AI-Powered Toys, Automated Hollywood & the Cybersec Job Revolution

Happy Thursday everyone!

Welcome to AI Weekly Digest 📬 Your essential AI briefing, carefully curated by me, Rubén Colomer, AI Specialist and GP at Next Tier Ventures. Stay ahead of the curve with the latest AI breakthroughs, key funding news, innovative tools, thought-provoking reads, and the best AI job opportunities - it's all here!

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News 🗞️📰

• Barbie maker Mattel and OpenAI partner to develop AI-powered toys Mattel and OpenAI announced a collaboration to weave generative AI into iconic brands like Barbie, Hot Wheels and American Girl, promising interactive, conversation-driven toys and companion apps later this year while leveraging ChatGPT Enterprise for internal product development.
• Industry: AI Filmmaking Is Already Becoming Mainstream: NBC News profiles studios using AI for storyboarding, virtual backgrounds and post-production edits—cutting costs and timelines—while directors debate ethical considerations around credit and creative ownership.
• The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Cybersecurity Workforce: NIST explores how AI is reshaping cybersecurity roles—automating routine threat detection and triage, elevating analyst responsibilities to strategic decision-making, and creating demand for hybrid skill sets that combine domain expertise with AI oversight.
• DeepMind builds new AI model for predicting cyclones Google DeepMind unveiled a deep-learning system trained on decades of satellite and oceanographic data that can forecast cyclone formation and trajectories up to 48 hours earlier than traditional meteorological models, aiming to improve early warning and disaster response.
• Meta’s vJEPA2 world model uses raw video to train robots Meta released vJEPA2, a vision-language “world model” that ingests unlabelled raw video to learn object affordances and physics, enabling robots to generalize manipulation skills to novel objects without task-specific retraining.
• Google names Deniz Yuret Kavukcuoglu as Chief AI Architect Google appointed AI pioneer Deniz Yuret Kavukcuoglu to the newly created role of Chief AI Architect, unifying the company’s research and product AI efforts across Search, Cloud, Android and hardware to accelerate deployment of large-scale models.
• Apple brings ChatGPT and other AI models to Xcode At WWDC 2025, Apple launched Xcode 26 with built-in integration for OpenAI’s ChatGPT—no account required—and opened the IDE to third-party model APIs, plus introduced an on-device Foundation Models framework for local AI inference on Apple silicon.
• OpenAI announces 80% price drop for o3, its most powerful reasoning model OpenAI cut the API rates for its flagship reasoning model o3 by 80%—now $2 per million input and $8 per million output tokens (with further caching discounts)—to spur broader experimentation and better compete with Google’s Gemini Pro and Anthropic’s Claude Opus.
• College Dropout Turns Billionaire Alexandr Wang Signs $14.3B Meta AI Deal: Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, who dropped out of MIT, struck a $14.3 billion contract with Meta to supply data-labeling and AI infrastructure, illustrating how outsider status and rapid iteration command a valuation premium in the AI boom.
• G7 Leaders Tackle AI Safety at Canadian Tech Summit: G7 tech ministers convened in Canada to discuss a shared framework for AI risk assessment, model transparency and cross-border regulatory coordination—seeking voluntary codes of conduct ahead of binding legislation.
• From Detection to Prevention: AI’s Evolution in Transportation Safety: GovTech argues AI is moving beyond post-incident analytics into real-time collision avoidance—with predictive maintenance, adaptive traffic control and driver-assist systems now preventing accidents rather than merely recording them.
• Product Makers to See AI Act Interplay with EU Safety Rules in Future Guidelines: MLex reports that the upcoming EU AI Act guidelines will clarify overlaps with existing EU product-safety frameworks—requiring manufacturers to integrate AI-specific risk assessments into CE-marking processes.
• Alibaba Launches Qwen-3 AI Models on Apple’s MLX Architecture: Reuters notes Alibaba’s new Qwen-3 series—multilingual, multimodal LLMs—now run natively on Apple’s MLX chips, promising iPhone and Mac apps local AI inference without cloud dependency.
• Geoffrey Hinton: These Jobs Will Be Replaced Due to AI: AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton warns that routine white-collar roles—like paralegals, translators and junior analysts—are most at risk of automation, urging policymakers to invest in reskilling and universal basic income discussions.
• Instagram Users Complain of Mass Bans, Pointing Finger at AI: TechCrunch reports widespread Instagram account suspensions blamed on an overzealous AI moderation system—users lost access to business profiles and ad accounts, prompting Meta to issue rollback and manual review measures.
• OpenAI Execs Discuss Accusing Microsoft of Anticompetitive Behavior: Reuters reveals OpenAI leaders considered filing antitrust complaints against Microsoft—its largest investor—over exclusive Azure deals that potentially stifle competition in cloud-AI services.

Funding 💼💸

• Abridge AI in talks for $300M round at $5.3B valuation: Pittsburgh-based Abridge AI, which uses generative AI to transcribe and summarize doctor–patient conversations, is reportedly raising $300 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz—nearly doubling its valuation to $5.3 billion and underscoring strong investor appetite for healthcare-focused AI software.
• Multiverse Computing raises €189M Series B to scale AI model compression: Spanish startup Multiverse Computing, led by CEO Enrique Lizaso Olmos , secured €189 million (≈ $217 million) in a Series B round led by Bullhound Capital with participation from HP Inc., Forgepoint Capital and Toshiba to advance its CompactifAI technology, which compresses large-language models by up to 95%—cutting inference costs by up to 80% and enabling deployment on edge devices.
• Canary Technologies raises $80M Series D for hospitality AI expansion: Co-founders and CEO Harman Singh Narula plus Satjot "SJ" Sawhney will put the $80 million led by Brighton Park Capital (with Insight Partners, F-Prime Capital, Thayer Ventures, Y Combinator and Commerce Ventures) toward globalizing Canary’s AI guest-engagement and operations platform, which now serves over 20,000 hotels with real-time voice and digital tipping solutions.
• Ellipsis Health banks $45M Series A for its AI care manager: Backed by Salesforce, Khosla Ventures and CVS Health Ventures (with Mitsui, Collier, E12 and AME Cloud Ventures), founder and CEO Dr. Mainul Mondal will use $45 million to expand Sage—Ellipsis Health’s AI voice agent for empathetic, proactive care management that automates health risk assessments, post-discharge follow-ups and care coordination.
• Landbase raises $30M Series A to automate AI-powered go-to-market workflows: Co-founded by CEO Daniel Saks and backed by Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures alongside Picus Capital, Landbase closed a $30 million Series A to scale its “vibe GTM” platform—transforming simple text prompts into fully orchestrated multi-channel sales and marketing campaigns in minutes.
• Autonomize AI raises $28M Series A to power agentic AI in healthcare: Co-founders Ganesh Padmanabhan and Kris Nair will deploy $28 million led by Valtruis, The Cigna Group Ventures and Tau Ventures (with Asset Management Ventures, ATX Venture Partners and Capital Factory) to scale Autonomize’s agentic AI orchestration platform—designed to automate care management, utilization checks and benefits workflows in regulated healthcare environments.
• Knowunity secures €27M Series B to personalize learning with AI: Founded in 2020 and led by co-founder & CEO Benedict Kurz , German edtech Knowunity closed a €27 million round led by XAnge (alongside Portfolion, Isomer Capital, Project A, Redalpine, Educapital, plus Verena Pausder and Booking.com’s Arthur Kosten) to expand its AI-driven student learning companion that powers 20 million users across 15 countries.
• DASI Simulations closes $5M round to expand AI-powered heart-care modeling: Founder & CEO Teri Sirset , alongside CTO Lakshmi Dasi , will use the $5 million to scale DASI’s AI-driven predictive modeling tools for structural heart interventions—having already finalized 11 hospital partnerships and released a beta post-TAVR gradient predictor powered by proprietary AI pipelines.
• Lemonflow completes pre-seed to build AI voice agent for EV charging: Munich-based Lemonflow, co-founded by CEO Konstantin Huneke and CTO Dr. Lukas Fieber , closed its pre-seed round with participation from Speedinvest, CDTM Venture Fund and e-mobility experts like Adrian Zierer to develop a voice-based AI assistant that automates customer support for charge-point operators across Europe.

M&A 💰

• XtalPi Announces Strategic Acquisition of Liverpool ChiroChem (LCC): In a deal announced June 13, 2025, XtalPi—an AI- and robotics-driven R&D platform for life sciences and materials—has brought University of Liverpool spin-off Liverpool ChiroChem (LCC) into its fold, integrating LCC’s PACE automated chiral-chemistry engine to accelerate discovery of novel stereodefined molecules for pharmaceuticals, materials science, and specialty chemicals.
• Cyera acquires Israeli startup Shape AI: Cybersecurity innovator Cyera confirmed on June 11, 2025 that it has bought Shape AI—a Tel Aviv-based GenAI pioneer founded in 2023 whose natural-language-to-query engine empowers supply-chain and inventory teams to interrogate relational, CRM, and ERP data without writing code—expanding Cyera’s portfolio into AI-driven operational insights.
• Qualcomm to acquire Alphawave Semi for $2.4 billion: Qualcomm unveiled a $2.4 billion all-cash offer on June 9, 2025 to purchase UK-based Alphawave Semi—specialists in high-speed wired-connectivity IP for data-center and AI-training chips—paying a 96 % premium over the pre-announcement share price, with the transaction expected to complete by Q1 2026.
• Soda acquires NannyML to build an AI-native data quality platform: On June 9, 2025, Brussels-based data-quality leader Soda announced it has acquired NannyML—the open-source pioneer in model-performance estimation, drift detection, and root-cause analysis for production ML pipelines—to integrate its AI monitoring capabilities into Soda’s platform and deliver end-to-end observability from raw data ingestion through automated decisioning

Interesting Reads 💡🤔

• Vibe Coding Web Design Techniques: Geeky Gadgets showcases “vibe coding” for UI creation—using natural-language prompts to generate responsive HTML/CSS layouts, refined via iterative feedback loops—to accelerate web design without manual markup.
• Build an AI Agent to Explore Your Data Catalog with Natural Language: A tutorial demonstrates creating a custom AI “data agent” using LLMs and your metadata store—enabling analysts to query schemas, lineage and sample records via conversational prompts without writing SQL.
• Glean vs. Notion: Which AI search wins?: ClickUp compares Glean’s enterprise-grade AI-powered search across apps and Notion’s integrated workspace search, noting Glean leads in real-time indexing and accuracy, while Notion excels in team collaboration and document editing.
• 3 Things AI Can Do That You’ll Be Thrilled to Never Have to Do Again: BGR lists AI automations—email management, meeting transcription/summary and image upscaling—that eliminate tedious chores, boosting productivity and freeing users from repetitive manual tasks.
• AI “Factories” and the Future of Enterprise Infrastructure: At Dell Tech World, experts outlined the “AI Factory” model—converged platforms combining data pipelines, model training and deployment microservices—to standardize and scale AI across enterprises.
• n8n Code Node Automation Guide: Geeky Gadgets tutorial covers using n8n’s Code Node with JavaScript to enhance no-code workflows—parsing API responses, applying business logic and integrating custom functions without external hosting.
• The Gentle Singularity: Sam Altman outlines a vision for a “gentle singularity”—gradual integration of AI advances into society with robust safety measures, transparent governance and human-centric values to avoid abrupt disruption.
• 5 Ways AI Has Already Changed SaaS Sales Forever: SaaStr podcast with Dmitry Shevelenko details how AI automates lead scoring, personalizes outreach, enriches CRM data, predicts churn and accelerates deal closures—reshaping SaaS go-to-market motions.
• What Is Agentic AI and Why It Matters: Zapier explains agentic AI—autonomous software agents that can perform multi-step tasks, orchestrate APIs and learn from feedback—and offers examples of workflow automation and customer-service bots built on this paradigm.
• AI Agents Will Be Ambient but Not Autonomous: ZDNet argues future AI agents will operate seamlessly within apps and devices—assisting contextually—but remain under human control, emphasizing collaboration over independent decision-making.
• 1-Minute AI Alternatives: ClickUp rounds up quick-use AI tools—like one-click summarizers, instant grammar fixers and micro-AI scripts—that deliver immediate value for short tasks without steep learning curves.
• Building AI Apps with the Plan → Files → Code Workflow in TinyDev: MarkTechPost details TinyDev’s streamlined workflow—define objectives in Plan, ingest and annotate sources in Files, then auto-generate and refine code—enabling rapid prototyping of AI applications.
• WSJ: Artificial Superintelligence May Be Overestimated: WSJ op-ed cautions that projections of near-term artificial superintelligence often ignore scaling limits, data constraints and real-world complexity, advocating a tempered view of AI’s pace.
• Your Favorite AI Chatbot Is Full of Lies: ZDNet exposes how AI chatbots hallucinate—fabricating plausible but false information—and urges users to verify outputs, highlighting techniques like source citations and domain-specific fine-tuning to improve reliability.

Startups / Tools 🧰🛠️

• Kling AI: A next-generation AI creative studio offering text-to-image, video generation, and live video chat with AI avatars, powered by proprietary large multimodal models for high-fidelity visuals and real-time interaction .
• The Fusebase: A B2B SaaS platform providing secure, branded AI-powered workspaces and portals that enable internal teams and external partners to collaborate via AI assistants embedded directly into documents and workflows .
• Scale Donovan: Scale AI’s customizable, mission-specific AI agent platform designed for the public sector, enabling rapid deployment of RAG-powered agents to ingest and analyze large volumes of structured and unstructured data for decision-making in minutes .
• Flick AI Social Media Manager: An AI-driven platform that automates social media strategy, content planning, caption writing, hashtag research, scheduling, and analytics to maintain a consistent, high-performing brand presence across networks .
• Zeda.io: A Voice-of-Customer–led product discovery platform that transforms qualitative feedback into actionable product insights, feature ideation, PRD generation, and automated release notes to drive customer-centric roadmaps .
• Rely.io: An internal developer portal (Reliability Intelligence SaaS) that consolidates service health and maturity metrics, embeds best-practice templates, and provides an AI assistant for querying your engineering data from a single pane of glass .
• Trupeer.ai: Uses AI to transform simple screen recordings into professional product videos, tutorials, and detailed documentation with automated editing, templating, and branding—all produced in minutes .
• Craft.do: An award-winning, cross-platform doc editor and note-taking app that syncs instantly across devices, supports Markdown and Apple Pencil, and offers on-device AI features to organize, plan, and write with seamless offline-capable workflows .
• Flux1 AI: An open-source, Apache-licensed text-to-image generator with model variants (Schnell, Dev, Pro, Ultra) that produce photorealistic to stylized visuals at up to 2 MP resolution, accessible via API or web UI .
• Granola.ai: An AI-powered meeting notepad that captures meeting audio, transcribes and organizes notes, highlights action items and decisions, and generates concise summaries to eliminate post-meeting chaos .
• Success.ai: An AI-powered B2B lead generation and cold-email platform giving unlimited access to 700 M+ verified contacts, automated email warm-up, a unified inbox, and AI-driven personalization to boost outreach performance .
• Avoma: An end-to-end AI meeting assistant that records and transcribes conversations in real time, auto-generates smart notes, chapter markers, follow-up emails, and automates CRM data entry—saving teams hours every week .

NTV Highlights 🪩🎉

• On Wednesday, June 18, I will be participating in the “AI for Your Business” event, organized by Emprendedores, which will take place online at 18:00 CEST as part of the launch of the AI Guide for Entrepreneurs.
• Next Thursday, June 19, Next Tier Ventures and Andersen invite you to our one-stop session on “Private Markets & Alternative Investments: Tax Incentives and AI Leverage,” taking place from 9:30 AM to 11:10 AM at Andersen’s Madrid auditorium (C/ Velázquez, 110). Join Bernabé de Marcelino (Andersen), Patricia Pastor (GP at Next Tier Ventures) and Paco Illueca (GVC Gaesco ) as they dive into alternative investment vehicles, VC tax breaks, AI trends and a roundtable on fiscal and AI considerations
• On Thursday, June 19, I will be speaking at the “Foro Innovación Emprendedores by Sngular” at Sngular’s Madrid headquarters (Calle La Bastida, 1) as part of their 2025 program . The forum will feature speakers such as Javier Torremocha (Kibo Ventures), María Pilar Gorriz (RENFE), José María Párraga (Fundación Incyde)
• We are actively looking for AI startups At Next Tier Ventures, we are actively looking for the next generation of AI startup founders ready to scale and create meaningful impact. Our investments range between $500K and $2M, accompanied by strategic support to help founders achieve their vision. If you’re building cutting-edge B2B AI solutions let’s connect 👉 http://apply.nexttier.vc

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