FROM THE DESK OF
Clark Valberg
MANAGING PARTNER
John Wick made the internet permanently aware of how far someone might go for their dog. We saw a very different version of that devotion in March, when Rosie’s owner turned to AI and had produced an experimental cancer treatment. Five months later, it has produced a YC-backed biotech company.
What followed is where the story gets interesting. Rosie’s owner, Paul Conyngham, had no formal background in biology, yet used AI tools and genomic data to help design a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine. Rosie’s tumors later shrank. The experiment has since become Gamgee, a startup preparing canine clinical trials in Australia.
The important shift is who can now participate at the earliest stages of discovery. AI is giving capable outsiders a way to interrogate specialist knowledge, work through complex data, and develop hypotheses that would previously have required years of training just to formulate.
"The next wave of scientific progress may come from AI making expertise easier to enter."
Quick note for our readers in Commercial Real Estate before we dive in:
We spend a lot of time at Transformative thinking about what happens when AI moves beyond chat and becomes embedded in the actual work people do.
Commercial real estate underwriting is one of the more interesting examples we’ve seen.
On September 1, Jake Heller will be demonstrating an AI-powered underwriting workflow live in Brooklyn — showing how AI can work directly within the tools and processes CRE teams already use.
If you work in commercial real estate, this may be worth your time. And if someone in your network does, feel free to send it their way.
When: September 1, 2026 | 5:00-9:00 PM
Where: 26 Bridge Event Space, 26 Bridge St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
More details: ARRA-NY
/ THE DEEP DIVE
ChatGPT Can Now Remember What You Do Across Apps and Turn Repetitive Work Into Automations
OpenAI’s new Computer History gives ChatGPT and Codex a running memory of activity across apps and websites, letting people recover forgotten documents, resume work after interruptions, track what they worked on, and generate stand-up summaries without having to manually reconstruct their day. The bigger shift is contextual AI: instead of repeatedly explaining what you were doing, the AI can use recent activity to understand the task and locate the underlying Slack conversation, Google Doc, or file.
SOURCE: CHATGPT LEARN
BUSINESS IMPACT:
Knowledge Workers:
AI can now reconstruct recent work and surface context automatically, cutting time spent searching, recapping, and restarting tasks.
Automation Platforms:
ChatGPT can spot repetitive work and turn it into suggested automations, moving workflow discovery inside everyday computer use.
Enterprise IT:
Computer activity becomes a new AI data layer, raising the stakes for access controls, privacy, and prompt-injection security.
/ INDUSTRY WATCH
MANUFACTURING
Agility Robotics’ Digit V5 Targets 20-Hour Shifts Without Safety Cages
Agility’s next-generation humanoid is designed to work alongside people without protective fencing, while operating for up to 20 hours a day. The upgrade targets longer, more flexible deployments across factories and warehouses.
SRC: INTERESTING ENGINEERING
REAL ESTATE
ATTOM Launches Three AI Agents for Property Analysis and Reporting
ATTOM expanded its property intelligence platform with AI agents that answer property questions, compare housing markets, and turn data into customer-ready reports. The system works directly with tools including ChatGPT and Claude.
SRC: HOUSING WIRE
AGRICULTURE
StrainScan Pro Brings Early Pest and Crop Detection to the iPad
AI platform flags visual signs of pests, crop illness, stress, and quality deterioration directly in the field. Its portable setup lets growers and packers inspect crops without fixed industrial equipment.
SRC: STOCK TITAN
TECH
Firefox Launches AI-Powered Smart Window to Tame Tab Overload
Smart Window organizes related tabs, retraces browsing history, compares options, summarizes pages, and pulls research together for faster decisions. Mozilla says chats are not retained for model training and its memory feature stays on-device.
SRC: FIREFOX
HEALTHCARE
Harvard AI Tool Predicts Risk Across More Than 300 Diseases
Researchers developed an AI tool that uses existing patient data to forecast risk across hundreds of conditions, expanding the range of diseases that can be assessed from information already available in medical records.
BANKING & FINANCE
Visa Brings AI Financial Guidance Directly Into Banking Apps
Visa’s new assistant lets customers review spending, ask questions about their finances, and take actions such as locking cards or setting alerts inside their bank’s app.
RETAIL
Albertsons Says AI Shopping Assistants Are Driving Bigger Online Orders
The grocer says customers using its AI-powered shopping assistants have higher average order values, giving Albertsons measurable evidence that consumer-facing AI can translate into revenue.
MEDIA
Hollywood Strikes Its First AI Guardrails Deal with ByteDance
The Motion Picture Association reached its first agreement with an AI company after ByteDance strengthened copyright protections around Seedance and Seedream. The deal follows months of pressure over AI-generated content involving studio-owned characters and imagery.
SRC: LOS ANGELES TIMES
/ NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS
$7B
Stripe Lands OpenRouter in $7 Billion+ AI Deal
OpenRouter gives companies one connection to access 400+ AI models from over 60 providers, potentially strengthening Stripe’s position.
VIA PYMNTS
$5B
Databricks Raises $5 Billion at $190 Billion Valuation
The AI and data company has reached $7 billion in annualized revenue, growing 80% while remaining cash-flow positive, as investor demand for the round hit $15 billion.
VIA TECHCRUNCH
$700M
Etched Raises $700 Million at $21 Billion Valuation
The AI hardware startup has secured more than $1 billion in customer contracts, with its specialized computing systems already deployed by lead investor Jane Street.
VIA CRYPTONOMIST
$400M
Higgsfield Raises $400 Million at $5.4 Billion Valuation
The AI video platform, used by more than 30 million customers, will expand its team and sales efforts as business clients now generate the bulk of its revenue.
VIA PYMNTS
$280M
$280 Million Pushes Wispr Flow to $2 Billion
The voice-to-text startup says its Canto speech technology can cut word errors in noisy settings from more than 30% to between 5% and 10%.
VIA PYMNTS
/ EMERGING TOOLS
01
AI roleplay tool for practicing sales calls, interviews, and difficult conversations, with feedback to improve performance.
02
Tracks competitor websites, emails, reviews, and social activity so teams can quickly spot meaningful changes.
03
Connects AI assistants to business apps so teams can ask questions in plain language and get source-backed answers.
04
Turns text or images into ready-to-use 3D models, making 3D creation faster and easier.
05
Optimizes Google Ads by cutting wasted spend, finding high-intent searches, and flagging performance drops.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
TRANSFORMATIVE STUDIO
We partner with deeply embedded operators to discover, design, and spin out AI-native companies that transform industries.