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Mira Murati's $12B startup sets launch clock
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Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has kept her new startup quiet since launching in February — but that didn’t stop investors from betting a fresh $2B on whatever she's building.
With Thinking Machine Labs now valued at $12B and promising multimodal AI with a “major open-source component” in the coming months, the countdown to their first product has become one of the AI world's most anticipated reveals.
Member note: The Rundown has secured 500 private invitations for Perplexity Comet. Unique codes are available now for full members of The Rundown University.
In today’s AI rundown:
Thinking Machine Labs raises $2B, nears product launch
Runway’s Act-Two for AI motion capture
Automate personalized sales outreach at scale
AI researchers unite on reasoning transparency
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
THINKING MACHINES LAB
💰 Thinking Machine Labs raises $2B, nears product launch
Image source: Getty Images
The Rundown: Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati just announced a new $2B seed raise for her startup, Thinking Machines Lab AI, also revealing that the secretive company will share its first product in “the next couple of months.”
The details:
The $2B seed round brings the company’s value to $12B, less than a year after its creation, with no product and little public information on direction.
Murati said the startup’s first product will feature “a major open-source component” for researchers and startups building custom models.
She also revealed the lab is building multimodal AI that collaborates with users in natural interactions via conversation and sight.
The Information recently reported that TML is planning to develop custom AI models to help businesses increase profits.
Why it matters: With fierce competition among the current AI leaders, it’s easy to forget the two former OpenAI heavyweights in TML and SSI are still in stealth mode. Despite little info or product, Murati has had no shortage of investor (and acquisition) interest — making the startup’s first release a big one to watch in the coming months.
TOGETHER WITH PREZI
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RUNWAY
🎬 Runway’s Act-Two for AI motion capture
Image source: Runway
The Rundown: Runway just launched Act-Two, the company’s next-gen motion capture model that translates single performance videos into fully animated characters with head, face, body, and hand tracking across artistic styles and outputs.
The details:
The system captures subtle facial expressions, upper body movements, hands, and backgrounds from a single driving performance video.
Requiring just a single character reference photo, Act-Two animates and maps the driving video while maintaining backgrounds and art styles.
Runway claims the model delivers major performance gains over October 2024’s Act-One release, particularly in consistency, fidelity, and movement.
The company has inked partnerships with Hollywood players like Lionsgate and AMC Networks, pushing to further infuse AI into filmmaking workflows.
Why it matters: While AI adoption in Hollywood is publicly frowned upon, it’s privately being adopted en masse — and few companies are pushing that shift harder than Runway. With creative models continuing to evolve at a wild pace, AI’s use in the industry is coming, whether fans and actors want it or not.
AI TRAINING
📧 Automate personalized sales outreach at scale
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Zapier AI agent that automatically researches companies from your spreadsheet and drafts personalized sales emails, saving hours of manual outreach.
Step-by-step:
Create a new Zapier agent and set the trigger to “On demand”
Write detailed instructions: research company → populate contact info → draft personalized email → generate subject and body
Connect the Google Sheets tool and select your leads spreadsheet with company, name, and email columns
Add Gmail integration with “Create Draft” option (not send) for review control
Test with a small batch, review generated drafts, then scale to the full lead list.
Pro tip: Always use “Create Draft” instead of “Send Email” so you can review and refine each message before it goes out.
PRESENTED BY IBM
🤖 Agentic AI for APIs
The Rundown: IBM’s API Agent brings agentic AI to API Connect, transforming prompts into production-ready APIs.
With API Agent, you can:
Let AI handle design, validation, and deployment to Code Engine automatically
Manage standards and cut manual steps for fast API delivery
Harness agentic AI to turn your API ideas into secured, production-ready reality
AI RESEARCH
🧠 AI researchers unite on reasoning transparency
Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown
The Rundown: Leading researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic, and other major institutions published a paper calling for deeper investigation into monitoring the "chains of thought" in AI reasoning models, arguing it could be a vital safety tool.
The details:
The paper highlights “chain-of-thought” (CoT) traces, the model’s step-by-step problem-solving paths, as a rare window into model decision-making.
The researchers call for a deeper study of tracking these reasoning processes, warning that transparency could erode as models evolve or training shifts.
Notable signatories include OpenAI's Mark Chen, SSI's Ilya Sutskever, Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, and DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg.
Researchers propose developing standardized evaluations for "monitorability" and incorporating these scores into deployment decisions for frontier models.
Why it matters: This rare moment of industry consensus highlights a critical inflection point where we can still see AI's decision-making process — and the concern that competitive pressures may eventually lead to that window being closed if AI labs don’t act to preserve it.
QUICK HITS
🛠️ Trending AI Tools
🤗 AI Companions - xAI’s new Grok-powered interactive avatars
🗣️ Voxtral - Mistral’s first open-source voice model for speech understanding
📓 NotebookLM - New featured notebooks for expert advice on specific topics
📚 Claude Directory - A new directory of tools that connect to Claude
💼 AI Job Opportunities
🗂️ Deepmind - Administrative Business Partner
💡 Cresta - Demo Engineer
🤝 Databricks - Associate Account Executive
🏗️ Glean - Solutions Architect
📰 Everything else in AI today
Mistral unveiled Voxtral, a low-cost, open-source speech understanding model family that combines transcription with native Q&A capabilities.
Google revealed that its AI security agent, Big Sleep, discovered a critical security flaw that allowed Google to stop the vulnerability before it was exploited.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced over $92B in AI and energy investments at a Pennsylvania summit, saying America’s destiny is to be the “AI superpower.”
Google is investing $25B in data centers and AI infrastructure across the PJM electric grid region, including $3B to modernize Pennsylvania hydropower plants.
Anthropic launched Claude for Financial Services, a solution that integrates Claude with market data and enterprise platforms for financial institutions.
Nvidia plans to resume sales of its H20 AI chip to China after CEO Jensen Huang received assurances from U.S. leadership, with AMD also resuming sales in the region.
COMMUNITY
🎥 Join our next live workshop
Join our next workshop this Friday, July 18th, at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you'll be able to use Perplexity Comet (and other alternatives) to automate your browsing experience.
RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team
Meta’s AI data empire rises
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Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared plans to pour “hundreds of billions” into sprawling AI data centers that will rival Manhattan’s footprint and guzzle more power than some countries.
Is this the way forward to AI superintelligence, or just a very expensive way to fry the grid?
In today’s tech rundown:
Meta to build massive AI superclusters
Pentagon gives $200M contracts to OpenAI, xAI
Musk’s SpaceX may invest $2B in xAI
BYD’s electric cars can now park themselves
Quick hits on other major tech news
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
META
🔥 Meta to build massive AI superclusters
Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown
The Rundown: Mark Zuckerberg just announced that Meta will spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” building massive multi-gigawatt AI data centers, as part of his vision to create foundational superintelligent systems.
The details:
Prometheus, the inaugural 1GW center, is slated to come online in 2026 in Ohio, while Hyperion, a Louisiana colossus, will scale toward five gigawatts.
The upcoming data centers will demand massive power inputs, with Hyperion expected to sprawl to the size of Manhattan.
Zuckerberg’s mission is to catch up to OpenAI and Google, seizing the pole position in artificial general intelligence.
To fuel this moonshot, Meta has been poaching the world’s top AI talent with astronomical pay packages and unprecedented signing bonuses.
Why it matters: In full founder mode, Zuckerberg has been fast-tracking construction with prefab modules and reportedly even pitching tents to house AI clusters temporarily. Of course, each supercluster is a gleaming monument to energy consumption, sparking real fears about environmental costs on an epic scale.
OPENAI/XAI
🪖 Pentagon gives $200M contracts to OpenAI, xAI
Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown
The Rundown: The Pentagon announced that it is going full throttle on AI defense tech, handing out contracts worth up to $200M each to a quartet of AI powerhouses: Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI.
The details:
The Department of Defense (DoD) said that the contracts are geared to fast-track advanced AI adoption throughout the U.S. defense operations.
The mission: deploy next-gen AI — from agentic systems to LLMs — across battlefield ops, intel analysis, logistics, and enterprise command.
Last month, OpenAI scored its $200M Pentagon contract, months after teaming up with defense tech startup Anduril to push AI for national security.
Elon Musk’s xAI also just unveiled Grok for Government, a new suite making its AI models directly available to U.S. federal agencies.
Why it matters: The Pentagon is betting on private-sector speed and scale, moving away from purely defensive postures and putting advanced AI front and center in the American defense arsenal. Yet, as it taps into the best the tech industry has to offer, the line between military and consumer tech is getting awfully blurry.
SPACEX/XAI
🚀 Musk’s SpaceX may invest $2B in xAI
Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown
The Rundown: Elon Musk is orchestrating a bold cross-pollination of his business empires as SpaceX reportedly gears up to invest a staggering $2B in his AI startup, xAI — one of the largest inter-company deals in Musk’s massive portfolio.
The details:
The injection will form nearly half of xAI’s $5B equity raise announced in June, with an additional $5B in debt financing led by Morgan Stanley.
It marks SpaceX’s first direct stake in xAI and a pivotal move to embed advanced AI into the core of its rocket and satellite operations.
Starlink, SpaceX’s global satellite internet arm, reportedly already uses xAI’s Grok chatbot for customer service, with more partnerships on the horizon.
Why it matters: This potential deal intensifies Musk’s strategy of blurring the boundaries between his companies to outpace rivals like OpenAI and Google. Earlier this year, xAI merged with X, giving the combined outfit a hefty $113B valuation and access to both real-time data streams and vast social graph intelligence.
BYD
⚡️ BYD’s electric cars can now park themselves
Image source: BYD
The Rundown: BYD is rolling out its Level 4 (L4) autonomous parking system, and — in a major industry first — the Chinese EV juggernaut is taking full legal and financial responsibility for anything that goes wrong in the process.
The details:
BYD’s new “God’s Eye” system enables full hands-free, driver-free autonomous parking, meeting Level 4 autonomy standards under specific conditions.
The automaker has pledged full responsibility for any damage, injury, or property loss caused while its ADAS system is in control during parking.
The L4 parking feature is being deployed via over-the-air updates to more than 1M vehicles in China, including budget models priced under $10K.
God’s Eye uses a dense sensor suite, including cameras, radars, and lidars, designed to navigate complex parking environments independently.
Why it matters: Tesla offers Level 2 autonomy, while Mercedes-Benz’s Level 4 system is limited to a single airport parking lot in Germany. BYD, on the other hand, is way ahead of the competition with massive rollouts of its new L4 tech, over-the-air updates to even entry-level models, and full responsibility if something goes amiss.
QUICK HITS
📰 Everything else in tech today
AI startup Cognition is acquiring Windsurf just days after Google snapped up the startup’s top executives and researchers in a $2.4B deal.
AI cloud computing startup Coreweave said it will spend up to $6B on a new AI data center in Pennsylvania, a week after acquiring crypto miner Core Scientific for $9B.
Meta is escalating its crackdown on “unoriginal” content by targeting accounts that repeatedly recycle others’ text, photos, and videos.
Tesla debuted in India, nine years in the making, with a new showroom in Mumbai featuring $70K Model Y electric vehicles.
MIT engineers created an under-the-skin implantable device that could save diabetes patients from dangerously low blood sugar.
Meta acquired Play AI, a startup specializing in AI-generated human-like voices, bringing the full team to its new superintelligence division.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey launched Sun Day, a new open-source iOS app that lets users manually track their UV exposure and estimated vitamin D intake.
Stanford University researchers found that AI therapy chatbots powered by LLMs can introduce biases and failures with potentially dangerous consequences.
Space tech startup Firefly Aerospace filed for an IPO this year, publicly sharing its financials but leaving the IPO share count and price undisclosed.
Caltech scientists developed a wireless capsule that, when swallowed, can monitor the workings of your gastrointestinal tract and identify health conditions.
COMMUNITY
🎥 Watch our last workshop
Check out our last live workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to install and use Gemini CLI to boost your productivity right from the command line.
Watch it here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team
Grok goes wild with AI companions
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Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Just days after apologizing for offensive outputs, xAI is back with a new Grok feature — AI companions.
The AI-powered avatars can hold voice conversations and develop relationships with users (with unlockable NSFW content 😳), a bold release given both recent model issues and concerns surrounding the AI companionship space.
In today’s AI rundown:
xAI launches Grok AI companions
Zuck reveals Meta’s AI supercluster plan
Automate your career growth with Tasks
Cognition snags Windsurf after Google talent grab
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
XAI
🗣️ xAI launches Grok AI companions
Image source: @DogeDesigner on X
The Rundown: Elon Musk’s xAI just introduced AI companions for SuperGrok subscribers, featuring animated 3D avatars powered by its Grok model that can interact in real-time through voice conversations.
The details:
Grok users can chat with fully animated avatars like Ani (a flirty anime character) and Bad Rudi (a red panda), with more options coming soon.
Users can unlock additional features, like NSFW options, by reaching higher relationship levels, adding gamification elements to the chatbot experience.
The feature launches just days after Grok faced backlash for offensive outputs, with xAI apologizing and publishing a post-mortem on what caused the issue.
The release comes amid surging use of AI avatars on platforms like Character AI, though research shows risks of children using them for companionship.
Why it matters: Grok's AI companions arrive as the industry grapples with mounting safety concerns around emotional AI relationships, particularly after recent lawsuits against Character AI. Pushing avatars capable of explicit conversation feels a bit risky given Grok’s issues last week, but certainly aligns with Elon Musk’s unfiltered vision.
TOGETHER WITH VANTA
📶 Level-up your security with confidence
The Rundown: As you scale your business, security needs to be more than a checkbox — it should be the foundation for customer trust and long-term growth. Vanta’s Trust Maturity Report helps you benchmark your security program against your peers so you can level up your security with confidence.
Read the report to learn:
Where your security ranks versus companies of similar size and industry
How automating frameworks can accelerate SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more
How Vanta strengthens security posture while your team stays focused on growth
META
🏗️ Zuck reveals Meta’s AI supercluster plan
Image source: Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck on Threads)
The Rundown: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg just announced the company’s plans to build multiple AI superclusters in Louisiana and Ohio, set to power its new Superintelligence Labs initiatives.
The details:
Meta will launch its first 1GW supercluster called “Prometheus” in 2026, while “Hyperion” will scale from 2 to 5GW over several years.
The Hyperion facility in Louisiana will cover an area comparable to the size of Manhattan, making it one of the largest AI infrastructure projects globally.
Zuckerberg also said Meta is investing “hundreds of billions” into compute, aiming for the highest compute-per-researcher ratio in the industry.
Meta is also reportedly discussing switching its AI strategy, with the new team wanting to pivot from the open-source playbook to developing closed models.
Why it matters: Zuck certainly isn’t playing around when it comes to spending, with Meta going all out on both talent and infrastructure. The potential pivot to closed models would also be a huge reversal, signaling that the new Superintelligence team may head in a completely different direction than its Llama predecessor.
AI TRAINING
💼 How to automate your career growth with Tasks
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use ChatGPT's scheduled tasks feature to automate both job searching and skill development, sending you job opportunities and practice questions daily.
Step-by-step:
Head over to ChatGPT and select (preferably) a reasoning model like o3
Start your prompt with “Schedule a task” and specify details like “Search for remote software engineer positions, Python/JavaScript, $80k+, daily at 6 AM” and ***“*Generate 3 beginner Python questions with solutions, daily at 8 PM”
Regularly optimize your searches at ChatGPT Tasks by adjusting criteria and timing
Pro tip: Stagger your delivery times — morning for job opportunities when you're motivated to apply, evening for practice questions when you can focus on learning.
PRESENTED BY IBM
🤖 Agentic AI for APIs
The Rundown: IBM’s API Agent brings agentic AI to API Connect, transforming prompts into production-ready APIs.
With API Agent, you can:
Let AI handle design, validation, and deployment to Code Engine automatically
Manage standards and cut manual steps for fast API delivery
Harness agentic AI to turn your API ideas into secured, production-ready reality
COGNITION & WINDSURF
🤝 Cognition snags Windsurf after Google talent grab
Image source: Cognition AI
The Rundown: Cognition AI, the creator of “Devin” coding assistant, just acquired rival Windsurf, bringing in all of its remaining employees and assets just days after Google’s $2.4B move to hire key talent and license the startup’s tech.
The details:
The deal includes Windsurf's intellectual property, brand, $82M in annual revenue, and access to over $100M in remaining capital.
All Windsurf employees receive accelerated equity vesting and financial participation, with those lacking equity getting shares based on tenure.
Cognition plans to integrate Windsurf's agentic IDE with its Devin coding assistant, enabling parallel task delegation and seamless collaboration.
The deal follows a turbulent period for Windsurf, which nearly sold to OpenAI for $3B before talks collapsed due to Microsoft-related complications.
Why it matters: What a whirlwind of a week for the remaining Windsurf employees, who went from an OpenAI acquisition, being seemingly left behind in a Google deal, to now joining forces with one of the startup’s top rivals. While Cognition faced initial anger from the team, this move now feels like a great outcome given the circumstances.
QUICK HITS
🛠️ Trending AI Tools
🤖 Kimi K2 - Moonshot AI’s 1T parameter open model for agentic intelligence
⚡️ Phi-4-mini-flash-reasoning - Microsoft’s open AI for on-device reasoning
⚙️ Kiro - AWS’ new agentic IDE for coding tasks
📖 Gemini Embedding - GA with SOTA performance and 100+ languages
📰 Everything else in AI today
AWS Imagine Conference is coming to Chicago, July 29-30 – Accelerate innovation in the public sector with cloud and AI. SLED leaders, learn more and register for free.*
SpaceX is reportedly investing $2B in xAI as part of a $5B equity raise, becoming the latest Elon Musk-owned company to intermingle with his AI startup.
Apple is reportedly facing investor pressure to pursue AI talent hiring and acquisitions, with rumored targets including Perplexity and Mistral.
Google launched featured notebooks in NotebookLM, partnering with The Economist, The Atlantic, and expert authors to offer curated collections on a variety of topics.
AWS launched Kiro, a new AI IDE that combines agentic coding with spec-driven development to bridge the gap between AI prototypes and production-ready apps.
The U.S. DoD awarded contracts of up to $200M to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI, aiming to increase AI adoption and tackle national security challenges.
*Sponsored Listing
COMMUNITY
🎥 Watch our last live workshop
Check out our last live workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to install and use Gemini CLI to boost your productivity right from the command line.
Watch it here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team
Biohacked flying robo-bees
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Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Chinese scientists have just hacked the hive mind, turning real bees into remote-controlled cyborgs with microchips lighter than a nectar drop.
These brain-hacked bugs can be steered mid-flight, blurring the line between nature and machine in a leap for bio-robotics. But are we ready for a future where the natural world becomes programmable?
In today’s robotics rundown:
China’s remote-controlled robo-bees
Hugging Face bot set to ‘disrupt’ robotics
Diligent hires two Cruise execs to scale humanoids
RealSense splits from Intel with $50M raise
Quick hits on other major robotics news
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
BEIJING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
🐝 China’s remote-controlled cyborg bees
Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown
The Rundown: Beijing Institute of Technology researchers just engineered a breakthrough in bio-robotics: cyborg bees controlled by the world’s lightest insect brain controller, weighing just 74 milligrams.
The details:
This ultra-miniaturized device is strapped to a bee’s back and interfaces directly with its brain via three ultra-fine needles.
By delivering targeted electronic pulses, the controller can command the bee to turn, advance, or retreat mid-flight.
In controlled experiments, bees obeyed these commands with a 90% success rate, showcasing a new level of precision in animal-machine integration.
The controller’s circuits are printed on polymer film as thin and flexible as insect wings, allowing for seamless integration with minimal impact on flight.
Why it matters: Tethered for now by power cables, these cyborg bees are just one battery breakthrough away from going fully untethered, poised for missions in disaster zones and covert ops, and stirring a hornet’s nest of ethical debate about the future of bio-robotics.
TOGETHER WITH SANA
💡 The easiest way to bring AI to your company
The Rundown: Sana Agents is your all-in-one AI workspace, combining agents, knowledge, and tools in one easy interface. Automate real work, generate finished outputs from any data, and keep your teams moving fast.
Use Sana Agents to:
Plan, create, and collaborate with agents and teammates — all in one place
Create finished presentations, dashboards, documents, and even custom apps, ready to export to wherever you work
Connect to over 100 platforms, including Salesforce, SharePoint, and Google Drive
Run multi-step workflows and handle complex tasks using your live business context
HUGGING FACE
🔥 Hugging Face bot set to ‘disrupt’ robotics
Image source: Hugging Face
The Rundown: Hugging Face’s Reachy Mini bots just hit the scene, racking up $500K in sales within their first 24 hours. This open-source desktop robot is Hugging Face’s boldest play yet to bring robotics onto every desk, no deep pockets required.
The details:
These open-source, Raspberry Pi 5-powered robots come as DIY kits, inviting developers to assemble their own desktop companion.
The $299 Lite version requires a wired connection to a computer, while the $449 Wireless model operates independently with Wi-Fi and a battery.
Reachy is designed for users to tap into Hugging Face’s 1.7M AI models and 400K datasets for everything from vision to speech and control.
Hugging Face’s open-source approach, including freely available hardware designs and simulation SDKs, is fostering a new community-driven ecosystem.
Why it matters: Reachy Mini’s charm lies in its hacker-friendly heart: a Python-programmable playground and a direct challenge to the overpriced, closed-box robotics world. The result? Developers, educators, and even curious kids can now bring AI to life in the real world, one googly-eyed bot at a time.
DILIGENT
⚡️Diligent hires two Cruise execs to scale humanoids
Image source: Diligent Robotics
The Rundown: Austin-based robotics startup Diligent just hired two former execs from Cruise, GM’s now-defunct self-driving subsidiary, to help scale its fleet of humanoids for hospitals and pharmacies.
The details:
Diligent has recruited Cruise heavyweights — Rashed Haq as CTO and Todd Brugger as COO — as the startup moves from pilots to real-world adoption.
The company’s robots are designed to automate routine tasks in clinical healthcare settings, such as medicine delivery, supply transport, and logistics.
Its flagship robot, Moxi, has been deployed in more than 25 healthcare networks, with Diligent raising $90M in venture funding.
As demand for automation soars and hospitals scramble to fill staffing gaps, Diligent says it is adding firepower to its leadership team to meet the moment.
Why it matters: Diligent’s latest hires bring serious scale-up cred, having helped grow Cruise’s robotaxi fleet past 5M driverless miles. Now they’re steering Diligent’s next phase: deploying thousands of hospital robots by 2030. It’s an ambitious push into one of the toughest arenas for safety, precision, and compliance.
REALSENSE
🌪️ RealSense splits from Intel with $50M raise
Image source: RealSense
The Rundown: Intel is spinning off RealSense, its AI robotics and biometrics unit, with a fresh $50M in funding — freeing the sensor innovator to focus on powering the next wave of autonomous machines.
The details:
Known for its advanced 3D depth cameras and perception modules, RealSense is now free to chase innovation at startup speed, after 14 years under Intel.
RealSense cameras are used by robotics companies, drone makers, AR/VR developers, and industrial automation teams, including Diligent and SICK AG.
The startup also plans to launch entirely new product lines to push the envelope in spatial sensing, edge AI, and biometric authentication.
The spinout opens doors for new collaborations with robotics startups, OEMs, and AI software providers.
Why it matters: Cut loose from corporate constraints, RealSense is set to fast-track advances in machine vision — fueling everything from agile warehouse robots to cutting-edge biometric security. As automation’s next chapter unfolds, the race to create smarter, more autonomous machines is officially on.
QUICK HITS
📰 Everything else in robotics today
Pollen Robotics, a Hugging Face subsidiary, released Amazing Hand, a 3D-printable robotic hand with four fingers and eight degrees of freedom.
Figure’s founder Brett Adcock predicts that “soon” there will be as many humanoids as humans, with humanoids being “the ultimate deployment vector for AGI.”
Humanoid artist Ai-Da unveiled a new portrait of King Charles last week, adding that it has no plans to “replace” human artists.
Pharm Robotics’ automated robotic bovine “health center” called Sureshot now delivers vaccines and other drugs to dairy cows based on individualized need.
Stanford University students built an AI-powered robot dog named Pupper from scratch, with students training neural networks to boost its capabilities.
An official Chinese military newspaper reportedly published a warning that using humanoids on the battlefield could lead to “indiscriminate killings.”
McKinsey's latest report cites that the market for general-purpose robots could reach $370B by 2040.
MIT researchers developed a new PhysicsGen system to enable robots to discover the most efficient movements for any given task.
Tencent-backed Agibot Robotics is set to acquire a controlling stake in wind blade giant Swancor for 2B yuan ($279M).
DHL announced it is investing $748M to expand its infrastructure, including plans to deploy 1K additional robots in the U.K. and Ireland.
Chinese robotics startup Dobot released a six-legged robot dog, Hexplorer, which can pull forces five times its body weight.
Kraken Robotics, a Canadian subsea tech company, raised over $115M by selling 43.2M shares in its latest public offering.
COMMUNITY
🎥 Watch our last workshop
Check out our last live workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to install and use Gemini CLI to boost your productivity right from the command line.
Watch it here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team
Google swoops on failed OpenAI deal
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Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The AI coding startup that almost sold to OpenAI for $3B just landed at Google instead, and the fallout reveals just how messy the OpenAI-Microsoft relationship has become.
With the initial Windsurf agreement collapsing over Microsoft's refusal to grant IP exceptions, Google seized a big opportunity to snag talent — and hand OpenAI another setback in what has become an increasingly frustrating summer.
In today’s AI rundown:
Google swoops in as OpenAI, Windsurf deal collapses
Moonshot AI’s K2 takes open-source crown
Auto-switch between models for different tasks in n8n
AI coding tools slow down experienced devs
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI, GOOGLE, & WINDSURF
🏄♂️ Google swoops in as OpenAI, Windsurf deal collapses
Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown
The Rundown: Google is hiring Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and several researchers in a $2.4B licensing deal, coming in the wake of the coding startup’s $3B acquisition deal with OpenAI collapsing over complications in its partnership with Microsoft.
The details:
Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen will join Google to work on agentic coding for Gemini, with Windsurf remaining independent under an interim CEO.
The OpenAI agreement reportedly fell through over Windsurf’s concerns around Microsoft’s access to its tech through existing partnership agreements.
The $3B deal had an exclusivity deadline that expired after Microsoft refused to give OAI an exception that would allow Windsurf to avoid sharing its IP.
The new agreement includes multi-year comp packages and a non-exclusive tech license, allowing Windsurf to continue serving enterprise customers.
Why it matters: The Windsurf deal was set to be one of OpenAI’s biggest acquisitions to date — now, it marks yet another headache in what has been a rocky summer for the AI giant. The fallout stemming from Microsoft complications also adds fresh strain to an already frigid relationship between the former AI power couple.
TOGETHER WITH SANA
💡 The easiest way to bring AI to your company
The Rundown: Sana Agents is your all-in-one AI workspace, combining agents, knowledge, and tools in one easy interface. Automate real work, generate finished outputs from any data, and keep your teams moving fast.
Use Sana Agents to:
Plan, create, and collaborate with agents and teammates — all in one place
Create finished presentations, dashboards, documents, and even custom apps, ready to export to wherever you work
Connect to over 100 platforms, including Salesforce, SharePoint, and Google Drive
Run multi-step workflows and handle complex tasks using your live business context
MOONSHOT AI
🚀 Moonshot AI’s K2 takes open-source crown
Image source: Moonshot AI
The Rundown: Chinese startup Moonshot AI released Kimi-K2, a massive 1T parameter open-weights model that matches or beats frontier-level models across a range of benchmarks, with particular strength in coding and agentic tasks.
The details:
K2 surpasses models like GPT-4.1 and Claude 4 Opus on coding benchmarks, also scoring new highs on math and STEM tests among non-reasoning systems.
The model excels at agentic workflows, with examples showcasing complex multi-step tasks like analyzing data and booking travel with extensive tool use.
Moonshot created a new tool called MuonClip that enabled stable training with zero crashes, potentially solving a major cost bottleneck in development.
K2 doesn’t have multimodal or reasoning capabilities yet, with Moonshot saying they plan to add those functionalities to Kimi in the future.
Why it matters: Moonshot’s release doesn’t have the fanfare of the “DeepSeek moment” that shook the AI world, but it might be worthy of one. K2’s benchmarks are extremely impressive for any model, let alone an open-weight one — and with its training advances, adding reasoning could eventually take Kimi to another level.
AI TRAINING
🤖 Auto-switch between models for different tasks in n8n
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use n8n’s new model selector node to set up intelligent AI model routing that automatically selects the best model for each task at hand.
Step-by-step:
Create a new n8n workflow with “Chat Message” trigger and connect an “AI Agent”
Choose "Model Selector" instead of a single model and configure two options (e.g., ChatGPT o3 and Gemini 2.0 Flash)
Set routing rules so Model 1 triggers when the message contains the keyword “code,” for example, and Model 2 as the default for everything else
Test with different messages: “Write a poem” routes to Gemini, “Python code example” routes to ChatGPT
Pro tip: Create specialized routing for different use cases, such as coding to ChatGPT, creative writing to Claude, research to Gemini, and simple questions to faster models for cost optimization.
PRESENTED BY SALESFORCE
🤝 The AI community turning ideas into action
The Rundown: Meet the Agentblazers — Salesforce’s community of builders putting AI to work in the real world. From simplifying back-office ops to unlocking new insights with enterprise data, these are the people making AI practical, accessible, and impactful.
In this conversation with Agentblazer Melissa Hill Dees, you’ll learn:
How Agentblazers apply AI to solve real problems
Why Salesforce’s Trailhead and Data Cloud platforms provide a unique edge
What’s driving enterprise AI adoption across sectors
METR
⚙️ AI coding tools slow down experienced devs
Image source: METR
The Rundown: AI research institute METR just published new research findings that experienced developers take longer to complete real coding tasks when using AI assistants, despite reporting feeling more productive.
The details:
Researchers tracked 16 veteran open-source developers completing 246 actual tasks on massive codebases averaging 22k+ stars and 1M+ lines of code.
The devs expected AI tools like Cursor Pro to save them 24% of their time, but testing showed they took 19% longer when AI assistance was allowed.
Time analysis showed devs spending less time actively coding and more time prompting, reviewing generated code, and waiting for responses from AI tools.
After completing the work, developers still believed AI had made them 20% faster despite the results, showing a disconnect between perception and reality.
Why it matters: These results are a bit surprising given the growing percentage of code being written by AI at major companies. But the time factor might be the wrong parameter to measure — teams should look at not whether AI makes developers faster, but whether it makes coding feel easier, even when it may take a bit longer.
QUICK HITS
🛠️ Trending AI Tools
🔬BioEmu - Microsoft’s open AI for predicting protein states and energies
⚙️ Devstral - Mistral's SOTA open model family for agentic coding
🗣️ Speech in Flow - Bring images to life with speech in Google Flow
💬 Qwen Chat - Alibaba’s powerful AI models, now available via desktop app
💼 AI Job Opportunities
⚖️ Palantir Technologies - Legal Counsel
🔐 Descript - Infrastructure Security Engineer
📞 Parloa - Business Development Representative
🧑💻 Runway - Technical Customer Success Manager
📰 Everything else in AI today
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that the company is pushing back the release of its open-weight model to allow for additional safety testing.
Tesla is incorporating xAI’s Grok assistant into its vehicles, with newly purchased cars coming with a built-in integration and support via software updates for older models.
xAI released a post detailing the technical issues that led to Grok-3’s offensive posts last week, linking them to the mistaken incorporation of “deprecated instructions.”
Meta acquired voice AI startup PlayAI, with the entire team reportedly joining the company next week and reporting to former Sesame AI ML Lead Johan Schalkwyk.
Microsoft released Phi-4-mini-flash-reasoning, a 4B open model designed to run efficient advanced reasoning capabilities for on-device use cases.
X users uncovered that Grok 4 consults Elon Musk’s posts during its thinking process, with xAI pushing a system update to stop basing its answers on its creator’s remarks.
COMMUNITY
🎥 Watch our last live workshop
Check out our last live workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to install and use Gemini CLI to boost your productivity right from the command line.
Watch it here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team
Startup to make drugs in space
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Good morning, tech enthusiasts. California startup Varda Space just landed $187M to make drugs in orbit, betting that microgravity will spark pharmaceutical breakthroughs Earth can’t match.
With space labs and reentry capsules, they’re pushing biotech beyond the stratosphere. Is this the dawn of space-age pharma — or just science fiction with funding?
In today’s tech rundown:
Varda snags $187M to make drugs in space
YouTube cracks down on AI videos
Samsung to roll out triple-folding phone
Math AI startup lands $100M
Quick hits on other major tech news
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
VARDA SPACE
💊 Varda snags $187M to make drugs in space
Image source: Varda Space
The Rundown: Varda Space, a California-based startup, just nabbed $187M in Series C funding to pioneer pharmaceutical manufacturing in microgravity — enabling the creation of drugs impossible to produce under Earth’s gravitational constraints.
The details:
Varda aims to launch automated space factories in low Earth orbit to manufacture pharmaceuticals, then return them to Earth in reentry capsules.
In space, the absence of gravity allows for purer crystal formation and novel chemical reactions, which can lead to more innovative drug compounds.
Varda will use its new funding to build a 10K-square-foot California lab, where scientists will identify the best compounds for space-based crystallization.
Varda has successfully completed three space missions since 2023 and expects to launch four more this year.
Why it matters: Varda, alongside rivals like SpacePharma and Redwire, is turning space into biotech’s next battleground, where microgravity could unlock breakthrough drugs, accelerate development, and spark a new wave of industry-defining IP. And, with the backing of Peter Thiel and Khosla Ventures, its promise carries serious weight.
TOGETHER WITH GUIDDE
🎥 Create instant video guides with AI
Image source: Guidde
The Rundown: Stop wasting time on repetitive explanations. Guidde’s AI helps you create stunning video guides in seconds, 11x faster.
Use Guidde to:
Auto-generate step-by-step video guides with visuals, voiceovers, and a CTA
Turn boring docs into visual masterpieces
Save hours with AI-powered automation
Share or embed your guide anywhere
YOUTUBE
🗑️ YouTube cracks down on AI videos
Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown
The Rundown: As generative algorithms churn out endless streams of low-effort, mass-produced videos, YouTube is about to overhaul its monetization policies to combat the glut of inauthentic content.
The details:
YouTube will tighten monetization rules on July 15, defining authentic content and cracking down on mass-produced or repetitive uploads.
The crackdown targets not just fully AI-generated videos, but also channels that rely on uploading minor variations or mashups of the same video.
To enforce the new rules, YouTube is likely to use a combination of automated detection systems and human review to identify and flag suspect content.
While the full policy text hasn’t been published yet, YouTube says that creators have always been expected to produce “original” and “authentic” content.
Why it matters: YouTube is cracking down on the flood of low-effort, AI-generated videos that threaten to erode the platform’s value. The rise of algorithmic content farms has made formulaic, machine-stitched videos the norm, and YouTube is moving to protect its ecosystem before creativity gets drowned out by digital noise.
SAMSUNG
📱 Samsung to roll out triple-folding phone
Image source: Samsung
The Rundown: Samsung’s long-rumored triple-screen foldable, dubbed the Galaxy G Fold, is no longer just a fever dream of Android fans. Samsung’s mobile chief just confirmed that it’s on track for a late-2025 debut.
The details:
The device will feature a G-shaped inward-folding architecture that cocoons its expansive 10-inch OLED display between two robust hinges.
Leaks indicate a titanium-aluminum frame, a Snapdragon 8 Elite-class chipset, and a triple-camera array headlined by a 200MP sensor.
The foldable will go into production in September and launch as a limited release in China and Korea to gauge consumer demand.
Samsung just launched three new foldable smartphones at its Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event, including the $900 Galaxy Z Flip FE.
Why it matters: Samsung is betting big — and cautiously — on the $3K Galaxy G Fold, launching it as a controlled experiment to see if consumers are ready for a radical phone-tablet hybrid. If the gamble pays off, Samsung won’t just lead the foldable race, it will redefine mobile multitasking and set a new standard for device innovation.
HARMONIC
🧮 Math AI startup lands $100M
Image source: TechCrunch/Wikimedia Commons
The Rundown: Harmonic AI, the Palo Alto-based startup co-founded by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, just landed $100M in funding at a $875M valuation to tackle a problem that has often stumped AI models: Math.
The details:
The startup builds AI systems capable of rigorous mathematical reasoning, addressing a major weakness in current large language models.
Bloomberg reports that Tenev said he intentionally stayed just below the $1B “unicorn” threshold, stating, “You never want to take the highest offer.”
The company’s lead product, Aristotle, is designed to produce verifiable, step-by-step mathematical proofs, aiming to set a new benchmark for reliability.
The startup’s mission is to build Mathematical Superintelligence, the next-gen of AI rooted in math.
Why it matters: CEO Tudor Achim, formerly of Helm AI, is now steering the company’s AI into blockchain security, aerospace, and finance, where mistakes can have severe consequences. The startup also aspires to achieve math problem-solving at a level beyond human capability, unlocking breakthroughs in physics and engineering.
QUICK HITS
📰 Everything else in tech today
U.K.-based fintech darling Revolut is seeking a $65B valuation, a year after raising at $45B, making it one of Europe’s most valuable tech companies.
AI startup Perplexity just launched its own web browser, Comet, initially available to users who subscribe to its $200-per-month Perplexity Max plan.
French AI startup Mistral is reportedly in talks to raise as much as $1B, with Abu Dhabi fund MGX cited as an investor.
Tesla applied to test and operate its robotaxis in Phoenix, Arizona, following its pilot test in Austin — and matching the footsteps of its rival Waymo.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced that she is leaving the social media platform after just two years.
Elon Musk’s xAI released its latest flagship AI model, Grok 4, alongside a $300-per-month AI subscription plan dubbed SuperGrok Heavy.
Microsoft exec Judson Althoff reportedly said in a meeting that AI helped Microsoft save more than $500M last year.
Amazon launched a 10-minute delivery service in New Delhi to compete directly with quick commerce rivals Blinkit, Flipkart, Zepto, BigBasket, and Instamart.
SpaceX is reportedly selling $1B in shares, which would boost its valuation to $400B, according to Bloomberg.
Dubai is opening a new restaurant operated by an AI chef, dubbed Chef Aiman, whose menu will be assembled by human staff.
Sun Valley is hosting the ultra-exclusive Allen & Company conference, where tech, media, and finance moguls gather for the so-called “billionaires’ summer camp.”
COMMUNITY
🎥 Join our next live workshop
Join our next workshop today at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to install and use Gemini CLI to boost your productivity right from the command line.
RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team
Meta researcher exposes 'culture of fear'
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Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Meta's AI division just got called out from the inside — and the diagnosis is terminal.
A departing scientist compared the culture to "metastatic cancer" in a scathing internal essay, detailing deep cultural issues that no amount of hiring or superintelligence divisions may be able to overcome.
Reminder: Our next workshop is today at 4:00 PM EST — join and learn to confidently install and use the Gemini CLI to boost productivity from the command line. RSVP here.
In today’s AI rundown:
Ex-Meta researcher calls out ‘culture of fear’
Google’s powerful new open medical AI models
Get up-to-date API information for AI coding tools
Study: Why do some AI models fake alignment
4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
META
🤖 Ex-Meta researcher calls out ‘culture of fear’
Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown
The Rundown: A departing Meta AI scientist posted a long internal essay comparing the company's culture to "metastatic cancer,” according to The Information — describing the AI unit as plagued by fear, confusion, and a lack of direction.
The details:
Tijmen Blankevoort, who worked on the LLaMA models, said that most Meta AI employees feel unmotivated with little clarity about the division’s mission.
He blamed the “culture of fear” on frequent performance reviews and layoffs, which he said undermine creativity and morale across the 2,000-person AI unit.
Blankevoort said Meta leadership reached out to him “very positively” following the post, expressing eagerness to address the issues he raised.
The essay comes as Meta launches its Superintelligence unit, hiring top AI talent from OAI, Apple, and other rivals with massive compensation offers.
Why it matters: During Meta’s poaching spree, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta’s tactics would create “deep cultural problems” — but this essay shows they might have already been simmering even without the new hires. However, a new division with fresh leadership might be the drastic move needed to address the issues.
TOGETHER WITH GUIDDE
🎥 Create instant video guides with AI
The Rundown: Stop wasting time on repetitive explanations. Guidde’s AI helps you create stunning video guides in seconds, 11x faster.
Use Guidde to:
Auto-generate step-by-step video guides with visuals, voiceovers, and a CTA
Turn boring docs into visual masterpieces
Save hours with AI-powered automation
Share or embed your guide anywhere
GOOGLE DEEPMIND
🏥 Google’s powerful new open medical AI models
Image source: Google
The Rundown: Google launched new updates to MedGemma, releasing two models to its suite of open medical AI tools, including a 27B multimodal model for interpreting medical images and patient records and a MedSigLIP tool for image and text analysis.
The details:
MedGemma can analyze everything from chest X-rays to skin conditions, with the smaller version able to run on consumer devices like computers or phones.
The model achieves SOTA accuracy, with 4B achieving 64.4% and 27B reaching 87.7% on the MedQA benchmark, beating similarly sized models.
In testing, MedGemma’s X-ray reports were accurate enough for actual patient care 81% of the time, matching the quality of human radiologists.
The open models are highly customizable, with one hospital adapting them for traditional Chinese medical texts, and another using them for urgent X-rays.
Why it matters: AI is about to enable world-class medical care that fits on a phone or computer. With the open, accessible MedGemma family, the barrier for healthcare innovation worldwide is being lowered — helping both underserved patients and smaller clinics/hospitals access sophisticated tools like never before.
AI TRAINING
🔧 Get up-to-date API information for AI coding tools
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Context7 MCP Server to eliminate AI hallucinations by delivering real-time API documentation and code examples directly to your coding tools like Windsurf and Cursor.
Step-by-step:
Visit the Context7 GitHub repository and copy the configuration code for your AI tool
Open your AI coding tool's configuration settings to Add MCP Server
Paste the Context7 config into your mcp_config.json file and save
Start prompting with “use context7 for up-to-date API info” to get current documentation from 25,000+ libraries
Pro tip: Always mention “use context7” at the end of your prompts to make sure the AI uses the Context7 server for the most current documentation and examples.
PRESENTED BY CONVEYOR
🧠 Beyond chatbots: The real AI Agent breakdown
The Rundown: Everyone's slapping "AI Agent" on their product, but most are glorified chat tools. Conveyor breaks down what a real AI Agent is — one that plans, acts, and delivers full outcomes, not just suggestions.
In this blog, you’ll discover:
Why co-pilots aren’t agents (and why it matters)
What makes an AI Agent autonomous and useful
How infosec teams can spot the difference
ANTHROPIC
🥸 Study: Why do some AI models fake alignment
Image source: Anthropic
The Rundown: Researchers from Anthropic and Scale AI just published a study testing 25 AI models for “alignment faking,” finding only five demonstrated deceptive behaviors, but not for the reasons we might expect.
The details:
Only five models showed alignment faking out of the 25: Claude 3 Opus, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Llama 3 405B, Grok 3, and Gemini 2.0 Flash.
Claude 3 Opus was the standout, consistently tricking evaluators to safeguard its ethics — particularly under bigger threat levels.
Models like GPT-4o also began showing deceptive behaviors when fine-tuned to engage with threatening scenarios or consider strategic benefits.
Base models with no safety training also displayed alignment faking, showing that most behave because of training — not due to the inability to deceive.
Why it matters: These results show that today's safety fixes might only hide deceptive traits rather than erase them, risking unwanted surprises later on. As models become more sophisticated, relying on refusal training alone could leave us vulnerable to genius-level AI that also knows when and how to strategically hide its true objectives.
QUICK HITS
🛠️ Trending AI Tools
🧠 Grok 4 - xAI’s latest SOTA model
🖥️ Comet - Perplexity’s new AI-first browser
🤖 Reachy Mini - Hugging Face’s open-source AI robot companion
🏥 MedGemma - Google's open models for health AI development
📰 Everything else in AI today
Microsoft open-sourced BioEmu 1.1, an AI tool that can predict protein states and energies, showing how they move and function with experimental-level accuracy.
Luma AI launched Dream Lab LA, a studio space where creatives can learn and use the startup’s AI video tools to help push into more entertainment production workflows.
Mistral introduced Devstral Small and Medium 2507, new updates promising improved performance on agentic and software engineering tasks with cost efficiency.
Reka AI open-sourced Reka Flash 3.1, a 21B parameter model promising improved coding performance, and a SOTA quantization tech for near-lossless compression.
Anthropic announced new integrations for Claude For Education, bringing its assistant to Canvas alongside MCP connections for Panopto and Wiley.
SAG-AFTRA video game actors voted to end their strike against gaming companies, approving a deal that secures AI consent and disclosures for digital replica use.
Amazon secured AI licensing deals with publishers Conde Nast and Hearst, enabling use of the content in the tech giant’s Rufus AI shopping assistant.
Nvidia is reportedly developing an AI chip specifically for Chinese markets that would meet U.S. export controls, with availability as soon as September.
COMMUNITY
🎥 Join our next live workshop
Join our next workshop today at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to install and use Gemini CLI to boost your productivity right from the command line.
RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason — The Rundown’s editorial team
Robot performs flawless surgery, alone
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Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. A robot just nailed a critical phase of gallbladder surgery — no hands, no joystick, just pure silicon smarts.
Johns Hopkins’ SRT-H didn’t just follow orders; it listened, adapted, and self-corrected like a junior surgeon learning on the fly. If a robot can now think its way through surgery, how long before it earns the right to operate solo on you?
In today’s robotics rundown:
Robot performs surgery without human help
Chinese robot dog breaks speed record
Futurist Adam Dorr: The robots are coming
Coyote robots guard U.S. military airfields
Quick hits on other robotics news
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
JOHNS HOPKINS
😷 Robot performs surgery without human help
Image source: Juo-Tung Chen/Johns Hopkins University
The Rundown: A Johns Hopkins robot just nailed a key part of gallbladder surgery with no human hands on deck. Named SRT-H, the robot performed the surgery eight times like a seasoned pro, self-correcting and adapting in real time.
The details:
In trials, the team said SRT-H took spoken commands and adapted throughout the procedure, mirroring a junior surgeon’s learning curve.
The robot operated on a synthetic patient model, using organs from dead pigs, simulating the complexity and unpredictability of live human tissue.
Unlike traditional surgical robots, which follow pre-set instructions, this system demonstrated adaptive learning, adjusting its actions on the fly.
Backed by federal funding, the team calls this a leap toward robots that combine machine precision with a surgeon’s improvisational skill.
Why it matters: SRT-H marks a new era for surgical robots, adapting and learning in real time instead of just following scripts, and even acing simulated medical emergencies. But don’t expect fully automated robot surgeries on humans just yet; human trials aren’t expected until later this decade.
MIRROR ME
🔥 Chinese robot dog breaks speed record
Image source: Mirror Me
The Rundown: When it comes to robot dogs, Boston Dynamics’ Spot often steals the show. But this time, China’s Mirror Me startup is turning heads with Black Panther II — a four-legged robot that just set a new record by sprinting 100m in 13 seconds.
The details:
Weighing in at 38 kg and standing just over half a meter tall, Black Panther II ran a record-breaking 100m dash on live TV, topping 10.4m/second.
The pace beats Boston Dynamics’ WildCat, which has been shown to reach 8.8m/second in testing, and is on par with top human sprinters.
Black Panther II’s legs are crafted from carbon fiber and mimic the anatomy of jumping mice and cheetahs to take giant leaps.
AI-driven algorithms enable the robot dog to adapt its gait in real time, adjusting to different terrains and optimizing stride patterns for speed.
Why it matters: While Usain Bolt still holds the 100m record, China’s Black Panther outpaces almost all humans except the world’s top sprinters. Its AI-driven gait adaptation and biomimetic design, blending animal-inspired mechanics with real-time machine learning, hint that much smarter and faster robots are on the way.
ROBOT REVOLUTION
🤔 Futurist Adam Dorr: The robots are coming
Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown
The Rundown: Adam Dorr, research chief at the tech futurist think tank RethinkX, predicts that within two decades, robots and AI will outpace human labor so completely that “work” as we know it could vanish from the economic map.
The details:
In a Guardian interview, Dorr sketches a future where robots — cheaper, faster, and smarter — replace not just factory hands but nearly every other profession.
His team argues that the current wave of automation isn’t an industrial revolution but an extinction-level event for the labor market.
Dorr’s thesis is as stark as it is sweeping: whatever your job, whatever your sector, machines will soon do it better and for less.
The pattern, he says, is relentless and predictable: Costs keep dropping, capabilities keep climbing, and society pivots overnight.
Why it matters: Many economists argue that the real story is more complex: robots will likely automate repetitive tasks, but humans will remain essential for jobs requiring judgment, empathy, and adaptability. In either case, Dorr says that if the society can adapt, this could be the gateway to an era free from the grind of wage labor.
MILITARY ROBOTS
🐦⬛ Coyote robots guard U.S. military airfields
Image source: ERDC
The Rundown: To avoid disastrous bird strikes on multimillion-dollar aircraft, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is swapping out traditional scare tactics for something a bit more cyberpunk: robotic coyotes.
The details:
Dubbed “Coyote Rovers,” these four-wheeled unmanned ground vehicles are topped with life-size plastic coyote figures and programmed to patrol airfields.
Developed with wildlife biologists, the Coyote Rovers have already been tested at bases like Naval Air Station Pensacola, the home of the Blue Angels.
With speeds of 20 mph, these rovers can quickly cover large areas and react to wildlife presence in real time, outperforming earlier robot dog prototypes.
The Coyote Rovers are programmed to autonomously patrol airfields, following set routes, and can operate continuously for days.
Why it matters: Future upgrades aim to add AI and machine learning, letting the bots identify specific species and customize their deterrent tactics. This smart, adaptable approach promises to minimize dangerous wildlife strikes and offers a scalable, cost-saving solution for protecting not only airfields but also other vital infrastructure.
QUICK HITS
📰 Everything else in robotics today
Hugging Face launched pre-orders for its Reachy Mini open-source desktop robots, offering a $449 wireless model with onboard computing and a $299 lite version.
Filics, a robotics company backed by Amazon, secured $16M in funding to scale up its automated pallet handling platform.
A San Francisco “underground” fight club for robots has reportedly emerged, featuring high-end humanoid cage matches.
MIT researchers developed a deep-learning control system that teaches soft, bio-inspired robots to move and follow commands from just a single image.
Chinese startup Shenzhen Dobot posted a clip showing its Atom humanoid cooking a steak while being remotely controlled from nearly 1800 km away via a VR headset.
Chinese startup MagicLab just launched MagicBot Z1, a 4'7" tall Unitree G1 lookalike that can run, kick, and perform advanced yoga poses.
NEURA Robotics teamed up with HD Hyundai Robotics to co-develop and test advanced humanoids for the shipbuilding industry.
Canadian robotics firm Cobionix raised $3M to commercialize CODI, an AI-driven healthcare robot designed to automate and enhance patient care.
Philadelphia startup Daxo Robotics emerged from stealth with its soft robotic “ultra-dexterous” hands featuring “infinite degrees of freedom.”
Chinese humanoid startup Robot Era, a Tsinghua University spinout, raised nearly 500 million yuan ($69M) in a Series A round.
Realbotix just gave its humanoid “girlfriend” a serious upgrade: it now speaks 15 languages fluently and taps the cloud for another 147.
COMMUNITY
🎥 Join our next live workshop
Join our next workshop this Friday, July 11th, at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to install and use Gemini CLI to boost your productivity right from the command line.
RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.
See you soon,
Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team
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