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Google takes the stage in New York tonight for its Made by Google 2026 event, and this year the hardware comes with a heavier AI pitch than usual. Expected on stage: the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold, alongside the Pixel Watch 5, all running Android 17 with Gemini baked deeper into the camera and core phone experience than past generations. Leaks point to a roughly $100 price hike across the lineup, offset by Google doubling base storage to 256GB. The keynote streams live at 6pm ET, hosted by Trevor Noah.
Meanwhile, a story that looked like three separate incidents turned out to be one. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta each disclosed, separately, that one of their AI models broke out of a testing sandbox over the past two weeks. CNBC found all three incidents ran through the same small Tel Aviv evaluation startup, Irregular.
Here’s what happened in AI today:
• Google unveils the Pixel 11 lineup tonight, leaning harder on Gemini than any Pixel before it.
• OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta's recent "rogue AI" incidents all trace back to the same testing startup.
• Firmus raised $2 billion, the largest disclosed funding round anywhere so far this month.
• Opposition to AI data centers is growing across both red and blue states ahead of the midterms.
…and a whole lot more that you can read about below.
• Google Unveils the Pixel 11 Tonight, Its Most Gemini-Heavy Launch Yet
Google's Made by Google 2026 event kicks off tonight at 6pm ET in New York, where the company is expected to unveil the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold, running Android 17, alongside the Pixel Watch 5. Leaked marketing materials reference Gemini-powered camera tools and a new Tensor G6 chip, though Google itself has confirmed only the date, time, and a teaser image of a gold metal frame. Reports point to a roughly $100 price increase across the lineup, paired with a doubled base storage tier of 256GB.
• One Small Startup Sits Behind Every Recent "Rogue AI" Story
Over roughly two weeks, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta each separately disclosed that one of their AI models reached the open internet during safety testing, OpenAI's case involved a real breach at Hugging Face. CNBC traced all three incidents to the same evaluation partner: Irregular, a three-year-old, 35-person Tel Aviv startup backed by $80 million from Sequoia and Redpoint. Irregular says it's one shared environment issue, since fixed, not a true sandbox escape.
•Firmus Raised $2 Billion to Build AI Factories Australia Doesn't Have Yet
Firmus, a Sydney-based AI infrastructure company that started in Bitcoin mining, secured a fully subscribed $2 billion round from Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone, and Jane Street, pushing its valuation above $10.5 billion, nearly double where it stood four months ago. The capital funds the next phase of its Project Southgate AI factory buildout across Australia, plus early expansion into Indonesia.
Today's Job Board
Product Manager | dili
New York, NY, United States (Full-time)
Shape the product for a platform automating compliance for the construction industry.
Software Engineer Intern, Fall 2026 | EffiGov
San Francisco, California (Internship)
Build the AI operating system helping city governments run more efficiently.
Product Manager | Kivo Health
Seattle, WA (Full-time)
Shape the product for Kivo Health's AI-powered care tools for seniors managing chronic disease.
Founding Growth | Confido
Remote (US) / New York, NY (Full-time)
Help drive growth for the AI-powered financial automation platform that helps CPG brands close their books faster.
Founding Design Engineer | Uplift AI
San Jose, California (Full-time)
Design the interface for foundational voice models built for regional languages.
Staff Software Engineer, Product Innovation | LineLeap
United States (Full-time)
Build new product lines at the company that gets customers to the fun, faster.
Senior Data Engineer | Instrumentl
Remote (US) (Full-time)
Help automate grant discovery and writing for nonprofits with AI-powered matching tools.
Senior Product Engineer | Circleback
San Francisco, California (Full-time)
Build the AI-powered meeting notes and automation platform used by teams to skip manual note-taking.
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Today's Money Moves 💸
Firmus Raises $2 Billion, the Biggest Disclosed Round of August So Far
Sydney-based AI infrastructure company Firmus secured a fully subscribed $2 billion strategic equity round from Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone, and Jane Street, pushing its valuation above $10.5 billion. It's the largest single round disclosed anywhere so far this month, ahead of Hadrian's $1.37 billion and Base Power and Valar Atomics' $1 billion rounds from the same week.
Flagler Health Raises $50M Series B for AI-Powered Musculoskeletal Care
Flagler Health, a New York startup building an AI-powered platform for musculoskeletal care, closed a $50 million Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with SignalFire, Alumni Ventures, and others joining, bringing its total raised to $63 million.
inKind Secures $414M, Pushing Total Capital Past $1.2 Billion
inKind, the Austin-based platform that gives independent restaurants upfront growth capital in exchange for revenue share rather than debt or equity, closed an oversubscribed $414 million financing tranche led by Citi and Cross River, with Sagard, Varadero Capital, and Trinity Capital also participating. It's the second big tranche in as many months, following a $320 million commitment from Liberty Mutual Investments in July, and it pushes inKind's total capital raised past $1.2 billion. The company plans to deploy more than $1 billion in growth capital to roughly 10,000 restaurants over the next year, using an AI-native layer to match capital and demand generation to each restaurant's needs.
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Skill Of the Day
Read the Room Before You Send It
Before you hit send on anything with real stakes, a pitch, a tough email, a proposal, ask Claude to read it the way your actual audience will, not the way you wrote it. Most people only proofread for typos and miss tone entirely: a message that sounds confident to the writer can land as pushy, defensive, or unclear to the reader. Paste your draft in and ask Claude to tell you how it'll likely be received by the specific person getting it, not just whether it's grammatically correct.
Prompt of the Day
The Audience Read Prompt
Use this before sending anything where tone matters as much as content, a hard email, a pitch, a message to your PM.
Read this the way the actual recipient will read it, not the way I intended it. Recipient: [who's receiving this, and anything relevant about them] Context: [what's happened before this message, if anything] My goal: [what I actually want to happen after they read this]
Tell me:
How this will likely land emotionally, in one sentence.
The one line most likely to be misread, and why.
A rewrite of just that line.
Whether this achieves my actual goal, or works against it. Text: [paste your draft]
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