Business

The NY Times reported this week that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world's wealthiest people, is putting both his money and his mouth into an artificial intelligence startup that he will help manage as its co-chief executive. The company, Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with purported funding of $6.2 billion, partly from Mr. Bezos (according to undisclosed sources), making it one of the most well-financed early-stage AI startups in the world.

INSTANT AI UPDATE 44 - MICROSOFT vs MACROHARD - A Real Challenge from xAI or a Muskian Fever Dream?   Elon Musk’s announcement of Macrohard, a fully AI-driven software company under the xAI umbrella, has ignited debate across the tech industry. Is Macrohard a serious threat to Microsoft’s decades-long dominance in enterprise software, or is it another ambitious, headline-grabbing Musk experiment with uncertain prospects?

The evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has emerged as a key technological debate this year. As the line between narrow AI and AGI blurs, it is crucial to clarify definitions, examine the latest breakthroughs, assess expert predictions, and weigh the pros and cons of each paradigm.

The music industry recently crossed a historic threshold: Xania Monet, an AI-generated R&B artist created by poet and songwriter Telisha "Nikki" Jones using the Suno AI platform, charted on multiple Billboard lists. Xania Monet's success is emblematic of a broader shift in the industry. What are the implications of AI Music?

A recent report by Axios highlighted Walmart's partnership with OpenAI to create an "AI-first" shopping experience through ChatGPT, introducing the concept of "agentic commerce." This post defines and explores the benefits and challenges of "agentic commerce."

The debut of Robotec.ai’s agentic AI robot at ROSCon 2025 marks a watershed moment, introducing a new class of autonomous systems capable of dynamic planning, real-time reasoning, and adaptive behavior in complex environments. This post examines the technological underpinnings, operational impact, and strategic significance of this innovation.

In our experience, there are significant knowledge and best practices gaps that torpedo an estimated 80% of SMB AI initiatives. Bain & Company recently published an article with the central premise that AI should not be thought of as a “tool”. We agree with Bain that AI is an opportunity to redesign work and fundamentally rethink operating models, and that management should lead AI implementation from the top.  Here are our INSTANT AI Team’s Top 20 “AI Best Practices For SMB

The changing composition of "Big Tech". Recent shifts in market dynamics, business performance, and technological innovation have prompted analysts and media outlets to propose a new acronym: "MANGO."

SoftBank’s $5.4 billion acquisition of ABB’s entire robotics division marks a watershed moment in the convergence of artificial intelligence and robotics. This move is not merely about adding robots to SoftBank’s portfolio; it is a calculated leap toward building a vertically integrated “Physical AI” powerhouse.

This latest guide teaches how to quickly master the AI-enhanced features of Microsoft 365 Plus Copilot. The guide's nine chapters, along with an introductory prologue, detail each powerful Microsoft 365 and Windows 11 topic and explore the 90+ new or AI-enhanced features within Copilot

AI inbreeding occurs when models are trained on content generated by AI. Instead of learning from human data, they chew on their own outputs.

INSTANT AI UPDATE 31 - DEATH OF SEARCH IMMINENT - The announcement by Google product lead Logan Kilpatrick that  Google.com ’s classic search page, an iconic interface since 1997, will “soon” be replaced by AI Mode marks a watershed moment. As with all things AI, the speed of change is astounding. My thoughts follow:

INSTANT AI UPDATE 30 - WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF ANTHROPIC’S $1.5 BILLION COPYRIGHT SETTLEMENT? Anthropic has agreed to pay at LEAST $1.5B to a coalition of authors and publishers. This settlement, reached after months of negotiation and legal pressure, is the largest of its kind in U.S. copyright history and marks a pivotal moment in the ongoing debate over the use of copyrighted material in AI training. As AI systems, particularly large language models (LLMs), have becom

Recent large-scale surveys indicate a marked increase in workplace anxiety directly attributed to AI adoption. A 2024 Gallup poll found 22% of U.S. workers reported being “very” or “somewhat” worried that technology, including AI, would make their jobs obsolete, up from 15% in 2021.

This week Jonathan Kao and his UCLA-based team published exciting new findings in Nature Machine Intelligences that were also summarized in a companion article in Nature. 

AI’s integration into "failure-averse" sectors where mistakes can have catastrophic consequences marks a recent and critical frontier. Japan’s exploration of AI for nuclear power facility inspections is emblematic of this shift, as nuclear oversight is synonymous with “zero tolerance for error.”

AI is rapidly transforming facets of higher education. Over 70% of university professors have embraced AI for research, leveraging its power for data analysis, literature reviews, and hypothesis generation, but less than 35% have integrated AI into teaching and learning.

Deepfakes are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's likeness using AI algorithms, particularly deep learning techniques such as generative adversarial networks (GANs). Generative AI has ushered in a new era of media manipulation, with deepfake technology at the forefront.

In the past 3 years, we’ve seen the largest tech companies doubling down on AI. Recent articles on AI capital spending illustrate the way this has skewed the 2025 US economy.

In this post, I'm sharing a worry of mine about a potential threat to our constitutional “rule of law”. The rapid advancement of AI and deep learning technologies has ushered in an era where digital forgeries, referred to as "deepfakes", pose a major threat to the integrity of courtroom evidence.