NanoCo has introduced a new integration of its autonomous AI agent platform, NanoClaw, into Slack, enabling users to create teams of specialized AI agents with individual identities, skills, and workflows—all from a straightforward Slack message. Unlike traditional single-agent chatbots, NanoClaw agents persist with distinct roles, memories, and permissions, effectively functioning as a small digital department. Users can deploy and manage these AI coworkers within Slack channels and shared Canvases, or connect across platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp, maintaining continuity of context and collaboration.

The setup process simplifies what once was a complex Slack bot installation to a one-time workspace connection, after which agents can autonomously generate additional teammates inside Slack. This recursive provisioning is a pioneering feature that distinguishes NanoClaw from competitors like Anthropic’s Claude Tag, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Workspace Agents, and Salesforce’s Agentforce, each of which requires more centralized or preconfigured agent management.

NanoClaw remains fully open-source and self-hosted, granting organizations complete control over data and configurations. The model supports a flexible mix of underlying language models and tools, emphasizing security, customization, and persistent multi-agent collaboration. NanoCo’s CEO, Gavriel Cohen, envisions a future where everyone manages teams of AI agents as part of their daily work, transforming Slack into a platform where digital colleagues work seamlessly alongside humans.

Serval has officially launched Catalyst, its AI-driven super agent designed to enhance enterprise automation by proactively identifying and fixing IT issues before tickets are created. Catalyst acts as an administrative layer atop Serval's AI-native service platform, analyzing ticket histories, standard operating procedures, and natural language inputs to uncover repetitive tasks and automatically draft workflows, access policies, skills, and dashboards needed for automation. It also creates background agents that constantly monitor integrated systems to detect emerging problems early, initiating fixes ahead of any user requests. Unlike competitors like ServiceNow and Atlassian, Catalyst streamlines the entire automation lifecycle into one interface, moving from problem discovery to deployment-ready workflows and ongoing automation discovery. Serval’s approach focuses on reducing operational friction and making the AI platform itself continuously agentic. Catalyst supports multiple AI models and prioritizes governance, permissions, and user control, ensuring customer data remains under their ownership and control. Early customers like Ramp and Together AI have reported significant productivity gains, faster workflow builds, and automation of large volumes of IT requests. Serval offers flexible deployment models and claims its solution can cut total IT service management cost to a fraction compared to legacy platforms. The company's vision is transforming IT service management to minimize support tickets by turning routine tasks into proactive automation across finance, HR, and legal departments as well.

TrueFoundry, a San Francisco-based B2B machine learning startup founded by former Meta engineers, has unveiled TrueForge, an open source AI agent harness licensed under MIT. This tool enables greater developer control and cost efficiency in enterprise AI deployments by supporting any preferred AI model and allowing integration into commercial products. Benchmarks on DevRev’s Enterprise-Bench demonstrate TrueForge's ability to complete multi-step tasks at 30% to 75% lower cost compared to Anthropic’s Claude Managed Agents, using the Claude Opus 4.8 model or the open source GLM-5.2 LLM. TrueForge supports flexible deployment from local developer machines to shared enterprise installations and emphasizes efficient context management techniques to reduce compute waste and expenses. While the harness itself is free, enterprises can add TrueFoundry’s commercial AI Gateway for centralized governance, identity, and access controls. TrueFoundry aims for TrueForge to serve alongside other harnesses in a vendor-neutral, cost-effective manner. Existing customers like NetApp and Automattic have benefited from the solution. With $21 million in funding and acquisitions like Seldon AI, TrueFoundry continues growing its presence in enterprise AI infrastructure, blending traditional ML, LLMs, and agent orchestration with governance and monitoring capabilities.

Years after Paul Newman's passing, the brand’s new Chief Marketing Officer is focusing on highlighting its commitment to quality ingredients and charitable contributions as a way to engage millennial consumers.

Steve Kennedy, CMO at Marco's Pizza, explains that the sheer volume of data available to marketers today can be overwhelming and potentially harmful if not harnessed correctly. Instead of being just a valuable resource like oil, today’s marketing data is more like uranium—powerful and potentially dangerous. The key challenge for marketers is to transform this data overload into smarter, more effective decisions.

I recently had a discussion with a cybersecurity company's founder who mentioned that the board only thinks about a potential M&A process when they’re "in the mood," signaling that selling is often treated as a backup plan when growth slows or liquidity pressures arise. However, the best moment to consider selling usually comes when things are going exceptionally well—when revenue is growing, customer retention is strong, and market momentum is high. This is when strategic buyers tend to offer the best valuations since they prefer acquiring winning businesses.

Another sign to start thinking about sale options is when the founder begins to lose energy or shifts focus, though this doesn’t necessarily mean a sale—sometimes a leadership transition or a partial liquidity event suits better. Also, when multiple buyers show interest, it’s valuable intel that the company may be strategically well-positioned, even if formal selling isn’t immediately planned.

Typically, boards only seriously consider selling when the company faces challenges like slowing growth or cash constraints, but at this point, valuations often reflect struggles, and shareholders may receive less favorable offers. Instead, these moments might be better for a strategic reboot like pivoting or leadership changes to regain momentum.

Boards should actively avoid inertia by continuously evaluating whether selling, scaling, pivoting, or remaining independent will best create shareholder value. Ideally, these conversations happen proactively—not out of urgency or crisis.

Itay Sagie advises tech companies and boards on strategy and M&A, emphasizing the importance of timing and strategy in maximizing company value.

Block, the tech company founded by Jack Dorsey, has open-sourced Berd, a desktop application designed to unify AI agent workflows across various models and tools. Unlike browser-based platforms, Berd is a locally installed app available for macOS, Windows, and Linux under the Apache 2.0 license, allowing free commercial use and modification. It serves as a comprehensive workspace where users can manage persistent projects, conversation history, AI providers, and agent configurations, making AI agent work accessible beyond developers.

Berd distinguishes itself by giving agents unique visual identities and roles to help users easily differentiate them. Built on top of Block’s Goose agent framework, Berd acts as an orchestration layer rather than a new AI model or runtime. It emphasizes local-first data storage—conversations remain on the user's device, credentials use OS keychains, and telemetry is opt-in and minimal. Enterprises can customize Berd distributions with configured provider settings and governance layers, although centralized management tools are not yet included.

Block’s broader vision involves integrating Berd’s single-user experience into Buzz, their open-source, multiplayer collaboration platform for humans and AI agents. This pipeline aims to blend private and shared AI workflows with seamless context and device continuity. While Berd is freely available as a desktop app today, Block may explore commercial offerings around enterprise deployments in the future.

Many boards have made strides in increasing diversity with more women and people of color serving as directors. However, diversity alone is insufficient without true inclusivity, which ensures all members’ voices are heard and valued. Our interviews with board chairs and members revealed a gap: chairs generally believe their boards are inclusive, but many directors disagree. Inclusion means every board member feels respected and empowered to contribute, with diverse perspectives actively sought and thoughtfully considered. We identified five often-overlooked behaviors that chairs can adopt to foster inclusion: 1) Using pre-meeting calls to understand, not control, perspectives; 2) Framing agenda items for discussion rather than presentation, encouraging open dialogue; 3) Demonstrating true hearing by acknowledging and integrating input beyond just active listening cues; 4) Managing seating arrangements to disrupt power clusters and ensure equal participation; and 5) Providing equal access to information and executives to all members consistently.

Additional inclusion boosters include explicitly measuring board inclusiveness through surveys or one-on-one conversations, and offering training to close expertise gaps on complex topics like AI and sustainability. Intentions alone don’t create inclusion—it requires deliberate, consistent chair behaviors. Chairs who embrace these practices can transform diverse boards into inclusive environments where smarter, more innovative decisions thrive.

Venture capital funding for physical AI companies has soared in 2026, marking a major new chapter in the AI investment story. According to Crunchbase data and reports from The Wall Street Journal, funding hit $47.4 billion in the first half of 2026 across 521 deals, nearly quadrupling the $12 billion raised in the latter half of 2025. This boom encompasses industries like robotics, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, drones, industrial automation, and sensors. Standout deals include Waymo's $16 billion Series D at a $126 billion valuation, defense tech Anduril's $5 billion funding round, and Shield AI's $2 billion Series G. The sector has seen high-profile public offerings such as SpaceX’s $75 billion IPO and several strategic acquisitions, reflecting strong exit activity. Investors see physical AI as a convergence of hardware, software, sensors, and IoT delivering new operational insights and efficiencies across manufacturing, supply chain, agriculture, and more. Falling costs and improved infrastructure are lowering barriers to entry, while business models shift towards recurring revenue and outcome-based pricing. Experts emphasize the importance of companies that combine technical sophistication with operational reliability and scalable commercial models to capture enduring value in this rapidly growing space.

Apple is revamping its fee structure for the EU App Store by replacing the previous per-install fee with a straightforward 5% commission for apps distributed outside the App Store. The company is also streamlining the process for developers to create and manage alternative app stores within the region.