NYT & Amazon announce AI deal

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Thursday.

If you missed The Wall Street Journal’s AI-generated video from yesterday’s email, take a few minutes to watch the full 7-minute clip.

Speaking of journalism and AI...

The New York Times and Amazon have signed an A.I. licensing deal.

Here’s what’s notable, via NYT:

In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. Now its editorial content will appear across Amazon platforms.

The multiyear agreement “will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,” the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports.

This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology.

Amazon’s use of editorial content from The Times could extend to the Alexa software found on its smart speakers. In some instances, excerpts from Times reporting will include attribution and a link back to The Times’s website. Material from The Times will also be used to train Amazon’s proprietary A.I. models, the company said.

OK let’s keep going ↓

Here’s what you should know:

• Introducing Perplexity Labs

  Labs can craft everything from reports and spreadsheets to dashboards and simple web apps — all backed by extensive research and analysis. Often performing 10 minutes or more of self-supervised work, Perplexity Labs use a suite of tools like deep web browsing, code execution, and chart and image creation to turn your ideas and to-do’s into work that’s been done.

• Meta AI has 1 billion monthly active users

  The “focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI with an emphasis on personalization, voice conversations and entertainment,” Zuckerberg said.

• Meta and Anduril to build AI gear for U.S. troops

  These joint mixed reality capabilities will integrate seamlessly with Anduril's Lattice platform, the company's AI-powered command and control system that integrates valuable data from thousands of sources to provide real-time battlefield intelligence.

• Black Forest Labs releases FLUX.1 Kontext

  Unlike traditional text-to-image models, Kontext understands both text AND images as input, enabling true in-context generation and editing.

• NVIDIA announces Q1 FY26 results

  NVIDIA posted $44.1B in Q1 FY26 revenue, up 69% YoY, despite a $4.5B China-related hit. AI demand remains strong, with margins rebounding to 71.3% excluding the charge.

• New supercomputer 'Doudna' announced

  The U.S. Department of Energy unveiled plans for a new supercomputer named "Doudna," designed to support AI and scientific research, particularly in genomics.

• US senator calls for AI competition in Pentagon contracting

  U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren called on the Department of Defense to ensure competitive practices in AI contracting, emphasizing the need to prevent monopolies and encourage innovation. Reuters

• C3.ai announces increased U.S. Air Force contract award to $450 million

  “We believe our program with RSO may be the largest production AI deployment in the U.S. DoD today,” said Ed Abbo, Chief Technology Officer, C3 AI. “At the scale of the U.S. Air Force, this system has the potential to increase aircraft availability by up to 25%. We consider it a great privilege to continue to serve and to expand our AI operations to assist the U.S. DoD in meeting its mission objectives.”

The numbers:

• Grammarly secured $1B in non-dilutive funding from General Catalyst to expand its AI productivity platform, aiming to integrate more communication and productivity tools and host third-party applications.

• ClickHouse raised $350M Series C to enhance its high-speed columnar database, supporting real-time analytics and AI-native applications.

• Buildots raised $45M to scale its AI-powered construction management platform, enhancing real-time site visibility and predictive analytics for global construction teams.

• Inven, a Helsinki-based AI-native deal sourcing platform, secured $12.75M Series A funding to expand its platform that analyzes data on over 21 million companies to identify investment opportunities.

• Brainreader raised approximately $7.1M to scale its FDA-cleared AI platform Neuroreader, which helps diagnose neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s by analyzing brain MRI scans with precision.

• FLORA raised $6.5M to build its AI-powered creative tool, with backing from top investors across AI, gaming, and creative tech.

• Oncade raised $4M led by a16z to launch a community-driven game distribution platform for studios and players.

• Spott raised $3.2M to build an AI-native ATS and CRM platform tailored for recruiting and executive search firms.

Thought starters:

• AI’s Napster Moment May Be Next

• Business Insider to Slash 21% of Staff in Shift Toward AI and Live Events

• Anthropic CEO Warns of Job Displacement

Meme of the day:

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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