Struggling to identify local prospects? Our AI BDR Ava taps into a database of 200M+ local Google businesses and does fully autonomous outreach—so you can focus on closing deals, not chasing leads.

Ava operates within the Artisan platform, which consolidates every tool you need for outbound:

Book a demo and supercharge your sales team

🔍 Perplexity AI is nearing a $500 million investment led by Accel, potentially valuing the company at $14 billion—down from an initial $18 billion target. Despite scaling back their funding goals, the AI search startup's valuation underscores strong investor confidence in alternatives to traditional search engines while reflecting more measured expectations in late-stage AI financing. The investment positions Perplexity as a significant challenger to Google's search dominance and provides substantial resources for expanding its capabilities in the increasingly competitive AI-powered search market.

📄 OpenAI's new PDF export feature for ChatGPT's Deep Research addresses a critical workflow gap for business users by allowing Plus, Team, and Pro subscribers to download properly formatted reports with preserved tables, images, and clickable citations. This update represents a strategic shift from experimental AI toward practical business applications, aligning with OpenAI's recently formed "Applications" division and enterprise-focused strategy. By enabling the seamless integration of AI-generated insights into traditional business communication channels, OpenAI is responding to intensifying competition in the AI assistant market while tackling a key barrier to enterprise adoption.

👓 Apple's FastVLM visual language model represents a significant technical breakthrough for wearable AI, processing high-resolution images with remarkable efficiency—3.2 times faster and 3.6 times smaller than comparable systems. Designed specifically for Apple Silicon and built on the company's MLX framework, the model directly addresses critical AR challenges including battery life, processing power, and response times. This advancement signals substantial progress toward Apple's rumored 2027 smart glasses, emphasizing on-device processing that allows visual data interpretation without constant cloud connectivity—a crucial capability for natural, responsive AR experiences that could help Apple compete with Meta in the mixed reality space.

🔬The Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative (CBAI) is offering a prestigious Summer Research Fellowship in AI Safety, providing up to 15 participants with comprehensive support including an $8,000 stipend, housing, meals, and dedicated workspace near Harvard Square. Selected fellows will receive mentorship from experts at leading institutions including Harvard, MIT, Anthropic, and DeepMind while gaining access to essential research resources and computational tools. Beyond technical support, the program creates valuable networking opportunities through workshops and events, establishing connections that could shape participants' careers in the growing field of AI safety research.

⚛️ Jason Pruet, from Los Alamos National Laboratory, views AI as a transformative force comparable to post-WWII scientific breakthroughs, with profound implications for both discovery and national security. The scientist highlights how AI represents a fundamental shift in scientific methodology while emphasizing that substantial government investment in AI infrastructure is essential for maintaining competitive advantage in what he describes as an "international arms race." Pruet points to the 2017 Google paper on transformer architecture as a pivotal moment that accelerated AI's capabilities beyond human performance in various cognitive domains, while acknowledging the delicate balance required between harnessing AI's transformative potential and addressing its emerging risks.

🛑 SoftBank's $100 billion AI infrastructure partnership with OpenAI, known as the Stargate project, has stalled due to economic uncertainties stemming from Washington's trade policies, despite January's ambitious announcement promising potential expansion to $500 billion. Three months later, the initiative remains purely conceptual, with no financing template developed and no discussions initiated with potential financial partners. This setback highlights how geopolitical tensions can derail even well-funded technology ventures, signaling growing caution among investors toward capital-intensive AI infrastructure projects in an uncertain trade environment, while potentially reshaping the competitive landscape for AI computational resources.