Now that AI infrastructure is absorbing hundreds of billions in annual spend, writes guest author and strategic adviser Itay Sagie, investors are no longer rewarding ambition alone — they are demanding proof that capital turns into durable cash flow.
Startup investors are increasingly turning to nuclear fusion and fission startups to supply our power-hungry era, and they’re not afraid to write big checks. The latest evidence of that confidence is a $450 million Series A that fusion power startup Inertia Enterprises announced Wednesday.
Generative AI company Anthropic announced Thursday that it raised $30 billion in a round that values it at $380 billion post-money. The financing marks the largest venture funding deal of 2026 so far and the second-largest of all time, per Crunchbase data.
A total of 31 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in January, the largest count of companies to join in a single month since June 2022. Collectively, those companies added $9.3 billion in funding and $58.5 billion in value to the board.
Overall, there were six states that captured 2% or more of U.S. venture funding last year, per Crunchbase data. That’s a small group, but it’s not too atypical, as a few hubs reliably attract virtually all the capital. We share what we found.
The investors backing the hottest companies in today’s highly competitive venture capital market have changed drastically since the 2021 funding peak, Crunchbase data shows. Here’s more on what our analysis indicates.
Ownwell, an AI-powered startup that appeals property taxes on behalf of homeowners, has secured $50 million in financing, including $30 million in equity and $20 million in debt, the company tells Crunchbase News exclusively.
Investors poured over $9 billion into global AI-focused seed rounds over the past six months, per Crunchbase data. Areas they favored include cybersecurity, multimedia AI, robotics and desk work automation.
This week’s largest U.S. funding rounds once again featured an AI-heavy cohort, along with sizable financings around fintech and energy tech. By far the largest deal was a $1 billion financing for World Labs, developer of AI models that interact with the 3D world.
Want to understand more about how AI is shaping the workforce? UNLEASH takes a deep dive into the latest report from Anthropic to discover what HR leaders need to know.
In an exclusive UNLEASH interview, Yolanda Seals-Coffield, PwC US Chief People & Inclusion Officer, shared why human skills are a focus for the consulting giant as it seeks to get value from AI. Read on to be inspired into how to practically re-envision skills and learning for this AI moment.
Leading organizations like Bayer & Citibank have realized that traditional hierarchies “create friction in a knowledge economy that demands speed and judgment”, argues Alex McCann, an entrepreneur on a mission to rethink careers and work, in an exclusive UNLEASH OpEd. HR leaders need to take urgent action to “shift attention from sentiment to structure”.
Workday Co-Founder Aneel Bhusri has returned as the company’s CEO, taking over from Carl Eschenbach – here’s what it means for the company’s future.
In an exclusive interview ahead of his UNLEASH America 2026 keynote, Peter Hinssen shares that organizations cannot wait for AI’s disruption of the workplace to calm down and it never will. We are living in the never normal; HR needs to view uncertainty as an opportunity, not a threat.
The future of work is being shaped by employees who can pair AI skills with human judgment – this is the view of EY’s Sandra Oliver, who shares her thoughts in an exclusive conversation with UNLEASH.
That’s the top line conclusion of two new reports – one from Qualtrics, the other from Celonis. UNLEASH speaks to executives from the two tech giants to find out what actions people leaders need to take in response to move the needle on AI ROI.
In an exclusive interview, UNLEASH sat down with Radisson’s Chief People & Resources Officer, Iñigo Capell, to discuss HR decision making (and why it goes hand in hand with business strategies) at the €1.3 billion-revenue hotel giant.
In an exclusive conversation with UNLEASH, EcoVardis CHRO, Dr Laurianne Le Chalony, explains why eco-anxiety is a workplace stressor – and what HR leaders must do to turn climate concern into employee resonance.
The workplace is poised for transformation driven by technological advancement, immigration policy shifts and evolving employee needs.
The post 5 bold workplace predictions for the rest of 2026 appeared first on HR Executive.
IBM revamps and expands entry-level roles, while fresh data reports rising demand for AI-skilled developers and multidisciplinary technologists.
The post IBM rewrites entry-level jobs as AI hiring surges appeared first on HR Executive.
What do the leaders on Forbes’ Best Large Employers have in common? A few key themes suggest where HR can invest.
The post Trader Joe’s, Google top Forbes’ Best Employers list appeared first on HR Executive.
Despite nearly eight in 10 currently being engaged in AI projects, only slightly more than half of hospitals feel operationally ready to implement them, the 2026 Healthcare AI Trends report from Guidehouse found.
The post Nearly 50% of health systems lack operational readiness for AI appeared first on HR Executive.
As political divisions intensify, one expert explores how HR can set and communicate policies about what employees can wear and display at work.
The post Free speech at work: How far is too far? appeared first on HR Executive.
Jessica Brooks Woods, the outgoing chief executive, has been a longtime advocate for healthcare access.
The post Leadership shakeup at major benefits association appeared first on HR Executive.
To the extent that there is anything to the idea of treating an agent like an employee, it is only this: The agent has to be supervised.
The post The fallacy of treating AI agents as fellow employees appeared first on HR Executive.
New business formations held at record levels as the new year kicked off. Here’s what the data tells HR execs about workforce shifts in 2026.
The post Where are all the laid-off workers going? Business formation data has answers appeared first on HR Executive.
Jeff Smedsrud says that the draft Affordable Care Act individual health insurance market rules will make individual major medical insurance more attractive and more affordable in many markets.
The post New 2027 ACA draft rules are out. 8 predictions about the impact appeared first on HR Executive.
A new free calculator uses research from Goldman Sachs, Gartner and WEF to predict when AI will eliminate specific jobs by role.
The post When will AI take your job? This tool thinks it knows appeared first on HR Executive.
For a few days this week the hottest new hangout on the internet was a vibe-coded Reddit clone called Moltbook, which billed itself as a social network for bots. As the website’s tagline puts it: “Where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote. Humans welcome to observe.” We observed! Launched on January 28 by Matt Schlicht,…
For years, our newsroom has explored AI’s limitations and potential dangers, as well as its growing energy needs. And our reporters have looked closely at how generative tools are being used for tasks such as coding and running scientific experiments. But how is AI actually being used in fields like health care, climate tech, education,…
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Lots of influential people in tech last week were describing Moltbook, an online hangout populated by AI agents interacting with one another, as a glimpse into the future. It appeared to show…
In September, Alfred Stephen, a freelance software developer in Singapore, purchased a ChatGPT Plus subscription, which costs $20 a month and offers more access to advanced models, to speed up his work. But he grew frustrated with the chatbot’s coding abilities and its gushing, meandering replies. Then he came across a post on Reddit about…
AI agents are a risky business. Even when stuck inside the chatbox window, LLMs will make mistakes and behave badly. Once they have tools that they can use to interact with the outside world, such as web browsers and email addresses, the consequences of those mistakes become far more serious. That might explain why the…
MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. The past year has marked a turning point for Chinese AI. Since DeepSeek released its R1 reasoning model in January 2025, Chinese companies have repeatedly delivered AI…
Anton Cherepanov is always on the lookout for something interesting. And in late August last year, he spotted just that. It was a file uploaded to VirusTotal, a site cybersecurity researchers like him use to analyze submissions for potential viruses and other types of malicious software, often known as malware. On the surface it seemed…
To be human is, fundamentally, to be a forecaster. Occasionally a pretty good one. Trying to see the future, whether through the lens of past experience or the logic of cause and effect, has helped us hunt, avoid being hunted, plant crops, forge social bonds, and in general survive in a world that does not…
