Saudi-Egyptian fund Edafa Venture acquired startups Kuadra and IRRI Vision, announcing a $30 million investment plan in the Cairo artificial intelligence sector.
OpenAI is introducing ChatGPT Agent, a feature that utilizes a virtual computer to autonomously perform tasks like shopping and travel planning, signaling a shift away from traditional chatbots. Concurrently, OpenAI acknowledges that prompt injection attacks remain a significant challenge, leading to the development of a new 'Lockdown Mode' for ChatGPT that disconnects it from the internet to prevent sensitive data theft. Meanwhile, Perplexity is transitioning its API to a 'Search as Code' architecture, enabling AI models to write Python scripts for web searches, which reduces token usage and improves research accuracy. Separately, the Chinese AI model DeepSeek has rapidly become a major software provider in the US, offering tokens at a fraction of OpenAI's prices. In investment news, the Saudi-Egyptian fund Edafa Venture has acquired AI startups Kuadra and IRRI Vision, backed by a $30 million investment plan for Cairo's AI sector. AI
IMPACT New agent capabilities from OpenAI and Perplexity signal a move towards more autonomous AI task execution, while DeepSeek's aggressive pricing challenges established players.