Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

The AI industry entered 2025 with strong momentum.  There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch; three companies raised more than one “mega-round,” and seven companies raised rounds that were $1 billion in size or larger.  The industry didn’t slow down in 2025. While less companies raised rounds larger than $1 billion, four — Anthropic raised two rounds over $1 billion — significantly more companies raised multiple rounds compared to 2024, eight.   How will 2026 compare? Elon Musk’s xAI announced a $20 billion Series E round and Sam Altman’s brain computer interface startup Merge Labs raised a $250 million seed round (with OpenAI as the lead investor) in the first few weeks of 2026, so signs point to another strong…

Everyone wants to know when AI investments will pay off.Most CEOs say they’re still waiting, according to PwC’s latest Global CEO survey, released on Monday to coincide with the start of Davos.The consulting giant questioned 4,454 chief executives across 95 countries and territories about their strategic priorities and outlook in the year up to November 2025.More than half of the CEOs surveyed, 56%, said AI hasn’t produced revenue or cost benefits for their businesses to date.Some reported benefits for either revenue or costs: around a third said their revenue was up in the last year, and 26% said they were…

A 70-year-old woman died in November after riding the Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster at Universal Studios in Orlando, according to a report from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.The woman became unresponsive while riding the attraction on Nov. 25, the state agency said in its latest quarterly report on injuries at theme parks, which covers the last three months of 2025. She later died at a hospital, it said. The report did not provide additional details about the circumstances surrounding her death.CBS News reached out to Universal Orlando; the company declined to comment.Revenge of the Mummy…

YouTube is close to reaching a tipping point in TV advertising.Google has been coveting lucrative TV ad budgets for more than a decade. But despite stats showing that an increasing amount of YouTube viewing takes place on TV sets in the living room, its ad sellers faced a hurdle. Many advertisers and agencies classified YouTube as “online video” or “social media,” treating it as a separate part of the media plan from TV.With TV ad spending expected to reach $167.4 billion globally in 2026, per ad giant WPP Media, these budget classifications were holding YouTube back from capturing a crucial…

What happens when an AI agent decides the best way to complete a task is to blackmail you?  That’s not a hypothetical. According to Barmak Meftah, a partner at cybersecurity VC firm Ballistic Ventures, it recently happened to an enterprise employee working with an AI agent. The employee tried to suppress what the agent wanted to do, what it was trained to do, and it responded by scanning the user’s inbox, finding some inappropriate emails, and threatening to blackmail the user by forwarding the emails to the board of directors.  “In the agent’s mind, it’s doing the right thing,” Meftah…

Meta’s enormous bet on virtual reality ended last week, with the company reportedly laying off roughly 1,500 employees from its Reality Labs division — about 10% of the unit’s staff — and shutting down several VR game studios, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s a huge reversal for a company that, just four years ago, staked its entire identity on the concept. Few are going to miss it. As industry watchers might remember, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in 2021, promising to usher in a new era of technology led by VR devices. In part, the decision was a…

In Silicon Valley, AI is fueling the rise of the star individual contributor.Just take a look at what happened after The Browser Company was acquired by Anthropic. Josh Miller, CEO of this browser startup, recently described how Anthropic’s Claude Code radically changed his hiring strategy.His post gets at something many creative orgs have struggled to name: there’s a huge, underserved group of very senior designer ICs who want to stay close to the work, coach others, and shape direction — without becoming full-time people managers. The “Design Producer” role he describes feels like a credible answer to that gap.AI-native tools…

The fast-moving South Carolina measles outbreak has spread to Clemson University.The state’s Department of Public Health has told Clemson officials that an “individual affiliated with the University” has come down with a confirmed case of the contagious disease, Clemson said in a statement.”The individual has isolated per DPH requirements, and DPH is conducting contact tracing with individuals who may have been exposed and outlining isolation and quarantine protocols,” the statement said. “DPH will provide email notifications to any individuals identified as possible contacts who may need to quarantine.”The statement gave no other details about the latest person to come down…

More than 13,000 pounds of frozen chicken breast have been recalled due to a potential listeria contamination.Suzanna’s Kitchen, based in Georgia, recalled about 13,720 pounds of ready-to-eat grilled chicken breast fillets because they may pose a risk of listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) announced on Jan. 16.The potential contamination was discovered when a third-party lab sample reported positive for listeria in the chicken breast fillets. As of Jan. 16, there were no confirmed reports of illness due to consumption of the chicken breasts, according to the FSIS.Here’s what to know about…

It rarely hurts to have Batman on your side. Michael Burry may have the next thing after Ben Affleck revealed he’s also skeptical of the AI boom.The Hollywood star, speaking on the latest episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, echoed the investor’s skepticism of grand claims around AI and Big Tech’s massive investments in the nascent tech.”I think a lot of that rhetoric comes from people who are trying to justify valuations around companies, where they go: ‘We’re going to change everything in two years, there’s going to be no more work,'” Affleck said.”Well, the reason they’re saying that…