What happened in AI around the world, and what it means for students, creators, professionals and small businesses. Updated twice a day.
Between 14 and 27 October, ten AI companies announced about $2.9 billion in new funding, led by Modal, Bedrock Robotics and Legora; Salesforce and onsemi followed with three AI acquisitions.
Google is launching Guided Learning, Gemini's learning mode, in Google Classroom globally, bringing its capabilities to Google Search, and updating controls for K-12 student accounts.
Chipmaker onsemi will pay $600 million in cash at closing, plus up to $175 million more on revenue milestones, for Ferric, a maker of integrated voltage regulators for AI processors.
Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cresta, whose AI voice agents resolve customer calls end to end; it is Salesforce's second AI acquisition in a week.
Students can add textbooks from OpenStax, Open Textbook Library and S Chand Publishing to Gemini Notebook at no charge, and get answers grounded in the book with inline citations.
The Gemini app can now generate, preview and edit documents, PDFs, presentations, spreadsheets and code right in the conversation, for all users in every language it supports.
Legora, which builds AI software for lawyers, has raised a $550 million Series E led by Atreides Management at an $8.8 billion valuation, up from $5.6 billion in its previous round.
AI cloud company Modal has raised a $750 million Series D led by Accel at a $15.75 billion post-money valuation, after crossing $1 billion in annualized run rate.
The biggest AI funding rounds and acquisitions, from the companies' own announcements.
Cloud service for running AI inference, training and code on GPUs without managing servers.
Compact voltage regulators that deliver power closer to AI processors.
Self-driving systems for excavators and other heavy construction equipment.
AI software for lawyers' research, drafting and review work.
AI simulations of complex operations such as air traffic, power grids and logistics.
AI-driven business planning for finance and operations teams.
