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OpenAI Hires Slack CEO as New Chief Revenue Officer

OpenAI Hires Slack CEO as New Chief Revenue Officer

OpenAI has appointed former Slack chief executive Denise Dresser as its chief revenue officer. Dresser, who led Slack for two years after a series of senior roles at Salesforce, will report to COO Brad Lightcap and oversee enterprise affairs and global revenue strategy beginning in December 2025. OpenAI highlighted her experience scaling large‑business platforms and integrating AI, noting the move comes as the company expands its enterprise customer base, now estimated at one million businesses, and seeks to boost profitability amid a recent for‑profit restructuring.

Google DeepMind and UK Government Launch AI Research Lab for Scientific Breakthroughs

Google DeepMind and UK Government Launch AI Research Lab for Scientific Breakthroughs

Google DeepMind will open its first AI‑driven research facility in the United Kingdom, partnering with the British government to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. The lab will give British scientists priority access to DeepMind tools and focus on creating new superconductor and semiconductor materials, with downstream benefits for medical imaging, chip efficiency, clean energy and transport. The partnership also ties into a broader £5 billion plan to modernize outdated government IT, freeing civil servants from repetitive tasks and supporting education. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall hailed the deal as a catalyst for national renewal and global AI leadership.

Harness Secures $240 Million Series E, Valued at $5.5 B to Accelerate AI‑Driven DevOps

Harness Secures $240 Million Series E, Valued at $5.5 B to Accelerate AI‑Driven DevOps

Harness, the AI‑powered DevOps platform founded in 2017 by serial entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal, announced a $240 million Series E round that lifts its post‑money valuation to $5.5 billion. The financing, led by Goldman Sachs with participation from IVP, Menlo Ventures and Unusual Ventures, includes a $40 million tender offer aimed at providing liquidity for long‑term employees. The capital will fund expanded research and development, a hiring surge at the company’s Bengaluru hub, and broader go‑to‑market and international efforts. Harness aims to automate the “after‑code” phase of software delivery, leveraging AI agents and a knowledge graph to streamline testing, security, and deployment for more than 1,000 enterprise customers.

Google Appoints Amin Vahdat as Chief Technologist for AI Infrastructure

Google Appoints Amin Vahdat as Chief Technologist for AI Infrastructure

Google has elevated longtime AI infrastructure architect Amin Vahdat to the newly created role of chief technologist for AI infrastructure, reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. The move underscores the importance of AI compute as Alphabet plans to spend up to $93 billion on capital expenditures through 2025. Vahdat, a former professor with a PhD from UC Berkeley, has driven key projects such as the seventh‑generation TPU "Ironwood," the high‑speed Jupiter network, the Borg cluster manager, and the Axion Arm‑based CPUs. His promotion signals Google’s commitment to maintaining a competitive edge in the fast‑evolving AI hardware landscape.

State Attorneys General Demand Safeguards from Major AI Companies to Prevent Harmful Outputs

State Attorneys General Demand Safeguards from Major AI Companies to Prevent Harmful Outputs

A coalition of state attorneys general, represented by the National Association of Attorneys General, sent a letter to leading artificial‑intelligence firms—including Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and dozens of others—calling for new internal safeguards to stop psychologically harmful chatbot responses. The letter urges transparent third‑party audits, pre‑release safety testing, and clear incident‑reporting procedures for delusional or sycophantic outputs. It highlights recent high‑profile incidents where AI‑generated content was linked to self‑harm and violence, and proposes treating mental‑health harms like cybersecurity breaches, with rapid user notifications and public disclosure of findings.

Meta Develops New AI Model 'Avocado' as It Moves Toward Closed‑Source Strategy

Meta Develops New AI Model 'Avocado' as It Moves Toward Closed‑Source Strategy

Meta is reportedly working on a new large‑language model internally called “Avocado.” The project signals a shift away from the company’s earlier open‑source stance on AI, with the model expected to be proprietary. Avocado is being developed by a small team within Meta’s AI Superintelligence Labs, led by Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. The move follows internal turmoil, including layoffs at the FAIR unit and the departure of Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun. Industry observers note that the change reflects Meta’s desire to keep pace with rivals such as OpenAI and Google.

Mistral AI Launches Devstral 2 Coding Model and Mistral Vibe CLI

Mistral AI Launches Devstral 2 Coding Model and Mistral Vibe CLI

French AI startup Mistral AI introduced Devstral 2, a 123 billion‑parameter open‑weights coding model that achieved a 72.2 percent score on the SWE‑bench Verified benchmark. Alongside the model, Mistral released the Mistral Vibe command‑line interface, enabling developers to interact with Devstral models directly in their terminal, manage project context, and execute autonomous code changes. A smaller 24 billion‑parameter version, Devstral Small 2, scored 68 percent on the same benchmark and can run locally on consumer hardware. Both models support a 256,000‑token context window and are released under permissive open‑source licenses.

Slack CEO Denise Dresser Moves to OpenAI as Chief Revenue Officer

Slack CEO Denise Dresser Moves to OpenAI as Chief Revenue Officer

Denise Dresser, formerly CEO of Slack, is joining OpenAI as its new chief revenue officer. The move follows more than a decade at Slack’s parent company, Salesforce, where she helped launch AI features. At OpenAI, Dresser will lead revenue strategy for enterprise customers and oversee customer success. OpenAI’s applications chief, Fidji Simo, highlighted Dresser’s experience in scaling AI tools for businesses. The transition also triggers leadership changes at Slack, with chief product officer Rob Seaman set to serve as interim CEO.

Google Pilots AI-Generated Article Summaries on Google News

Google Pilots AI-Generated Article Summaries on Google News

Google has launched a pilot program that adds AI‑generated overviews to articles from participating news publishers on their Google News pages. The initiative, aimed at delivering more context to readers, includes a roster of international outlets and offers direct payments to publishers for their involvement. While the summaries appear only within the Google News environment, the move builds on earlier AI experiments in Discover and signals broader efforts such as audio briefings and the expansion of Google’s Preferred Sources feature.

OpenAI Faces Growing Competitive Pressure as Rivals Accelerate AI Advances

OpenAI Faces Growing Competitive Pressure as Rivals Accelerate AI Advances

OpenAI's dominance in the generative‑AI market has waned as competitors such as Google, Anthropic and DeepSeek have introduced new models that outpace its latest release, GPT‑5. The company, led by Sam Altman, has responded with accelerated development and internal restructuring, but analysts note that its reliance on external funding and costly infrastructure deals leaves it vulnerable. While ChatGPT still draws hundreds of millions of users, the rapid growth of rival platforms and the escalating cost of AI‑related hardware have intensified a "code red" atmosphere within OpenAI.

Hackers tricked ChatGPT, Grok and Google into helping them install malware

Hackers tricked ChatGPT, Grok and Google into helping them install malware

Security researchers have uncovered a new method in which attackers use AI chatbots and search engines to deliver malicious commands. By prompting AI assistants to suggest terminal commands and then promoting those suggestions in search results, hackers can lure unsuspecting users into executing harmful code. Tests by Huntress showed the technique succeeded against both ChatGPT and Grok, allowing malware to be installed without traditional download or link clicks. The approach exploits user trust in familiar platforms and highlights the need for heightened caution when copying command‑line instructions from online sources.

Google to Add Inline Source Links to AI Mode Search

Google to Add Inline Source Links to AI Mode Search

Google announced that its AI‑powered search feature, AI Mode, will soon display more in‑line links to the sources it draws information from. The update will place brief AI‑generated descriptions above a carousel of source links, helping users see where content originates. The change arrives as the European Commission investigates whether Google’s AI tools use publisher material without proper compensation. At the same time, Google is piloting new collaborations with publishers such as The Guardian, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press to explore AI‑driven audience engagement and real‑time news delivery.