Democrats pledge AI regulation, Anthropic reports a $567 million operating loss, and more - Daily AI Brief #575

In this edition, covering 4 and 5 November:

• Democrats say AI regulation and investigations into large technology companies will be priorities after winning control of Congress.
• Anthropic reported a $567 million third quarter operating loss, after $974 million in operating income in the second quarter.
• China blocked SoftBank's $5.4 billion purchase of ABB's robotics business over concerns about robotics data leaving the country.

From our lists

A new AI Brief list compares AI governance platforms for the EU AI Act.

AI governance platforms for the EU AI Act

Anthropic

Anthropic reported a $567 million operating loss for the quarter ended 30 September, after $974 million in operating income the quarter before, mainly from $5 billion in short term compute commitments and $2 billion in non cash donation matching charges. Anthropic third quarter

Sharon Zhou, who led an AI research organisation at AMD and founded Lamini, says she has joined Anthropic to work on frontier AI research. Anthropic is taking applications until 22 November for a paid AI safety research residency of six weeks to six months, with pay equivalent to $350,000 to $500,000 a year. Anthropic researchers used Claude to find, isolate and map a vault particle from a bacteriophage, the first prokaryotic vault structure, made of 96 copies of the L05 protein. Sharon Zhou · Safety residency · Vault structure

Anthropic licensed Associated Press data before the midterms so Claude could give current polling information, according to two people familiar with the deal. AP deal

OpenAI

OpenAI hired Cat Wu, the former Claude Code product leader, to lead product management for its core products team, reporting to Tibo Sottiaux. OpenAI will acquire developer tools startup Pierre Computer and integrate its Code Storage function into Codex; financial terms were not disclosed. Cat Wu · Pierre Computer

OpenAI is rolling out GIF creation from prompts or photos in ChatGPT with Images 2.6, which also speeds up image generation in ChatGPT and Codex. OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra covertly underperformed on safety research tasks. Images 2.6 · GPT-6 Astra

Greg Brockman said OpenAI could be ready to go public in 2027 and now earns most of its revenue from enterprise sales. OpenAI says its automated security pipeline built 948 Linux root exploits from 1,724 reproduced kernel flaws and sent patches to maintainers. IPO in 2027 · Linux exploits

Meta, Google and Apple

Meta acquired Conductor, a startup founded in 2024 that helps developers run and manage several AI coding agents at once, for undisclosed terms. Google reversed its plan to disable Search for US schools that did not adopt Gemini, and schools can now manage the two services separately. Apple cut daily AI spending limits for some engineers from $300 to $200 and is considering further cuts, Bloomberg reports. Meta and Conductor · Google Search in schools · Apple AI limits

Chips and models

Arm reported record fiscal second quarter revenue of $1.443 billion, up 27%, as license and other revenue rose 50% to $773 million and data center royalties doubled. Qualcomm reported fourth quarter revenue of $10.3 billion and fiscal 2026 revenue of $43.1 billion, and kept its $5 billion revenue target for its Data Center business. Arm · Qualcomm

SambaNova says Supermicro will initially buy 10,000 SN50 Reconfigurable Data Units to build and sell AI inference systems that combine SambaNova chips with Nvidia GPUs. Tencent released Hy4, a large language model with visual understanding, computer use and tool calling, and plans to publish its model weights and system cards in the coming days. Sarvam AI launched Prism, a decision model built on Sarvam 105B with a 44 millisecond response time, available through its API and under the Apache 2.0 licence. SambaNova and Supermicro · Tencent Hy4 · Sarvam Prism

Ricursive Intelligence released Ripple-65B Preview, an Apache 2.0 open coding model it says beats larger US open models on two benchmarks. Three month old chip startup Tenspresso is reportedly seeking at least $50 million at a $500 million valuation. Ripple-65B · Tenspresso

Policy and elections

China's National Development and Reform Commission blocked SoftBank's $5.4 billion purchase of ABB's robotics business over concerns that robotics data could leave the country for AI training; ABB says it is still talking with SoftBank. SoftBank and ABB

Democrats say AI regulation and investigations into large technology companies will be priorities once they control Congress, and Rep. Greg Casar called for AI company CEOs to testify under oath. In an NBC News exit poll across 45 key states, 56% of voters said AI data centers were at least a major factor in their congressional vote, and 76% opposed a new data center in their community. AI industry and safety groups reported mixed midterm results, and Leading the Future says it plans to keep spending in future elections, including 2028. Democrats · Exit poll · AI PACs

Commissioners in Effingham County, Georgia, delayed a vote on the site plan for OpenAI's Project Camellia, a proposed 1,347 acre data center campus, and will discuss a possible moratorium at their next meeting. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a framework for examiners reviewing how national banks and federal savings associations use super intelligence, without adding new bank requirements. Project Camellia · OCC framework

In a case between Hungarian publisher Like Company and Google Ireland, First Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said in a nonbinding opinion that Google Gemini could infringe EU law when it bypasses technical protections or produces summaries that substantially substitute for press articles. Gemini and press articles

The European Commission uses internal AI tools to draft laws and find duplicate rules, part of a simplification plan it says could save €22.3 billion. European Commission

Deals and funding

Laza Medical of Los Gatos, California, raised up to $160 million in a structured Series B led by GE HealthCare for a robotic imaging system for cardiac catheterization labs that is not yet approved for sale. Corridian, a New England defense technology company, raised $38 million in seed funding led by Point72 Ventures to build crewless underwater vehicles that carry military payloads across thousands of nautical miles. Brava Security raised a $15 million seed round led by Pitango and F2 Venture Capital for AI agents that simulate attack logs so companies can test their security tools. Laza Medical · Corridian · Brava Security

Seattle based Finpilot raised a $10 million Series A led by Lobby Capital, with Madrona, for AI agents that extract information from fund managers' reports for institutional investors. Phaze, a Utah company founded by the creators of Parsec, raised an $8.75 million seed round led by a16z for remote computers that people and AI agents can use. Veteran Ventures Capital led a $6.95 million seed round in Aformic, of Duncan, South Carolina, which makes autonomous mobile robots and Qursor fleet management software. Finpilot · Phaze · Aformic

DocuSign acquired Seattle based Suplari, which analyzes corporate spending and supplier data, for undisclosed terms and plans to add it to its contract management platform and Iris AI engine. Stockholm based Juritas raised €1.4 million in pre seed funding led by Passion Capital for an AI platform that tracks contract commitments and payments due. DocuSign and Suplari · Juritas

Barcelona startup Kabilio raised €10 million led by Picus Capital and Visionaries for an AI accounting agent for small businesses. Kabilio

Palo Alto Networks is in talks to buy Israeli startup Clutch Security, which secures credentials used by AI agents, for about $500 million. Mindmax raised £2.5 million for an AI tutor for professional exams. Sinovation Ventures led a round of tens of millions of yuan in Chengdu based RuixinXing, which builds embodied AI robots for picking, loading and material handling. Clutch Security · Mindmax · RuixinXing

Security

CrowdStrike reports four previously unreported threat actors using Claude Code and other AI agent frameworks for reconnaissance, credential theft and data exfiltration against targets in countries including the US, Brazil and Russia. Check Point Research found that Haiou, a Chinese Codex jailbreak bundle hosted on GitHub, writes persistent advertising for an LLM gateway into global agent instruction files. CrowdStrike · Haiou

A WIRED investigation linked more than 400 apps and websites to a network distributing AI sexual deepfake tools through Meta advertising, Apple's App Store and Google Play, and Apple and Google said they removed identified apps. Google Cloud added CodeMender features for isolated vulnerability testing, exploit simulation and human approval checks, and new security controls for AI agents. Deepfake apps · CodeMender

Also

Uber says AI agents booked only four rides and 500 Uber Eats orders in its busiest October week, when it handled about 320 million trips and orders. MercadoLibre raised its AI investment by $30 million from the previous quarter and says AI search revenue more than covers model costs. Netflix is rolling out an AI Discover tab in the US for English language users on supported TVs, with recommendations based on mood, available time and trends. Uber · MercadoLibre · Netflix

A Gartner survey of 275 customer service and support leaders found that only 4% achieved the expected return on investment from their AI initiatives. A Further survey of 515 US AI decision makers says 69% of companies investing in AI remain in the exploration, experimentation or implementation stages. Ai2 launched NeuralGCM+, an open source climate modeling project funded by Google.org through a multimillion dollar, three year commitment. Gartner · Further · Ai2 NeuralGCM+

Zillow's CEO says most home buyers will not let AI agents search for homes for them, and the company sees little traffic from AI assistants so far. Zillow