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Tech News
A new survey finds 38% of companies are still piloting AI use cases and 35% use it mainly to assist employee work, while only 12% have AI agents in production and 3% use AI to drive most of a key process. Atlan co-founder Prukalpa Sankar says the gap stems from a missing 'context layer'—infrastructure that translates business systems and data into governed, machine-usable context for AI tools.
Kevin Roose has departed The New York Times and his podcast Hard Fork to co-found a new tech podcast, Machine Gods, alongside Casey Newton. The launch coincides with Roose's new book, The AGI Chronicles, which examines the companies racing to build artificial general intelligence. In a Decoder interview, Roose discussed the transition to independent media and his reporting on AI's biggest players.
A counterfeit edition of Kevin Roose’s new book on AI has appeared on Amazon, mimicking the original and appearing just below it in search results. The fake copy, titled “The AGI Chronicles,” is listed at a lower price and appears to be AI-created, despite lacking reviews and using a slightly altered cover. Roose highlighted the issue on social media, criticizing Amazon for allowing such scams to persist.
A report examines how a number of prominent technology executives describe superintelligent AI as an unavoidable outcome of current research, and suggest that humanity may need to yield ground to more capable machine systems. The framing is presented as a long-standing belief among some industry leaders rather than a new development.
A commentary argues that artificial general intelligence has effectively arrived, describing it as a threshold where machines can reason across domains and act with meaningful autonomy rather than a state of perfection or superintelligence. The author points to a recently released model, called Astra, as an example that has crossed this threshold, while noting that even more capable systems are already in development.
OpenAI published an analysis arguing that as AI systems approach or exceed human-level cognitive performance, policymakers need to prepare economic tools now rather than waiting for disruption to occur, as happened during past technological shifts like the Industrial Revolution. The piece frames AGI as fundamentally different from past automation waves because it could automate intelligence itself rather than just routine tasks, potentially affecting a much broader swath of jobs and industries simultaneously.
Bain Capital Ventures has closed a new $1.6 billion fund, up 14% from its prior $1.4 billion vehicle raised three years ago. The firm plans to deploy the capital mainly into AI-focused startups, targeting infrastructure, healthcare, physical AI, and security as key sectors it believes will define what it calls the 'post-AGI era'.
Anthropic reportedly told select investors that its adjusted operating income will be positive for a second straight quarter, according to the Financial Times. That metric excludes major recurring costs like R&D and compute, so the company still posts a substantial net loss on its actual bottom line.
Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis proposed training a large language model only on scientific knowledge available before 1911 to see if it could independently derive general relativity, calling it a meaningful test for artificial general intelligence. Several research teams, including one led by Ido Kaminer at Technion, have since built such 'vintage' AI models restricted to historical data, but early results have exposed shortcomings in current systems rather than demonstrating breakthrough reasoning.
OpenAI unveiled GPT-6 Astra, its newest flagship model, claiming top-tier performance in browsing the web, operating software, and solving complex math problems. The rollout begins with enterprise users in OpenAI's Daybreak early access program before expanding to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Business subscribers, though availability for free users remains unconfirmed. Cofounder Greg Brockman told reporters he believes the company may have just ushered in the AGI era with this release.