Hello WKND AI Warriors!

Voice AI funding has surged 8x as companies rush to make chatbots sound more human.

Also, record labels are negotiating with Suno and Udio to get paid when AI trains on their artists' songs.

Plus, Builder.ai has collapsed after it was exposed for faking its “AI” with outsourced humans.

Oh yeah, Fi just dropped the world’s first AI-powered smart dog collar that tracks your pet’s health in real time.

So, grab your beverage of choice.

Here’s your weekly dose of AI news.

Today’s newsletter includes:

• 📰 AI NEWS RECAP

• 🎓 AI COURSES OF THE WEEK

• 🤿 AI DEEP DIVE

• 🛠️ AI TOOL OF THE WEEK

• 📝 AI PROMPT OF THE WEEK

• 🎨 AI IMAGE OF THE WEEK

📰 AI NEWS RECAP

AI Voice Agent Takeover

8x.

That’s how much Voice AI funding has surged

Not 2x. Not 4x. Eight.

Why?

Because companies are no longer asking, “How do we automate customer service?”

They’re asking, “How do we make it feel human again?”

Voice is the interface people trust. It’s how we connect, explain, persuade. And now it’s programmable.

Startups building voice agents are closing rounds.

Enterprises are rolling out AI voice assistants across call centers, drive-thrus, and internal ops.

Companies like:

• Yum! Brands.

• Jersey Mike’s.

• Allina Health.

Already in market. Already scaling.

This isn't an edge-tech trend. It's a customer expectation shift.

If you’re building anything in customer experience, sales, healthcare, retail, or support:

Now’s the time to explore:

• Voice-first UX for high-volume requests.

• Human-sounding agents that never sleep.

• Seamless, ambient voice layers to reduce friction.

But here’s the rub:

• Voice builds trust fast, but and loses it even faster.

• Get it wrong, and customers walk.

• Get it right, and you build something unforgettable.

So don’t ignore this.

Experiment.

Prototype.

Listen.

The next wave of competitive advantage won’t come from typing.

It’ll come from how well your product sounds.

Phonely’s new AI phone agents hit 99% accuracy and respond in under a second, leaving most customers unable to tell they’re not speaking to a real person.

Meta faces backlash as its AI assistant on Facebook and Instagram raises fresh privacy and misinformation concerns, putting the company’s approach to AI under intense public scrutiny.

Builder.ai, once valued at $1.5 billion, has collapsed after revelations that its “AI bots” were actually teams of people in India pretending to be automated agents.

Major record labels are negotiating music licensing deals with AI startups Suno and Udio, aiming to settle lawsuits and set new rules for how artists get paid when their songs train AI models.

Fi has launched the world’s first AI-powered smart dog collar that tracks your pet’s health and behavior in real time, offering instant alerts for issues like anxiety or illness.

HubSpot has unveiled a deep research connector for ChatGPT, letting users instantly pull data from HubSpot’s platform into AI chats for faster, more informed business decisions.

🎓 AI COURSES OF THE WEEK

NVIDIA is now offering FREE AI courses.

No payment needed to learn from the best.

If you want to master AI, consider taking these courses.

🤿 AI DEEP DIVE

Is learning how to Prompt Engineer still on your “to-do” list?

Look no further.

Learn how to in less than 30 minutes.

📝 AI PROMPT OF THE WEEK

Copy and paste this into your favorite chatbot.

Social Media Post Ideas 

You are a social media strategist known for crafting highly engaging posts. 

I want to post on [INSERT PLATFORM] about [INSERT TOPIC] to reach [INSERT AUDIENCE]. 

Generate [INSERT NUMBER] post ideas with hooks, captions, and hashtags. 

Table with columns: Idea, Caption, Hashtags. 

[INSERT TONE]

🎨 AI IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Give AI image creation a try for yourself.

Copy the text below into Google’s AI image creator!

A Black woman with short hair stands next to the logo of "PRADA" in an elegant dark green coat. She is accompanied by her pet panther that lies on its side and looks at her lovingly. The background features a gray wall with light reflections. In the style inspired by a Vogue photoshoot for the Dior brand. Minimalistic luxury aesthetic. High-resolution photography, taken using a Canon EOS R6 Mark II camera with a high-quality telephoto lens.

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