekend AI News Briefs Pope Approves Creation of Interdicasterial Commission on Artificial Intelligence Pope Leo XIV approved creation of an Interdicasterial Commission on Artificial Intelligence to coordinate the Vatican’s approach to AI policy, ethics and human…

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Insider Brief Researchers at Northwestern University and the National Institutes of Health warned that generative AI is creating new concerns around “plagiarism of ideas,” where AI systems may reproduce underlying concepts or intellectual contributions without proper attribution. In a commentary published in Nature Machine Intelligence, the researchers argued traditional plagiarism policies focused on copied text…

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Aumet, an AI-first procurement operating system for healthcare, has raised $12 million in a Series A led by Emkan Capital, with participation from Qatar Development Bank, SABAH VC, AAIC, and existing investor Shorooq. The funding will accelerate enterprise deployments across the GCC, with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia’s national healthcare infrastructure. Founded by Yahya…

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Insider Brief Stitch, a cloud-native operating system for financial institutions, has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, marking a16z’s first investment in the GCC and bringing total funding to $35 million. The platform gives banks and financial institutions a single unified stack spanning lending, cards, payments, and ledgers that can…

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Apple is preparing a significant overhaul of Siri for its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, with privacy positioned as its primary differentiator in an increasingly crowded AI assistant market, according to reports from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The revamp will include Apple’s first standalone Siri app, powered by Google Gemini, offering a conversational chatbot experience comparable…

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Read Online | Sign Up | Advertise Good morning, {{ first_name | AI enthusiasts }}. Thousands of people on X just confidently explained why an AI-generated image was inferior to a real Monet. Just one problem: It WAS a real Monet. Conceptual artist SHL0MS’ latest experiment says less about AI art and more about the…

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Although visitors to an event like TechEx North America will always want to see the cutting edge front and centre stage, the nuance and detail brought to the show by the speakers and exhibitors mean that it’s sometimes the smaller considerations that need to play big – at least, in the minds of enterprise decision-makers.…

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Amazon has introduced Alexa for Shopping, combining its Rufus shopping chatbot with Alexa+ across its app, website, and Echo Show devices. The assistant can answer product questions, compare items, track prices, and support shopping reminders. It can also handle scheduled shopping actions and eligible automated purchases. The company said Alexa for Shopping combines Rufus’ product…

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Insider Brief A new report from the Mercator Institute for China Studies found China dominates global robot manufacturing but remains heavily dependent on U.S. technology for the AI systems powering many of its humanoid robots. According to the report, China produced roughly 90% of the world’s humanoid robots last year and now controls much of…

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