Our takeaway
August brought tighter AI guardrails, yet the money kept flowing.
Our August Pulse covers seven stories: Anthropic's IPO at an estimated $2 Tn valuation, the EU's AI Office beginning to exercise enforcement powers over general-purpose models, and more.
Our take: The EU is stepping further in with more enforcement, and not just guidance. At the same time, OpenAI limited work on its upcoming model family until new safeguards were in place. The scrutiny is arriving from outside and inside at once, and it's shaping what actually ships. Meanwhile, capital hasn't flinched, as Higgsfield raised $400 Mn in the same month.
In this issue:
- Anthropic's IPO could top $2 Tn.
- The EU begins enforcing its AI Act.
- Stripe agrees to acquire OpenRouter.
- OpenAI slows Astra work over cyber risk.
- AWS brings agent payments into production.
- Cyclone forecasts gain a day of lead time.
- Higgsfield raises $400 Mn for AI media.