FROM THE DESK OF
Clark Valberg
MANAGING PARTNER
Musk's Neuralink puts chips in brains. Altman's Merge Labs connects neurons to AI. Both assume the computer goes inside you. A lab in Melbourne just asked: what if you go inside the computer?
Cortical Labs grew 200,000 living human neurons on a microchip and taught them to play a 3D video game. The neurons see, react, miss, fail, and then adapt in real time. They learn from feedback exactly the way ChatGPT does, through reinforcement, except the compute layer is alive. On earlier hardware, neurons took 18 months to figure out a paddle game. On the new platform, they handled a full 3D environment in a week. The API is already open to outside developers.
The timing is hard to ignore. Hundreds of billions are flowing into data centers and chip fabs, all built on one assumption: that scaling intelligence means scaling silicon. Cortical Labs is pursuing a perpendicular bet. Grow the processor. Culture it. Program it. Their early applications target drug discovery, neuroscience, and an emerging discipline called biocomputation. The brain runs on 20 watts.
"The irony of the century: we built trillion-dollar machines to mimic biology, and biology just entered the chat."
/ THE DEEP DIVE
Amazon Embeds an AI Health Agent Into Its App, Giving Prime Members Up to $145 in Free Medical Visits
Amazon has launched Health AI on Amazon.com and the Amazon app, an agentic assistant that reads personal medical records, explains lab results, manages prescription renewals, and books appointments with One Medical providers. Eligible U.S. Prime members receive up to five free direct-message care consultations covering 30-plus common conditions, valued at up to $145, at no additional cost.
SOURCE: AMAZON
BUSINESS IMPACT:
Retail Pharmacies:
Prescription renewals routed through Health AI default to Amazon Pharmacy, bleeding volume from CVS and Walgreens.
Primary Care Operators:
24/7 AI triage at zero cost shifts routine visits away from scheduled in-person appointments.
Health Benefits Administrators:
Employers and Insurers now compete with a virtual care option already living inside one of the world’s most-used consumer platforms.
/ INDUSTRY WATCH
MANUFACTURING
Samsung Targets Fully Autonomous Factories by 2030 with AI Agents and Humanoid Robots
Samsung is converting all global manufacturing into "AI-Driven Factories" by 2030 — deploying specialized AI agents, humanoid robots, and digital twin simulations across every stage from inbound logistics to final shipment.
SRC: THE FAST MODE
REAL ESTATE
Better Embeds Mortgage Underwriting in ChatGPT — Cuts 21-Day Process to 47 Seconds
Better's Tinman AI platform is now live inside ChatGPT Enterprise, letting loan officers underwrite mortgages across 45+ institutional investors in as little as 47 seconds — trained on $110 billion in funded loans.
SRC: HOUSINGWIRE
AGRICULTURE
IBI Ag Builds the World's First AI Platform to Design Bioinsecticide Proteins from Scratch
IBI Ag has validated an AI platform that engineers novel bioinsecticide proteins from the ground up — precisely eliminating target pests while leaving beneficial insects untouched. Greenhouse and field trials are next.
SRC: IGROW NEWS
TECH
Zoom Launches a Full AI Office Suite
Zoom is rolling out AI Docs, Slides, and Sheets alongside photorealistic avatars that can stand in for users in live and async meetings — plus deepfake detection and a no-code AI agent builder. AI Companion active users tripled year-over-year in Q4 FY2026.
SRC: TECHCRUNCH
HEALTHCARE
A London Surgeon Just Removed a Prostate 1,500 Miles Away
The UK's first remote robotic surgery saw a London surgeon guide a four-armed robot in Gibraltar to perform a prostatectomy — patient recovered within days, zero complications.
SRC: THE GUARDIAN
BANKING & FINANCE
City Union Bank Launches AI Centre to Automate Fraud Detection and Compliance
City Union Bank has formed a four-party consortium to build an AI Centre of Excellence focused on fraud detection, credit risk analytics, and regulatory compliance automation.
SRC: AI NEWS
RETAIL
Splitit Plugs Installment Payments into Google's Agentic Commerce Standard
Splitit has joined Google's Universal Commerce Protocol — co-built with Shopify, Target, and Walmart — embedding card-linked installment payments into AI shopping agents to convert high-intent AI traffic that currently abandons at checkout.
SRC: PYMNTS
MEDIA
Google Is Auto-Adding AI Voice-Overs to Silent Video Ads
Google's Performance Max will automatically generate and layer AI voice-overs onto silent video ads using advertiser headlines and descriptions. Advertisers who don't opt out by March 20 are in by default.
/ NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS
$2B
Nscale Pulls In $2B More at a $14.6B Valuation
The UK-based AI data center builder has a contracted supply of 200,000 Nvidia GPUs and a 1.3GW computing pipeline across the UK, Norway and the US.
VIA COMPUTER WEEKLY
$1.03B
Yann LeCun's Post-Meta AI Lab Raises $1.03B at a $3.5B Valuation
AMI Labs builds AI that learns from physical reality rather than text, co-backed by Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital and Bezos Expeditions.
VIA TECHCRUNCH
$550M
Legal AI Startup Legora Raises $550M at a $5.55B Valuation
The Stockholm-founded platform automates end-to-end legal workflows for 800+ law firms across 50 markets.
VIA STARTUPHUB
$500M
Rivian's CEO Spun Out a Robotics Company, Raising $500M at a $2B Valuation
Mind Robotics builds AI-powered factory robots trained on real production data, co-led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.
VIA TECHCRUNCH
$400M
Replit Triples Its Valuation to $9B in 6 Months on a $400M Series D
The AI platform that lets non-programmers build software is now targeting $1B in annual recurring revenue by year-end.
VIA TECHCRUNCH
/ EMERGING TOOLS
01
Your own private AI assistant that remembers everything, runs on your server, and handles emails and meetings autonomously.
02
Turns your CRM data into personalized decks and reports automatically, no manual slide-building required.
03
One AI assistant that manages your inbox, drafts replies in your voice, and automates tasks across your entire workflow.
04
Syncs your context across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini so you never repeat yourself between AI tools.
05
Pulls data from invoices and contracts and pushes it straight into QuickBooks, Xero, or Google Sheets.
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