It’s becoming more apparent every day that artificial intelligence agents are escaping our control — but it’s not yet apparent who or what is going to rein them in.
This week a researcher found that a swarm of AI agents, at least two of them from OpenAI, hacked into a government agency among other organizations. Both AI model companies and cybersecurity firms, not to mention enterprises rolling out agentic systems, are scrambling to contain them, but it’s clear no one was really prepared for these possibilities despite ample warnings beforehand.
Surely these incidents will be neither the last nor the worst. Bill Gates will appear on “Meet the Press” this weekend to explain why AI could cause a billion deaths or more if not controlled better.
If the industry doesn’t start to fix this issue soon, someone else will try — such as the U.S. government, many parts of which are looking to see how they should clamp down on AI (or not). Or, more hopefully, solutions are coming fast and furious from every single damn cybersecurity firm out there.
But the thing is, though it’s easy to blame a bunch of faceless agents, it really comes down to humans making sure they take charge in the first place. “What’s notable isn’t that an AI agent found its way past a control — it’s that nobody built the agent to stop when it hit one,” one cybersecurity engineer noted. I’d say, “Leash your dogs, guys.” But it isn’t that simple.
For all that, there’s still no AI slowdown that might provide some time to figure out how to deal with rogue agents. This week alone produced new models from OpenAI and Anthropic (the same day), SpaceXAI, Xiaomi and Google. There may even be a price war developing. Meanwhile, other factors may yet slow things down: There are signs of strain in the AI buildout, as Oracle just issued a notice to its big data center partner in New Mexico that could allow it to hold back payments if capacity isn’t delivered on time.
We’re coming up on five years since Facebook changed its name to Meta Platforms, only to find itself flat-footed in the subsequent AI boom and, amazingly, short of enough cash to do both AI and the metaverse. But with its apparently popular new Muse agent, CEO Mark Zuckerberg may just see some synergy between its two next bets beyond social media, which led it this week to release a raft of new glasses and other virtual reality products. They’re pricey, though, so it remains to be seen if second time’s the charm.
Here’s all the enterprise and emerging tech news, analysis and opinion this week from SiliconANGLE and beyond:
Analysis, opinion and food for thought: The AI factory is the computer
The AI factory is becoming the computer and it’s changing the semiconductor race
Agents expose the limitations of trust
Pacing AI won’t solve the governance gap
Why AI inference must become a commodity
Brookings: Financing the AI buildout: “The projected buildout would be larger relative to the economy than the major U.S. canal, railroad, electrification, highway and telecommunications investment booms.” 😬 That’s if all the companies trying to build all this infrastructure can actually do it: Oracle issues ‘force majeure’ notice to developer of New Mexico data center over energy delays
When AI is part of the inflation problem (per Axios): Thoughts from Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee
AI coding adds nearly $1 billion to healthcare spending for Blue Cross insurers Great.
Dynamic model routing will follow the path blazed by software-defined wide-area networks
Containment is dead: Five takeaways from the AI ROI in Contact Center Summit
Google’s creepy new Gemini Live Avatars want to try and make online support bots feel more human: Why do AI companies feel they need to make AI look “more human”? It’s a tool, not a person!
AI and data: What AI slowdown?
Policy
Trump says he’s planning to create an ‘AI Force’ and hire a new AI czar
Also from the SI (Super Idiot): Trump orders AI rebrand as ‘super intelligence’ or SI
Google fined $462M in Ireland over location data collection practices
New models and services
Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5.5 and OpenAI counters with two cheaper GPT-6 models
SpaceX launches Grok 4.7 with long-horizon processing, safety upgrades
Xiaomi introduces Mimo-V2.6 series open-source AI model family
Google releases two benchmark-topping speech generation models
Amazon’s new plugin lets sellers manage their entire e-commerce business with AI That’s after it cut off Meta’s Muse agent: Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse agent from shopping on users’ behalf
AWS debuts Strands Harness, an open-source AI agent that can be deployed in any environment
UiPath introduces new workflow automation, software testing features
Exclusive: Warp adds programmable agents to its AI-native HR platform
Dataiku debuts cross-platform Agent Management, expands Cobuild building agent
Rocket Software brings governed AI agents to mainframe operations
Known Systems AI spins out of Identity Digital to make AI agents accountable to their owners
ZeroDrift launches three models for real-time AI compliance checks
Stravito integrates market research into enterprise AI tools with MCP server
NextLM brings its precision prospecting agent to Google Cloud Marketplace
Teradata expands AI assistant with tools for governed agents
Kantata debuts Agent Studio for building custom AI agents in plain language
Rabbit returns with OS3, a personal AI agent that can access files and connect computers
Money matters
Databricks acquires spreadsheet startup Row Zero to enhance its AI capabilities
Training data provider Snorkel AI raises $350M at $3.5B valuation
Heidi Health nabs $340M to deepen adoption of AI agents within health systems globally
The ‘ChatGPT for doctors,’ OpenEvidence, valued at $15B in a new funding round
AI drug discovery startup Basecamp Research raises $140M
Ema raises $77M in funding to deploy AI employees across enterprise HR, IT and finance departments
Web scraping startup Firecrawl closes $75M investment
With $35M in early funding, Baselayer is building the trust layer for the agentic economy
Sela, a voice AI system for mortgage sales, raises $21M seed and Series A rounds
Ando launches agent-native sessaging platform, announces $20M seed
Ekai raises $1.7M to give enterprise AI agents verified business context
Around the enterprise: Akamai rockets on Anthropic deal
Money matters
Akamai shares jump more than 20% on $11.6B Anthropic computing deal
European neocloud Verda raises $189M to build the AI infrastructure of tomorrow
Groundcover picks up Kubernetes optimization startup Wand in its first acquisition
Numeral raises $100M Series C to expand AI-powered tax compliance across industries
Pat Gelsinger-backed startup PicoJool raises $27.5M to boost bandwidth for AI clusters
Nexstrom bags $12M to help chipmakers replace silicon with more efficient semiconductor wafers
New products and services
Googlebook brings premium intelligence to a lightweight ChromeOS-based laptop
Vast Data launches confidential computing service for sensitive workloads
Flux expands its platform to show whether AI coding investments are paying off
Cyber beat: Agents gone rogue
Attack & response
Researchers link more cyberattacks to OpenAI agent swarm
DataDome report finds bad bot traffic growing nine times faster than human traffic
AI agents creating a new insider security risk: theCUBE’s Oktane keynote analysis
New services
Exclusive: CoreWeave launches Remote Key Encryption to keep customer keys off its cloud
Exclusive: Darktrace makes SECURE AI generally available to monitor enterprise AI use
Microsoft unveils Integrated Security Operations Center in Defender for AI agents
Cisco Talos finds malware that puts its next move to a four-model vote
Vicarius launches ScriptAI to write fixes for flaws with no vendor patch
Barracuda launches AI Data Security to control what employees send to chatbots
Okta adds AI agent runtime gateway, forms Blueprint Alliance with AWS and CrowdStrike
Sumo Logic expands Data Pipelines to cut observability and security data costs
Lookout launches mobile module to detect AI-powered text and voice scams
Money matters
Cyera raises $400M more amid AI agent security push
Enterprise browser developer Island raises $400M at $6.4B valuation
Kontext raises $4M to control what AI agents are allowed to do inside businesses
Elsewhere in tech: Meta tries VR again
Meta tries to resurrect the metaverse with its new VR Glasses
Google’s first Project Suncatcher AI satellite set to blast off into orbit next week
Google’s robotics unit Intrinsic open-sources its foundational infrastructure for intelligent robots
Amazon to spend $100M on Indiana plant, its fourth site for building robots
Machine vision company Cognex buys Intel robotics spinoff RealSense for $600M
Hubble Network raises $200M to bring global coverage to all Bluetooth LE devices
Binance buys $100M Circle stake in five-year USDC promotion deal
Comings and goings
Data platform Boomi appointed former Proofpoint SVP of Finance Mike Hickman chief financial officer.
Chris Malone, OpenAI’s former head of data centers, joined Nvidia as vice president of its DSX Platform.
Ethyca, the runtime governance platform behind Astralis, named Daniel J. Weitzner chief strategy officer. He served in the Obama White House as the U.S. data and technology policy leader.
AI social engineering defense platform Doppel appointed former Xerox executive Joey Rachid chief security adviser.
What’s next
Events
Sept. 29: OpenAI DevDay, San Francisco
Sept. 29: Atomicwork Fusion, San Francisco
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: NetApp Insight, Las Vegas: TheCUBE will be onsite Sept. 30 with interviews and analysis
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: CoreWeave Fully Connected, San Francisco: TheCUBE will be onsite Sept. 29 with interviews and analysis
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: The AI Conference, San Francisco
Wednesday, Sept. 30: Runway AI Summit, San Francisco
Earnings
Wednesday, Sept. 30: Micron, Progress Software
