🤖 OpenAI’s $300 AI-Powered Smart Speaker

🔊 OpenAI’s $300 AI-Powered Smart Speaker

🧟‍♂️ The SaaS-Pocalypse Infects Cybersecurity

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In May 2025, OpenAI acquired io Products, Inc. for nearly $6.5 billion, gaining legendary Apple designer Jony Ive, best known for his iconic minimalist products like the iMac G3 and Apple Watch Series 4.

Now, OpenAI’s reportedly building an AI-powered smart speaker to proactively see, listen, and respond. It’s equipped with a “wide-angle RGB imaging camera” to locate your car keys on a coffee table or spot your wallet squished between sofa cushions.

The AI-powered smart speaker is also engineered for persistent listening without a wake word (e.g., “Hey Siri!”), continuously tracking conversations for more “context-aware AI interactions.”

It’s a crowded and competitive space with Big Tech companies rushing to develop the ultimate smart home command center. You have Amazon’s “Alexa+,” Apple’s “HomeHub,” and Google’s “Gemini for Home.”

Will people openly invite an AI-powered smart speaker into their homes if it’s constantly listening and watching? Amazon recently faced heavy backlash over privacy concerns with “Search Party,” a new AI-powered feature that helps pet owners find their missing dog through Ring cameras, alarms, and doorbells. That’s just monitoring the neighborhood. Now imagine the kitchen, bathroom, or living room!

Anthropic recently rolled out “Claude Code Security (CCS),” which scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests targeted software patches to find, fix, and fortify code.

The cybersecurity sector saw a significant sell-off triggered by CCS because it automates code vulnerability scanning, which could “disintermediate” traditional security vendors by enabling enterprises to fix their own coding bugs.

CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity leader that stops breaches with AI-native threat detection, took the heaviest hit due to direct exposure to the enterprise security market. In the past five days, CrowdStrike’s stock has fallen by roughly 17.24%, losing about $18.61 billion in shareholder value.

In the SaaS era, enterprises adopted software to assist employees. For example, a SaaS tool might help sales representatives map and manage customer interactions. However, that same SaaS tool still relied on sales representatives to manually add customer interactions.

Now, SaaS is undergoing a technological transition into SaS. AI Agents are changing how companies perform complex business processes by acting on an employee’s behalf. They have the ability to autonomously analyze, execute, and fulfill without an employee lifting a finger. So, what makes SaS better? Imagine having a team of AI Agents that work 24×7 without needing breaks, training, or managing.

InScope raised a $14.5M Series A to automate financial reporting.

Humand closed a $66M Series A to eliminate unnecessary paperwork.

Ubicquia landed a $106M Series D to increase power grid resiliency.

UiPath (New York, NY): Automation Developer Intern, Summer 2026

Figure AI (San Jose, CA): Mechanical Engineer, Battery, Entry-Level

Waymo (San Francisco, CA): UX Designer, In-Car Experience, Mid-Level

Anthropic (San Francisco, CA): Developer Education Lead, Senior-Level