AI startup Andon Labs has employed an AI agent named Luna to run a retail store in US. "We gave AI a 3-year lease of a retail space...and told it to make a profit," Andon Labs said. The AI has created a boutique and is reportedly hiring workers and managing everything in the shop, including item selection and prices.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is in talks to raise at least $300 million at a $10 billion valuation in its first external funding round, The Information reported. The company previously declined multiple offers from China's top venture capital firms and tech giants, the report said. DeepSeek's low-cost AI models triggered a sharp selloff in global tech stocks last year.

Startup Physical Intelligence has unveiled a new robot brain, an AI model that controls robots, enabling machines to perform tasks they were never explicitly trained for. The system shows early compositional generalisation, the ability to recombine learned skills to solve new problems. In tests, it directed a robot to fold laundry despite having no prior training data for the task.

Uber is set to acquire an additional 4.5% stake in Berlin-based food-delivery group Delivery Hero from technology investor Prosus for €270 million. Delivery Hero, which runs foodpanda, will reportedly gain a stronger partner as Uber is expanding in Europe. Uber first took a stake in Delivery Hero in 2024 and is expected to be the fourth-largest shareholder in the firm.

An old Pongal-themed ad of Lenskart has resurfaced online amid outrage over the company barring bindi and tilak at work while allowing hijab and turban. Sharing the ad, an X user said, "The models are celebrating...without bindi and with weird costumes." Another said, "There is no bindi...no kalawa, no sign of Pongal's Hindu ness at all."

US-based startup Sabi is developing a brain wearable, like a beanie, that can decode people's thoughts and turn them into text on a computer screen. Billionaire Vinod Khosla, the startup's lead investor, said, "If you're going to have a billion people use brain-computer interface...every day, it can't be invasive." Rahul Chhabra, a BITS Pilani graduate, co-founded the startup.

Nikita Bier, Head of Product at X, has called out Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas over the company's alleged undisclosed ad campaigns on the platform. "Can you please stop...It deceives users, and it doesn't reflect well on your company or your integrity," Bier said. Bier shared a post that alleged undisclosed promotions were being run for Perplexity's Personal Computer AI assistant.

Akash Falake, a Lenskart employee, claimed he was fired for raising concerns regarding its policy barring bindi and tilak at work while allowing hijab and turban. He also shared an email he sent to their legal team, wherein he wrote that he'd been raising the matter since November 2025. "[Lenskart CEO Peyush Bansal], your statement is incorrect," he said.

Indian fintech startups, including Paytm, Razorpay and Pine Labs, have asked Anthropic for early access to its AI model Mythos. "We had an urgent call with Anthropic," said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO of Paytm parent One97 Communications. This comes amid concerns about Mythos' ability to uncover cybersecurity vulnerabilities that have gone undetected for years.

The US Department of War's ban on Anthropic has prevented federal agencies from fully leveraging its Mythos AI model, Politico reported. The Pentagon has "shot itself in the foot by giving the middle finger to the most capable AI provider", said a congressional aide. Two agencies have reportedly reached out to Anthropic to explore using Mythos in cyber defence efforts.