Hermes Overtakes OpenClaw in Developer Engagement

Smallest.ai has raised $13 million in funding to develop voice AI models designed to conduct phone calls that pass the Turing test. The startup is focused on building ultra-fast voice models that sound genuinely human. The funding supports the company's effort to create AI capable of handling realistic voice interactions.

Okta has acquired AI security startup Permiso for approximately $200 million, according to sources. The deal adds identity threat detection capabilities to Okta's platform, addressing enterprise demand for securing AI agents and other non-human identities in cloud environments. The acquisition reflects growing market focus on identity security as organizations deploy AI systems at scale.

Google DeepMind introduced Gemini Robotics 2, a suite of AI models designed to give robots whole-body control, dexterous manipulation, and multi-robot collaboration capabilities. The system includes three models: a vision-language-action model for motor control, an embodied reasoning model for planning and communication, and an on-device model optimized for fast adaptation to new robot bodies. Early-access partners can now deploy these models on humanoid and bi-arm robots to perform complex, multi-step tasks in unstructured environments.

Nimble, a New York City-based startup, launched Web Search Agents designed to reduce token consumption by 51% while improving retrieval accuracy by 21% compared to leading AI search alternatives. The system uses self-learning retrieval algorithms and domain-specific optimization to help AI agents perform web research more efficiently for enterprise workloads. Rather than competing as a general search engine, Nimble targets developers building autonomous agents that need continuously updated information for research, lead generation, and compliance tasks.