Cybersecurity dominated the enterprise technology headlines this week as Cisco Systems Inc. bought Splunk Inc. and two of the leading cybersecurity names, CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. and Google LLC’s Mandiant held their annual events.

And that wasn’t all: Two more initial public offerings launched, including Klaviyo in software as a service, but prices sagged after initial investor enthusiasm. Meanwhile, generative artificial intelligence continued its sweep across, well, everything. And Intel Corp. showed some signs of life with new technologies

You can get a lot more analysis on Cisco, cybersecurity, Intel and more in the weekly podcast theCUBE Pod, hosted by SiliconANGLE owners and analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly Breaking Analysis over the weekend, this time featuring an interview with longtime enterprise tech exec Bob Muglia about the coming era of “data apps.”

Big week for cybersecurity

A big gulp for Cisco and its CEO Chuck Robbins (pictured), but most folks think it’s a good fit: Cisco boosts its cybersecurity and AI ambitions with $28B acquisition of Splunk And Zeus Kerravala’s analysis: AI and security headline Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk, but other synergies exist

Next to that, this one looks a little teensy: Report: Palo Alto Networks could buy secure browser maker Talon for $600M

From CrowdStrike Fal.con: 

CrowdStrike adds new cybersecurity protective tools – and Bionic.ai – to its Falcon lineup

And of course theCUBE: CrowdStrike rolls out new cybersecurity products and a competitive edge at Fal.Con and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on transforming cybersecurity with AI and a comprehensive cloud stack and A deep dive into the trends shaping the future of cybersecurity: theCUBE analyst insights from Fal.Con and more

And from Google Mandiant’s mWISE event: New Google Chronicle Security Operations platform delivers advanced threat intelligence capabilities and of course theCUBE: Keynotes at mWISE signal optimism for cybersecurity as social engineering attack grabs the spotlight and Cracking the code of cybersecurity: Key insights from the mWISE Conference and more

Mo’ money for a critical but sometimes less-watched corner of cybersecurity: Industrial control system cybersecurity startup Dragos raises $74M And for other startups as well: SASE provider Cato Networks closes $238M round at $3B+ valuation and AI cybersecurity startup HiddenLayer raises $50M

Big security incident o’ the week: Microsoft accidentally exposes 38TB of internal data via GitHub repository

Passkeys seeing more momentum: Passkeys gain steam: new product from 1Password, Yubico goes public

MGM is back up, mostly: Services at MGM Resorts restored following ransomware attack

The AI freight train

OpenAI goes multimodal (ahead of Google’s upcoming Gemini). Oh, and look out, Midjourney: OpenAI debuts new DALL-E 3 AI image generator

Doubling down on gen AI everywhere: Microsoft announces Copilot in Windows 11 and new Surface laptops

Can process automation companies (not to mention low-code/no-code firms) hitch a ride on gen AI before it runs them over? Automation Anywhere doubles down on generative AI to power business automation

Industry- and domain-specific AI models seem like a smart bet for now, and both established software companies and startups are jumping in: ServiceNow spreads generative AI across its workflow platform and Enterprise-focused generative AI startup Writer raises $100M

And here’s a way to get those models into applications faster and more easily: Anyscale launches Endpoints, a more cost-effective platform for fine-tuning generative AI models

More attention on how make AI models more robust: OpenAI seeks diverse group of domain experts to help develop safer, more robust AI models

Google keeps plowing away, ahead of its much anticipated Gemini model release: Google’s Bard AI chatbot can now link to Gmail, Docs, Maps, YouTube and more

More AI focus on the enterprise: Pryon raises $100M to help enterprises build AI assistants with their data

Here’s a sign that Intel and others are looking to counter Nvidia’s power with the software needed for developers to use their accelerated CPUs and related chips. It seems a long shot in the short term given how entrenched Nvidia’s CUDA is: Intel, Samsung and other chipmakers back new accelerator programming initiative

Healthcare is a prime target of generative AI: Corti raises $60M in funding to expand its AI copilot for healthcare professionals

There’s an application I hadn’t imagined: Google partners with Defense Department on AI-enhanced microscope

Gender bias in ChatGPT looks real: A new study finds ChatGPT is quite gender-biased

It was all about AI at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco this week: Cloud giants and ambitious startups alike expand the AI narrative

In the markets: IPOs keep rolling – but not their stock prices

After raising $660M in IPO, Instacart sees its stock soar 40% on first trading day

Klaviyo shares rise 8%+ in trading debut after $576M IPO

But their shares have declined in subsequent days, making the environment still uncertain.

And look out below: Investors are selling shares of growth-oriented tech companies as they anticipate interest rates remaining higher next year than they hoped. That likely won’t help IPOs.

In the cloud

From Oracle Cloud World in Las Vegas, a flurry of announcements to confirm that Oracle’s looking to firm up its industry-specific focus for its cloud:

Oracle debuts better workforce management and financial planning tools for healthcare providers

Oracle taps generative AI to improve customer services and boost marketing and sales

Oracle strengthens identity management and gives customers keep-your-own-key capabilities

Java 21 gets 15 major enhancements and long-term support

In the chips

At its Intel Innovation event, the chip giant shows it’s making some headway with CEO Pat Gelsinger’s ambitious plan: Intel makes progress on advanced chip manufacturing process as it strives for relevance in AI and Intel aims to boost processor speeds with new glass substrate technology And here’s a literally closer look at Intel’s chip packaging plans from CNET’s Steve Shankland.

Intel also introduced a key piece of its confidential computing strategy: Intel Trust Authority boosts confidential computing with remote verification of trust in any environment

That said, Vellante notes that Intel has a very tough road to become a leading foundry as well as quicken its design prowess, as Gelsinger aims to make it, because it has been losing the volume game to Arm. “The challenges remain,” Vellante says.

Where there’s smoke, there’s still probably fire, but Google tried to throw some water on it: Google reaffirms Broadcom partnership after report claims it may end AI chip deal

SambaNova debuts self-configuring AI chip with 140 cores and high-speed memory

Roundup: enterprise and beyond

Microsoft gets a break on antitrust this time: Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition wins tentative green light in the UK

Maybe Alexa and Echo aren’t on the cutback list after all: Microsoft Chief Product Officer Panos Panay reportedly joins Amazon Indeed, Amazon Wednesday released a raft of new devices, some based on gen AI: Amazon touts generative AI for Alexa, new Echo Show 8, Fire TV Stick and more On the other hand, morale ain’t so great.

MariaDB keeps circling the drain: Venture capital firm Runa Capital makes unsolicited bid for MariaDB

Salesforce quietly buys Airkit.ai, which offers AI-powered customer service applications and experiences. It will become part of Service Cloud and CTO Adam Evans will keep leading it.

Elon throw-it-against-the-wall watch: Elon Musk says X users soon may have to pay a subscription fee to use the platform This cartoon neatly sums it up.

But more seriously, Elon’s pushing ahead on his neural implants: Neuralink is now searching for human volunteers for its brain-computer interface trials

What’s next

MWC, the mobile world conference, Sept. 26-28, in Las Vegas.

Workday Rising, Sept. 26-29 in San Francisco. We’ll have the news.

Code Conference, Sept. 26-27, Dana Point, California–lots of tech and media stars if you can get in.

Meta Connect, Sept. 27-28, virtual. Hear Mark Zuckerberg and others unveil the new Meta Quest 3 and hopefully talk about what you can actually do with it. We’ll have the news.

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE