Kevin Weil, who led OpenAI for Science, has raised $215 million led by Lightspeed for Warp Sciences, valuing it at $865 million. The startup is building an automated US lab for a drug development step that pharma companies have long outsourced to Chinese firms such as WuXi AppTec.
A Gartner survey of 2,002 CIOs finds only 13% of companies get real business value from AI, while 51% expect it to raise operating costs. Even so, 75% of CEOs plan to keep increasing technology budgets.
Federal disclosures show all three companies posted their biggest lobbying quarter between July and September. Nvidia spent $2.2 million, Anthropic $2.1 million and OpenAI $1.5 million.
Meta shares fell 6% after AI spending turned its free cash flow negative. The price of its five-year credit default swaps hit record highs, a sign that investors are growing worried about its debt.
Creative director Victoria McClune has followed digital technology from early interactive iPad books to today's AI systems. At Current Futures, her focus on how people engage with technology shapes her critique of how the AI industry sees its users.
IBM argues that enterprise AI agents need governed, up-to-date context drawn from the systems they work across. Its approach ties that data foundation to the broader task of putting AI into production.