Jul 11, 2025 4 min read Daily Rundown

⛵ New Look

Tesla Eyes Arizona, AWS Agent Arena, Fashion Bot Arrives

Good Morning, Early Adopters!

Get ready. The AI arena has fresh competitors, and they're bringing new tech – even in fashion.

ROBOTAXI

Tesla Eyes Arizona for Robotaxi Expansion

Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor / Bloomberg via Getty Images

👀 What’s the move: Tesla's pushing to expand its robotaxi service to the Phoenix Metro area, applying for both driver and driverless vehicle testing. Arizona’s self-certification process is more lenient than California’s, but Musk still needs regulatory green lights in multiple states to scale his robotaxi dreams.

💡 Why it’s not boring: Arizona is Tesla’s latest battleground in the autonomous ride-hailing race, with Waymo already dominating the area. Tesla's move highlights the regulatory hurdles and competitive landscape Tesla’s navigating as it scales, with California’s complex permits looming on the horizon.

⛵ Key takeaway: Tesla’s robotaxi plans are charging ahead—if it can clear the regulatory hurdles in every state it targets.

TOGETHER WITH VIDU

🚀 Vidu Q1 Has Arrived

Vidu unveils Vidu Q1, a groundbreaking multimodal model that introduces the powerful Reference-to-Video capability. Creators can now generate fluid, cohesive videos from multiple reference images—preserving identity, style, and motion continuity like never before.

Welcome to the next era of AI video creation.

Try now

AWS Rolls Out AI Agent Marketplace

👀 What’s the move: AWS is launching an AI agent marketplace next week, teaming up with Anthropic, marking a significant step in expanding its AI services. This platform will allow users to buy and sell AI agents built for specific tasks, disrupting how AI tools are deployed across industries.

💡 Why it’s not boring: AWS, already dominant in cloud services, is now betting big on AI. Anthropic’s involvement signals a shift towards more specialized, trustworthy AI agents. This could lead to a new wave of AI innovation—while others scramble to catch up.

⛵ Key takeaway: AWS is turning the AI agent market into a wild west, and Anthropic just signed up as the sheriff.

SHOPPING

Rufus AI Gets Content Boost: Condé Nast & Hearst Join

👀 What’s the move: Amazon has inked multi-year licensing deals with Condé Nast and Hearst to integrate their editorial content—think Vogue, GQ, Cosmopolitan, and Harper’s Bazaar—into its AI shopping assistant, Rufus. This move, following a similar agreement with The New York Times, aims to enhance Rufus's ability to provide informed shopping advice by leveraging trusted lifestyle content.

💡 Why it’s not boring: By incorporating structured, SEO-optimized content from these publishers, Amazon enriches Rufus's responses, making them more contextually relevant and brand-safe. This strategic alignment positions Rufus as a more authoritative shopping assistant, potentially influencing consumer purchasing decisions directly within the AI interface.

⛵ Key takeaway: Amazon's Rufus isn't just an AI assistant; it's becoming a curated shopping guide, powered by editorial content from Condé Nast and Hearst.

STARTUP SPOT

🪐 Varda Space
“Space born, Earth bound.”
In-orbit factories creating novel materials (e.g., pharmaceuticals) in microgravity for terrestrial use.
→ Ex-SpaceX & Founders Fund founders; multiple successful capsule re-entries & a fresh $187M Series C.

🦾 Cobionix
“Autonomous robotics for healthcare procedures.”
AI-powered "CODI" robot performs tasks like ultrasounds & injections, bridging skilled labor gaps.
→ Ex-MassRobotics. Just raised $3M from TitletownTech (Microsoft/Green Bay Packers) to commercialize & expand pilot programs in the US/UK.

🛍️ Shoppin
"Your AI shopping copilot."
Uses AI to find exact products based on natural language, cross-referencing millions of products and reviews instantly.
→ Founded by ex-Amazon/Google product leads. Recently secured a million seed funding.

BAY AREA MEMOS

Belkin to end support for Wemo devices and app, forcing users to upgrade by 2026.
Varda Space raises $187 million to revolutionize pharmaceutical manufacturing in space with new lab and orbital missions.
Grok AI chatbot to be integrated into Tesla vehicles next week, says Elon Musk
Samsung to launch an AI health coach service in the US this year.
Cobionix raises $3 million to advance its autonomous medical robotics platform for remote diagnostics.

PREVIEW

We Taught Steel to Think

Humanoid robots are stepping off the pages of science fiction and into everyday life—helping out in homes, moving through warehouses, learning in real time. They're no longer distant dreams, but friendly forms ready to assist, adapt, and grow with us.

View the story

Posthuman is a daily futurescape newsletter decoding how humans, AIs, and robots are beginning to co-create society. We explore the strange realities of tomorrow as they unfold today—from AI therapists and robot coworkers to memory markets and synthetic influencers. Each edition unpacks one uncanny signal at a time, tracing the slow merge into human–AI symbiosis. This isn’t sci-fi—it’s the early user manual for the future.

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: