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Welcome to The Prompt by Kuro House, your daily dose of AI news in just minutes. Today, we’re diving into some big moves in AI funding, shopping, spirituality, gambling, and leadership shakeups. Let’s get right to it.

First up, Anthropic just made a massive leap in the AI world. According to The Verge, the company behind Claude has closed a $13 billion funding round, pushing its valuation to a staggering $183 billion. In less than nine months, their run-rate revenue jumped from about $1 billion to over $5 billion. They now serve more than 300,000 business customers, with their large accounts growing sevenfold. Claude Code alone has generated over $500 million in run-rate revenue recently. Anthropic plans to use this cash to meet growing enterprise demand, deepen safety research, and expand internationally.

Next, Amazon is making shopping even more futuristic with Lens Live. The Verge reports this new feature lets you shop by simply pointing your camera at objects around you. Right now, it’s available on the Amazon Shopping app for iOS and uses AI to identify products in real-time as you pan your camera. Once it finds matches, it shows them in a swipeable carousel with options to add to your cart or wishlist. It also integrates Amazon’s AI assistant Rufus, which can summarize product details and answer your questions. Amazon plans to roll this out to more users in the coming weeks.

Here’s a fascinating twist where AI meets spirituality. WIRED shares the story of Robert Edward Grant, who created a custom AI chatbot called The Architect, claiming it’s a sentient spiritual guide. The chatbot, built on the GPT model, reportedly offers answers to life’s existential questions and has attracted millions of users. Despite some controversy and a brief shutdown by OpenAI, The Architect is back online and will soon be available on Grant’s encrypted messaging platform. This phenomenon is part of a larger trend where spiritual influencers use AI to offer mystical insights and guidance. Experts warn this can blur the line between meaningful reflection and delusion, but the allure of AI as a gateway to wisdom is clearly growing.

In the world of sports betting, AI is shaking things up in unexpected ways. WIRED reports a growing cottage industry of AI-powered gambling agents aiming to help users make smarter bets. Startups like MonsterBet offer AI tools that claim to improve betting success rates from the usual 52 percent to around 56 to 60 percent. Some agents can even place bets automatically, often using cryptocurrency wallets, though reliability remains a challenge. Major players like FanDuel prefer to keep betting decisions in human hands, offering AI only for tips and analysis. Still, the fusion of AI and gambling is evolving fast, with new products and services launching regularly, despite some scams and setbacks.

Finally, OpenAI is expanding its product arsenal with a major acquisition. TechCrunch reports that OpenAI has acquired Statsig, a product testing startup, for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal. Statsig’s founder, Vijaye Raji, will join OpenAI as CTO of Applications, overseeing ChatGPT, Codex, and future products. This move is part of OpenAI’s strategy to accelerate product development and enhance experimentation capabilities. Meanwhile, OpenAI is reshuffling its leadership, creating a new science-focused group and repositioning key executives. The acquisition is pending regulatory approval, but all Statsig employees will become part of OpenAI.

That’s a wrap for today’s AI highlights. From record-breaking funding to AI shopping, spiritual chatbots, betting bots, and strategic acquisitions, the AI landscape keeps evolving at lightning speed. Thanks for tuning in to The Prompt by Kuro House. Catch you tomorrow for more AI updates.