News/AI Implementation
Walmart’s 98% automated distribution centers use AI to cut food waste
Walmart has deployed AI-powered distribution centers across multiple states to optimize fresh food inventory management and reduce waste that erodes profit margins. The retail giant's automated facilities use machine learning algorithms to predict demand by analyzing external factors like weather patterns and sporting events, moving beyond traditional sales-based forecasting to create more strategic pricing and inventory decisions. What you should know: Walmart's high-tech distribution centers represent a significant shift from traditional inventory management to AI-driven supply chain optimization. Over the past four years, Walmart has constructed automated grocery distribution centers in California, South Carolina, and Texas that use robotics and...
read Sep 17, 2025Workday acquires AI firm Sana for $1.1B to boost HR automation
Workday announced it will acquire AI firm Sana for approximately $1.1 billion, marking another significant consolidation move in the rapidly evolving HR software sector. The deal underscores how established HR platforms are aggressively pursuing AI capabilities to meet growing customer demands for automated workplace solutions, joining a wave of major acquisitions that have reshaped the industry landscape this year. The big picture: HR software companies are consolidating at breakneck speed as they race to integrate AI capabilities into their platforms. Private equity firm Thoma Bravo agreed to buy Workday rival Dayforce for $12.3 billion just last month. Paychex announced a...
read Sep 17, 2025Did she not say she’d always love you? AI invokes Whitney Houston’s voice for new tour
Whitney Houston is embarking on a posthumous concert tour 13 years after her death, powered by artificial intelligence technology that isolates her vocals from original recordings. The tour, called "The Voice of Whitney: A Symphonic Celebration," combines AI-extracted vocal tracks with live symphony orchestras and video footage, marking the 40th anniversary of Houston's career launch. Why this matters: Many of Houston's original multitrack recordings had been lost over the years, making traditional tribute concerts impossible until AI technology advanced enough to separate vocals from fully mixed songs without compromising audio quality. How the AI works: Park Avenue Artists, the production...
read Sep 16, 2025Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em: AI-powered robotic hosiery helps millions with foot drop disability
Two Harvard engineering students and Army veterans have developed Sole1, a robotic sock that uses artificial intelligence to help people with foot drop, a walking disability affecting thousands. The device just won the US James Dyson Award and could offer a more comfortable, less visible alternative to existing bulky braces that have remained largely unchanged since the 1940s. The big picture: Bradley Wagman and Viktor Bokisch are leveraging their military experience and engineering expertise to create assistive technologies for disabled veterans and others facing mobility challenges. Both veterans sustained injuries during their service—Wagman from parachute training and Bokisch from deployment-related...
read Sep 16, 2025Brilliant Labs integrates Liquid AI to boost smart glasses vision processing
Brilliant Labs has partnered with MIT-born Liquid AI to integrate advanced vision-language foundation models into its Halo smart glasses, significantly enhancing the device's ability to interpret visual content. This collaboration aims to improve the glasses' agentic memory capabilities, which create personalized knowledge bases by analyzing users' daily experiences and providing contextual responses to future questions. What you should know: The partnership will integrate Liquid AI's LFM2-VL series models into Brilliant Labs' products, starting with the Halo AI glasses launched in July. Liquid AI's vision-language foundation models can process text and images at various resolutions with "millisecond latency," transforming camera sensor...
read Sep 15, 2025USA Today owner launches AI chatbot to combat traffic losses across 220+ publications
USA Today's parent company Gannett has launched DeeperDive, an AI-powered chatbot that converses with readers and summarizes content from across its 220+ publications. The tool represents a strategic pivot for publishers struggling with AI companies that trained on their content and now compete for the same audience traffic that search engines once delivered. The big picture: Traditional publishers face mounting pressure as AI chatbots like Google's AI Overview feature dramatically reduce website traffic by answering user queries directly instead of directing them to original sources. "We are watching the same movie as everyone else is watching," said Mike Reed, CEO...
read Sep 15, 2025Airbnb CEO says company will hire workers displaced by AI (for at least 5 to 10 years)
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced that his company plans to hire workers displaced by artificial intelligence, positioning the hospitality giant as a potential refuge for those losing jobs to automation. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Chesky outlined Airbnb's evolution into an "everything app" that would expand beyond rentals to include services like private chefs, massages, and photography—areas he believes will remain largely human-driven for the next five to ten years. The big picture: Chesky sees AI displacement as inevitable across industries but argues that hospitality and personalized services will remain insulated from automation due to their...
read Sep 12, 202510 best Granola AI alternatives for meeting productivity in 2025
Meeting productivity has become a critical business challenge as organizations navigate hybrid work environments and an increasing volume of virtual discussions. Traditional note-taking methods often leave participants torn between actively engaging in conversations and capturing important details, leading to missed action items and unclear follow-ups. Granola AI emerged as one solution to this problem, offering an AI-powered meeting assistant that blends user-typed notes with automated transcriptions to create comprehensive meeting summaries. However, the platform's current limitations—including Mac-only availability, speaker recognition issues, and the absence of mobile applications—have prompted many teams to explore alternative solutions. The market for AI-powered meeting assistants...
read Sep 12, 2025Memory-wholed: Why Claude’s Memory feature could expand to free users sooner than expected
Anthropic has introduced Memory functionality for Claude, its AI assistant, marking a significant step toward more personalized AI interactions. This feature, now available exclusively for Team and Enterprise customers, allows Claude to remember user preferences, project details, and conversation context across sessions—similar to capabilities already offered by competitors like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Memory represents a fundamental shift in how AI assistants operate. Rather than treating each conversation as isolated, Memory-enabled AI systems maintain continuity by storing relevant information about users' work patterns, preferences, and ongoing projects. For businesses, this means no longer having to repeatedly establish context about company...
read Sep 12, 2025Pickford AI casts 5 SAG actors including “Last of US” alum for interactive murder mystery series
Pickford AI has cast five SAG-AFTRA voice actors for "Whispers," an interactive murder mystery series that allows viewers to communicate directly with characters during the investigation. The project represents one of the first major productions to use SAG's newly established AI protocols, potentially setting a precedent for how talent is compensated as artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in entertainment. What you should know: The interactive series breaks from traditional storytelling by letting audiences influence a murder mystery investigation in real-time. • Voice actors Stephen Chang ("The Last of Us," "Bosch Legacy"), Tohoru Masamune ("Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Never Have I...
read Sep 11, 2025Nvidia unveils Rubin CPX GPU with 128GB memory for AI inference
Nvidia has unveiled the Rubin CPX GPU, a new compute-focused graphics processor featuring 128GB of GDDR7 memory specifically designed for enterprise AI inference workloads. The announcement positions Nvidia to address the growing demand for long-context AI applications in software development, research, and high-definition video generation, with shipments planned for late 2026. What you should know: The Rubin CPX represents Nvidia's first GPU to reach 128GB memory capacity, delivering up to 30 petaFLOPs of NVFP4 compute performance.• The GPU integrates hardware attention acceleration that Nvidia claims is three times faster than the GB300 NVL72.• Four NVENC and four NVDEC units are...
read Sep 11, 2025New Jersey teachers adopt AI with $1.5M in state funding
New Jersey teachers are increasingly embracing artificial intelligence as a classroom tool, with some educators creating AI-powered teaching assistants and interactive learning experiences for their students. This shift comes as the state has invested $1.5 million in grants to fund AI education programs, signaling a broader acceptance of the technology despite ongoing concerns about academic integrity and student safety. What you should know: Teachers across New Jersey are using AI platforms to create customized learning experiences and streamline classroom management. Erin Cutillo, a technology teacher at Memorial Elementary School in Howell, uses SchoolAI to create chatbots that act as teaching...
read Sep 11, 202547% of retail brands now use AI daily for business operations
Nearly half of retail brands now use artificial intelligence daily or weekly, marking a shift from experimental projects to embedded business operations, according to Amperity's 2025 State of AI in Retail survey. This mainstream adoption reflects retailers' focus on measurable outcomes like revenue growth, customer loyalty, and operational efficiency, with 97 percent planning to maintain or increase their AI investments this year. What you should know: AI integration is becoming seamless across retail operations, from customer data management to personalized marketing campaigns. "We have AI embedded across many parts of the business, which makes it feel seamless rather than experimental,"...
read Sep 11, 2025Seattle unveils responsible AI plan with 40 priority projects
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has unveiled a comprehensive "responsible AI plan" designed to guide the city's artificial intelligence use while positioning Seattle as a leader in the AI economy. The initiative includes frameworks for AI deployment in city operations, employee training programs, and strategic partnerships with local tech companies to tackle urban challenges like permitting delays and traffic safety. What you should know: Seattle is leveraging its position as the second-ranked city for AI talent to create a balanced approach to AI adoption in municipal operations.• The city has identified 40 priority projects where AI could improve government performance and...
read Sep 11, 2025Hotels now need to win over both humans and AI agents, says study
Artificial intelligence agents are reshaping how hotels must approach customer loyalty, moving beyond traditional brand awareness to algorithmic optimization, according to new research from Florida Atlantic University. The study reveals that as AI agents increasingly handle travel bookings on behalf of consumers, hotels face a fundamental shift from winning human hearts to earning the trust of algorithms that filter and recommend options. What you should know: Hotels must now design loyalty strategies that appeal to both human guests and the AI systems making decisions for them. Traditional marketing approaches like emotional branding and search engine optimization are becoming insufficient as...
read Sep 11, 2025Albania appoints AI bot “Diella” as government minister to fight corruption
Albania has appointed an AI bot named Diella as a government minister to handle all public procurement contracts, marking what Prime Minister Edi Rama calls the country's first "virtually created" cabinet member. The move aims to eliminate corruption in government contracting, a persistent problem that has complicated Albania's bid for European Union membership by 2030. What you should know: Diella, which means "sun" in Albanian, will manage and award all public tenders where the government contracts private companies for various projects.• Prime Minister Edi Rama announced the appointment during his fourth term cabinet unveiling on Thursday, describing Diella as "impervious...
read Sep 10, 2025RFK Jr. mandates ChatGPT for all HHS employees amid staff revolt
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has mandated that all Department of Health and Human Services employees begin using ChatGPT, according to an internal email sent Tuesday titled "AI Deployment." The directive comes amid significant backlash against Kennedy's leadership, with over 1,000 current and former HHS employees calling for his resignation in an open letter citing actions that "endanger the nation's health." What you should know: The ChatGPT deployment will be overseen by HHS's new Chief Information Officer Clark Minor, a former employee of Palantir, a data analytics company. Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill sent the email stating that "artificial intelligence is beginning...
read Sep 10, 2025Adobe launches 6 AI agents to automate marketing campaigns
Adobe has unveiled a comprehensive AI agent system designed to transform how marketing and customer experience teams manage campaigns and customer interactions. The Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) Agent Orchestrator, now generally available alongside six specialized AI agents, represents a significant shift toward automated, intelligent marketing operations that could help teams scale their efforts dramatically. The launch addresses a fundamental challenge facing modern marketing teams: managing increasingly complex customer journeys across multiple channels while delivering personalized experiences at scale. Rather than forcing marketers to juggle multiple tools and platforms, Adobe's system uses a central orchestration layer that coordinates specialized AI agents...
read Sep 10, 2025AI’s art of the deal: CarEdge’s negotiator saves buyers $1K+ by handling dealership talks
Zach Shefska, the 30-year-old CEO of CarEdge, claims his company's AI negotiator can save car buyers thousands of dollars by handling dealership negotiations without human involvement. Since launching in July, the AI system has helped over 2,000 paying customers navigate the traditionally stressful car-buying process while keeping their personal information completely private. How it works: CarEdge's AI creates anonymous email addresses and phone numbers to contact dealerships directly on behalf of customers. The system is built on large language models enhanced with CarEdge's proprietary market insights and negotiation training from six years of pricing data across hundreds of thousands of...
read Sep 10, 2025Custody bank BNY joins the 5% of companies seeing real AI ROI with internal tool
BNY, one of the world's largest custody banks, is among just 5% of companies seeing meaningful return on investment from artificial intelligence initiatives, according to the bank's Chief Information Officer. The company has developed an internal AI tool called "Eliza" and is working toward 100% employee adoption of AI technology, positioning itself as a leader in enterprise AI implementation. What you should know: BNY stands out in a crowded field where most companies struggle to demonstrate concrete AI ROI. Only 5% of organizations are currently seeing meaningful returns on their AI investments, according to Leigh-Ann Russell, BNY's Chief Information Officer...
read Sep 9, 2025New tech, old world: Helsing and ARX partner to develop AI-powered defense systems for Europe
Helsing, an AI defense company, and ARX Robotics, a specialist in unmanned ground systems, have announced a strategic partnership to develop AI-based reconnaissance and strike systems for European defence forces. The collaboration aims to digitize and network land domain operations using artificial intelligence, drawing on battle-tested technologies from Ukraine to give European armed forces a technological advantage on the battlefield. What you should know: The partnership focuses on transforming Europe's fragmented and analog land warfare capabilities into a connected, AI-driven network. The companies will jointly develop reconnaissance and strike systems that enable armed forces to "act faster, more precisely, more...
read Sep 9, 2025California tax and fee bureaucracy launches $445K AI assistant to handle calls
California's Department of Tax and Fee Administration has launched an AI-powered virtual assistant to help its call center handle taxpayer inquiries, marking one of three state-funded AI initiatives under Governor Gavin Newsom's broader technology adoption effort. The $445,000 pilot program aims to eliminate the need to reassign workers during peak tax season when call volumes spike by over 50%, while potentially enabling the department to answer over 10,000 additional calls annually. The big picture: California is testing generative AI across government services while navigating labor concerns and public trust issues as the technology becomes more prevalent in public sector operations....
read Sep 9, 2025Ledger leaders: Fintech company Ramp hits $22.5B valuation with AI-powered expense automation
Ramp has raised $22.5 billion in valuation across two funding rounds just two months apart, cementing its position as one of the fastest-growing fintech companies challenging American Express in the corporate credit card market. The six-year-old startup, which crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue in August and serves over 45,000 businesses, is leveraging AI-powered automation to transform how companies manage expenses and spending—positioning itself to capture market share from established financial giants with a 169-year head start. The big picture: Ramp has evolved from a simple corporate credit card company into a comprehensive financial platform that promises to save businesses...
read Sep 9, 2025Park City, Utah hotels turn to AI as tourism revenues drop 21.7%
Summit County's tourism economy is poised to become increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence, as major hospitality and design companies already implement AI to streamline operations and enhance guest experiences. This shift comes as Park City faces declining hotel tax revenues, making operational efficiency through AI potentially crucial for maintaining the region's tourism-dependent economic foundation. What you should know: Marriott International and Gensler, a global architecture firm, have partnered to integrate AI throughout the hotel design and guest experience process.• AI allows designers to pitch, create and showcase ideas without spending time and money building physical mockups, according to Jordan Goldstein,...
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