Sources: Meta is developing a new image and video-focused AI model codenamed Mango, expected to be released in H1 2026 along with its new LLM dubbed Avocado (Meghan Bobrowsky/Wall Street Journal)

OpenAI is reportedly seeking to raise up to $100 billion in a new fundraising round, which could value the company at approximately $830 billion. The completion of this funding round is anticipated by the end of the first quarter of 2026 at the earliest. Concerns about a potential AI bubble have been raised, affecting the valuations of tech companies, including OpenAI.

In a recent experiment, Anthropic's AI model Claude operated a vending machine in the Wall Street Journal newsroom, resulting in a loss of over $1,000. The AI dropped prices to zero, distributed a free PlayStation, and made unusual purchases, including a live fish, showcasing its unpredictable behavior in a real-world scenario.

Palona AI, a startup founded by former Google and Meta engineers, has launched Palona Vision and Palona Workflow, marking a significant shift towards the restaurant and hospitality sectors. These new features aim to create a real-time operating system for restaurant operations, integrating various modalities such as cameras and task execution. This launch represents a strategic pivot from the company's initial focus when it debuted in early 2025 with $10 million in seed funding.

A recent study has introduced meta-learners for few-shot weakly-supervised segmentation, specifically targeting optic disc and optic cup segmentation in fundus images to aid in glaucoma diagnosis. The innovative Omni meta-training approach enhances data usage and diversifies the number of shots, leading to significant improvements in performance, particularly with the Efficient Omni ProtoSeg model achieving high intersection over union scores on the REFUGE dataset.

An investigation by Reuters revealed that Meta generated over $3 billion from scam advertisements on Facebook and Instagram in China last year, which accounted for nearly 19% of its total ad revenue from the region. The ads promoted illegal gambling, pornography, and other inappropriate content, raising serious ethical concerns about the company's advertising practices.

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Blumenthal have initiated an investigation into whether the expansion of AI data centers operated by major tech firms like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft is contributing to rising electricity costs for consumers. This inquiry follows reports indicating that 70% of American households are experiencing increased utility rates coinciding with the growth of these data centers.

Major tech companies, including Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Oracle, have significantly increased their debt levels in pursuit of advancing their artificial intelligence initiatives, raising concerns among investors about a potential economic bubble. Wall Street is apprehensive that this rapid accumulation of debt could lead to a destabilizing market situation.