This Applied AI edition looks at what organizations actually did with AI over the past two weeks, drawn from our Use-Case Library and from SEC filings. Three things stand out: AI now finds security flaws at record volume, AI agents do a large share of the work at some companies, and test agents keep doing…

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Insider Brief AiMOGA Robotics plans to open global pre-orders for Mobo, its first consumer home companion humanoid robot, at the 2026 Chery International User Summit in Wuhu, China. Mobo uses AiMOGA’s MoAgent system and combines spatial perception, object recognition, multimodal interaction, obstacle avoidance and memory, with 22 degrees of freedom for movement and gestures. AiMOGA,…

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Insider Brief Promise Robotics has signed a multi-year agreement with D.R. Horton to use its Factory-as-a-Service platform to support production of more than 1,250 homes, marking its first deal with a major U.S. homebuilder. The platform converts existing home designs into a coordinated process spanning AI-generated production plans, robotic manufacturing, factory operations and onsite installation…

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Campaigns and PACs have spent more than $137 million on AI-generated or AI-enhanced midterm ads, and about 70% of them carry no AI label, the New York Times reported. The biggest pro-AI super PAC network paid about $20 million to a Nevada company that exists only as a post office box. A new report found…

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Panos Panay, Amazon’s SVP of Devices, Alexa & Leo, used an appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt to argue that personal AI is heading toward ambient computing rather than app-driven interaction. Speaking alongside the debut of Amazon’s new Bee AI wearables, Panay said today’s smartphones require users to remember and direct every task, whereas ambient devices use…

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Meta has released Muse Spark Open, which it describes as the most capable open-weight AI model in the United States. The model features 816 billion parameters and a 1 million token context window, and Meta said evaluation results published on Thursday show it outperforming other popular open-weight models. Natively multimodal, Muse Spark Open is designed…

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RapidCanvas, an Austin-based managed AI execution company, has secured $29 million in Series B funding led by Vertex Ventures SEA & India, with participation from Hitachi Ventures and existing investors Accel, Peak XV Partners, Valley Capital Partners and Titanium Ventures. The round brings total funding to $52.5 million and follows 8x growth in annual recurring…

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Gudea, a startup using AI to track how stories and rumors spread online, pitched its platform on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, shortly after securing $7 million in seed funding co-led by Mudita Venture Partners and Silicon Road Ventures. The round brings its total funding to about $15 million. Unlike traditional social…

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AI infrastructure company Modal has secured a $750 million Series D at a $15.75 billion post-money valuation, led by Accel, with Kleiner Perkins joining and existing investors including Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, Redpoint, Lux Capital, Amplify Partners and Bain Capital Ventures participating. The company said it recently crossed $1 billion in annualized run rate, with…

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Insider Brief Waymo plans to launch its fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Toronto in 2028, marking its first expansion into Canada, with mapping and manually supervised testing beginning in the coming days. The company is partnering with Element Fleet Management to support fleet operations and expects the expansion to create hundreds of jobs in areas…

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