We already know AI agents are the next big thing, at least until the next next big thing arrives, like, say, next week, but it’s clear many companies are making big bets on them.

That includes untold numbers of companies offering myriad ways to build, deploy and govern them — a dozen or so of them, from Google and Salesforce to startups you’ve never heard of. Check them out below.

Besides agents, the AI battle is still centered on trying to dominate industry verticals. Latest examples: Legal AI startup Harvey raised $300 million, and so did medical AI startup Abridge. And there could be a lot more coming. But it’s not quite all about the money, perhaps: Databricks and Perplexity AI co-founder Andy Konwinski launched a $100M research institute focused on beneficial AI.

Google kept the full court press on its AI efforts, releasing an AI agent for developers’ command line interface, a new model to predict how DNA mutations affect genes, and an agent mode for developers in Android Studio, plus donating its Agent2Agent protocol to the Linux Foundation. Oh, and it apparently has persuaded OpenAI to use its Tensor processing unit chips.

In a continuing drama, the rift between partners-for-now OpenAI and Microsoft rift may come down to how artificial general intelligence gets defined, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Meantime, Mark Zuckerberg’s AI desperation became more obvious, as Meta stole four OpenAI researchers for its recently established superintelligence lab for very big bucks. It also pledged to raise more than $29 billion for new AI data centers.

Salesforce Chief Executive Mark Benioff says half the work at his company is being done by AI. Not everyone’s happy, assuming that’s true, least of all the people AI replaced.

Authors and other creators remain unhappy too with AI, as judges sided this week with both Anthropic and Meta in AI copyright cases. But maybe there will be a way to avoid this, as Creative Commons proposed a framework for AI’s use of data.

At its annual Discover conference this week, HPE aimed to prove to enterprises it has all the pieces needed to build AI factories.

Intel’s downsizing continued, as it shut down its automotive business. It may not be the last one.

We heard plenty of good interviews and insights from this week’s events. Among them: At theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Robotics & AI Infrastructure Leaders, how infrastructure is being transformed for the agentic AI era, and from theCUBE Research’s AI Agent Builder Summit, how agentic workflows are reshaping enterprise AI.

Next week is theCUBE Research’s in-studio Data Protection and AI Summit, which will explore advancements in AI-driven backup automation, agentic system safeguards, protection of AI infrastructure and resilient cyber recovery.

Here’s all the news this week from SiliconANGLE and beyond:

AI and data: Everybody wants in on agents

Top news, interviews and analysis

Highlights from this week’s theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Robotics & AI Infrastructure Leaders editorial event:

Tracking the AI infrastructure boom: 10 ways large-scale infrastructure is reshaping AI’s future

Investors see potential for young founders to dominate AI

Rewriting the rules of AI infrastructure for the agentic era

The new data stack: Unifying OLTP, lakes and graphs for scalable AI

Why private cloud is AI’s next battleground, and Broadcom’s big advantage

Rise of the AI developer: How coding agents are redefining software engineering

And from theCUBE Research’s AI Agent Builder Summit: Trust and transformation: TheCUBE’s take on agentic workflows in enterprise AI

And not least, from the Open Source Summit: The rise of open-source observability – theCUBE analysis

Research shows open source fuels economic growth, AI innovation

Salesforce chief Marc Benioff says AI now does up to half of all the work at his company

New models and services

HPE goes full stack with AI factories, agentic ops and cloud software suite

Google introduces Gemini CLI: an AI agent that lives in the developer terminal

DeepMind launches AlphaGenome to predict how DNA mutations affect genes

Google releases AI-powered Agent Mode for developers in Android Studio

Google donates the Agent2Agent Protocol to the Linux Foundation

Report: DeepSeek’s newest model delayed by GPU export restrictions

Anthropic upgrades Claude with shareable AI apps and experiences

Salesforce launches Agentforce 3 with greater AI agent visibility and connectivity

Aquant introduces ‘retrieval-augmented conversation’ approach to AI knowledge generation

Kubiya’s deterministic composer aims to bring trust, transparency and control to AI agents

Vertesia launches autonomous agent builder for multistep business tasks

SUPERWISE launches AgentOps to bring governance to AI agent operations

LinkedIn introduces Northguard and Xinfra to replace Kafka for scalable log storage

AI startup Context partners with Qualcomm to launch agent-powered autopilot for information-based tasks

Reasoner’s AI sentiment analysis app can understand what people think but don’t actually say

Pythagora tries to transform vibe coding with specialized AI agent teams

Creatio embeds AI agents across CRM and workflow automation platform

Samsara adds AI-powered tools to boost fleet safety and worker protection

Tines adds AI-powered agents to expand enterprise workflow automation

NiCE-Snowflake partnership addresses a significant AI customer pain point

Ushur launches agentic AI customer service solution for highly regulated industries

New Tumeryk and DataKrypto integration offers full-pipeline AI encryption

Money matters

Report: Meta seeking to raise $29B for AI data center construction

The continuing drama: OpenAI, Microsoft rift hinges on how smart AI can get (per the Wall Street Journal)

Couchbase agrees to be acquired by private equity firm Haveli for $1.5B

Amazon to invest $54B in UK to support innovation and AI push

CoreWeave reportedly seeking to acquire data center operator Core Scientific

New Anthropic initiative will fund research into the economic impact of AI

Harvey raises $300M in funding for its legal AI assistant

Medical AI startup Abridge closes $300M investment at $5.3B valuation

Chatbot startup Decagon gets $131M to build personalized AI agents for every consumer

Rubrik acquires AI model tooling startup Predibase for reported $100M+

Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks and Perplexity AI, launches $100M research institute focused on beneficial AI

AI data foundry provider Centific lands $60M to grow enterprise footprint

Clearspeed raises $60M to expand voice-based risk assessment platform

OpenRouter nabs $40M in funding for its AI inference API

AI hiring startup Metaview raises $35M to automate recruiters’ admin work

Eventual launches with $30M in funding to streamline multimodal data processing

DataBahn raises $17M to automate data pipeline management with AI agents

Qualytics gets $10M to use AI to monitor the data for AI

Policy

Judge sides with Anthropic in landmark AI copyright case, but orders it to go on trial over piracy claims 

And with Facebook too: Meta comes out winner in AI copyright case against authors But now authors have sued Microsoft too.

But perhaps a way to avoid all that, at least in the future? Creative Commons introduces CC Signals framework for AI data use

There’s even more AI and big data news on SiliconANGLE

Around the enterprise: Intel downsizes again

New products and services

Lenovo introduces new AI-optimized data center systems

Komodor expands Kubernetes platform with real-time cost optimization tools

Chronosphere introduces Logs 2.0 to reduce observability data noise

Eclipse Foundation announces Jakarta EE 11 to advance cloud-native Java productivity

Money matters

Intel shutters its automotive business amid restructuring push

Supermicro’s stock falls hard on $2B convertible notes offering

Xero acquires Israeli fintech company Melio for $2.5B to expand US payments capabilities

Micron generates massive profits as AI fuels demand for high-bandwidth memory

EdgeCore to plow $17B into new Virginia data center campus (per CRN)

Policy

UK regulator proposes giving Google ‘strategic market status’ under new antitrust law

Meta hits back after US House bans WhatsApp for staffers

We have lots more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps

Cyber beat: Bye Bye BreachForums?

Attack & response

BreachForums leaders, including ShinyHunters and IntelBroker, arrested in France

Researchers uncover weak encryption in SAP GUI for Windows and Java

New services

Okta debuts Cross App Access to secure AI agent interactions

Gigamon launches AI Traffic Intelligence and Copilot assistant to strengthen hybrid cloud security

Fortanix launches PQC Central to assess cryptographic risk and exposure

F5 introduces post-quantum cryptography tools for application security

Mitiga launches Helios AI to improve threat triage for cloud security teams

Bonfy.AI launches with platform to secure AI- and human-generated content

New dope.security update offers native ChatGPT policy enforcement

Money matters

Snyk acquires Invariant Labs to expand AI agent security capabilities

BlackBerry boosts sales outlook after revenue beats expectations

More cybersecurity news here

Elsewhere around tech: Waymo vs. Tesla

Ready or not, Tesla launches autonomous taxi service in Austin with Model Y vehicles

Waymo’s robotaxis are now available through the Uber app in Atlanta

Money matters

Prediction market startup Kalshi raises $185M as rival Polymarket closes on $200M round

Ranch automation startup Halter raises $100M to expand into the US

Tacta Systems raises $75M to bring dextrous intelligence to robots

Zama raises $57M to build full encryption for public blockchains

Superconducting chip startup Snowcap Compute reels in $23M

Qunnect gets $10M to help build the quantum internet

And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy

Comings and goings: Zuck’s big checkbook

Meta reportedly recruits four former OpenAI researchers to new superintelligence unit

OpenAI hires staff of Shopify-backed AI startup Crossing Minds

Asana named Dan Rogers CEO, replacing retiring co-founder and CEO Dustin Moskovitz, who will become chair.

Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Alan Davidson has joined Databricks as head of government affairs.

Amazon Web Services recently lost eight-year veteran Vasi Philomin, its VP overseeing generative AI development, for an undisclosed company. Rajesh Sheth, a VP who was overseeing Amazon Elastic Block Store, assumed some of Philomin’s responsibilities (per Reuters).

Pure Storage named Tarek Robbiati chief financial officer, replacing Kevan Krysler, who announced plans to leave last month. Robbiati has served as CEO of RingCentral and CFO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

NetApp appointed former Microsoft and Meta exec Syam Nair chief product officer.

Alteryx named former UserTesting Chief Marketing Officer Michelle Huff its new CMO.

HP hired US Steel exec Manpreet Grewal to replace departing accounting chief Stephanie Liebman (per CRN).

Cloud services provider Leaseweb appointed Alex Wessel chief operations officer.

What’s next

Events

June 30-July 1: Data Protection & AI Summit: TheCUBE presents an in-studio event from theCUBE Research.

Image: SiliconANGLE/Reve