This week in AI: Meta’s ad automation and QNu Labs’ quantum bet
From US venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s first 340-page deep analysis into AI in five years to Meta Platforms’ plans to roll out AI tools for brands to fully create and target ads, AIStory brings a recap of major developments and emerging trends in the sector this week.
From US venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s first 340-page deep analysis into AI to Meta Platforms’ plans to roll out AI tools to fully create and target ads, AIStory brings a recap of major developments and emerging trends in the sector this week.
Here’s list of key stories:
Featured news
QNu Labs is betting big on quantum physics, not AI, to strengthen India’s cyber defence
About a decade ago, when demonetisation pushed billions of Indians onto digital payment platforms, Sunil Gupta saw an issue nobody was talking about: digital trust.
While the attention was on cashless transactions, Gupta was focused on building India’s own digital security platform. He was convinced that the country’s digital future couldn’t be built on borrowed security tools or imported products.
“While a billion users were going to come onto the digital platform, India needed its own sovereign and self-reliant digital security platform. There’s no digital economy without digital trust,” Gupta tells YourStory in an exclusive interaction.
As he pondered over how he would build this trust, he chose not to join the AI gold rush. Instead, he bet on quantum cryptography: an advanced approach that uses the fundamentals of quantum science for encryption to build a sovereign cybersecurity platform.
Latest news
‘It’s game time for AI’: Bond VC's Mary Meeker on her latest AI trends report
US venture capitalist Mary Meeker, famously known as the “Queen of the Internet” for her influential Internet Trends reports, last week released a deep analysis of artificial intelligence.
In a 340-page report titled ‘Trends – Artificial Intelligence’—which comes five years after her last analysis, Meeker outlines key takeaways on how AI is influencing economic structures, global behaviour, and business models, with the word “unprecedented” appearing over 50 times.
Now founder and general partner at VC firm Bond, the investor previously led Kleiner Perkins’ growth fund, backing giants like Facebook, Twitter (now X), Spotify, and Block (formerly Square).
Meta to let AI handle ad creation and targeting by 2026: Report
Meta Platforms is working on new AI tools that will allow brands to fully create and target ads by the end of next year, reports The Wall Street Journal. According to the report, a brand could submit a product image and a budget, and the new AI feature would handle the entire process.
Meta, which generates its revenue through advertising sales, will also allow users to see variations of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation. The company pointed to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent public comments on AI-driven ads when contacted by Reuters.
Snowflake introduces AI and data infrastructure tools to boost enterprise adoption
Snowflake introduced set of artificial intelligence and data infrastructure solutions at its annual flagship Snowflake Summit 2025 conference, as it attempts to capture the growing enterprise demand for AI-driven data analytics capabilities. The AI cloud-based data firm announced multiple features spanning data engineering, compute optimisation, analytics, and agentic AI technologies.
The latest offerings are aimed at breaking down data silos and turning enterprise data into insights, while maintaining governance and control, the company said in a statement. “With our latest announcements, we're showcasing how Snowflake is fundamentally redefining what organizations can expect from a modern data platform,” said Vijayant Rai, Managing Director- India, Snowflake.
Sundar Pichai says AI won’t replace jobs, it will expand them
Amid escalating debates about the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on employment, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai offered a reassuring stance. In a recent interview at the Bloomberg Technology Summit, Pichai asserted that AI is not a job killer but a catalyst for growth.
"I expect we will grow from our current engineering phase even into next year, because it allows us to do more," said Pichai. According to him, AI helps remove repetitive tasks, freeing up engineers to focus on innovation. "It’s making them more productive, not less necessary," he added.
OpenAI expands AI for Impact programme in India with fresh grants
ChatGPT maker OpenAI has announced the next phase of its global AI for Impact Accelerator Programme in India, extending technical grants worth $150,000 to 11 nonprofits working on AI solutions across sectors such as healthcare, education, and agriculture.
Launched globally and now running under the OpenAI Academy, the program supports nonprofits using AI for social good. The program is run in partnership with The Agency Fund, Tech4Dev, and Turn.io, and provides nonprofits with technical support, peer learning, and early access to OpenAI’s tools. The Sam Altman-led firm has also held a workshop on its latest model capabilities to help organisations build AI solutions that can support large populations.
Godfather of AI Yoshua Bengio launches non-profit LawZero to keep AI from lying
Yoshua Bengio, popularly known as one of the 'Godfathers of AI', on Tuesday launched LawZero, a non-profit organisation to build safer AI systems. The new venture brings together leading AI researchers to focus on safety-first development, addressing growing concerns about dangerous capabilities emerging in AI models.
"LawZero is the result of the new scientific direction I undertook in 2023, after recognising the rapid progress made by private labs toward Artificial General Intelligence and beyond, as well as its profound implications for humanity," said Yoshua Bengio, President and Scientific Director at LawZero.
ElevenLabs rolls out AI model that can whisper, laugh, and sing
New York-based AI voice company ElevenLabs has launched Eleven v3, its latest text-to-speech model that makes speech sound more natural and human-like. Built on a new architecture, Eleven v3 can change tone mid-sentence, switch between characters smoothly, and respond to cues like whispers, laughs, and sighs.
“Eleven v3 is the most expressive text-to-speech model ever - offering full control over emotions, delivery, and nonverbal cues. With audio tags, you can prompt it to whisper, laugh, change accents, or even sing. You can control the pacing, emotion, and style to match any script. And with our global mission, we are happy to extend the model with support for over 70 languages,” said Mati Staniszewski, Co-Founder and CEO, ElevenLabs.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan