NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

Saudi Just Went All In on AI - And It's Huge

This week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman officially launched Humain, a state-backed AI company aimed at making the kingdom a global AI powerhouse. Part of the Vision 2030 strategy to diversify the economy beyond oil, Humain is backed by country’s the $940B Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Humain is launching with over $100 billion in planned investments, targeting the development of advanced data centers, cloud infrastructure, and next-generation AI models.

President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh triggered a wave of major AI deals with U.S. tech giants — and, critically, secured access to scarce AI chips:

• Nvidia will supply “several hundred thousand” of its newest Blackwell GPUs to Humain over the next 5 years.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Humain have announced a $5 billion-plus investment to build a dedicated "AI Zone".

• AMD signed a $10 billion strategic partnership to help Humain build a next-gen AI cloud platform.

• Qualcomm signed a memo of understanding to co-develop a data center CPU with Humain.

President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman celebrated these deals as the beginning of a “new golden era of partnership,” with President Trump calling them “game-changing” for both nations.

In a global AI race defined by chip scarcity, Saudi Arabia’s success in securing top-tier AI hardware is a major strategic win, and a sign of shifting power in tech. 

Retail Therapy? Now AI Does It for You

For years, online shopping followed a familiar path: search for a product, then head to Amazon, Zara, or another retailer to make the purchase. That model is about to be disrupted.

Starting this summer in the US, users of AI search engine Perplexity will be able to search for products, book travel, or buy tickets—and check out instantly with PayPal or Venmo—all within a single chat conversation.

This signals the emergence of agentic commerce, a new era where autonomous AI agents go beyond recommendations to make decisions and complete purchases for you.

Imagine saying, “Find me the best black sneakers under $100 and buy them,” and the agent handles everything, from product selection to payment and shipping—without you ever leaving the chat.

What Does This Mean for Brands?

This is a watershed moment. The traditional e-commerce funnel, from search engine to product page to checkout, is collapsing into a single, conversational flow.

• Instead of vying for clicks on a search results page, brands will now be competing for visibility within AI-driven recommendations and transactions.

• Success will depend on how well a product or offer aligns with the user’s intent and how discoverable it is to AI agents acting on the customer’s behalf.

This is a really hot topic amongst my clients. I’m giving a talk this week on next-gen AI-powered commerce. 😎

Can AI Really Decode Barks and Meows?

Chinese tech giant Baidu has filed a patent for something straight out of a Pixar movie: an AI system designed to translate animal sounds (starting with things like cat meows and dog barks) into human language.

According to the filing, the system would analyze animal vocalizations, behaviors, and even physiological signals to decode emotional states, which would then be mapped to words and phrases.

While it’s not the first attempt at cross-species communication, this may be the first major tech company to try packaging it into something real-world usable. So far, Baidu says it’s still in the research phase.

Some people are excited to finally talk to their dogs — others aren’t so sure they want to hear their cat complain about them. 😄 What do you think?