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06 Aug 2026

Unitree IPO Hits $9B Valuation as Retail Investors Rush China's Humanoid Robot Champion

Unitree priced its Shanghai IPO at $22.35 per share, raising $904 million and achieving a $9 billion valuation. The humanoid robot manufacturer's retail segment saw over 5,500 times oversubscription, signaling massive investor enthusiasm for AI-driven robotics despite FCC restrictions targeting Chinese products and escalating US-China competition in embodied AI.

7 Sources

Alphabet Raises $25 Billion in Bond Sale to Fund AI Infrastructure Build-Out

Alphabet sold $25 billion in bonds across 10 tranches to finance its AI infrastructure expansion, drawing $115 billion in peak demand. The tech giant's 2026 capital budget reaches $205 billion as it posts its first negative free cash flow since 2004.

5 Sources

Shopify says AI is ushering in a 'golden age of entrepreneurship' as ChatGPT traffic triples

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein declared AI is launching a golden age of entrepreneurship as traffic from ChatGPT and Gemini tripled over the past year. The company's AI assistant Sidekick handled 34 million conversations last quarter, helping merchants reach their first five sales faster while 75% of AI-driven purchases went to smaller brands outside the top 100 categories.

2 Sources

Figma Stock Plunges 16% Despite Record Growth as AI Costs Alarm Investors

Figma posted its strongest quarter yet with 48% revenue growth to $370.1 million and raised its annual revenue forecast. But the design collaboration platform's shares fell 16% after-hours as surging AI costs doubled operating expenses to $426.9 million, squeezing margins and raising questions about the true price of AI integration efforts.

3 Sources

AI Stocks Trigger Record Market Volatility Across South Korea, Taiwan and Japan

South Korea's Kospi index plunged 40% in just six weeks after doubling on AI-driven gains from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The AI stock rout wiped out billions as Taiwan's TSMC fell 14% and Asian hedge funds posted record 15.2% monthly losses in July, exposing dangerous concentration risks in emerging markets.

4 Sources

Siemens Raises Profit Outlook on AI Data Center Boom But Shares Drop 6% on Investor Expectations

German industrial giant Siemens raised its profit outlook for the second time this year after record orders driven by AI spending and data center buildout reached €27.9 billion. Despite net profit rising 15% to €2.6 billion, Siemens shares plunged 6% as the guidance increase fell short of investor expectations and concerns emerged about AI software risks.

2 Sources

DeepSeek Warns of Major Price Hike for AI Models After Dominating with Rock-Bottom Rates

DeepSeek has notified users of an upcoming significant price increase for its API services, reversing its ultra-low pricing strategy. The Chinese AI lab currently charges $0.28 per million output tokens for V4 Flash, far below competitors, but rising demand and infrastructure expansion plans may force higher rates.

7 Sources

News Corp CEO Slams AI Companies as 'Crass Kleptomaniacs' for Pilfering Content at Scale

News Corp CEO Robert Thomson launched a scathing attack on AI companies accused of content theft, calling them "crass kleptomaniacs" and warning their clients are in possession of stolen goods. While the media giant reported 7% revenue growth to $9.03 billion, it pursues aggressive legal action against unauthorized content scraping.

2 Sources

Uber Declares End of Tokenmaxxing Era as AI Spending Demands Proof of Value

Uber burned through its entire 2026 AI budget by April, prompting CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga to declare the end of the tokenmaxxing era. The rideshare giant is now demanding measurable returns on AI investments, shifting from unlimited experimentation to disciplined spending that prioritizes efficiency over raw consumption.

4 Sources

Time Magazine deploys AI ads targeting crawlers as bot traffic overtakes human visits

Time Magazine now serves AI crawlers like ClaudeBot and OAI-SearchBot a separate markdown version of its website containing ads only AI can see. Partnering with adtech firm Mobian, the publication aims to influence what AI assistants say about brands like Ally Bank through FAQ-style sponsored content invisible to human readers.

3 Sources

Klaviyo acquires Agency, appoints Elias Torres as chief product officer in full-circle reunion

Publicly traded e-commerce marketing automation platform Klaviyo has acquired Agency, a three-year-old AI-powered customer success startup founded by serial entrepreneur Elias Torres. Torres will join Klaviyo as chief product officer, leading the development of AI agents Composer and Customer Agent. The deal reunites Torres with Klaviyo co-founder Andrew Bialecki, whom he mentored over a decade ago at Performable.

2 Sources

Travis Kalanick's Atoms Hires Former Uber CFO Gautam Gupta After $1.7 Billion Raise

Gautam Gupta, who served as Uber's finance chief during Travis Kalanick's tenure from 2013 to 2017, has joined the industrial-robotics startup Atoms as CFO. The move comes weeks after Atoms raised $1.7 billion led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Uber itself contributing $100 million. The hire continues Kalanick's pattern of reuniting with former Uber executives at Atoms.

2 Sources

Google Pursues $1.5 Billion Deal with 35-Person AI Coding Startup Mechanize to Boost Model Performance

Google is negotiating a $1.5 billion deal with Mechanize, a year-old AI coding startup with just 35 employees. The agreement would license the startup's evaluation technology and bring key talent onboard to enhance Google's AI models' coding abilities. The move comes as Google faces mounting pressure from OpenAI and Anthropic in the AI coding space.

3 Sources

Block Raises 2026 Outlook as AI Agents Drive 150% Surge in Engineering Productivity

Block lifted its full-year 2026 guidance after reporting strong Q2 results driven by AI adoption across software engineering. Agentic AI tools now touch nearly all production code changes, helping code changes per engineer jump 150% since early 2026. Cash App and Square gross profit rose 25% year-over-year to $3.17 billion.

2 Sources

Zeta Global's AI Infrastructure Pivot Powers 44% Revenue Growth Despite Earnings Miss

Zeta Global delivered its 20th consecutive beat-and-raise quarter with $443 million in Q2 2026 revenue, marking 44% year-over-year growth. The intelligent AI infrastructure provider is repositioning from marketing tech to AI platform through partnerships with OpenAI, Palantir and Snowflake, though a significant GAAP EPS miss sent shares down 7% after hours.

3 Sources

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