AI and robotics saw rapid moves this week as major players pushed new platforms while facing mounting pressures around safety, attribution, and infrastructure. OpenAI sought policy support amid legal scrutiny, Google expanded Gemini across its ecosystem, and Wikipedia warned AI developers about responsible data use, while new research and a German court ruling highlight gaps in readiness and regulation.
At the same time, funding activity stayed strong, with startups advancing spatial computing, humanoid robotics, workflow automation, energy intelligence, and AI-driven wearables. A slate of global conferences is poised to shape the next phase of innovation as the industry accelerates toward more complex, interconnected systems.
Industry & Enterprise
Wikipedia Urges AI Developers to Use Its Content Responsibly Through Paid Enterprise Platform
Wikipedia’s parent organization announced new measures urging AI developers to responsibly access and attribute its content through the paid Wikimedia Enterprise service, after discovering bots scraping the site while posing as human users. The foundation warned that such misuse strains infrastructure and undermines transparency, even as it pursues its own AI tools designed to assist — rather than replace — human editors. (AI Insider)
OpenAI Faces Dual Challenges: $1.4T Infrastructure Push and Legal Scrutiny Over GPT-4o Safety
OpenAI is pushing the U.S. to expand clean-energy and semiconductor tax credits to include AI data centers and infrastructure, even as the company faces lawsuits from families alleging its chatbot contributed to several suicides. The company says it expects to surpass $20 billion in annualized revenue next year and plans $1.4 trillion in data-center spending, highlighting both its rapid growth and the mounting scrutiny over AI safety. (AI Insider)
Google Expands Gemini AI Across TV and Maps Platforms
Google is rolling out its Gemini AI assistant to Google TV devices, replacing Google Assistant and enabling more natural, conversational queries for personalized content discovery and broader help across YouTube, education, and home tasks. The company is also adding Gemini-powered developer tools to Google Maps, reinforcing its strategy to make Gemini the central AI layer across consumer products and developer platforms. (AI Insider)
RAND Simulates a ‘Robot Insurgency’ to Test U.S. Readiness — It Goes About as Well as You Might Expect
A RAND simulation of a “Robot Insurgency” cyberattack found the U.S. poorly prepared for a major crisis triggered by rogue AI, with participants struggling to attribute attacks or coordinate a response. The report warns of major gaps in rapid AI analysis, resilient infrastructure, and crisis playbooks, as well as a lack of international frameworks for managing AI-driven emergencies. (AI Insider)
Figma Expands in India with New Bengaluru Office to Grow AI and Developer Ecosystem
Figma has opened a new office in Bengaluru to deepen support for one of its fastest-growing markets, as adoption surges across major Indian startups and enterprises. The company is positioning itself as an AI-driven bridge between design and development, with India playing a central role in its global push for tools that turn natural-language prompts into functional applications. (AI Insider)
Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs Launches Marble, Its First Commercial Generative World Model
World Labs, the AI startup led by Fei-Fei Li, has launched Marble, a commercial generative world model that lets users create and edit persistent 3D environments from text, images, or layouts. Backed by $230 million, the company is positioning Marble as an edge over rivals by offering editable, exportable worlds and new AI-native tools aimed at gaming, VFX, VR, and robotics. (AI Insider)
German Court Rules OpenAI Violated Copyright Law in Landmark AI Decision
A German court ruled that OpenAI’s ChatGPT violated national copyright law by training on licensed musical works without permission, ordering the company to pay damages to GEMA. The decision, which OpenAI says it may challenge, marks a landmark European case as the company faces similar copyright suits from creators around the world. (AI Insider)
Andy Rubin Reportedly Building Humanoid Robotics Startup in Japan
Android co-founder Andy Rubin is building a stealth-mode humanoid robotics startup in Tokyo called Genki Robotics, according to reporting from Maeil and The Information. The venture has begun developing prototypes as Rubin returns to a field where he previously led Google’s major robotics acquisitions and early industrial projects. Observers say the Tokyo base reflects his longstanding ties to Japan’s robotics ecosystem, including past deals that gave him access to university labs and engineering talent. (AI Insider)
Research & Innovation
Study Finds Large Language Models Not Ready to Safely Power Robots
A new peer-reviewed study from King’s College London and Carnegie Mellon University found that robots powered by major LLMs routinely approved unsafe, harmful, or unethical actions in household and workplace tests. The researchers, funded by U.S. science agencies, say the failures show the need for independent safety certification before LLM-driven robots are deployed in the real world. (AI Insider)
Upcoming Conferences & Events
European Humanoid Robots Summit 2025
Nov. 17-18, Berlin, Germany, EHRS2025 is emerging as a major global conference for the humanoid robotics industry, bringing together more than 40 leading exhibitors and an expected 2,000 professionals to showcase new technologies and commercialization trends. The hybrid summit will explore breakthroughs in design, ethics, and ecosystem development as it aims to create a high-efficiency platform for advancing humanoid robotics and embodied intelligence worldwide. (EHRS2025)
International Conference on Robotics, AI and Computer Engineering (ICRACE)
Nov. 16-17, London, UK, ICRACE 2025 brings together global researchers, engineers, and academics to share advances in robotics, AI, and computer engineering. The conference aims to cut through industry hype with practical insights, offering a strong platform for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and career development. (ICRACE)
Microsoft Ignite
Nov. 18-21 (with an optional pre-day on November 17), San Francisco, Calif., the annual conference brings together IT professionals, developers and industry leaders to explore Microsoft’s latest innovations in AI, cloud, security and enterprise solutions. (Microsoft Ignite)
Startups & Capital
Scribe Closes $75M Series C to Launch AI-Driven Workflow Optimization Platform
Scribe raised $75 million in Series C funding at a $1.3 billion valuation to expand its new AI platform, Scribe Optimize, which analyzes real employee workflows to identify where automation will deliver the greatest impact. The company now serves more than 5 million users and 78,000 paying organizations and plans to double its team as it scales globally. (AI Insider)
Dutch Greenhouse Automation Startup SAIA Agrobotics Raises €10M in Series A Funding
SAIA Agrobotics raised €10 million in Series A funding to advance its greenhouse automation system, which moves plants to stationary robots for scanning, trimming, and harvesting. The Wageningen University spinout says its approach cuts labor costs in half and boosts yields by 20%, with early deployments already running at Growers United. The company now has more than €20 million in backing as it pushes toward a 2026 commercial launch and positions its AI-driven “Food Factory of the Future” as key to Europe’s sustainable agriculture plans. (AI Insider)
Sesame Raises $250M Series B to Launch AI-Powered Smart Glasses and Open Beta
Sesame, the conversational-AI and smart-glasses startup led by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, raised $250 million in Series B funding from Sequoia, Spark, and others. The company is building a personal AI agent with expressive, humanlike speech that will run on lightweight eyewear designed for all-day use, following early traction from its viral AI voices “Maya” and “Miles.” An early beta of the Sesame iOS app is now rolling out as the company readies its broader platform and hardware launch. (AI Insider)
Velents.ai Closes $1.5M to Launch Agent.sa, the First Fully Integrated Arabic-Speaking AI Employee
Velents.ai raised $1.5 million to launch Agent.sa, a fully autonomous Arabic-speaking AI employee built on a proprietary language model capable of handling calls, WhatsApp chats, data analysis, and real-time task execution. The Egypt–Saudi startup is integrating its 24/7 digital workforce across major enterprise systems as it prepares for a larger 2026 funding round to expand regionally. (AI Insider)
Exnaton Raises Series A to Expand AI Platform Powering Europe’s Energy Transition
Exnaton raised a Series A round to accelerate the rollout of its AI platform for European utilities, enabling dynamic tariffs, peer-to-peer energy sharing, and smarter EV charging without major IT upgrades. More than 50 utilities already use the ETH Zürich spin-out’s software as it positions AI at the center of Europe’s decentralized clean-energy transition. (AI Insider)
Bezos Earth Fund Announces $30M in AI Grand Challenge Awards
The Bezos Earth Fund committed $30 million to 15 global teams building AI tools for biodiversity, climate resilience, and food security, with projects ranging from coral reef monitoring to advanced weather forecasting. Backed by partners including AWS, Google.org, and Microsoft Research, the program aims to scale real-world environmental applications and demonstrate how AI can accelerate global sustainability efforts. (AI Insider)
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