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The future belongs to you. Let’s make conscious leadership the norm and embrace innovation as the driving force for positive change 🌍✨

WHAT’S AT STAKE TODAY ⚡

• 🔧👶 Apptronik's robots learning self-assembly. Skynet's origin story begins!
• 🔊✨ Amazon unveils Alexa+. Smart speaker gets smarter upgrade!
• 📊🆕 Kolena offers AI quality testing. Another tool joins evaluation party!
• 💰🔍 Perplexity launches $50M VC fund. Search engine becomes investor!
• 💸🤖 Anthropic's latest AI surprisingly affordable. Claude gets budget-friendly!
• 🦾💰 Nomagic scores $44M for robotic arms. Mechanical hands get funded!
• 💻⚡ Framework drops AI-ready desktop PC. Local computing gets beefy!
• ⚖️📝 Bridgetown bags $19M for AI due diligence. Legal paperwork gets faster!
• 🤝💼 Regie.ai keeps humans in AI sales loop. Robots and people play nice!

⚡ Latest in AI

Apptronik’s humanoid robots take the first steps toward building themselves

Apptronik’s humanoid robots take the first steps toward building themselves

Austin-based humanoid robotics company Apptronik has announced a groundbreaking pilot partnership with Jabil, a global manufacturing solutions provider, marking a significant step toward its vision of robots that can eventually build themselves. The announcement comes just two weeks after Apptronik secured a substantial $350 million Series A funding round aimed at scaling production of its Apollo humanoid robot platform.

The partnership with Jabil represents Apptronik's second major industry pilot, following its March 2024 collaboration with Mercedes-Benz that placed Apollo robots on automotive manufacturing floors. While the Mercedes-Benz pilot continues, Apptronik confirms it remains in the testing phase, highlighting the measured progression necessary in integrating complex robotic systems into established industrial environments.

What distinguishes the Jabil agreement from previous pilots is its dual nature. Beyond testing Apollo robots in active manufacturing settings, the partnership establishes Jabil as a future production partner for Apptronik's humanoid systems. Once Apollo demonstrates commercial viability through these real-world deployments, Jabil will begin manufacturing the robots in its own facilities. This arrangement creates a fascinating technological recursion: Apollo robots could eventually participate in building new generations of themselves.

"This partnership represents a crucial milestone in scaling humanoid robotics from prototype to mass production," said Jeff Cardenas, CEO and co-founder of Apptronik. "Jabil's manufacturing expertise combined with our robotics innovation creates the foundation for bringing versatile robotic labor to global markets."

The initial deployment will integrate an unspecified number of Apollo units into Jabil's operations, where they will perform various repetitive tasks in intralogistics and manufacturing. These include sorting components, transporting parts between workstations, and supporting existing automation systems. This real-world validation provides essential performance data for refining both hardware and software systems before wider deployment.

Despite the futuristic implications of self-replicating robots, Apptronik maintains a pragmatic timeline. The company has targeted 2026 for beginning commercial production, acknowledging the engineering and validation challenges still ahead. The current generation of Apollo robots stands 5'8" tall, weighs approximately 160 pounds, and can carry up to 55 pounds. With a battery life of 4 hours and the ability to hot-swap power sources for continuous operation, Apollo is designed for integration into existing human-centric work environments.

The humanoid robotics sector has seen remarkable growth in both investment and competitive intensity. Apptronik faces established competitors including Boston Dynamics with its Atlas platform, Figure AI (which recently secured significant investment from OpenAI and others), Tesla's Optimus program, and Agility Robotics with its Digit robot. Of these competitors, only Agility has announced commercial deployments beyond the pilot phase, having placed Digit robots in Amazon facilities earlier this year.

As the pilot progresses, both companies will evaluate Apollo's performance across metrics including operational reliability, task completion rates, integration with existing systems, and overall return on investment. These metrics will inform refinements to both hardware and software before commercial-scale production begins.

If successful, the vision of humanoid robots building new generations of themselves could transition from science fiction to manufacturing reality within the next several years.

⚡ The companies of the future

Amazon unveils a new and improved Alexa, Alexa+

Amazon Alexa+ Reveal

Amazon has unveiled Alexa+, a completely redesigned AI assistant powered by generative AI. The upgraded assistant can access personal information like purchase history, understand visual content through device cameras, and adjust responses based on tone and environment.

It offers improved smart home integration, including the ability to summarize Ring security camera footage and control Fire TV devices. Alexa+ can also process uploaded documents and emails to extract information for calendars and reminders. The new service will launch later this year.

Why it matters: Amazon’s move strengthens its foothold in AI-powered assistants, signaling increased competition with Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri as voice AI evolves toward more personalized and proactive capabilities.

⚡ The AI Edge: Smart Solutions for Business Growth

Kolena: A Tool for AI Quality and Model Evaluation

Kolena: AI Model Evaluation Platform

Kolena is a platform designed for testing, evaluating, and improving machine learning models. It provides automated tools that help ML engineers, data scientists, and AI developers assess model performance across different AI tasks and data types.

The platform streamlines the testing process, making it easier to identify weaknesses, ensure reliability, and enhance model explainability. By automating these steps, Kolena helps teams save time and improve overall AI quality.

Organizations use Kolena to refine their models, optimize performance, and maintain a competitive edge in AI development.

⚡ More AI Bites

1. 💰 🌱 Perplexity launches $50M seed and pre-seed VC fund.
2. 🤖 💸 Anthropic's latest flagship AI might not have been incredibly costly to train.
3. 🦾 💰 Nomagic picks up $44M for its AI-powered robotic arms.
4. 🖥️ 🎮 Framework's first desktop PC is optimized for gaming and local AI inference.
5. 📊 🔍 Bridgetown Research raises $19M to speed up due diligence with AI.
6. 📧 👥 Regie.ai injects sales enablement with AI, but keeps humans in the loop.

⚡ Trends for the Future

Cambium Raises $18.5M to Transform Waste Wood into Usable Lumber with AI

Cambium AI-Powered Timber Processing

The details:

Cambium, a startup focused on salvaging waste wood, has secured $18.5 million in funding led by VoLo Earth Ventures, the company exclusively disclosed to TechCrunch. The investment will support the development of AI-powered solutions to streamline the fragmented timber supply chain and reduce wood waste.

Founded by Ben Christensen, Marisa Repka, and Theo Hooker, Cambium aims to address a common issue in urban and suburban areas where trees are frequently cut down and shredded rather than milled into usable lumber. Christensen, who grew up in New Mexico surrounded by pine forests and comes from a family of woodworkers, identified coordination as the primary obstacle to wood reuse.

"If you're a tree care service, you're incentivized to get to your next booking," Christensen told TechCrunch. "If you have to drive out of your way to drop off logs somewhere that would reuse them, it's not going to work."

The startup has developed software that connects disparate segments of the timber industry, coordinating transactions between tree care companies, trucking operations, sawmills, and manufacturers. Cambium currently works with approximately 350 different entities across the supply chain, promising better service and more consistent, long-term contracts to its partners.

Beyond facilitating transactions, Cambium has developed techniques to ensure consistency from historically variable sources of wood. The company produces furniture-grade lumber and cross-laminated timber panels, working with manufacturers including Mercer Mass Timber, SmartLam, Sterling Structural, and Vaagen Timbers. Its products are sold to companies like Room and Board and Steelcase.

The environmental benefits of this approach are significant. "Every time you move wood 10 miles instead of 1,000, there's a real carbon benefit. And every time you keep a tree alive in the forest, there's a real carbon benefit," Christensen explained.

The timber industry is dominated by a few large companies but remains highly fragmented beyond them. "It generally takes eight to 10 businesses to get material to an end customer," said Christensen, Cambium's CEO. Most of these smaller operations haven't digitized, preferring traditional methods of doing business.

Rather than selling software directly, Cambium attracts partners by offering business opportunities. "If you call my uncle and try to sell him wood software, good luck. That's a short conversation," Christensen said. "But if you call him and you say, 'Hey, I want to buy 40,000 board-feet of four-quarter white oak from you, and I want to buy it from you every 60 days.' He's like, 'Heck yeah, let me get out my pen and paper.'"

The transaction data Cambium collects is being used to develop AI that can help these traditional businesses digitize without changing their operations. The next version aims to extract information from phone calls and automatically populate databases, adapting to how industry professionals prefer to communicate.

What makes this crucial: "It's about understanding how people in this industry want to receive information. If you're driving a truck, you're not on a laptop. You want to get a text, you want to get a voice call," Christensen said. "Those are the things that we're doing that make it really simple."

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📝 AI Playground: Enhance Your Writing 📝

🔧 This Week’s Tool: Wordtune 🔧

Overview: Wordtune is an AI-powered writing companion developed by AI21 Labs, designed to assist users in crafting clear and compelling content. ✍️ Whether you're drafting emails, articles, or social media posts, Wordtune offers real-time suggestions to enhance your writing's tone, clarity, and style. 🚀

Why Is It Better Than Other Tools? ✨

• ⚡ Contextual Understanding: Wordtune comprehends the context and meaning of your text, providing suggestions that align with your intended message.
• 🤖 Versatility: Works across platforms like Gmail, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for seamless writing assistance.
• 📈 Real-Time Suggestions: Instantly suggests alternative phrasing to improve clarity and engagement.

What Does It Do Best? 🌟

• 📝 Paraphrasing: Provides alternative expressions to make your writing clearer and more impactful.
• 💡 Tone Adjustment: Adapts suggestions to fit your desired tone, whether casual or formal.
• ✏️ Grammar and Spelling: Corrects errors while ensuring a smooth writing flow.

Applications 💼:

• 📧 Email Writing: Draft professional and concise emails effortlessly.
• 🖋️ Content Creation: Enhance blogs, articles, and reports with clearer, more engaging language.
• 📱 Social Media Posts: Craft compelling posts that resonate with your audience.
• 📚 Academic Writing: Refine essays and papers for better readability and coherence.
• 💼 Business Documentation: Improve proposals, reports, and presentations with clear, effective language.

Follow This Simple Guide to Get Started with Wordtune:

1. 🌐 Visit the Website: Go to wordtune.com and sign up for a free account.
2. 🔗 Add the Extension: Install the Wordtune Chrome extension for seamless writing support.
3. 📝 Start Writing: Write your content, and Wordtune will provide real-time suggestions.
4. ✨ Apply Suggestions: Choose the phrasing that best fits your tone and message.
5. 📈 Refine and Improve: Continue using Wordtune to enhance your writing style and clarity.

Wordtune is your go-to writing assistant, making it easier than ever to communicate effectively and confidently. 🚀

💡 Challenge: Use Wordtune to revise an email, social media post, or paragraph from an article. Share your before-and-after versions by replying to this email for a chance to win a special prize! 🎁 Start enhancing your writing with Wordtune today! ✍️