Anthropic’s Lead in Safety with C+ Grade, Walmart’s Ad Growth Beats Amazon’s, Chinese Custom Chips

AI investors are shifting focus from pure model development to transforming traditional, cash-flowing industries like accounting and IT through AI-driven automation. Thrive Capital’s new holding company exemplifies this trend, securing $2 billion to acquire and modernize services firms using proprietary AI tools. Meanwhile, Chinese AI lab Zhipu is exploring custom chip development to mitigate reliance on restricted Nvidia hardware and support the rapid growth of its GLM models. In the retail sector, Walmart is aggressively scaling its advertising business to challenge Amazon, leveraging its vast physical and e-commerce shopper data to provide measurable ad performance. Despite these advancements, the AI industry faces significant safety challenges; a new report from the Future of Life Institute, led by Max Tegmark, highlights a lack of rigorous safety standards, warning that current models lack the necessary guardrails to prevent existential risks.