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Welcome to The AI Report — the #1 AI newsletter for business leaders.

We believe you don’t need to be technical. Just informed.

Inside: real-world use cases and Partner Perspectives you won’t find anywhere else:

• 1. 🦾 Build secure AI agents without compromising innovation with Auth0
• 2. 🤔 Is China quietly winning the AI race?
• 3. 🛡️ How AI governance cut compliance risk
• 4. 💻 Get rid of your personal data from Google with Incogni
• 5. ▶️ Google AI Overviews is using YouTube for health answers
• 6. 💸 Translators face 70% income drop to AI

Read Time: 5 minutes

TOGETHER WITH AUTH0

Secure Auth for AI Agents

Build secure AI agents without compromising innovation

AI agents are reshaping digital experiences, but securing them requires rethinking identity and access controls built for a human-first world. That’s why we built Auth0 for AI Agents, now GA.

Connect your AI agents to apps and data more securely, give users control over the AI agents' actions and data access, and enable human confirmation for critical agent actions. Auth0 for AI Agents is the complete auth solution for building AI agents more securely.

Latest in AI

Is China quietly winning the AI race?

🚨 Our Report

Chinese AI models are gaining significant traction among US tech giants, with companies like Pinterest and Airbnb relying on open-source technology from developers including Alibaba's Qwen and DeepSeek to power key features, raising questions about whether China is pulling ahead in the global AI competition.

🔓 Key Points

• Pinterest is using Chinese AI models to power its recommendation engine, with Chief Technology Officer Matt Madrigal saying open-source techniques are 30% more accurate than leading off-the-shelf models and sometimes 90% cheaper than proprietary US alternatives.

• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told Bloomberg his company relies "a lot" on Alibaba's Qwen for its AI customer service agent, citing three reasons: it's "very good," "fast," and "cheap."

• A Stanford University report found Chinese AI models "seem to have caught up or even pulled ahead" of global counterparts, both in capabilities and adoption, with Qwen overtaking Meta's Llama as the most downloaded model family on Hugging Face.

🔐 Relevance

This marks a turning point in the AI landscape, as US companies under pressure to monetize their proprietary models are losing ground to China's open-source approach. Former Meta executive Sir Nick Clegg called it ironic that China, "the world's great autocracy," is doing more to "democratise the technology" than America. For enterprise leaders, this signals a growing need to evaluate Chinese AI options for cost efficiency, even as geopolitical tensions persist.

The AI Report Podcast

Google REMOVES Medical AI After Backlash + OpenAI's $10B Chip Deal | AI News in 5

Case Study

How AI governance cut compliance risk

• Engineering consultancy Mott MacDonald designs and delivers infrastructure worldwide.

• Pattern: AI agents orchestrate risk inventories, scoring, and documentation. Agents run continuously; specialists intervene for high-risk systems and policy decisions.

• Why it matters: Consistent governance accelerates deployment while reducing compliance friction. Risk assessments are standardized across 10 risk areas, enabling consistent oversight across 50+ countries.

• Result: Mott MacDonald became an early sector adopter of a published responsible AI policy.

• Steal this: Create a simple AI inventory spreadsheet tracking what AI you use, who owns it, and what data it touches—then classify each by risk level (low, medium, high).

TOGETHER WITH INCOGNI

Unknown number calling? It’s not random…

The BBC caught scam call center workers on hidden cameras as they laughed at the people they were tricking. One worker bragged about making $250k from victims.

The disturbing truth?

Scammers don’t pick phone numbers at random. They buy your data from brokers. Once your data is out there, it’s not just calls. It’s phishing, impersonation, and identity theft.

That’s why we recommend Incogni: They delete your info from the web, monitor and follow up automatically, and continue to erase data as new risks appear. 

Try Incogni here and get 55% off your subscription with code AIREPORT

AI News Story

Google AI Overviews is using YouTube for health answers

• A German study reviewing more than 50,000 health queries found Google’s AI Overviews cite YouTube more often than any health publisher, even though the feature surfaces on over eight out of ten health searches.

• Researchers flagged that YouTube accounted for about 4.4 percent of all AI Overview citations, outpacing hospitals, government health portals, and academic institutions. The concern centers on source reliability since the platform hosts content from licensed clinicians and unverified creators alike.

• Google said its system elevates reputable sources and noted that most top cited YouTube videos came from health channels. Independent experts countered that the pattern suggests visibility and popularity drive citations more than accredited sources, raising governance and public health questions for enterprise search tools.

AI News Story

Translators face 70% income drop to AI

• Human translators are reporting steep income losses as AI-powered translation tools gain traction across industries. One Irish-language translator says he lost about 70% of his salary when EU translation work dried up, with remaining jobs for editing machine-generated text.

• A 2024 UK survey found more than a third of translators had lost work due to generative AI, and 43% reported similar declines. Oxford University researchers estimate roughly 28,000 more US translator jobs would have existed without machine translation. The IMF's workforce of translators and interpreters has shrunk from 200 to 50 as the organization relies more heavily on technology.

• Human professionals remain necessary in high-stakes contexts like legal, diplomatic, and medical translation, where nuance carries significant risk. But for many language workers, the shift is already forcing retraining or exit from the field entirely.

Trending AI Tools (sponsored by our tools database)

A curated look at the AI tools quietly transforming how teams work.

1. WayStars AI integrates leading AI tools for content, images, and voice

2. PhotoBoutique creates avatars and professional headshots

3. IPalettes is a color palette creator using keywords for design inspiration

Companies to Watch/Raising Now

Early-stage AI startups on our radar, before they’re everywhere.

• RadixArk
What they do: SGLang, the open-source project this team built, already runs inference for xAI and Cursor. The commercial pivot secured $400M in funding led by Accel at a point when inference efficiency is the biggest cost lever for anyone running AI at scale.
Why it matters: The specific edge, traction, or signal worth paying attention to.
Stage: Seed
Raising: $400M
Investors (if notable): Accel, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan

• Saviynt
What they do: Governs and protects human, machine, and AI agent identities across enterprise systems.
Why it matters: KKR led a $700M Series B in December as enterprises scramble to lock down access for AI agents moving through their networks.
Stage: Series B
Raising: $700M
Investors (if notable): KKR

Know a company we should be watching? Hit reply and let us know.

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Until next time, Martin, Arturo, and Liam.

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