AI ASSISTANTS

New AI assistant offers smarter, proactive messaging  

AI startup Interaction has launched an AI assistant for messaging that integrates directly into iMessage and SMS and it’s set to be a game-changer.

What makes it so impressive is that it can actually anticipate what you need before you even ask. How? It connects to your email, calendar and files to act on your behalf to draft replies, reschedule meetings, book travel, you name it. 

Poke is a different type of AI assistant. While most operate independently in their own apps and can't access personal information, they are limited to responding in abstract terms, Interaction said in its announcement. To get them to help, you have to copy and paste the information, which means juggling separate apps to use the feature. They also can’t take action across tools. Poke is a proactive assistant that streamlines all that, giving the user a single space, where it acts as a conversation in your messaging app looking for actionable items.

Interaction said beta users, a few thousand, exchanged more than 750,000 messages with Poke, “demonstrating near-perfect retention.” 

Early adopters seem to love it. Here’s a sample of comments from X on Tuesday:

• “The prompt engineering on this product is unreal. Most human sounding chat bot I’ve used so far.”

• “This is too good!”

• “The tone and cadence from @interaction is what @grok wishes it was.”

Because Safety is also a top priority, Poke adheres to recognized industry security standards and certifications.

The launch wasn’t the only news from the California-based startup. It also announced a $15 million seed round that was led by General Catalyst, Village Global and Earlybird VC, along with angel investors that include founders and execs from big players like PayPal, Google, Coinbase, Dropbox and Vercel. 

The age of the AI assistant is definitely here and is expanding almost daily. The constant influx of new assistants continues to provide users with a range of options for both personal and business use. 

The launch of an AI assistant that can jump in and proactively help in the day-to-day is the latest evolution of the integration of AI into messaging tools. While it’s not the first time we’ve seen proactive tools, it is a newer approach to how we interact and get things done, allowing for integration into messaging to help manage tasks from your texts. 

These tools go beyond just responding to a query; they are designed to act on it, assisting as a personal assistant of the past would. 

While these types of assistants aren’t entirely new, Google, Microsoft, Tencent and Salesforce, among others, have each developed their own versions, this latest launch introduces a fresh approach. 

By directly integrating with your personal information, Interaction’s Poke assistant offers a unique and streamlined way to help with both personal and professional productivity, a huge value in today’s hectic world.

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AI MODELS

ASML’s $1.5B Mistral deal accelerates Europe’s AI standing

ASML’s $1.5 billion investment in French startup Mistral AI signals a critical inflection point in Europe’s AI ambitions.

Announced on Tuesday, the investment comes as part of a wider funding round for Mistral worth nearly $2 billion. Additional investors include Nvidia, DST Global, Index Ventures and Lightspeed, to name a few. 

The deal makes the Dutch chipmaker Mistral’s biggest investor to date and grants the company access to ASML’s pipeline of semiconductor-making equipment. 

“Together, we will accelerate technological progress across the global semiconductor and AI value chain,” Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch said in a statement.

Gartner analyst Arun Chandrasekaran said the investment will help Mistral pursue larger-scale model training, infrastructure expansion and accelerated research and development as it looks to strengthen its position as Europe’s main hope in the global AI race.

“With ASML’s CFO on its strategic committee, Mistral aligns more closely with Europe’s industrial priorities, cementing its role as Europe’s pre-eminent AI model startup,” he told The Deep View.  

The news comes as the race for AI independence heats up, with European nations investing in domestic supply chains in a bid to avoid overreliance on major players such as China and the U.S.

Development of semiconductors has also increasingly become a priority, as companies require greater computing power from data centers to support AI’s operation. 

As one of the few manufacturers capable of making chips that can support AI’s growing power demands, ASML has emerged as a key player in this space.

“ASML provides Mistral access to advanced semiconductor know-how and real-world industrial data, enabling AI models optimized for industrial use cases,” Chandrasekaran added. “This partnership accelerates Mistral’s ability to validate and deploy AI at scale in high-value use cases and potentially target use cases in the industrial and embodied AI space, beyond pure digital AI deployments.”

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ROBOTICS

Humanoid robot startup launches embodied AI model, raises $100M

Shenzhen-based startup X Square Robot has raised $100 million for its humanoid robots, in a funding round led by Alibaba. 

State-backed CAS Investment, HongShan (formerly Sequoia China), Meituan and others also participated. 

The funding marks the startup’s eighth round since late 2023 and brings its total financing to around $280 million.

Alongside the funding announcement, the company also launched Wall-OSS, its open-source embodied AI foundation model and Quanta X2, a wheeled humanoid with sensitive hands that can act as a robotic butler in hospitality industries.

X Square positions itself apart from other startups by developing robots to perform a variety of actions, moving away from more limited, task-specific models.

To this end, the company’s Wall-OSS model is designed for general purpose robots, training its systems on a mixture of real-world action data and AI-generated video.

“By creating a direct feedback loop between the model's decisions and the body's lived experience, we enable the emergence of a truly generalizable intelligence—one that understands not just how the world works, but how to act effectively within it,” the company wrote.

The system is already being integrated into its Quanta robots, which are expected to roll out across hotels, schools and retirement homes in the future.

The news comes as companies ramp up funding for AI-powered robots, with Bloomberg reporting Alibaba alone has earmarked $53 billion for AI infrastructure over the next three years, with humanoid robots a cornerstone of that strategy. 

Beijing, too, has identified humanoid robotics as a sector of national interest.

LINKS

• AI quietly raises travel costs, how to fight back 

• Publishers fear AI summaries are impacting online traffic

• How to regulate artificial intelligence

• Pennsylvania universities partner with Google for AI training

• Meta sued by former employee over WhatsApp security flaws

• Microsoft Inks $19.4 billion AI cloud deal with Nebius

• Fairfield University to lead AI ethics education project 

• Tech workers getting older as average age climbs 5 years

• Federal judge blasts Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright settlement

• LLMs are the users now as tech companies shift focus

• Lion costs AI company half a million dollars

• Priest warns AI companions pose isolation, psychosis risks

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GAMES

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