Google lands big AI punches with new agent initiatives – News

Google has been very busy, making a flurry of announcements this week that placed it credibly near the top in the artificial intelligence race.

It made a good one-two-three AI punch with new Gemini models, a new AI agent platform and the general availability of its Trillium chips and cloud instances. That’s after announcing a quantum chip breakthrough and before introducing a VR/AR version of Android. So much for all that antitrust stuff slowing it down.

But OpenAI has been no slouch either, in the middle of a 12-day run of product and feature introductions, including the general availability of its video generation model Sora this week.

ServiceTitan completed the first tech IPO since Rubrik in April, but that’s still a pretty slow year. Will 2025 be any better? If you know where the economy’s going as Trump returns, well, I don’t believe you.

Oracle and MongoDB earnings came in pretty good but failed to satisfy investors. Broadcom shares jumped almost 23% Friday as it reported big AI-related chip sales Thursday, as reports emerged that Apple is working with it to build an AI chipset. Meanwhile, Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC posted strong revenue growth too.

General Motors gave up on Cruise, its self-driving car unit, causing an $800 million hit on Microsoft in the process.

TikTok asked for an emergency pause on a U.S. ban as it waits and hopes Trump saves it.

Next week theCUBE and partner NYSE will hold a Cyber Week event in New York and a CFO Summit in Palo Alto. As the year winds down, Micron and Blackberry will be the last tech companies to report earnings results.

You can hear more about this and other news on John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s podcast theCUBE Pod later today on YouTube.

Here’s the big enterprise and emerging technology news this week from News and beyond:

AI and data: Google’s not-so-secret agents

Wrapping up re:Invent:

Breaking Analysis: AWS re:Invent 2024: Builder ethos embraces simplicity

At AWS re:Invent 2024, AI innovations fall across markets

Three insights you might have missed from AWS re:Invent

Meeting at center ice: The NHL and AWS redefine hockey broadcasting and fan engagement

Controversy

Character.AI sued over slew of harmful chatbot messages sent to children

Chatbots are learning to lie (per Axios)

Will AI eat the browser? Om Malik makes a good case that it soon will do just that.

New models, services and products

Google unveils Gemini 2.0 including 2.0 Flash as the foundation for AI agent experiences

Google launches Agentspace to combine AI agents and enterprise search

Google Cloud moves its AI-focused Trillium chips into general availability

Apple brings ChatGPT integration to iPhone, iPad and Mac with Apple Intelligence update

Report: Apple working with Broadcom to develop custom chipset for AI

OpenAI makes its Sora video generator generally available

OpenAI finally launches screen and live video observation for paying ChatGPT users

Microsoft releases Phi-4 language model trained mainly on synthetic data

Meta releases AI models for motion rendering and video watermarking

Red Hat expands AI model support in new release of Linux AI platform

Databricks introduces new API for generating synthetic datasets

Acceldata adds AI-assisted reconciliation to its data observability platform

Dataiku launches generative AI tool for dynamic data storytelling

Money matters

MongoDB crushes Wall Street’s targets and boosts annual forecast but stock sags

Liquid AI raises $250M led by AMD to build a new type of generative AI model

OpenAI backs $78M round for AI language learning startup Speak

C3 AI shares surge on strong second quarter and upgraded outlook

Together AI acquires CodeSandbox, adds code interpreter to its AI development platform

WaveForms AI raises $40M in seed funding to create more empathetic AI voices

Stainless Software gets $25M in funding to bring AI-generated SDKs to developers

Vapi secures $20M to advance AI voice agent platform and scale operations

RapidCanvas raises $16M to streamline data science projects with AI agents

Generative AI app testing platform Gentrace raises $8M to make LLM development more accessible

SkySQL nabs $6.6M for its AI-integrated cloud database

Embedded analytics startup Embeddable raises €6M in seed funding

AI context intelligence startup Wald raises $4M, debuts data loss protection platform

AIMon raises $2.3M to combat AI hallucinations with LLM judges

There’s even more AI and big data news on News

Around the enterprise: An IPO for Christmas

Money matters

First tech IPO since Rubrik way back in April: Software maker ServiceTitan jumps 42% in stock market debut

Oracle’s rampant cloud growth wasn’t enough for Wall Street, and its stock slides after-hours

Shares of Broadcom jump on rising AI chip sales and ‘massive opportunity’

TSMC posts strong year-on-year revenue growth of 34% despite month-to-month slowdown, as foundry pulls in $8.5B in revenue for November

Adobe’s weak forecast stokes fears of AI disruption, sending its stock lower

AI keeps the data center boom going:

AI-focused data center startup Crusoe raises $600M at $2.8B valuation and AI data center builder Nscale nabs $155M investment

TeamViewer buys 1E, which detects PC software problems, for $720M

Optical chip interconnect startup Ayar raises $155M to bring light to AI workloads

Gigs gets $73M in funding to help any company spin up a mobile network offering

Digital accessibility design startup Evinced raises $55M

Software testing startup LambdaTest raises $38M in Qualcomm-backed round

Aampe raises $18M to scale consumer app personalization with AI agents

Stigg raises $17.5M to simplify SaaS platform and feature pricing models

Cofactr secures $17.2M to expand supply chain tools for high-compliance industries

New products and services

IBM touts fiber optic technology it says can cut AI training times and energy use by 80%

Microsoft previews new water-efficient data center design

We have more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps

Cyber beat: Shopping on your phone? Careful

Attack & response

Cloudflare 2024 report highlights internet growth and rising cybersecurity challenges

Now-patched macOS and iOS vulnerability allowed undetected access by bypassing data protections

Comparitech reveals widespread privacy gaps in mobile shopping apps ahead of holiday season

Money matters

Cohesity becomes world’s largest data protection software provider after completing combination with Veritas business

Citrix strengthens zero-trust security with acquisitions of deviceTRUST and strong.network

Email security provider Sublime Security raises $60M for platform growth

Astrix Security secures $45M to strengthen nonhuman identity protection in enterprise

New services

Extreme Networks launches Extreme Platform ONE to simplify enterprise networking and security And analysis from Zeus Kerravala: Extreme Networks rolls out its platform to simplify network operations

Rubrik introduces Turbo Threat Hunting for faster cyber recovery

Silverfort unveils Privileged Access Security to address enterprise identity security gaps

More cybersecurity news here

Elsewhere in tech: Google’s quantum breakthrough

Google debuts next-gen quantum computing chip with breakthrough error correction

Google debuts Android XR operating system for VR and AR devices

TikTok makes a last stand as it asks for emergency pause on US ban

General Motors ends Cruise robotaxi business in strategic industry exit It’s going to sting Microsoft too: Microsoft expects $800 million impairment charge in Q2 2025 over Cruise exit

Archer Aviation raises $430M, partners with Anduril to develop military aircraft

AI robotics inspection outfit ANYbotics raises $60M to drive expansion

DNA-based data storage company Biomemory raises $18M

And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy

Comings and goings

Virtuozzo founder Serg Bell is returning to become CEO and “chief constructor” of the platform for alternative cloud providers. So is co-founder Jan-Jaap Jager, who will be president and chief operating officer. Also joining the company is new Chief Automation Officer Oleg Melnikov, a co-founder of Parallels and chief technology officer at Acronis.

Network security and compliance assurance firm Titania named Victoria Dimmick new CEO.

William da Cunha, most recently a VP at Cloudflare, joined Seattle startup Statsig, which helps companies find ways to improve their applications and websites, as its new chief revenue officer.

What’s next

Events

Dec. 17: Cyber Week from theCUBE and NYSE Wired, streaming expert interviews and analysis live from the New York Stock Exchange.

Dec. 19: CFO Summit from theCUBE + NYSE Wired, streaming live from our Palo Alto studios with top financial leaders.

Earnings

Wednesday, Dec. 18: Micron

Thursday, Dec. 19: Blackberry

Image: News/Ideogram