Category: Top News

IBL News | New York

Hugging Face released a free, web-agentic AI tool called Open Computer Agent this month, which behaves similarly to OpenAI’s Operator.

Users can prompt a task, and the agent opens the necessary programs and determines the required steps.

It uses a Linux virtual machine preloaded with several applications, including Firefox. However, as Techcrunch described, “Be forewarned: It’s quite sluggish and occasionally makes mistakes.”

“It often runs into CAPTCHA tests that it’s unable to solve.”

The Hugging Face team’s goal is to demonstrate that open AI models are becoming more capable and cheaper to run on cloud infrastructure, not to build a state-of-the-art computer-using agent, as one of the developers expressed below.

We’re launching Computer Use in smolagents! 🥳

-> As vision models become more capable, they become able to power complex agentic workflows. Especially Qwen-VL models, that support built-in grounding, i.e. ability to locate any element in an image by its coordinates, thus to… pic.twitter.com/mI8MuWZkIS

— m_ric (@AymericRoucher) May 6, 2025

Agentic technology is attracting increasing investment as enterprises look to boost productivity. A recent KPMG survey shows that 65% of companies are experimenting with AI agents. Experts say the AI agent segment might grow from $7.84 billion in 2025 to $52.62 billion by 2030.

IBL News | New York

Chegg, the California online education firm that offers textbook rentals, homework help, and tutoring, said on Monday it will lay off about 22% of its workforce, or 248 employees. The firm warned that its decline would worsen before improving.

Publishers have been unable to compete with AI-generated content and solutions, which has resulted in a drop in visitors and subscribers. Students increasingly turn to AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT over traditional edtech platforms.

In addition, as part of its restructuring process, Chegg will shut its U.S. and Canada offices by the end of the year and reduce its marketing, product development efforts, and general and administrative expenses.

IBL News | New York

The OpenAI Startup Fund has invested in over a dozen startups, according to TechCrunch.

This fund, managed by a dedicated team, has raised $175 million for its central fund and secured an additional $114 million through five special purpose vehicles, which are investment pools for specific opportunities.

1X: This Norwegian humanoid robot startup raised $23.5 million in a deal led by the OpenAI Startup Fund and Tiger Global in early 2023.

Ambience Healthcare: This AI-powered medical note-taking startup announced a $70 million Series B in February 2024, co-led by OpenAI’s fund and Kleiner Perkins. Ambience is among several startups, including Abridge, Nabla, Suki, and Microsoft-owned Nuance, that are building AI medical scribes.

Anysphere (aka Cursor): In October 2023, OpenAI’s fund led the $8 million seed round into Anysphere, the AI-powered coding assistant Cursor maker.

Chai Discovery: This startup, which is developing an open-source AI foundational model for drug discovery, raised a $30 million seed round last September, led by Thrive Capital and OpenAI’s fund.

Class Companion: This edtech startup raised a $4 million seed round in 2023 from OpenAI’s fund and a host of angels. It helps teachers provide quick, personalized feedback to their students.

Descript: The collaborative audio and video editing platform raised $50 million in a Series C round led by OpenAI’s fund. Other investors in the round included Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, and ex-Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross.

Figure AI: AI robotics startup Figure raised a $675 million Series B in February 2024 from Nvidia, OpenAI’s fund, Microsoft, and others. The round valued the company at $2.6 billion.

Ghost Autonomy: This maker of autonomous driving software raised a $55 million Series E in April 2023, and OpenAI’s fund invested $5 million of that. But the investment didn’t work out. A year later, the company shut down.

Harvey AI: This legal tech startup raised a $21 million Series A in April 2023 from OpenAI’s fund and others.

Heeyo: Educational AI chatbot for kids Heeyo announced that it raised $3.5 million from OpenAI’s fund, Alexa Fund, Pear VC, and other investors in August.

Kick: This company is developing AI agents that can “self-drive” bookkeeping processes. In October, it raised a $9 million seed round co-led by General Catalyst and OpenAI’s fund.

Mem: This AI-powered note-taking startup raised a $23.5 million Series A round in November 2022, led by OpenAI’s fund. Mem hasn’t reported any subsequent funding rounds.

Milo: This startup is developing an AI-powered personal assistant that helps parents organize and keep track of their kids’ activities. Milo raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed and seed funding from OpenAI’s fund, YC, and others.

Physical Intelligence: Foundational software for robots startup Physical Intelligence raised a $70 million seed round last March. OpenAI’s fund was part of that, and it also participated in the company’s $400 million Series A, which valued the company at more than $2 billion. Other investors in the latest round included Lux Capital, Sequoia, and Jeff Bezos.

Speak: This AI-powered language learning app developer raised a $27 million Series B round in November 2022, led by OpenAI’s fund. In December, the fund participated in Speak’s $78 million Series C, which valued the company at $1 billion.

Thrive AI: Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and OpenAI Startup Fund announced last July that they teamed up to invest in and build this “AI health coach” startup. According to a regulatory filing, Thrive AI aimed to raise $10 million.

Unify: This sales technology startup secured about $19 million in seed and Series A capital from the OpenAI Startup Fund, Thrive Capital, and Emergence.

[In the picture above, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI]

IBL News | New York

The University at Buffalo (UB), a flagship university in the SUNY system, will create a new academic department this fall dedicated to education and research on harnessing the power of AI.

Kathy Hochul, Governor of New York, announced this month that the institution will receive $5 million to launch the new “Department of AI and Society,” based jointly in UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences.

The funds will be used to purchase high-performance computing for the university’s researchers and students, and to hire faculty members with expertise in AI.

The initiative will complement existing academic departments and units, including UB’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, and Empire AI, the $400 million statewide consortium whose supercomputing center is at UB.

The Department of AI and Society will offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in academic disciplines such as geography, health, public policy, communication, creativity and the arts, languages, etc. It will also offer a core set of courses that can be integrated into a wide range of majors.

The University of Buffalo is also planning an AI & Society Building, a new facility featuring computer labs, offices, conference rooms, and startup incubator space.

Kemper Lewis, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Robin Schulze, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will co-chair an advisory committee of faculty members developing the new department.

Atri Rudra, the Katherine Johnson Chair in Artificial Intelligence and a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, will be the inaugural department chair.

IBL News | New York

The U.S. Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was freezing billions of dollars in future research grants and other aid until the institution concedes to several demands from the Trump administration.

A letter from Secretary Linda McMahon said university leaders must address concerns about antisemitism on campus, school policies that consider a student’s race, and complaints from the administration that the university has abandoned before receiving additional federal grants.

“This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.

The Trump administration has targeted Harvard over allegations of antisemitism on campus during pro-Palestinian protests. The protests were sparked by U.S. ally Israel’s military assault on Gaza after the October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has escalated its actions against Harvard.

In April, Harvard rejected numerous Trump demands, calling them an attack on free speech and academic freedom. It sued the Trump administration after suspending about $2.3 billion in federal funding for educational institutions while also pledging to tackle discrimination on campus.

In its lawsuit against the Trump administration, Harvard said the government’s funding cuts will have stark “real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, (and) researchers” and jeopardize crucial medical and scientific research.

Harvard has a $53 billion endowment, the largest of any U.S. university, but the funds are often restricted and used for financial aid and scholarships.