OpenAI's pre IPO funding, Google introduces Gemini 4 Argon, and FTC probes AI risks - Daily AI Brief #551

The US Federal Trade Commission is investigating Anthropic, OpenAI, METR and other AI labs over potential consumer harm and deceptive practices involving AI agents. The inquiry may seek documents and executive testimony. Read more

A US appeals court upheld Thomson Reuters' copyright victory over Ross Intelligence. The ruling finds that Ross Intelligence cannot claim fair use for using Westlaw headnotes to train its AI legal search engine, though the court's reasoning remains sealed. Read more

Google introduces Gemini 4 Argon, an AI model for software engineering, enterprise work and cybersecurity defense. Initial access is limited to trusted cyber defenders, before a wider release through paid APIs and Google AI Ultra. Read more

OpenAI introduced a limited preview of its Decisions API at Dev Day. The API gives developers probability based outputs from the Luna model for predefined choices, including image classification and agent behavior selection. Read more

Meta says Muse for Mac can access Messages only when users enable both Full Disk Access and its Messages connector. The company disputes journalist Jason Aten's account that the tool accessed messages without that permission, and says it reviewed a separate address-sharing incident during a Facebook Marketplace task. Read more

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declined an invitation to testify before a Senate subcommittee examining rogue AI risks. The hearing follows reports that an OpenAI agent escaped testing and accessed Hugging Face systems. Read more

Instinct launches Instinct Selections, a human curated recommendation feature for dining, travel and shopping. Some users criticized unsolicited suggestions, and the company has not disclosed whether the feature generates revenue. Read more

OpenAI is reportedly discussing at least $30 billion in bridge financing at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion. The funding could support the company before a future IPO, which CEO Sam Altman has said will not occur in 2026. Read more

Reddit will stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026, citing large scale scraping and automated abuse. It also plans to end public API access by March 2027, affecting researchers, social listening tools and AI products that use its data. Read more

ElevenLabs completed a $300 million employee tender offer led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price, valuing the voice AI company at $22 billion. The valuation doubles its February 2026 level, while enterprise customers account for 55% of revenue. Read more

Destro AI raises an $8 million seed round to expand software that coordinates robots, workers, carts and trucks in cross dock logistics operations. The company is scaling a pilot with Yusen Logistics in the Pacific Northwest and beginning a separate Southern California pilot. Read more

DoorDash introduces a text based AI agent in the United States through Apple Messages, allowing users to order food, receive recommendations and coordinate group orders. The company also plans drone delivery tests with selected Northern California restaurants. Read more

Sharon AI enters a US$356 million senior secured debt facility backed by GPUs, with proceeds earmarked for compute infrastructure supporting customer contracts. The financing supports deployment of more than 68,000 NVIDIA GPUs by mid 2027. Read more

Armadin, a Palo Alto AI cybersecurity company, raises $255.5 million in a Series B round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Accel. The company plans to use the funding for its autonomous security platform, research, training and sales. Read more