A sensor that can simultaneously capture depth and image data has long been a "holy grail," Ouster CEO Angus Pacala told TechCrunch.

Two weeks ago at Google Cloud Next ’26 in Las Vegas, Google did something the enterprise AI industry has been dancing around for the better part of two years: it made agentic AI governance a native product feature, not an afterthought. The centrepiece announcement was the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, pitched as the successor to Vertex AI […] The post Google made agentic AI governance a product. Enterprises still have to catch up. appeared first on AI News.

Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware: Jensen Huang said Nvidia's market share of AI accelerators in China has “now dropped to zero” and that the US' export policy “has already largely backfired”  —  US export restrictions bite. … Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that the company's market share of AI accelerators in China has now dropped to 0%.

Scott Galloway is a clinical professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for ADL Scott Galloway told "The Diary of a CEO" podcast the skills he thinks will help kids succeed in the AI era. He said storytelling is the most enduring skill, and top CEOs excel at it. Building strong relationships will also be critical, he said. If you're a parent trying to AI-proof your kids' futures, entrepreneur-turned-professor Scott Galloway says your focus should be on helping them develop durable skills like storytelling and relationship-building. In an episode of the "The Diary of a CEO" podcast released on Monday, host Steven Bartlett asked Galloway which skills will matter most in the future. Galloway said that a decade ago, private schools were heavily investing in Mandarin and computer science, believing those would give students an edge. "How's that worked out?" Galloway said. "'Thank god my kid knows Mandarin,' said nobody right now." Instead, the next generation should focus on developing what Galloway called the most enduring skill: storytelling. "That's your ability to look at data, create a narrative arc, and then communicate that story in a compelling way via all the different mediums," he said. The most successful CEOs are usually strong storytellers, Galloway said, pointing to Jeff Bezos's 1997 letter to shareholders, Jensen Huang's stadium-style presentations, and Alex Karp at Palantir doing live earnings calls on his phone. In the age of AI, the ability to form relationships with other humans will also be vital, Galloway said. "At the end of the day, I have three different law firms pitching me business, three different investment banks, three different CRM companies," he said. "Who do I have the best relationship with, and who do I want to work with?" Galloway said a "fundamental understanding of the sciences" will also come in handy. While some business leaders, such as Google's head of research, say a grounding in coding and other technical skills remain important, others are placing greater emphasis on soft skills. LinkedIn's CEO, Ryan Roslansky, said curiosity, courage, communication, and compassion are increasingly important human-centered skills in the age of AI. One soft skill that Galloway warned young people, especially young men, are losing is the ability to endure rejection. He said that when he mentors young men, one of the first things he tries to reintroduce into their lives is the capacity to hear and persevere through "no." Overall, Galloway said he would want his kids to "be able to write well, to be able to look someone in the eye, to be competitive." And instead of pushing children into specific fields because they seem promising, he said parents should help them find something they are genuinely good at. Read the original article on Business Insider

Anya Roodnitsky, a Dartmouth College senior, found a job after making a hire-me video. Courtesy of Anya Roodnitsky Anya Roodnitsky, a senior at Dartmouth, landed a job after her hire-me Instagram post went viral. After completing her 300th job application, she saw the whimsical video as "a cry for help." Roodnitsky advises students to network with alums before applying for jobs. Anya Roodnitsky, 22, is a senior at Dartmouth College. She made a video about her job search that got more than 500,000 views on Instagram and eventually led to an offer at an energy startup. Business Insider verified her identity and employment. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity. I'm an econ and environmental studies double major, graduating in June. By the end of the fall, I was interviewing with some places, but they didn't work out. Then I was still applying in January and February, and wasn't getting any interviews. I was just getting auto-rejected. The job-search process can be exhausting. I was stressed and crying all the time. I worked super hard to get here, and my parents worked hard to support me all along as well. I felt like I failed. I was sitting in the kitchen, and had just hit "submit" on my 300th application. I was like, "This isn't working." It hit me that I should create a funny presentation video. It probably took me 30 minutes to throw the PowerPoint slides together. It had funny aspects like comparing my teaching-assistant position to being an "elite babysitter," but I also presented my résumé in a clear way. When I posted the video on Instagram, I thought that it was something that my friends would see. I didn't think that I would take off. By the end of 24 hours, it had hit 100,000 views. I was like, "This is crazy." Dartmouth is a pretty small school — 4,000 people — and now when I go to the gym or the dining hall, people are like, "You're the job girl." I think it succeeded because I was willing to put myself out there. I got some comments like it's on me that I don't have a job because I'm at an Ivy League school. Then I had people saying how it was relatable, that the job market is terrible, and a good school doesn't necessarily get you a job. I remember receiving my first DM from a Dartmouth alum. They said they'd seen the video, thought it funny, and offered to connect me with people. My mind was blown that someone was willing to help me take the next step, because it was just a cry for help at that point. For weeks, I would sift through DMs of people who sounded legit, connect with them on LinkedIn, and schedule coffee chats. It'd be a lot of researching companies in advance. In mid-March, a student at another school who'd seen the video sent a link to a job posting for an analyst position. I applied, and the company's recruiter reached out the next day. Learning what helps you be successful The hiring process happened really quickly. I had several rounds of interviews. One morning, the recruiter called and asked if I was ready for my round-one interview. So I prepped as fast as I could in four hours. Then I did an online assessment of math problems and vocabulary, and the next day, a Friday, I had more interviews. The weekend came, and I was in Purgatory, thinking that seven months of recruiting might end. It was right before spring break, and I did everything I could to keep my mind busy. I was taking two-hour walks and watching Netflix. I was playing piano when I got the call from the recruiter saying they were going to offer me the job. I'm now working part time for this company. I recently went to Costa Rica to meet my coworkers on our spring off-site, which was an incredible experience. I'm working about 10 to 15 hours a week, and also taking a full course load. I've enjoyed having half of a transition to a job. I go to the gym in the morning, and I log on for work. I have classes in the afternoon. I finish my work, and then I do homework. Not only did I get a job by going viral, but I also learned a lot about the job-search process and what actually helps someone be successful. Because it's really hard to get any yield from blind applying. It wasn't just like, "I got lucky. Someone handed me a job." I had to really prep for the interviews. I told students and other people who reach out to me to go to their alumni network and see where they work. Then hit them up and be like, "Hi, I'm XYZ. This is how I'm related to you." It might be by college, interest, or whatever. Then say, "I'm interested in your company. I saw that there is an open position. Before applying, I'd love to talk to you about it if you have just 10 minutes." That is crucial because half an hour is too much. Ten minutes is enough for someone to hear your voice and remember you. Don't be afraid of putting yourself out there, because the universe will hear you. Do you have a story to share about your job search? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider

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A beekeeping business helps Anthony Ondo, 23, pay for his tuition at Chatham University in Pittsburgh. Liz Partsch Anthony Ondo, a student at Chatham University, sells honey to pay his tuition. He manages dozens of hives across western Pennsylvania. Ondo, 23, expanded his business with local partnerships. While some college students become resident assistants or baristas to help cover school fees, Anthony Ondo took a less traditional approach: bees. Ondo, a senior at Chatham University who studies sustainable business, is a dedicated beekeeper who manages a 50-hive apiary in western Pennsylvania. Ondo harvests the honey twice a year and sells it to help pay for his tuition. "I have some scholarship opportunities and do take one small federal loan, but other than that, I'm able to pay the rest of that tuition with money from my business," Ondo, 23, told Business Insider. "Since day one, I've made a profit." "This is the ultimate side business because you don't necessarily need to be there 9-to-5 every day. There's flexibility," he added. Ondo said he initially discovered his passion for beekeeping the summer after high school. At that time, a friend's grandfather had an apiary business and needed help harvesting the honey. Ondo agreed. Despite getting stung within the first 15 minutes, he knew beekeeping was something he wanted to pursue. After that first harvest, Ondo began managing a handful of hives by himself and officially launched his business in 2024. Business Insider's Young Geniuses series spotlights the next generation of founders, innovators, and thinkers trying to reshape industries and solve global challenges. See more stories from the series here, or reach out to editor Peter Gelling to share your story. Scaling Up Scaling the business has been a key part of Ondo's success, though it didn't involve VC investors or rounds of funding. Ondo needed more land for his apiary, so he armed himself with bottles of honey and knocked on doors, asking if he could put beehives in backyards. "I negotiate with property owners to keep the hives on the property. I give them my little 30-second pitch and let them try the honey. I've been very successful," Ondo said, adding that the owners are typically happy to accept a few bottles of honey as payment. Ondo has also found luck through partnerships, including one with Dillner Family Farms in nearby Gibsonia. He also sells his honey to local cafés and small businesses in the area. "As I grow the hive count, I've collected thousands of pounds of honey that I have to distribute," Ondo said. "I try to be mindful of who I choose, and educate them on the importance of the local honey." Eden Hall, a haven at Chatham University In addition to his personal apiary, Ondo also oversees two apiaries at Chatham University's Eden Hall, a 388-acre part of the campus where students can gain hands-on experience in sustainable practices. "We have one planet. This is our home, and we need to learn how to take care of it, not just for ourselves, but for future generations that come along," Emily Heffernan, the dean of the Falk School of Sustainability and Environment, told Business Insider. Heffernan, who is also a beekeeper, said Ondo emodies that goal. "We like to train our students to figure that out. How do you become the innovator of tomorrow? How do you make your passion, your career?" Heffernan said. "Anthony's a great example of that." Read the original article on Business Insider

Brian Pulliam. Courtesy of Brian Pulliam Brian Pulliam transitioned to career coaching after roles at Microsoft, Zillow, and Coinbase. While he worked toward a promotion at Zillow, the role was retired, and he reevaluated what he wanted. He earns less as a career coach than he did in tech, but he says he's more fulfilled in his work. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brian Pulliam, a 51-year-old tech and executive career coach in Issaquah, Washington. It has been edited for length and clarity. After studying computer science, I worked as an athletics coach for 13 years before joining Microsoft as a senior program manager. The manager who hired me gave me the opportunity to teach a data visualization CTE course alongside him, as I had the relevant experience managing a team of younger people. After almost nine years at Microsoft, I began seeking a new role and applied for a position at Zillow. My experience made me a strong candidate, and to prepare for the interview, I conducted a usability study on the Zillow mobile app. I landed the project manager role at Zillow in December 2016. I had a long-term vision for my career at Zillow that included promotion As the PM for the CI/CD department, I ensured the build and deployment processes for all of Zillow's workflows flowed seamlessly into production. As a result, different teams could put their work into production so users could leverage their features. Besides managing internal customer and stakeholder communication, my role also included managing roadmaps, daily standups, retrospectives, and sprint planning. Gradually, I advanced to an engineering manager role overseeing a team of four to six software engineers, the next step toward the promotion I wanted. My passion for helping others advance their careers was affirmed by my experiences at Zillow I ran small, effective experiments while working at Zillow to determine whether I could succeed as a career coach, a long-term goal of mine. I asked myself, can I effectively apply my expertise in athletics coaching to engineering and, eventually, career coaching? Even though I haven't been a manager for more than three years, can I still assist managers in improving their people-leadership skills? I launched Zillow's first #dev-manager Slack channel and monthly lunches, a community of practice, so we could impart and share our knowledge on how to be a better leader with each other. I wanted to learn more about other managers' best practices and see whether other leaders would benefit from my teaching style. Zillow made me realize my ability to lead a team. Then the promotion I wanted no longer existed As I thought I was climbing the ladder to become a group manager — the leader who manages both the project manager and engineering manager, and the role that pushed me to apply at Zillow in the first place — the role was retired. I suddenly felt like I wasn't working toward anything, and after four years of growth and learning, my journey with Zillow came to an end when I was laid off. I interviewed with Coinbase for a leadership role and landed it. I gave myself two options: either work for a short period and save a year's worth of income so I could start my own coaching career, or work for four years straight and eventually retire. As I started at Coinbase, I also started coaching on the side Coaching was so pleasurable that the idea of working at Coinbase for four years left my mind. I also eventually lost interest in working in tech. I started noticing a decline in ROI due to the shorter half-lives of tech solutions, particularly with AI now. After a year at Coinbase, I was laid off. It became clearer to me that I couldn't keep working for big corporations. I was unwilling to give more than half of my week to business results, which is essentially necessary to thrive in a leadership role. I worked with a career coach myself and realized that business results and people results are the same; it depends on what you value more. I became a full-time tech-sector career coach in 2022. Helping people with their jobs has a far longer return on investment. Sometimes it's decades of their careers. I found it to be more enjoyable. I apply what I learned at Zillow in my career coaching business now I guide depleted engineers and leaders in landing rewarding tech jobs. I teach my clients which questions and anecdotes would highlight their strengths and make them stand out. You can't expect everything to change to favor you and your circumstances. You have to create and find the opportunities that excite you. I teach my clients these attitude and mindset shifts as part of my interview preparation, especially when we practice answers to questions on conflict resolution. I keep up with my small and big experiments as a career coach to update my framework, strategies, and model for my clients. I keep adding new tactics every time I work with a new client, and I've amassed many methodologies that I teach them. My coaching doesn't pay as well as my tech jobs, at least as of now, but it's deeply fulfilling to me. Read the original article on Business Insider

PLUS: Create converting landing pages in Claude Design

A new generation of satellite startups in San Francisco is racing to capitalize on recent technological breakthroughs in space-based data collection and communications.

The McDonald's McRib is among the most iconic limited-time offers, and its return has become an annual celebration for its fans. STEPHANE JOURDAIN/AFP via Getty Images In the attention economy, restaurants sell urgency through an endless series of limited-time offers. The promotions are becoming hyper-personalized, but consumers' attention is increasingly split. While LTOs drive sales, endless promos risk training customers to only engage when there's a deal. The offer may expire at midnight, but the strategy sure won't. For restaurant chains chasing attention in an increasingly fractured landscape, the limited-time offer — once a seasonal gimmick — is now a permanent menu fixture. What used to be an occasional spike has become a predictable rhythm: a steady drumbeat of new sauces, returning fan favorites, and blink-and-you-miss-it promotions designed to keep brands "top of mind with our guests all year long," as Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright put it last week during the company's earnings call. The shift reflects a simple reality: In an attention economy, novelty is currency. And for operators, LTOs are among the cheapest ways to mint it. The urgency economy is reshaping menus Restaurants have long used limited-time offers to test menu items or boost traffic — think the McDonald's McRib or Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza — but the cadence is accelerating. Joan Simon, founder of Full Plate Restaurant Consulting, said the approach has evolved as consumer behavior has. "We live in a very instantaneous society now," she said. "If somebody knows that there's only one week for this special offer, they're more likely to act quickly." The goal isn't only to drive one-off sales; it's to create a sense of urgency, encourage repeat visits, and foster relevance in a world where diners are constantly being pulled elsewhere, Simon said. That urgency is showing up in earnings calls as much as in marketing materials. Chipotle executives said during last week's earnings call that they've doubled their cadence of "LTO innovation" after observing that protein-based limited-time items consistently drive higher transactions per check while the promos are live. Chipotle recently relaunched its Chipotle Honey Chicken as a limited-time flavor. Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Crucially, Chipotle execs said those gains didn't disappear when the promotions ended. Many new customers stick around, turning a short-term tactic into a longer-term growth lever. In that sense, LTOs sit in a sweet spot for operators: lower risk than a full rebrand, but more dynamic than static menu changes. "Anything that you can do to spark trial is really what's behind it," said Ray Camillo, founder and CEO of Blue Orbit Restaurant Consulting. Unlike coupons, which can erode a customer's sense of a product's value, LTOs encourage customers to give new menu items or chains a shot "without degrading your brand." They also function as a testing ground. A new protein, sauce, or format can be introduced, marketed, and evaluated at scale, then either folded into the permanent menu or quietly retired. However, the payoff isn't always immediate — or measured in foot traffic. Not every LTO brings crowds — but that's not the point Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp promotion, once a reliable draw, hasn't consistently delivered the same surge since its relaunch this month. That doesn't automatically make it a failure. When LTOs don't pack dining rooms, they can still succeed by generating buzz, re-engaging lapsed customers, or moving inventory. As Camillo put it, they exist "in the same family as coupons." And increasingly, their relevance is becoming personalized. As loyalty programs expand and AI tools mature, operators are gaining the ability to tailor offers to specific customers — nudging a frequent coconut-orderer toward a new coconut drink, or reactivating a lapsed user with a targeted promotion. Chipotle, for example, is leaning into "expanded choice, increased gamification and enhanced value" in its rewards platform, execs said this week during earnings, while Starbucks executives said during their earnings call that their menu innovation is "moving at the speed of culture" and increasingly tied to digital engagement. Starbucks transformed a location in Nashville into a "Starbies" pop-up celebrating the release of Taylor Swift's "The Life Of A Showgirl" album. Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images That future, though, can come with trade-offs. Simon cautioned that "if you customize too much, you're making an assumption about who your customer is," potentially missing opportunities to introduce them to something new. Operationally, the sophistication required to execute hyper-personalized offers remains out of reach for many smaller operators, though there's still a ceiling for major brands. "There's so much messaging for everything," Camillo said. Consumers are already inundated, quick to ignore or block promotions, and, in the K-shaped economy, increasingly selective about where they spend. Restaurants, in turn, feel pressure to keep pushing. "They have to get faster," Camillo said, adding that the approach risks training customers to only engage when there's a deal. That tension — between novelty and fatigue, personalization and scale — is shaping the next phase of LTO strategy. If past iterations were about proving that limited-time offers work, the next steps are about figuring out how far brands can go before they stop working. For now, though, the industry seems to have made its bet. The limited-time offer is no longer a single moment. It's the standard operating model. Read the original article on Business Insider

A vast majority of funding seen from the autonomous vehicle sector this year went to Alphabet's Waymo. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images 2026 saw the largest amount of VC funding for the Autonomous Vehicle sector in more than 10 years. Most of this year's capital went toward Alphabet's Waymo, which raised $16B in February. AV analysts told Business Insider that the funding concentration reflects a maturing industry. The Autonomous Vehicle sector this year has seen some of the largest venture capital backing in more than 10 years, all of which has gone toward fewer competitors. Barely halfway through the second quarter, the AV industry has seen nearly $19 billion in VC funding worldwide as of April, PitchBook data provided to Business Insider showed. The data excludes AV-adjacent companies, such as sensor suppliers, data labeling firms, and fleet management companies. The vast majority of that capital came from Alphabet's Waymo, which announced a $16 billion raise in February. A Waymo spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The rest of the money was spread across 10 other VC deals. That included companies like Wayve, a UK-based self-driving startup that raised $1.5 billion in February, and Waabi, an autonomous trucking company expanding into the robotaxi market, which announced a $750 million round in January. No other year going back as far as 2014 — at the outset of the industry's first hype cycle — has seen that amount of capital allocated to less than a dozen AV players. Prior to 2026, VC global deal activity in the sector peaked in 2021, with PitchBook data showing less than $9 billion in capital raised that year. The money was also spread across 94 distinct deals. Waymo again led the year with a $2.5 billion raise. Earlier this year, Uber announced partnerships with Zoox, Wayve-Nissan, and Rivian, reflecting the company's goal to become an aggregator of choice for robotaxis. Hugh Nguyen, a KPMG partner who specializes in M&A for the automobility sector, told Business Insider that capital is no longer spread evenly across many AV startups, but is instead concentrating among vertically stacked operators and aggregator platforms such as ride-hailing companies. "Investors learned from the 2019 capital cycle that spreading bets across companies chasing similar milestones carries risk, so the concentration we see today reflects discipline as much as it does confidence," he said. "The capital flow also illuminates the challenges that persist: operational, regulatory, and capital concentration of turning autonomy into a service." Ro Gupta, CEO of Toyota's growth fund Woven Capital, told Business Insider that the funding seen today reflects a common industrial maturation cycle and that, as long as some competition remains, new money can start flowing to "second-order problems," such as fleet operations or maintenance, that will help the industry mature. "If we look back at earlier cycles, such as the dawn of automotive itself," he said, "we see a pretty common pattern of experimentation, failure, success, consolidation, and 'share of pie' jockeying, naturally leading to a few strong players remaining on the chessboard." Read the original article on Business Insider

Our 243rd episode with a summary and discussion of last week’s big AI news!

The UK Government is to support the development of Britain’s AI hardware infrastructure, while also committing to work in establishing international standards for the deployment of AI. The post UK Government Announces Plans to Grow National AI Infrastructure appeared first on TechRepublic.

The portfolio he has assembled since 2019 is dotted with technologies that have become more widely interesting to VCs over the last year:

Wall Street Journal: An analysis of 1.6M Polymarket accounts since November 2022: 0.1% of users take 67% of profits, with the highest-frequency traders seeing the most success  —  A WSJ analysis shows a small number of accounts on Polymarket and Kalshi—often pros using data-driven algorithmic trading—take home most of the winnings

Jacob Shamsian / Business Insider: A profile of William Savitt, Sam Altman's lead lawyer against Elon Musk, who represented Twitter against Musk in 2022 and helped OpenAI's for-profit transition  —  - William Savitt is representing Sam Altman in Elon Musk's lawsuit trying to dismantle OpenAI.

New York Times: Chinese state media: AI-generated Chinese microdramas to be worth $3B+ in 2026, out of a $14B+ total microdrama market, boosted by tools like Seedance 2.0  —  This actor was just hitting his stride when A.I.-generated dramas took off and roles disappeared.  —  This director is thrilled …

Financial Times: Sources: some lenders are exploring private deals to sell their data center debt, and some banks are seeking to offload their Oracle-linked loans at a discount  —  Global lenders explore private deals and risk transfers to cut exposure to AI boom  —  Banks are hunting for new ways …

Natsuki Yamamoto / Nikkei Asia: Sources: SoftBank plans to make lithium- and cobalt-free data center batteries in Japan as soon as FY2027, as Japan tries to cut its reliance on Chinese metals  —  TOKYO — Japan's SoftBank Group will seek to make batteries that do not require expensive lithium and cobalt in Japan …