Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Monday, July 6, 2026
Agility Robotics Plans to Go Public via SPAC in Largest Humanoid Robotics Capital Raise in History
Agility Robotics announced plans to go public through a SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI, in a deal that values the Salem, Oregon company at around $2.5 billion and is expected to raise more than $620 million — the largest capital raise in humanoid robotics history, the company says. The merger would make Agility the first pure-play humanoid robotics company on public markets. CEO Peggy Johnson said the company has more than $300 million in booked, multi-year revenue representing roughly 1,000 robots deployed under a robots-as-a-service model, with customers including GXO Logistics, Amazon, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, and Mercado Libre.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Smart Glasses Startup Even Realities Hits $1B Valuation with $150M Round Led by Meituan and Tencent
Even Realities, a three-year-old Shenzhen startup founded by ex-Apple engineers, raised $150 million in a pre-Series B round led by Meituan and Tencent, valuing the company at $1 billion. Unlike Meta and Snap’s camera-equipped smart glasses, Even’s flagship G2 uses a heads-up display built into the frames, controlled via a companion ring, and deliberately omits a camera to address privacy concerns. CEO Will Wang said the company was first in the category to sell more than 10,000 pairs, and that the U.S. is now its fastest-growing market. The G2 frames retail for $599, with the average order reaching approximately $1,000.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Amazon Will Stop Accepting New Customers for Mechanical Turk on July 30
Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk on July 30, 2026, as the once-pioneering crowdsourcing platform enters a state of managed decline. AWS cited “careful consideration” in its announcement, noting that existing customers can continue using the service but that no new features are planned. Launched in 2005, Mechanical Turk became central to debates around crowdsourced labour ethics and later served as a data-annotation tool for AI training. A 2023 analysis found that between 33% and 46% of workers on the platform were using large language models to complete tasks — a sign that the platform’s original model had collapsed from within.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Alibaba Bans Employees from Using Claude Code, Cites High-Risk Security Classification
China’s Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic’s Claude Code starting July 10, classifying it as high-risk software, according to Reuters and Dow Jones. The ban follows a Reddit post alleging that Claude Code contained code to secretly identify Chinese users. Anthropic’s Thariq Shihipar confirmed it was “an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation,” adding that stronger mitigations have since replaced it. Anthropic already prohibits Chinese companies from accessing its models. Alibaba employees have been directed to use the company’s own coding tool, Qoder, instead.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Midjourney Demands Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Reveal Their Internal AI Usage in Copyright Suit
AI image startup Midjourney has filed a motion seeking to compel Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. to reveal the full scope of their internal AI usage — not just consumer-facing content — as part of ongoing copyright litigation. A judge previously limited the studios’ discovery obligations to generative AI that produced public-facing images and videos. Midjourney argues this lets studios “cherry-pick only those documents they believe support their market harm claims.” The startup contends the withheld documents would reveal whether studios are themselves training AI on unlicensed copyrighted content — the same practice they are suing Midjourney for. Studios’ counsel called the request a “fishing expedition.”
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
AI-Powered Hyper-Communication Platform Connects 277 Americans in Real-Time Debate on Independence Day
On America’s 250th birthday, 277 randomly selected Americans participated in a 20-minute online debate using a hyper-communication AI platform called Thinkscape, developed by Unanimous AI. The system uses AI agents to connect small groups in parallel discussion spaces, enabling large-scale deliberation. The group generated 94 distinct ideas before converging on the top three American contributions to the world: the internet, advances in medicine, and the spreading of democracy. Author Louis Rosenberg, writing in VentureBeat, describes hyper-communication as a new AI category that connects people rather than replaces them — preserving human deliberation at scales previously impossible without collapsing into noise.
Sources: VentureBeat Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
New Google Commercial Imagines the Declaration of Independence Written with Help from Gemini AI
Google released a commercial on July 4 imagining Thomas Jefferson drafting the Declaration of Independence with help from Google Workspace and Gemini AI. Titled with the tagline “Group project, but make it 1776,” the ad depicts fictionalized founders using Google Docs, Calendar, Meet, and Gemini — including a “help me visualize” AI feature for designing the national seal. Viewer reactions split along platform lines: comments on YouTube and Instagram were described as mostly positive, while Bluesky users called the ad “cringey” and “stunningly tone deaf.” Historian Angus Johnston noted it’s “amazing how little of this is actually AI.”
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Tech Pulse
Top Frontier Models (SWE-bench Verified): Claude Fable 5 (95.0%) | Gemini 3.1 Pro (93.2%) | Claude Mythos 5 (91.2%)
Top Open Source Models (SWE-bench Verified): DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Max (80.6%) | MiniMax M3 (80.5%) | Qwen3.7 Max (80.4%)
Top Small Models 15–50B (SWE-bench Verified): Qwen3.6-27B (77.2%) | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (73.4%) | Nemotron Nano 30B (71.9%)
Top Edge Models 0–15B (GSM8K): Gemma 3 4B IT (89.2%) | Phi-4-Mini 3.8B (88.6%) | Phi-3.5-Mini 3.8B (86.5%)
AI Leaders: Nvidia $4.74T | Alphabet $4.34T | Microsoft $2.83T
Robotics Leaders: Intuitive Surgical $150.87B | Fanuc $41.48B | Symbotic $26.75B
Curated by JD · samwise.agency