🚀 Hark Raises Massive $700M Series A for “Universal” AI Interface
AI startup Hark announced a staggering $700 million Series A round, valuing the company at $6 billion post-money. Led by Parkway Venture Capital, the round includes heavy-hitters Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and ARK Invest. Founded by Brett Adcock (also behind Figure.AI and Archer), Hark is building a multimodal AI personal assistant designed as a “universal interface” with the digital world. The company expects to release its first models this summer, followed by dedicated hardware devices. That’s one of the largest Series A rounds in AI history.
🏛️ Trump Delays AI Security Executive Order
President Trump postponed signing an executive order that would have required AI companies to submit advanced models for government security review 14–90 days before launch. Trump said he “didn’t like certain aspects of it” and claimed the language “could have been a blocker” for AI progress: “We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that leading.” The order was partly motivated by concerns around Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 Cyber — both capable of finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities. The unofficial reason for the delay? Not enough tech CEOs could make it to D.C. on short notice for the signing ceremony.
🎵 Spotify & Universal Music Strike Landmark AI Music Deal
Spotify and Universal Music Group announced a major partnership allowing Premium subscribers to create AI-generated song covers and remixes of their favorite tracks. Participating artists will receive a revenue share — a significant shift from the industry’s previous adversarial stance on AI-generated music. Spotify emphasized this was built on “upfront agreements, not by asking for forgiveness later,” a clear jab at AI music platforms like Suno. Pricing and launch date are yet to be announced.
🎤 Spotify Goes All-In on AI: Audiobook Creation, Personal Podcasts & More
It’s a huge day for Spotify’s AI ambitions. Alongside the UMG deal, the company also unveiled:
- AI Audiobook Creation Tools — powered by ElevenLabs voices, launching in beta in June for self-published authors
- Spotify Studio — a new AI agent app that creates personalized daily podcasts just for you, taking on Google’s NotebookLM
- AI-powered Q&A and briefing features for podcasts, letting listeners interact with content in new ways
🤖 Google Pushes AI Agent Ecosystem at I/O Follow-up
Following Google I/O’s major announcements, the company is aggressively pitching its new AI agent ecosystem to consumers — including “information agents” that reinvent Google Alerts and “action agents” that can complete tasks on the web. The vision is ambitious: AI agents that browse, book, and buy on your behalf. But early reactions suggest the messaging is confusing for everyday consumers, and the question remains whether people are ready to hand over their web browsing to autonomous AI.
👥 OpenAI Safety Exec Aleksander Madry Departs
Aleksander Madry, OpenAI’s former head of preparedness and one of its top safety executives, announced he is leaving the company. Madry was reassigned from his safety role last summer to focus on AI reasoning. He says he’s departing to work on something new centered on AI’s impact on the economy. His exit continues a trend of safety-focused leaders departing OpenAI.
💻 Anthropic in Talks to Use Microsoft’s AI Chips
Despite a massive $15 billion/year compute deal with SpaceX, Anthropic apparently needs even more capacity. The company is reportedly in early talks to rent Azure servers powered by Microsoft’s Maia 200 chips. The chips are designed to run existing models like Claude efficiently, even if they’re not ideal for training new ones. Anthropic has been steadily increasing its Azure usage, deepening the complex Microsoft-Anthropic relationship.
🧠 The Path: Tony Robbins-Backed AI Therapy Startup Raises $14.3M
The Path, an AI therapy and coaching app co-founded by motivational speaker Tony Robbins and former Calm employees, raised $14.3 million in seed funding led by Prime Movers Lab. The app combines AI-driven therapy with Robbins’ self-improvement methods and claims its model scored 95 on the Vera-MH mental health safety benchmark — compared to a top score of 65 for general consumer AI bots. It’s a serious play to make AI mental health support actually safe.
📊 ChatGPT Lands in Microsoft PowerPoint
OpenAI released a ChatGPT integration for Microsoft PowerPoint, adding a sidebar that lets users create or edit presentations using prompts, documents, images, and other source material. The feature is available now in beta for users across Business, Enterprise, Edu, Free, Pro, and Plus plans — following similar integrations for Excel and Google Sheets.
📰 Published May 22, 2026 — sourced from stories within the last 24 hours. All stories reported on May 21, 2026.
Sources: The Verge, TechCrunch, Politico, CNN, The Information
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