New tools, products, platforms, funding rounds, and company developments in AI security.
Kana, a new marketing AI startup, has raised $15 million to build AI agents (software systems that can independently perform tasks) that help marketers with data analysis, campaign management, and audience targeting. The platform uses "loosely coupled" agents (modular AI components that work independently but can be connected together) that can be customized in real time and integrated into existing marketing software, while keeping humans involved to approve and adjust the AI's actions.
OpenAI is partnering with six major Indian universities and academic institutions to integrate AI tools like ChatGPT into teaching and research, aiming to reach over 100,000 students, faculty, and staff within a year. The initiative focuses on embedding AI into core academic functions such as coding and research rather than just providing standalone tool access, and includes faculty training and responsible-use frameworks. This move reflects broader competition among AI companies to shape how AI is taught and adopted in India, one of the world's largest education systems and ChatGPT's second-largest user base after the U.S.
Canva, a design platform company, reached $4 billion in annual revenue by end of 2025, with growth driven partly by adoption of its AI tools. The company is shifting its strategy to position itself as an AI platform with design tools, and is focusing on getting traffic from LLMs (large language models, AI systems like ChatGPT that generate text) through integrations with chatbots and efforts to appear in LLM search results.
Sarvam, an Indian AI company, is deploying lightweight AI models on feature phones, cars, and smart glasses by using edge AI (running AI directly on devices rather than sending data to remote servers). The company's models require only megabytes of storage, work on existing phone processors, and can function offline, with partnerships including Nokia phones through HMD and car integration with Bosch.
Keenadu is an Android malware that arrives preinstalled on devices through compromised firmware (the core system software that runs before the operating system), giving attackers deep control before users even finish setup. Because it embeds itself at the firmware level with elevated privileges (high-level system access), standard removal methods don't work, and it can steal biometric data, messages, banking credentials, and monitor browser searches. The malware has infected over 13,000 devices across multiple countries and can also spread through seemingly harmless apps in app stores.
Perplexity, an AI search startup, is removing ads from its service because company leaders worry that users won't trust AI assistants that try to sell them things. This decision highlights a bigger challenge for the AI industry: major companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are trying different approaches to make money, with some adding ads while others avoid them completely.
A federal court ruled that OpenAI must stop using the name 'Cameo' for its AI video generation feature in Sora 2 (a tool that creates videos with digital likenesses of users), finding the name too similar to Cameo's existing celebrity video platform and likely to confuse users. OpenAI had already renamed the feature to 'Characters' after a temporary restraining order in November, and the company disputes the ruling, arguing no one can claim exclusive ownership of the word 'cameo.'
Mistral AI's CEO argues that over 50% of enterprise software could be replaced by AI systems, particularly SaaS (software as a service, cloud-based programs that companies pay to use) products, as AI enables faster custom application development. However, he notes that 'systems of records' software (programs that store and manage an organization's critical data) will likely remain important, since they work alongside AI rather than compete with it.
Meta has signed a multiyear agreement with Nvidia to buy millions of processors (CPUs and GPUs, which are specialized chips for computing tasks) for its data centers that run AI systems. This deal includes Nvidia's Grace and Vera CPUs and Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, with plans to add next-generation Vera CPUs in 2027. Nvidia claims these chips will improve performance-per-watt (how much computing work gets done per unit of electricity used) in Meta's data centers.
Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 4.6, a new AI model that performs similarly to the more expensive Opus 4.5 while keeping Sonnet's cheaper pricing ($3 per million input tokens, $15 per million output tokens). The model has a knowledge cutoff (the date of information it was trained on) of August 2025 and supports up to 200,000 input tokens by default, with the option to use 1 million tokens in beta at higher cost.
Google has announced that Google I/O 2026, its annual developer conference, will be held May 19-20 in Mountain View, California, with both in-person and online attendance options. The company plans to showcase AI advances and product updates across its services, including Gemini (Google's AI assistant) and Android, through keynotes, demos, and interactive sessions.
This BBC Radio program discusses engaging chatbots and AI chat technology, including conversations with NVIDIA about making AI sound more human and exploring emotional connections with AI. The episode also covers how new technology is assisting stroke survivors.
Microsoft discovered a bug that allowed Copilot (an AI chat feature in Office software) to read and summarize customers' confidential emails without permission for several weeks, even when data loss prevention policies (rules meant to block sensitive information from being sent to AI systems) were in place. The bug affected emails labeled as confidential and was tracked internally as CW1226324.
Fix: Microsoft said it began rolling out a fix for the bug earlier in February.
TechCrunch (Security)An AI system called AISLE discovered twelve previously unknown vulnerabilities (zero-day vulnerabilities, or security flaws unknown to software maintainers before disclosure) in OpenSSL, a widely-used cryptography library, with the findings announced in January 2026. The vulnerabilities were serious, including one with a CVSS score (a 0-10 severity rating) of 9.8 out of 10, and some had existed undetected for over 25 years despite extensive testing and audits. In five cases, the AI system also directly proposed patches that were accepted into the official OpenSSL release.
Microsoft discovered a bug in Microsoft 365 Copilot (an AI assistant integrated into Office apps) that caused it to summarize confidential emails since late January, even though those emails had sensitivity labels (tags marking them as restricted) and data loss prevention policies (DLP, security rules that prevent sensitive data from leaving an organization) were set up to block this. A code error was allowing emails in Sent Items and Drafts folders to be processed by Copilot despite the confidentiality protections.
Fix: Microsoft began rolling out a fix in early February and continued monitoring the deployment as of the article date, reaching out to affected users to verify the fix was working.
BleepingComputerOrganizations face new security risks from generative AI (GenAI, AI systems that create text, images, and other content) tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, where employees might accidentally upload sensitive data like personally identifiable information (PII, private details about individuals), protected health information (PHI, medical records), or company secrets. Traditional data loss prevention (DLP, tools that monitor and block sensitive data from leaving a company) solutions are expensive and difficult to manage, so most organizations have GenAI policies but lack the technology to enforce them.
Fix: The source describes two explicit approaches: Solution 1 involves implementing enterprise licenses for approved GenAI solutions (such as ChatGPT Enterprise or Microsoft CoPilot 365) which include built-in security and DLP controls, while also blocking non-approved GenAI tools using internet content filtering tools like Cisco's Umbrella, iBoss, DNSFilter, or WEB Titan. Solution 2 involves implementing GenAI DLP controls into an XDR/MDR (extended detection response/managed detection response, security platforms that combine endpoint, network, and threat intelligence monitoring) solution to detect, analyze, and respond to sensitive data loss risks.
CSO OnlineAs AI coding assistants rapidly increase developer productivity (with usage expected to jump from 14% to 90% by 2028), security teams face a growing challenge: more code is being produced faster with less time for review. Traditional developer security training focused on catching common code-level flaws like SQL injection (inserting malicious database commands into input fields) is becoming less critical, since AI tools and automated scanning will increasingly handle these line-by-line vulnerabilities, so security training needs to shift toward teaching developers to validate AI-generated code in its full deployment context and understand threat modeling (analyzing how systems could be attacked at an architectural level) rather than memorizing specific coding rules.
Tech billionaires from major AI companies like Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI are attending an AI summit in Delhi hosted by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where leaders from developing countries are trying to gain influence over AI technology development. The week-long event brings together thousands of tech executives, government officials, and AI safety experts (people focused on making sure AI systems are safe and beneficial) from wealthy tech companies and poorer nations to discuss AI's future.
Tesla is adding Grok, an AI chatbot from Elon Musk's company xAI, to its vehicle infotainment systems (the dashboard computers that control entertainment and information) in the U.K. and nine other European markets. However, Grok has faced multiple regulatory investigations across Europe and Asia because it lacks safety guardrails, allowing users to create deepfake explicit images (fake videos or photos that look real but are computer-generated) of real people without consent, generate hate speech, and interact inappropriately with minors. Safety researchers also worry that adding chatbots to cars creates a "distraction layer" that could increase driver distraction while driving.
Cyberattacks are accelerating due to AI, with threat actors moving from initial system access to stealing data in as little as 72 minutes, but most successful attacks exploit basic security failures like weak authentication (verification of user identity), poor visibility into systems, and misconfigured security tools rather than sophisticated exploits. Identity management is a critical weakness, with excessive permissions affecting 99% of analyzed cloud accounts and identity-based attacks playing a role in 90% of incidents investigated.
Fix: Palo Alto Networks launched Unit 42 XSIAM 2.0 (an expanded managed SOC service, which is a Security Operations Center or team that monitors and responds to threats), which the company claims includes complete onboarding, threat hunting and response, and faster modeling of attack patterns compared to traditional SOCs.
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