Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Robotics startup 1X just dropped a breakthrough AI model, giving its home humanoid, NEO, the smarts to tackle daily chores with striking autonomy.

NEO now breezes through tasks — from doing laundry to watering plants — with seamless, almost human-like precision. Will this beige knit-wearing bot leapfrog the competition and be among the first to move into our homes?

In today’s robotics rundown:

• NEO now thinks and moves more like humans

• Altman-backed delivery bot startup grabs $80M

• NVIDIA unveils new robotics tools at Paris GTC

• XRobotics nabs $2.5M for pizza-making bot

• Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

1X

🤖 NEO now thinks and moves more like a human

Image source: 1X

The Rundown: Norwegian robotics startup 1X just unveiled its latest reinforcement learning controller designed to help its home humanoid, NEO, smoothly move, perceive, and interact in real-world home environments.

The details:

• At the heart of this leap is Redwood, 1X’s proprietary model, which merges language control, locomotion, and whole body manipulation into one system.

• Redwood is trained on data from real-world sessions with 1X’s EVE and NEO robots, covering both teleoperation and autonomous household activities.

• It learns from both successes and failures, enabling behaviors like grasping unseen objects, retrying after failures, and using both hands to do chores.

• The system also runs entirely on NEO’s onboard GPU, eliminating the need for constant cloud connectivity and ensuring privacy for home use.

Why it matters: Unlike traditional models that treat movement and object handling as separate skills, Redwood enables NEO to do it all with a fluidity nearly matching human motion. Early in-home trials are already putting this next-level agility to the test, with the company planning to produce 100K units by 2027 — and millions by 2028.

TOGETHER WITH SPEECHMATICS

🎙️ The voice AI that protects conversations that matter

Image source: Speechmatics

The Rundown: Most Voice AI Agents send speech data to the cloud — yours doesn't have to. Speechmatics lets you deploy directly on-device, on-prem, or in-cloud, safeguarding patient confidentiality and customer trust without sacrificing performance.

Speechmatics’ enterprise-grade capabilities include:

• Deployment flexibility across on-device, on-premises, hybrid, or cloud environments

• Proven accuracy across 55+ languages with multilingual conversation handling

• Infrastructure that handles 500+ years of audio monthly for governments and Fortune 500 companies

Try Speechmatics at no cost today.

COCO ROBOTICS

🔥 Altman-backed delivery bot startup grabs $80M

Image source: Coco Robotics

The Rundown: Los Angeles-based Coco Robotics, a startup building last-mile delivery robots and backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, just raised $80M in funding — bringing its total investment to over $120M and paving the way for major growth plans.

The details:

• The company operates a fleet of approximately 1,300 zero-emission, cooler-sized robots across major cities including L.A., Chicago, Miami, and Helsinki.

• Since its inception in 2020, Coco says it has completed more than 500K deliveries, partnering with platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash.

• Coco has a strategic collaboration with OpenAI, leveraging AI models to enhance robot navigation, obstacle avoidance, and real-time decision-making.

• The company’s robots are designed for high-volume operations, with each capable of carrying up to 90L of goods and operating in urban environments.

Why it matters: Coco Robotics is battling heavyweights like Nuro, Serve Robotics, and Starship Technologies in the fast-moving last-mile delivery race. With Altman’s backing and a fresh $80M boost, the startup is now looking to charge ahead — targeting 10K robots on the streets by 2026 and eyeing bold new markets.

NVIDIA

🧠 NVIDIA unveils new robotics tools at Paris GTC

Image source: NVIDIA

The Rundown: At GTC Paris 2025, NVIDIA unveiled a suite of new tools and platforms to accelerate AI-driven robots across Europe and beyond, in addition to the announcement of a massive facility in Germany set to house 10K GPUs.

The details:

• A standout is the launch of Isaac GR00T N1.5, an open foundation model for humanoid robot reasoning, for download on Hugging Face.

• Isaac Sim 5.0 and Isaac Lab 2.2, robotics simulation and learning frameworks optimized for NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 systems, are now available on GitHub.

• The company also expanded its Halos safety system to robotics, offering safety extension for the IGX platform and an AI agent for monitoring robot ops.

• The facility with 10K GPUs (including DGX B200 and RTX PRO servers) will enable manufacturers to optimize factory layouts and robotic fleets.

Why it matters: This week, NVIDIA announced a wave of new partnerships with European countries and companies, covering everything from infrastructure to software, as it works to cement its role at the heart of global AI. In robotics, European heavyweights like Agile Robots have already started tapping NVIDIA’s technologies.

XROBOTICS

🍕 XRobotics nabs $2.5M for pizza-making bot

Image source: XRobotics

The Rundown: San Francisco’s XRobotics raised $2.5M in seed funding for xPizza Cube, a compact, countertop robot that can assemble perfect, precision pizzas at a rate of up to 100 per hour, slashing labor demands by up to 80%.

The details:

• The company says that advanced machine learning ensures perfect sauce swirls, even cheese distribution, and precise pepperoni placement every time.

• It easily adjusts for different pizza sizes and styles — from classic round pies to Detroit and Chicago deep dish, allowing restaurants to expand their offerings.

• The xPizza Cube is available for a monthly lease of $1,300 over three years, making it accessible for both small pizzerias and larger chains.

• XRobotics’ robots are reportedly producing an impressive 25K pizzas per month across an undisclosed number of locations.

Why it matters: Compared to pizza robotics startup Zume, which closed shop in 2023 after raising $420M, XRobotics says it aims to help pizza makers save time and tedious labor rather than replace staff entirely. With this fresh round of funding, XRobotics is planning to bring its pizza-making tech beyond the U.S. to Canada and Mexico.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in robotics today

Bank of America Securities analysts predict that robotics for deliveries by retailers like Amazon could replace workers, driving $7.1B in annual savings by 2032. 

Walmart is expanding its U.S. drone-delivery program to five new cities—Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa—extending the service to about 100 stores.

AI startup Physical Intelligence unveiled Real-Time Chunking (RTC), a technique that allows robots to plan upcoming actions while carrying out current ones.

MIT researchers developed a machine learning-based adaptive control algorithm that helps drones stick to their intended paths, even when hit by unpredictable winds.

The UK’s NHS announced that robot-assisted surgery will become “the default” for 90% of many operations by 2035, slashing wait times by 2029.

Australian roboticists published new findings that showed mixed reactions to humans interacting with LLM-enabled humanoids.

Researchers unveiled a biometric robotic hand, the F-TAC Hand, featuring high-res tactile sensors covering 70% of its surface, enabling human-like adaptive grasping.

Shenzhen-based AI2 Robotics joined forces with Chinese automaker Dongfeng Liuzhou to deploy A12’s humanoids in factories to handle inspections and assembly.

A team of 432 “walking” robots relocated a 7,500-ton historic Shikumen building in Shanghai back to its original site, gently moving the structure 10 meters a day.

New York University and UC Berkeley launched EgoZero, a novel system designed to capture human demos with Project Aria smart glasses for robot training.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop this Friday, June 13th at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll know how to get significantly more value out of whichever model you use, whether it’s o3 or o3-Pro.

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

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The Mouse just lawyered up — and unlike media outlets that settled for licensing deals, Disney, Marvel, and other major Hollywood studios are choosing the courtroom over compromise.

With Hollywood playing hardball on Midjourney’s reproduction of its IP in outputs and model training, the AI industry’s fair use defense may be about to get its toughest stress test yet.

In today’s AI rundown:

• Disney, Universal sue Midjourney over copyright

• TBC goes all-in on AI with Dia browser

• How to connect Claude to external applications

• Meta's new AI learns real-world physics

• 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

MIDJOURNEY

👨🏻‍⚖️ Disney, Universal sue Midjourney over copyright

Image source: Legal filing

The Rundown: Hollywood giants, including Disney and Universal, just filed a lawsuit against AI image generation startup Midjourney, alleging that the company’s models are a massive engine for copyright theft.

The details:

• The lawsuit marks Hollywood's first major legal action against AI companies, with Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Universal, and others joining forces.

• The group claims that Midjourney built its models by scraping the studios' iconic characters, allowing users to generate endless unauthorized knockoffs.

• Dozens of examples were included in the complaint, featuring side-by-side comparisons of characters like Yoda, Shrek, Spider-Man, and Minions.

• Disney’s legal counsel said that while the company is ‘bullish’ on the promise of AI, “piracy is piracy.”

Why it matters: While many major media outlets have struck lucrative AI licensing deals for their content, Hollywood studios are playing hardball. This case could have major ramifications for AI companies’ “fair use” claims — potentially setting legal precedents that could impact not just Midjourney but the entire industry.

TOGETHER WITH VANTA

💨 The compliance platform that keeps up with AI speed

The Rundown: While you're sprinting toward your next round or first enterprise contract, buyers are demanding security, compliance, and transparency from day one. Vanta bridges that gap with compliance automation built specifically for AI's unique challenges.

How Vanta accelerates AI startups:

• Automated audit readiness that evolves with your models, infrastructure, and customers

• Continuous security monitoring designed for AI’s rapid iteration cycles

• Used by AI innovators like LangChain and Factory, who turned early compliance into deal-closing credibility

Get compliant at AI-speed with Vanta — book a demo and claim $1,000 off.

THE BROWSER COMPANY

🌐 TBC goes all-in on AI with Dia browser

Image source: The Browser Company

The Rundown: The Browser Company released its AI-first Dia browser in beta, featuring an integrated chatbot that can see every tab, take agentic actions, and adapt to user preferences and patterns.

The details:

• Dia integrates its AI directly into the URL bar, allowing users to chat with their open tabs, get summaries, and draft content without leaving their workflow.

• Dia’s chatbot can analyze multiple tabs at once, draft emails based on a user’s writing style, and use days of browsing history for personalized responses.

• It uses a system of “Skills” or specialized AI agents tailored for specific tasks like shopping or coding that remember context from relevant tabs.

• Beta access launched today for existing Arc users on Mac, with all data encrypted locally and wiped from servers immediately after processing.

Why it matters: The web is trending towards AI and agentic capabilities — and the race to create the best “AI-native” browser is officially on. Dia feels directly correct in that AI will evolve to where users are instead of being isolated in platforms, but the likes of Google and OpenAI are undoubtedly coming with powerful solutions of their own.

AI TRAINING

🔗 How to connect Claude to external applications

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Claude's new MCP integration to connect AI directly to thousands of external tools like Google Docs, Slack, WhatsApp, and more via Zapier's MCP server.

Step-by-step:

1. Go to Claude Settings and look for “Add integrations” in the “Search and tools” option

2. Visit the Zapier MCP site, create a free account, and add Claude in “New MCP Server”

3. In the Configure tab, click “Add tool” and search for apps like Google Docs, or Slack

4. Copy the Integration URL from the Connect tab, return to Claude, and paste it in “Add integrations”

5. Test it! Ask Claude: "Create a new Google Doc about [topic]" and watch it work across apps

Pro tip: Start with 1-2 essential tools, test thoroughly, then add more apps as needed. You can edit or disable tools anytime.

PRESENTED BY SPEECHMATICS

🎙️ The voice AI that protects conversations that matter

The Rundown: Most Voice AI Agents send speech data to the cloud — yours doesn't have to. Speechmatics lets you deploy directly on-device, on-prem, or in-cloud, safeguarding patient confidentiality and customer trust without sacrificing performance.

Speechmatics’ enterprise-grade capabilities include:

• Deployment flexibility across on-device, on-premises, hybrid, or cloud environments

• Proven accuracy across 55+ languages with multilingual conversation handling

• Infrastructure that handles 500+ years of audio monthly for governments and Fortune 500 companies

Try Speechmatics at no cost today.

META

🎢 Meta's new AI learns real-world physics

Image source: Midjourney

The Rundown: Meta released V-JEPA 2, a “world model” that gives AI systems the ability to understand physics and predict real-world outcomes — enabling robots to navigate unfamiliar environments and manipulate objects they've never seen before.

The details:

• The 1.2B parameter model was trained on 1M+ hours of video, learning how objects move, interact, and respond to actions in the physical world.

• V-JEPA 2 achieved 65-80% success rates in picking and placing unfamiliar objects in new environments, using visual goals to plan multi-step tasks.

• Meta claims the model runs 30x faster than Nvidia's competing Cosmos model while achieving SOTA performance on video understanding benchmarks.

• The company also released three new benchmarks revealing that while humans score 85-95% on physical reasoning tasks, current AI models struggle.

Why it matters: Grounding AI in physical reality instead of text-based reasoning is an important development as both AI agents and robots become more and more utilized in real-world tasks. Meta's approach can help AI adapt to the messy, unpredictable real-world environments on the fly without requiring massive task-specific training datasets.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🤖 o3-pro - OpenAI’s new top reasoning model that thinks deeper

• 🧠 Magistral - Mistral’s first open-source reasoning model family

• 🎥 Astra - Topaz Labs’ new AI video upscaler

• 🎆 Krea 1 - Krea’s first image model, featuring advanced control and quality

💼 AI Job Opportunities

• 🎨 The Rundown - Designer (Brand & Platform)

• ⚡ xAI - Electric Engineer

• 🛡️ Horizon3 - Attack Engineer

• ✍️ Abridge - Technical Writer

📰 Everything else in AI today

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that the company’s first open-weight model, expected in June, will take “a little more time” but be “very, very worth the wait.”

Apple execs defended their AI efforts in an interview with the WSJ, saying the company made the right call to not ship AI Siri that didn’t meet quality standards.

Meta announced new AI video editing capabilities in its Meta AI app, allowing users to quickly change outfits, locations, lighting, and more with preset prompts.

Mistral launched Mistral Compute, an AI stack offering GPU access, orchestration, and model training services, positioning itself as an alternative to cloud giants.

Windsurf unveiled the Windsurf Browser, giving its Cascade agentic coding assistant full awareness of web activity for in-context support.

Starbucks is piloting Green Dot Assist, a new AI tool to help baristas answer questions and access guidance in real-time.

Midjourney launched video ranking, allowing users to explore and rate outputs from its soon-to-be-released video model.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop this Friday, June 13th, at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll know how to get significantly more value out of whichever model you use, whether it’s o3 or o3-Pro.

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

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. OpenAI just dropped o3-pro, the company’s new top reasoning model — coming alongside a massive price cut that shows intelligence is becoming cheaper than ever, even as capabilities soar.

With early testers calling the release "much smarter" and CEO Sam Altman writing that humanity has “passed the AI event horizon,” the optimism coming out of the AI leader feels higher than ever.

In today’s AI rundown:

• OpenAI’s o3-pro with massive price cuts

• Meta’s ‘superintelligence’ lab with Scale AI founder

• How to create AI videos for free using OpenAI's Sora

• OpenAI CEO says AI takeoff has started

• 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

🚀 OpenAI drops o3-pro with massive price cuts

Image source: OpenAI

The Rundown: OpenAI released o3-pro, an upgraded version of its reasoning model that outperforms competitors on key benchmarks — while simultaneously reducing its o3 prices by 80% in a direct challenge to Google and Anthropic’s top models.

The details:

• o3-Pro is designed to "think longer," boosting reliability and performance in technical fields like math, science, and programming.

• The model outperforms top rivals on PhD-level math and science tasks, with evaluators preferring o3-pro across all tested categories.

• It can also use tools like web search and data analysis, but is slower and lacks support for features like image generation and Canvas.

• ChatGPT Pro and Team users gain immediate access, with Enterprise and Edu customers receiving the model next week.

Why it matters: According to tester Ben Hylak, o3-pro feels “much smarter” than its predecessor and “very different” from other frontier models. But the most mind-blowing part of this release may be the pricing — coming in at a fraction of older models despite a gigantic leap in intelligence and capability.

TOGETHER WITH AUGMENT CODE

🤖 The Remote Agent for professional devs

The Rundown Augment Code's powerful AI coding agent meets professional software developers exactly where they are, delivering deep context and production-ready capabilities. And now Augment Code Remote Agents are available in VS Code to help your team clear out its backlog.

While you and your team build what’s next, Remote Agent can:

• Tackle technical debt

• Refactor code

• Update tests and docs

Sign up today and let Augment Code transform how your team works.

META

🧠 Meta’s ‘superintelligence’ lab with Scale AI founder

Image source: Getty Images / Reuters

The Rundown: Meta is reportedly shaking up its AI division with a new “superintelligence lab” hand picked by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, with a multi-billion dollar deal to bring Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and other top talent onboard.

The details:

• Wang will lead Meta's new group alongside other Scale AI technical talent, with the 28-year-old founder taking a top position in Zuckerberg's AI hierarchy.

• The $15B deal sends cash to Scale's existing shareholders while allowing Meta to sidestep regulatory acquisition concerns with a 49% stake in the company.

• Zuckerberg has personally recruited nearly 50 researchers for the lab, offering as high as nine-figure packages to poach talent from OpenAI and Google.

• The move follows Zuckerberg’s reported frustration with the performance of Meta’s Llama 4 model and a desire to accelerate past competitors.

Why it matters: After drama and disappointment surrounding the recent Llama 4 release, Zuck is taking matters into his own hands — and isn’t afraid of shaking up his existing staff and breaking the bank to do it. Meta has the resources, but a dramatic pivot might be what’s truly necessary to catch up to its powerhouse AI rivals.

AI TRAINING

🎬 How to create AI videos for free using OpenAI's Sora

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use OpenAI’s powerful Sora video generator through Microsoft’s Bing mobile app to create professional-quality videos — instantly and without any cost.

Step-by-step:

1. Download the Microsoft Bing app and select the mini-apps icon in the bottom right corner.

2. Access the “Video Creator” feature from the available mini-apps

3. Write a detailed prompt describing your desired video scene

4. Generate your 5-second, 9:16 format video and download via the three dots menu

Pro tip: Create multiple variations of the same concept by slightly adjusting your prompts.

PRESENTED BY ANGELQ

🧠 Give your child a smart start to AI this summer

The Rundown Meet AngelQ: the first AI-powered super browser made just for kids. Designed to turn summer screen time into a launchpad for learning—with built-in safety every step of the way.

AngelQ’s safe, age-appropriate platform:

• Teaches kids how to use AI the right way — responsibly and confidently

• Acts as a protected space for exploring, searching, and discovering

• Helps children build real tech skills they’ll carry into the future

• Is designed to grow with kids as they progress

Give your child a smart start to AI with a free year of AngelQ by using code RUNDOWN365.

SAM ALTMAN

💫 OpenAI CEO says AI takeoff has started

Image source: o3 / The Rundown

The Rundown: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a new blog post titled “The Gentle Singularity,” claiming humanity has passed the AI event horizon — predicting superintelligence will reshape society, but its changes will remain manageable.

The details:

• Altman frames the takeoff as a “gentle singularity,” where society adapts to exponential progress as once-amazing capabilities quickly become routine.

• His timeline includes the AI creating new ideas in 2026, robots functioning in the real world in 2027, and an explosion of creation across industries.

• In the 2030s, he projects that both intelligence and energy will become abundant, with the cost of AI eventually approaching the cost of electricity.

• Altman’s path forward involves first solving AI alignment, then ensuring superintelligence is cheap, distributed, and not controlled by a single entity.

Why it matters: Despite AI frequently being painted in doomsday scenarios, the man at the center of it all envisions a quite different outlook. Users already quickly adapt to each new wave of intelligence, moving on from one release to shouting for the next — and Altman sees that continuing even as we cross a new threshold of tech advances.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 📚 Exa Research Pro - New SOTA agentic tool for web research

• 🍎 Foundation Models - Build on Apple’s on-device Apple Intelligence model

• ⚙️ Xcode 26 - Apple’s coding tool, with new access to AI models

• 🗂️ Common Pile v0.1 - 8TB dataset of public and licensed text for AI training

💼 AI Job Opportunities

• 🔁 The Rundown - Strategic Partnerships (AI University)

• 🧑‍🏫 Parloa - Senior Product Trainer

• 🌟 Synthesia - Director, Customer Success

• 🌍 Palantir Technologies - Global Mobility Specialist

📰 Everything else in AI today

Mistral released Magistral, its open-source reasoning family with quick responses and multi-language support, though STEM and coding benchmarks lag behind top rivals.

OpenAI finalized a deal with Google Cloud for additional compute, diversifying beyond Microsoft as Google expands its cloud business to include its biggest AI competitor.

Google added a new Veo 3 Fast version of its viral video generation model in Gemini and Flow, allowing for expanded access with 2x the speed.

KREA AI unveiled Krea 1, the company’s first in-house image model — launching in free beta with enhanced aesthetic control, artistic knowledge, and image quality.

Enterprise AI startup Glean raised $150M in new funding at a $7.2B valuation, driven by adoption from Fortune 500 companies and its Glean Agents platform.

SAG-AFTRA and major video game companies reportedly reached a tentative deal to end a nearly year-long strike by actors over AI and compensation protections.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Watch our last live workshop

Check out our last workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to incorporate Flux Kontext into your creative workflows for consistent, high-quality results.

Watch 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

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Apple's WWDC skipped the flashy reveals—no Vision Pro demos, no major AI breakthroughs. Instead, the tech giant unveiled its first major software redesign in over a decade: Liquid Glass, spanning every major Apple device.

But as competitors race ahead in AI, the question looms: Is a glassy coat of paint enough to keep Apple's ecosystem indispensable—or is the company choosing style over substance at a critical moment?

In today’s tech rundown:

• Apple unveils Liquid Glass at WWDC

• Whole Foods supplier hit by cyberattack

• Microsoft launches Xbox handheld consoles

• Rivian’s new ebike gets the Jony Ive touch

• Quick hits on other major news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

APPLE

🍏 Apple unveils Liquid Glass at WWDC

Image source: Apple

The Rundown: Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote on Monday may have underwhelmed on the AI front, but the tech giant debuted Liquid Glass — a new design language that reimagines the look and feel of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS.

The details:

• Inspired by VisionOS, Liquid Glass brings translucent, reflective interfaces to all of Apple’s major operating systems, with smooth animations.

• Apple has also overhauled its naming convention: all major operating systems will now share a year-based version number—iOS 26, iPadOS 26, etc.

• Apple also unveiled a long-awaited gaming strategy with Apple Games, a dedicated app that centralizes gaming across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

• Last year, Apple announced Apple Intelligence with a demo of a Siri update—Apple delayed that feature in March, with no new updates this week.

Why it matters: Reactions to Apple’s new Liquid Glass design have so far been mixed, with reviewers saying it’s both “beautiful” and “hard to read.” Wall Street, for its part, was underwhelmed by Apple’s AI unveiling, with stock down 1.2% on the day, leaving many to question if a glassy polish is enough to move the needle.

CYBERSECURITY

🛒 Whole Foods supplier hit by cyberattack

Image source: Ideogram/The Rundown

The Rundown: The grocery aisles are feeling the digital shockwaves: United Natural Foods (UNFI)—the distributor behind Whole Foods and thousands of U.S. stores—has been blindsided by a cyberattack, sparking disruptions that could leave shelves empty.

The details:

• The breach has resulted in “temporary disruptions” to UNFI’s operations, most notably its ability to fulfill customer orders to over 30K supermarket locations.

• UNFI has launched an investigation with cybersecurity experts and law enforcement to determine the nature and scope of the attack.

• For now, the organization is employing manual processes and alternative systems to keep essential ops running while its IT infrastructure is restored.

• Social media and reports indicate visible impacts, such as empty shelves and frustrated customers at stores heavily reliant on UNFI’s distribution network.

Why it matters: This follows a recent wave of cyberattacks targeting both U.S. and UK retailers. While UNFI has not confirmed whether the attack was ransomware or if any data was stolen, the disruption underscores the cascading effects that backend system compromises can have on essential logistics and consumer access to food.

MICROSOFT

🕹️ Microsoft launches Xbox handheld consoles

Image source: Assus/Microsoft

The Rundown: Microsoft officially broke its long-standing absence from the handheld gaming market with two new devices—the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X—that include a new full-screen Xbox experience for handhelds.

The details:

• Microsoft has partnered with Asus in an overhaul to the Xbox app, Game Bar, and Windows itself, specifically to compete with SteamOS.

• Both handhelds run on Windows 11, optimized for gaming, but they still retain the ability to run PC games, productivity apps, web browsers, and more.

• Both devices feature contoured grips, ABXY buttons, full-size analog sticks, and an assignable back button, with the Ally X featuring impulse triggers.

• The Ally X also features the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, supporting advanced AI features and top-tier gaming performance.

Why it matters: Launching this holiday season, the ROG Xbox Ally series is Microsoft’s answer to Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch 2. Featuring robust hardware, familiar Xbox controls, and deep integration with Microsoft’s ecosystem, these handhelds are designed to give Xbox fans access to their game library wherever they are.

RIVIAN

🚲 Rivian’s new ebike gets the Jony Ive touch

Image source: Marcus Dawes/Wikimedia Commons

The Rundown: Famed ex-Apple designer Jony Ive’s celebrated creative firm, LoveFrom, has left its mark on Rivian’s debut foray into micromobility, reportedly lending its signature design sensibility to the electric automaker’s first electric bike.

The details:

• LoveFrom joined forces with Rivian as part of a skunkworks initiative led by Chris Yu, former chief product and technology officer at Specialized.

• Now spun out as a startup dubbed Also, the project has evolved into a much broader vision for modular micromobility, backed by $105M in funding.

• Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe is on Also’s board and has teased a “bike-like” device featuring two wheels, a seat, a screen, onboard computers, and a battery.

• Ive’s firm is also reportedly helping Ferrari develop its next-gen Italian supercars — and Ive was involved in Apple’s now-defunct secret car project.

Why it matters: Ive’s LoveFrom has reportedly also had a hand in redesigning Rivian’s infotainment system and retail. The new ebike, expected to be unveiled later this year, is rumored to bear the unmistakable touch of Ive, whose influence could redefine urban mobility just as he did consumer electronics.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in tech today

OpenAI said that it recently reached $10B in annual recurring revenue, a sharp increase from approximately $5B reported last year.

Amazon says it is investing $20B to build and expand data center infrastructure in Pennsylvania, marking the largest private-sector investment in the state's history.

U.S. Congress is debating a provision in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that would impose a 10-year moratorium on state and local regulation of AI. 

OpenAI’s ChatGPT experienced a widespread outage today, leaving users around the world unable to generate text or images, with the company initiating a fix.

Semiconductor giant Qualcomm agreed to acquire the London-listed semiconductor company Alphawave IP Group for approximately $2.4B in cash.

IonQ, a Maryland-based $10B quantum computing company, is acquiring UK startup Oxford Ionics, a spinout from Oxford University valued at $1.1B.

Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright reportedly said that the fast-casual chain will open more than 300 locations this year thanks to AI hiring tech.

Blue Origin’s second flight of its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket has been pushed to at least mid-August, CEO Dave Limp confirmed Monday in a post on X.

Protesters in Los Angeles reportedly torched several Waymo robotaxis and Lime e-scooters amid protests against ICE.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Check out our last workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to incorporate Flux Kontext into your creative workflows for consistent, high-quality results.

Watch 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

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The rumors of Apple’s AI “gap year” look to be true, kicking off WWDC 2025 with a keynote that did little to inspire confidence on the Apple Intelligence front.

With minor upgrades to its already lagging system, Apple's biggest showcase of the year was dressed up like a massive event — but felt strangely out of touch in an AI-obsessed world.

In today’s AI rundown:

• Apple goes light on AI at WWDC

• Chinese AI giants freeze tools during national exams

• How to generate UI designs from text

• UK uses Gemini to fast-track infra planning

• 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

APPLE

🍏 Apple goes light on AI at WWDC

Image source: Apple

The Rundown: Apple just kicked off WWDC 2025, showcasing a variety of new design, naming, and customization upgrades across its OS and product lines — but was light on meaningful announcements regarding its lagging Apple Intelligence.

The details:

• New Live Translation brings real-time language translation to Messages, FaceTime, and calls, with processing done locally on-device to maintain privacy.

• Visual intelligence now analyzes on-screen content, letting users search for similar products, ask ChatGPT questions about images, and more.

• The Shortcuts app gains AI-powered intelligent actions and the ability to use ChatGPT for automation processes.

• Apple opened access to its on-device model through a new developer framework, enabling apps to tap into Apple Intelligence without cloud API costs.

• “Workout Buddy” debuts on Apple Watch, using AI to generate personalized voice coaching during exercise based on real-time biometric data and history.

Why it matters: While there were some AI-related upgrades, they feel more like an afterthought in the hyped event — which is jarring in a year where every company is going out of their way to push AI products. The reports of this being an AI “gap year” for Apple seem to be true, and the vibes certainly seem off from the usual trend setter.

TOGETHER WITH HUBSPOT

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AI, CHINA & EDUCATION

✏️ Chinese AI giants freeze tools during national exams

Image source: o3 / The Rundown

The Rundown: Major Chinese tech companies temporarily blocked AI features during the country’s gaokao university entrance exams, aiming to prevent cheating among the 13M+ test-taking students competing for limited university spots.

The details:

• Students taking the exams found AI tools like ByteDance's Doubao, DeepSeek, and Qwen refusing to analyze exam-related images or answer test questions.

• Tencent's Yuanbao, Moonshot's Kimi, and other major Chinese AI platforms also suspended photo recognition features during exam hours from June 7-10.

• Users attempting to use the tools with exam-like content are met with messages about service suspension to ensure fairness during testing periods.

• Alongside the AI tool freeze, authorities are deploying other anti-cheating measures like AI-powered monitoring for suspicious behavior in exam halls.

Why it matters: AI is causing chaos throughout the education system, with pre-ChatGPT testing methods and assignments proving no match for today’s models — and educators having few ways to stop it. Schooling is in for a complete overhaul in the AI era, with some major bumps in the road along the way.

AI TRAINING

🎨 How to generate UI designs from text

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Google's new design tool to transform your app ideas into fully functional UI designs for both mobile and web applications, complete with multiple screens, custom themes, and ready-to-use code.

Step-by-step:

1. Visit Stitch, choose Mobile or Web, and write a detailed prompt describing your app idea

2. Review the generated plan showing all proposed screens and click "Yes" to proceed with the design creation.

3. Let the AI generate your complete UI set, then use "Edit" on any screen to make specific changes like "Move the activities below the map."

4. Apply themes (dark mode, custom colors, fonts) and export via "Figma" for design work or "Code" for development.

Pro tip: Start broad with your initial prompt, then use the editing features to fine-tune details. The tool maintains design consistency across all screens automatically.

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• A new AI Home with the ability to chat with top models from OpenAI and Anthropic

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GOOGLE

🏗️ UK uses Gemini to fast-track infra planning

Image source: Google

The Rundown: The UK government and Google unveiled an AI tool named "Extract," which leverages the tech giant’s Gemini AI to digitize millions of planning documents and speed up notoriously slow housing and infrastructure decisions.

The details:

• Extract uses Gemini's multimodal capabilities to read, interpret, and convert planning files (including blurry maps and handwritten notes) into digital formats.

• Officials said the tool is capable of streamlining processes that would take a planning professional 2 hours into just 40 seconds.

• Extract is being trialed in several councils and slated for a nationwide rollout by Spring 2026, aiming to help meet ambitious 1.5M home-building targets.

• The government said the goal is to free up planners from the tedious manual checks, allowing them to focus on decision-making and reducing backlogs.

Why it matters: Governments across the globe still rely on slow, outdated processes and crumbling physical documents — and Extract represents an amazing government use case for AI that can make a tangible difference for the public. Some of AI’s biggest immediate wins may be in simply streamlining infrastructure, not reinventing the wheel.

QUICK HITS

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📰 Everything else in AI today

Meta is reportedly negotiating a massive $10B+ investment in AI data giant Scale AI, which would mark Meta’s largest investment in the sector to date.

OpenAI reached $10B in annual recurring revenue, nearly doubling its numbers from last year — with projections of $125B in revenue by 2029.

Ohio State University is launching an AI Fluency Initiative to embed AI education in undergrad programs, with resources, courses, and support for faculty and students.

Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity is rolling out its proof of personhood eye-scanners to the UK, with 13M verified identities and 1,500 Orbs in circulation to date.

Meta AI chief scientist Yann LeCun took a shot at Dario Amodei on Threads, calling the Anthropic CEO a “deluded” AI doomer for his AGI work.

EleutherAI unveiled Common Pile v0.1, a massive 8TB open dataset of public domain and licensed text for training AI models.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Watch our last live workshop

Check out our last workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to incorporate Flux Kontext into your creative workflows for consistent, high-quality results.

Watch 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

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Figure CEO Brett Adcock just dropped a video showing the Figure 02 humanoid expertly sorting packages for a full hour without losing its cool.

While the hourlong clip isn’t a thrill a minute, it’s an impressive showcase in what Figure’s robots can do. But can the startup translate a near-human-level demo into real-world impact?

In today’s robotics rundown:

• Figure O2 reaches near-human logistics work

• MIT algorithm enables robots to ‘think ahead’

• NASA robot to search for life on Saturn moon

• Housekeeper bot aims to disrupt hotel industry

• Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

FIGURE

🔥 Figure O2 reaches near-human logistics work

Image source: Figure

The Rundown: Figure CEO Brett Adcock shared a video of the Helix-powered Figure 02 humanoid autonomously sorting, transferring, and flattening packages for an hour— without overheating and with near-human precision and adaptability.

The details:

• Figure 02 demonstrates human-like dexterity, manipulating a wide variety of packages with precision and orienting barcodes for efficient scanning.

• Figure says it achieves an average package handling time of just 4.05 seconds, outperforming previous robotics solutions and rivaling human speeds.

• The robot is powered by the Helix model, a cutting-edge neural network that integrates sensory input, planning, and execution into a single, unified system.

• With embedded GPUs and a streamlined neural architecture, Figure 02 operates efficiently at low power, ideal for large-scale industrial deployment.

Why it matters: Unlike many robots limited to rigid boxes, Figure 02 can even manipulate soft poly bags and flat envelopes. It’s a significant step toward fully autonomous package sorting and handling, cutting down on the need for human labor for repetitive tasks and raising the bar on AI-driven humanoids in logistics.

MIT

🧠 MIT algorithm enables robots to ‘think ahead’

Image source: iStock/MIT

The Rundown: MIT and Nvidia researchers have unveiled a game-changing algorithm that they say enables robots to “think ahead” by evaluating thousands of possible solutions in parallel, rapidly narrowing down options to those most likely to succeed.

The details:

• The algorithm, cuTAMP, uses GPU acceleration to evaluate thousands of possible robotic actions at once, vastly speeding up the planning process.

• cuTAMP delivers solutions in seconds, rather than minutes, across simulations and real robots, making it viable for industrial, manufacturing, and logistics use.

• It works with various types of robots—humanoids, arms, etc.—and can be applied to a wide range of tasks.

• Unlike many AI systems, cuTAMP does not rely on pre-existing training data, making it highly adaptable and ready for use in new or changing environments.

Why it matters: This innovation addresses a key bottleneck in robotics—planning complex actions quickly and reliably—and has broad implications for automation in industry, logistics, and beyond. The researchers plan to integrate large language and vision models, further expanding its versatility.

NASA

🚀 NASA robot to search for life on Saturn moon

Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The Rundown: NASA’s ice-drilling robot prototype, tested in some of Earth’s harshest environments such as Greenland and Alaska, may be making its way to explore the ice-covered oceans on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

The details:

• The robot, which includes instruments like WATSON, can descend deep into ice sheets—up to 110 meters—to search for biosignatures and signs of life.

• The robot’s capabilities include advanced drilling and sampling with a special drill arm, real-time data collection, and autonomous operation.

• NASA envisions deploying landers and cryobots—cylindrical probes that melt through ice using heat—to access and analyze the hidden oceans of Enceladus.

Why it matters: NASA’s originally planned lander to Jupiter’s Europa was ditched, but now scientists are turning to Enceladus, which is considered one of the most promising places to search for extraterrestrial life. No date is set, but recent mission planning suggests a target launch in 2038, with the spacecraft arriving years later.

ZERITH ROBOTICS

🧹 Housekeeper bot aims to disrupt hotel industry

Image source: Zerith

The Rundown: Chinese robotics firm Zerith Robotics has introduced the H1, a humanoid on wheels specifically designed to clean hotel bathrooms, tidy up rooms, and restock supplies, with more hands-on capabilities in the pipeline.

The details:

• Zerith says the H1 is purpose-built for the labor-intensive hotel cleaning jobs with a design that can navigate narrow corridors, guest rooms, and bathrooms.

• The company posted a clip showing the robot autonomously cleaning bathrooms and floors, as well as vacuuming carpets and disposing of waste.

• Equipped with advanced AI and sensor technology, the H1 can detect obstacles, plan efficient routes, and adapt to different room layouts.

• The company aims to supply more than 500 robots within the year, with intended applications spanning service, education, and exhibition industries.

Why it matters: As the hotel industry scrambles to fill staff and cut costs, automation is stepping in to keep guest rooms spotless and service smooth. The rise of robots like the Zerith H1 and rival Pudu SH1 signals a new era where efficiency and smart tech are reshaping hospitality from the ground up, in a surging market already estimated at $5B.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in robotics today

Milan Kovac, the head of Tesla’s Optimus, announced on X his departure from the company, adding that the decision was family-related.

French automaker Renault has entered a partnership with Wandercraft, a Paris-based robotics firm—with the first result being Calvin, an industrial humanoid.

China’s LimX Dynamics has released footage of its bipedal robot, Tron 1, maintaining flawless balance inside a moving truck without any external supports or harnesses.

Chinese robotics firm Lianhe Sowell has nabbed a $27.6M contract to deliver 500 advanced spray-painting robots featuring 3D vision recognition.

Spanish startup Voltrac raised $2.29M for its autonomous electric tractor designed for dual use in agriculture and military applications.

Deliveroo has introduced an autonomous drone food delivery service in Dublin through a partnership with Irish drone delivery company Manna.

University of Southern Denmark researchers have developed a bioinspired soft robot that mimics the movement of snakes and worms for search-and-rescue missions.

Hong Kong researchers have developed a new system that allows drones to autonomously navigate unknown, dense environments with agility, much like birds do.

A recent study published in Scientific Reports has found that chimpanzees can 'catch' yawns from an android designed to imitate human facial expressions.

Richtech Robotics has upgraded its robotic barista Adam with AI-powered vision and control, enabling it to monitor and optimize espresso preparation in real time.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Check out our last workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to incorporate Flux Kontext into your creative workflows for consistent, high-quality results.

Watch 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

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. OpenAI’s NYT copyright battle just turned into a privacy nightmare — with a court order forcing the AI leader to retain millions of private (and even deleted) user conversations.

With CEO Sam Altman proposing “AI privilege” and the tech moving towards deeper digital relationships with always-listening devices, this legal fight may set the stage for a new era of digital rights.

In today’s AI rundown:

• OpenAI fights court to preserve convos

• AI policy head weighs in on human-AI bonds

• How to turn complex research into quizzes

• AI reveals Dead Sea Scrolls are a century older

• 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

🔒 OpenAI fights court to preserve convos

Image source: o3 / The Rundown

The Rundown: OpenAI is pushing back against a recent court order stemming from its ongoing legal battle with The New York Times, which forces the company to retain all user conversations — including deleted chats.

The details:

• The mandate affects hundreds of millions of ChatGPT users across its free, Plus, Pro, and Team tiers, forcing OpenAI to retain even manually deleted chats.

• The New York Times argued for the data preservation out of concern that users might be infringing on its content and then deleting the evidence of their chats.

• CEO Sam Altman called the demand an "inappropriate request that sets a bad precedent" and proposed "AI privilege" similar to doctor-patient confidentiality.

• ChatGPT Enterprise, Edu, and API customers that use a Zero Data Retention agreement are excluded from the court order.

Why it matters: This order arrives at a moment when millions are starting to trust AI with vulnerable thoughts and information (for better or worse) — threatening to shatter trust just as it becomes embedded in daily life. The privacy question will become even thornier as AI transitions to physical devices with always-on recording capabilities.

TOGETHER WITH CONVEYOR

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OPENAI

🤗 AI policy head weighs in on human-AI bonds

Image source: Joanne Jang

The Rundown: OpenAI Head of Model & Behavior Policy Joanne Jang just published a blog post detailing how the company is approaching human-AI relationships and questions of AI consciousness.

The details:

• Jang said that people naturally anthropomorphize AI, a tendency amplified by models responding with what feels like non-judgmental empathy and validation.

• OpenAI considers AI consciousness currently unanswerable, instead focusing on how conscious it appears to users and its impact on mental wellbeing.

• The design philosophy is to thread a fine needle, aiming for a personality that is warm and helpful without giving it a fictional backstory, feelings, or desires.

• Jang also said that evolving human-AI relationships reflect both how people use the tech, but also “may shape how people relate to each other.”

Why it matters: AI labs are becoming the architects of digital companionship for millions of users, making choices that will shape societal norms around connection and empathy. This uncharted territory is essentially one big social experiment — and even the creators are uncertain about the psychological territory we are entering.

AI TRAINING

📚 How to turn complex research into quizzes

The Rundown: Google Gemini’s deep research feature can now analyze any topic in depth and automatically turn findings into interactive quizzes perfect for studying or teaching.

Step-by-step:

1. Visit Google’s Gemini website and click “Deep Research” at the bottom of the chat interface

2. Enter your educational topic with specific requirements (grade level, focus areas), and review and edit the research plan as needed

3. Let Gemini generate a comprehensive report from multiple sources (takes a few minutes)

4. Click “Create Quiz” to automatically generate an interactive quiz with multiple question types

Pro tip: The quiz will provide you with explanations after you answer either correct or incorrectly, review them after your mistakes to learn faster.

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Some tasks you can delegate to Runner H include:

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• Finding job opportunities and applying for you

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AI RESEARCH

📜 AI reveals Dead Sea Scrolls are a century older

Image source: University of Groningen

The Rundown: Researchers just discovered that the Dead Sea Scrolls may be up to a full century older than previously estimated after training an AI system called Enoch to analyze ancient patterns and combining it with radiocarbon dating techniques.

The details:

• Enoch was trained by linking known radiocarbon dates of scroll fragments with handwriting styles, learning to associate visual patterns with time periods.

• The new dating pushes some biblical texts back to the time of their presumed authors, with some texts coming in at up to 2,300 years old.

• The AI method offers a non-destructive alternative to carbon dating, which requires cutting samples from the precious manuscripts.

Why it matters: Even fields like archeology are seeing transformations in the AI era — with pattern recognition abilities continuing to unlock new secrets from history (like deciphering the Herculaneum scrolls). With ancient texts stored across museums and libraries worldwide, there is still tons of knowledge waiting to be discovered.

QUICK HITS

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💼 AI Job Opportunities

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📰 Everything else in AI today

Apple researchers published a new study revealing that reasoning models hit a “scaling limitation” where they think less and perform worse as complexity increases.

Anthropic added national security heavyweight Richard Fontaine to its Long-Term Benefit Trust, deepening the company’s focus on navigating AI’s global risks.

OpenAI rolled out an update to its Advanced Voice Mode, featuring more natural, expressive speech and improved translation capabilities.

Anysphere released Cursor v1.0, with new features including a Background Agent for remote coding, BugBot for automatic PR review, and new memory capabilities.

Google launched Portraits, a Labs experiment allowing users to have personalized experiences with AI versions of experts based on their voice and knowledge base.

Higsfield AI introduced Higgsfield Speak, a new update enabling talking avatars with custom styles, scripts, and motion.

FutureHouse released ether0, an open-weights chemistry-focused reasoning model that significantly outperforms top models on scientific tasks.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Watch our last live workshop

Check out our last workshop with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to incorporate Flux Kontext into your creative workflows for consistent, high-quality results.

Watch 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

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. San Francisco-based AI startup Anysphere just snagged $900M, taking its valuation to nearly $10B in record time.

Its AI coding tool, Cursor, is leading the “vibe coding” revolution—squaring off against Windsurf, Replit, and Emergent as investors flood the space, betting big on what could be tech’s next breakout.

In today’s tech rundown:

• Anysphere nabs $900M at $9.9B valuation

• Coinbase co-founder eyes CRISPR baby startup

• Japan’s lunar city hits major setback

• Defense tech Anduril gets $30B valuation

• Quick hits on other major news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

ANYSPHERE

💰 Anysphere nabs $900M at $9.9B valuation

Image source: Anysphere

The Rundown: Anysphere, the San Francisco AI upstart behind the red-hot “vibe coding” assistant Cursor, just pulled off one of the biggest funding rounds in software history — raising $900M at a staggering $9.9B valuation.

The details:

• Founded by ex-OpenAI and Tesla engineers, Anysphere has become the poster child of generative AI, with annualized revenue doubling every two months. 

• Cursor, their flagship product, transforms coding into a conversational, AI-powered experience, letting developers write code using natural language.

• The latest funding round was led by Thrive Capital, with major participation from top-tier venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and DST Global.

• This is Anysphere’s third fundraising in less than a year, following a $100M round at a $2.5B valuation in late 2024.

Why it matters: Cursor counts engineers from OpenAI, Stripe, and Spotify among its users, along with AI luminary Andrej Karpathy. The company’s explosive growth has made it one of the fastest-growing vibe coding startups ever, with the company claiming that it now generates close to a billion lines of code each day.

BIOTECH/CRISPR

🧬 Coinbase co-founder eyes CRISPR baby startup

Image source: TechCrunch/Wikimedia Commons

The Rundown: Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong looks to be moving into one of medicine’s most controversial frontiers: gene-editing human embryos. This week, he announced on X a plan to launch a U.S. startup focused on “embryo editing.”

The details:

• Armstrong said he is actively recruiting gene-editing and bioinformatics experts for a startup that will help target genetic disorders.

• This move would represent the first major commercial investment in a field still reeling from the global backlash to China’s 2018 CRISPR baby experiment.

• His interest is reportedly fueled by recent advances in base editing, a more precise gene-editing method that can swap out individual DNA letters.

• U.S. law currently prohibits the FDA from even reviewing applications for gene-edited babies, and the field is heavily stigmatized.

Why it matters: Critics warn that gene-editing to select or eliminate traits risks reviving eugenic practices, while Armstrong—already known for his investments in longevity startup New Limit—joins a wave of tech billionaires aiming to use disruptive technology to reshape not just financial systems, but humanity’s genetic future.

ISPACE

🌗 Japan’s lunar city hits major setback

Image source: ispace

The Rundown: Japan’s ispace wants to make lunar living a reality by putting a thousand people on the moon by 2040. But on Thursday, its latest probe, Resilience, proved that even bold ambitions can’t outmaneuver the moon’s harsh realities.

The details:

• The privately owned space company aims to build a lunar city with 1K permanent residents and host thousands more as lunar tourists by 2040.

• Its latest mission aimed to deliver a mini rover, scientific instruments, and a symbolic red “Moonhouse” art installation to the lunar surface.

• But a malfunction in the lander’s laser rangefinder delayed crucial altitude readings, preventing it from slowing down in time and leading to a crash.

• This marks ispace’s second failed lunar landing, following a similar crash during its first mission in 2023.

Why it matters: CEO Takeshi Hakamada pledged a thorough investigation, vowing to “restore trust” and keep pushing toward the company’s lunar vision. But with two hard landings in a row, ispace’s dream of a lunar metropolis now faces a steep climb back to credibility and technical readiness.

ANDURIL

🪖 Defense tech Anduril reaches $30B valuation

Image source: Anduril

The Rundown: Anduril, the defense tech company founded by Oculus creator Palmer Luckey (famously fired from Facebook in 2016 for donating to a pro-Trump group), just closed a massive $2.5B funding round, more than doubling its valuation to $30.5B.

The details:

• The round was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, which alone invested $1B—the largest check in the fund’s history.

• Anduril’s revenue nearly doubled to $1B in 2024, driven by a surge in U.S. military contracts and the growing demand for its autonomous systems.

• The company also recently took over Microsoft’s $22B augmented reality headset contract with the U.S. Army.

• Anduril is investing heavily in manufacturing, including the $1B Arsenal-1 facility in Ohio, to scale up production of drones and other systems.

Why it matters: Anduril’s rise signals a shift in defense tech, as venture capital floods into startups aiming to modernize military hardware amid rising global tensions. Now valued at about half the size of legacy giants like Northrop Grumman, Anduril is betting that Silicon Valley speed and software-first innovation can outpace the old guard.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in tech today

Elon Musk reversed his threat to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft after a public feud with President Trump over government contracts.

Meta signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to purchase about 1.1 gigawatts of nuclear power in Illinois, starting in 2027.

Perplexity handled 780M queries in May, CEO Aravind Srinivas said, adding that the AI search engine is seeing more than 20% month-over-month growth.

OpenAI is appealing against a court order in the New York Times copyright lawsuit that requires it to indefinitely preserve ChatGPT output data.

Apple agreed to pay $95M to settle a class action lawsuit concerning its Siri voice assistant allegedly recording, storing, or sharing private conversations without consent.

Amazon is investing $10B to build new AI and cloud computing data centers in North Carolina, marking one of the largest tech investments in the state’s history.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a new 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes, electric scooters, and pedal-assisted commercial bicycles.

Joby Aviation is negotiating a $1B deal to sell up to 200 of its eVTOL air taxis to Abdul Latif Jameel, a major Saudi Arabian investment conglomerate.

Apple reported that its App Store ecosystem facilitated $1.3T in global billings and sales in 2024.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop this Friday, June 6th 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 incorporate Flux Kontext into your creative workflows for consistent, high-quality results.

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