Google has unveiled its first smart speaker designed specifically around its Gemini AI, the Google Home Speaker, priced at $99.99 and available for preorder now. It marks the company’s first standalone audio device since the Nest Audio in 2020, and represents a significant leap in conversational capability. Unlike its predecessors, the speaker supports natural-language, multistep…

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Read Online | Sign Up | Advertise Good morning, {{ first_name | AI enthusiasts }}. While Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, and others gather in France to talk AI safety with G7 world leaders, one of them has a very real security fight going on in real time. Anthropic’s battle with the U.S. government…

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Computer vision deployments are driving retail productivity gains as operators automate physical shelf tracking to protect eroding margins. This hardware deployment directly addresses the persistent in-store execution failures currently costing the industry billions. A study authored by Coresight Research – in partnership with technology providers Simbe and RELEX Solutions – calculates the exact cost of…

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HSBC has entered a multi-year partnership with Google Cloud to develop and deploy artificial intelligence tools across its global operations. Announced at Google Cloud Summit London 2026, the agreement covers work in wealth management, financial crime risk management, and internal decision support. HSBC will work with Google Cloud and Google DeepMind engineering teams on AI…

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Microsoft has quietly become the main supplier of OpenAI models in China, selling the technology to the country’s largest internet companies even as OpenAI and Anthropic keep their own models out of the market on intellectual-property and misuse grounds. The arrangement, detailed this week by Bloomberg, hands Microsoft a position no other American AI vendor holds:…

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Insider Brief XDOF has emerged from stealth with $70 million in funding to build infrastructure for robot foundation models, including datasets, robotic systems and software tools designed to support physical AI development. The company said it works with robotics labs and commercial developers on hardware, operations and model training, focusing on the underlying infrastructure needed…

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Insider Brief Maritime Robotics has raised €28 million in growth funding to expand its autonomous maritime systems, including unmanned surface vessels designed for data collection, inspection, monitoring and security missions. The round was led by Mustard Seed + Partners, with participation from existing investors EnvisionTech, Nysnø Climate Investment and Umoe, as well as company founders,…

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The U.S. Department of Justice has intervened in support of xAI in a lawsuit brought by the NAACP over the use of 57 unpermitted natural gas turbines at the company’s Colossus data centers near Memphis. The DOJ argued that shutting down the turbines would undermine American national security, noting that Grok is among four AI…

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Anthropic ended May by overtaking OpenAI in business market share for the first time, according to data from Ramp, with AI subscriptions rising to 41% against OpenAI’s 39.5%. The milestone coincided with a $65 billion raise at a near-trillion-dollar valuation and the confidential filing of IPO paperwork off the back of its first profitable quarter.…

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The question businesses spent three years debating has been settled. Whether to adopt AI is no longer a strategic choice. The conversation has moved on, and what replaced it is harder, more expensive, and far more consequential: how to deploy AI in a way that actually changes the P&L. In 2026, nearly nine in ten…

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