Sep 2, 2025 4 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ Labels Signed AI Singer

Quantum Goes Commercial, CEOs Hate Go Viral

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

The future doesn’t arrive quietly—technology rewrites the script faster than legacy power can react.

LABEL

Labels Just Signed Their Replacement

👀 What’s the move: A British designer with zero musical chops just landed a record deal after his AI-generated track hit 3M streams. Indie label Hallwood Media is calling it the first official signing of an “AI artist.” Streaming services already admit up to 18% of daily uploads are AI tracks, though few break through.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This isn’t about quirky bots making songs — it’s about labels realizing they can mint infinite “artists” with no tour schedules, no egos, and no royalties. For musicians, it’s Napster déjà vu: the product isn’t your song, it’s your training data. For labels, it’s the fantasy business model — own the distribution, own the models, and cut humans out of the margins.

⛵ Key takeaway: The first AI signing isn’t a gimmick — it’s the moment artists learned the label only needs one of you, then a thousand prompts.

TOGETHER WITH REPLY

True AI Email Personalization Is Finally Here

Imagine this: you’re crafting an email that’s as bland as a plain bagel, and then—POOF!—with a sprinkle of Reply AI magic, it transforms into a personalized, mouthwatering masterpiece that even the most selective inboxes can’t resist. This isn’t just any run-of-the-mill AI; this is your trusty sidekick in the quest for higher open rates and reply rates.

So, if you're ready to elevate your email outreach from "meh" to "magnificent," Reply AI is your golden ticket.

Try now👉

STARTUP

Quantum Startup Skips the “Someday”

👀 What’s the move: Phasecraft just banked $34M to make quantum computing commercially relevant before fault-tolerant machines arrive. Instead of betting on perfect hardware, it builds ultra-efficient, hardware-agnostic algorithms that squeeze real results from today’s noisy, unstable devices.

💡 Why it’s not boring: This flips the quantum playbook. Rather than waiting a decade for clean qubits, Phasecraft is already simulating materials, optimizing energy grids, and co-developing tools with industrial partners. If it works, whole markets — from solar design to pharma to logistics — could be redesigned around hybrid quantum-classical workflows. The risk? Incumbents who’ve been selling “quantum is always ten years away” just lost their best excuse.

⛵ Key takeaway: Phasecraft isn’t chasing quantum utopia — it’s selling picks and shovels to the gold rush before the mine even opens.

ENTERPRISE

CEOs Keep Forgetting the World Is a Camera

👀 What’s the move: A Polish construction CEO went viral for snatching a tennis star’s hat from a child at the US Open, just months after Astronomer’s CEO was caught on a stadium kiss cam. Both men scrambled to issue apologies or resign, but the damage was already viral.

💡 Why it’s not boring: These aren’t just embarrassing clips — they’re boardroom risks. The era of “private lapses” is gone: one second of bad optics can tank a reputation, unsettle employees, or even topple a CEO. Investors, customers, and competitors all watch the same feeds, and brand equity can evaporate in a weekend.

⛵ Key takeaway: Corporate governance now has a new KPI — how not to go viral.

STARTUP SPOT

🪐 Phasecraft
“Quantum algorithms, real-world.”
Hardware-agnostic software extracts value from today’s noisy quantum devices—hybrid algorithms for materials, energy, logistics.
→ Founded 2019 out of UCL & Bristol by Toby Cubitt, Ashley Montanaro, John Morton; partners with Google Quantum AI, IBM, Quantinuum, QuEra. Sep 2025 raised $34M Series B (Plural, Playground, Novo Holdings); $50M+ total; 40+ team, US HQ under Steve Flammia; pushing toward quantum advantage.

🔋 Offgrid
“Zinc batteries, lithium optional.”
ZincGel chemistry delivers safer, cheaper 6–12h stationary storage as an alternative to lithium-ion.
→ Founded 2018 in Noida (IIT Kanpur spin-out) by Tejas Kusurkar, Brindan Tulachan, Rishi Srivastava, Ankur Agarwal; 25+ IP families. Sep 2025 raised $15M Series A (led by Archean Chemical, with Ankur Capital); demo plant UK Q1 2026, India gigafactory next.

🤖 Pudu
“Service robots, restaurants to hospitals.”
Builds delivery/cleaning AMRs (BellaBot, HolaBot, T600) for F&B, hotels, healthcare, logistics; >100k units shipped.
→ Founded 2016 in Shenzhen by Felix Zhang; 300+ patents; deployed in 80+ countries, 1,000+ cities; U.S. HQ in Santa Clara. 2025: hit 100k milestone, launched T600 heavy AMR, won Red Dot/iF awards; researchers flagged open SSH admin vulnerability risk.

BAY AREA MEMOS

Offgrid Energy Labs raises $15M to commercialize safer, longer-lasting zinc-bromine batteries as an alternative to lithium.
Tesla has reportedly received just over 600 orders since its launch in India, a number falling short of the company's expectations.
A white-hat hacker exposed wide-open security in Pudu’s 100,000 restaurant robots—able to hijack fleets at will—ignored until major customers forced a fix.
OpenAI is considering the construction of a one-gigawatt data center in India as part of its global Stargate project.
Quantum algorithm company Phasecraft raises $34 million to accelerate practical applications for current-generation quantum computers.

TOGETHER WITH US

AI Secret Media Group is the world’s #1 AI & Tech Newsletter Group, boasting over 1 million readers from leading companies such as OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Our Newsletter Brands: