ai agents5 articles
Microsoft and Nvidia Are Building AI Agent PCs, Because Copilot Wasn't Embarrassing Enough
Microsoft and Nvidia are reportedly partnering to launch AI-focused PCs powered by Nvidia chips as the main processor, with devices from Microsoft Surface and Dell expected to be unveiled at Computex and Microsoft's Build conference. Microsoft is also developing new software based on the OpenClaw framework that enables AI agents to handle tasks locally on Windows PCs, with plans to integrate this into Microsoft 365. This marks Microsoft's second major AI PC push, aiming to go beyond the largely unsuccessful Copilot+ PC initiative by embedding AI agents more deeply into actual user workflows.
Okta Wants to Be the One That Pulls the Plug on Your Rogue AI Agents
Okta is positioning itself as a key provider of identity and security controls for AI agents, responding to enterprise demand for "kill switch" capabilities that can shut down rogue or policy-violating agents. CEO Todd McKinnon highlighted that while 92% of executives report widespread AI agent use, only 22% have proper identity controls in place, creating significant security gaps. Okta's solution involves maintaining a directory of agents, setting access policies, and severing authorization tokens when agents go rogue — a capability already attracting major partners including ServiceNow, Salesforce, and AWS.
How a Lobster Mascot and a Bunch of Obsessives Dragged the AI Agent Era Into Existence
In late 2025, Anthropic's Claude Code — particularly the Opus 4.5 release — ignited a wave of AI agent enthusiasm among technically skilled users, enabling individuals to build and oversee complex software at a scale previously requiring entire teams. Alongside it, developer Peter Steinberger created OpenClaw, an open-source personal AI agent that became the fastest-growing project in GitHub history, drawing mainstream tech attention including a prominent endorsement from Nvidia's Jensen Huang. While the tools remain imperfect, risky, and expensive, they signal a broader shift toward autonomous AI agents that could soon reshape how all computer users work — and potentially displace many jobs in the process.
Google I/O 2026: Quadrillions of Tokens, Billions in Capex, and an Agent That Plans Your Block Party
At Google I/O 2026, CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted the company's massive AI infrastructure growth, noting token processing has surged to 3.2 quadrillion per month, supported by a capital expenditure budget of approximately $180–190 billion for the year. Google announced several new AI products, including Gemini 3.5 Flash (a faster, cheaper frontier model), Gemini Omni (a multimodal model combining video, image, and physics simulation), and Gemini Spark (a 24/7 personal AI agent capable of handling background tasks). The company also expanded its AI watermarking technology SynthID and deepened AI integration across Search, Chrome, and its app ecosystem, signalling an aggressive push toward always-on, agentic AI experiences.
Google Ships Gemini 3.5 Flash, an Agentic Assistant Called Spark, and a Do-Everything Model Nobody Fully Understands Yet
Google has announced Gemini 3.5 Flash a faster and more efficient AI model designed to make complex agentic tasks viable at scale, boasting nearly 300 tokens per second while matching the benchmark performance of larger, slower frontier models. Alongside it, Gemini Spark is Google's first dedicated AI agent, running 24/7 in the cloud to autonomously handle tasks across Google's ecosystem — such as monitoring emails, generating summaries, and building slide decks — and will initially be available to AI Ultra subscribers. Google also unveiled Gemini Omni, a new multimodal model intended to eventually handle any type of input and output (text, image, video, audio) from a single unified model, though for now it is launching with video generation only, replacing Veo in Google's products.