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Welcome to our weekly edition of AI & Finance™!
Hello, Friends, we're coming to you with a rather provocative newsletter this week where we take on a number of controversies, from agentic AI, to cryptocurrencies, to thematic ETFs. What you'll find is that, while we remain enthusiastic and open about all the fancy new technology that seemingly rains down upon us, we're also skeptical at heart, and no number of bells and whistles and promises of efficiencies gained will ease our wariness. Even when it comes to AI. AI & Finance starts off with a bang by questioning the value of thematic funds, even in the hot field of artificial intelligence. We discuss tokenization within the context of AI in this week's education column. You'll also find a heavy week of funding action in our Top 5 VCs column, as well as a slate of new models and regulatory chatter within the latest AI Intelligence roundup. That gets us to our two, TWO, "Looking Back" columns this week on two crucial topics that have been much in the news lately: the future of cryptocurrencies in the face of AI, and the rise of financial agentic artificial intelligence. Oh, and that's just your apéritif, a full AI & Finance meal awaits... CHECK IT ALL OUT BELOW!
We're an early bird-not just because we rise before 5 a.m. each morning, but because we try to be in our spot 15 minutes before things are supposed to occur, no matter what. We're always early. Welcome to AI & Finance, where we're going to run down a huge list of financial artificial intelligence announcements, which include a new large language model-related thematic ETF. As we were saying, we're pretty much always early, but nevertheless we have a soft spot for thematic ETFs, which are always late. Thematic ETFs have proliferated over the past 15 years because, compared to other fund structures... CONTINUE HERE
For years, the Gene Wilder-starring version of Roald Dahl's children's classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was where we received our understanding of how broadcast television works. It wasn't exactly right, of course, but it isn't far off the mark-information recorded by broadcasters is divided into tiny bits which are then projected through the air itself as waves, picked up, and reconstituted on screens in people's houses. There is a similar process at work behind a lot of the software we use, even artificial intelligence, that is almost perfectly explained by little Mike Teavee that 9-year-old character in a 55-year-old film: tokenization... CONTINUE HERE
This week our overall AI venture capital activity maintained its momentum from recent weeks, with all five of our listed announcements coming in over $300 million and 12 announcements total coming in over $100 million. The biggest announcement, per FinSMEs, came San Francisco-based Lambda, an AI infrastructure provider, raised $1 billion via an investment-grade loan to "fund the purchase and development of GPU infrastructure supporting three committed customer deployments with two investment-grade offtakers across multiple data centers," according to its announcement. Our second-place announcement was from Mountain View, Calif.-based AI infrastructure provider GMI Cloud, which raised $668 million in funding to "support its... CONTINUE HERE
Artificial intelligence has continued its rapid evolution this week as major technology companies introduced new AI models, expanded autonomous agents and committed billions of dollars to computing infrastructure. Google, Microsoft and Anthropic unveiled new capabilities intended to make AI more useful in professional environments, while Nvidia and other semiconductor companies pursued opportunities created by surging demand for computing power. Meanwhile, the Trump administration expanded its AI initiatives amid growing public concern about the technology's risks, and investors confronted mounting questions about the enormous financial commitments required to sustain the industry's expansion. The week's developments underscored three increasingly important themes: the transition from AI... CONTINUE HERE
Maybe it was with the push of a button, or a flip of a switch, we don't really know, but a little less than 45 years ago, a cable channel and cultural phenomenon was born as MTV played its first music video. That would be "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles, which at the time was an outlandish, outrageous statement. Of course, it turned out to be somewhat true, because over the next 20 years as MTV and similar cable channels became dominant cultural forces, the music produced by our recording artists was eclipsed in importance by the images they projected... CONTINUE HERE
The financial services industry has spent decades automating transactions, digitizing customer relationships and teaching computers to recognize patterns. Now, artificial intelligence is threatening to fundamentally change how financial institutions operate, how their employees work and how consumers manage their money. The arrival of agentic AI promises something considerably more disruptive than another generation of chatbots or analytical software: autonomous digital workers capable of researching, deciding and acting on behalf of financial institutions and their customers. Between August and early October 2026, announcements from major technology companies, financial institutions and regulators suggest that the financial industry is entering an era in which software will... CONTINUE HERE
I have the privilege of being a member of Berkana, a global group of women in family offices. I truly value the international perspective on investment opportunities, philanthropy, and social issues that I gain from our intimate discussions. On our weekly Zoom call, the incredible Ambassador Josette Sheeran-CEO of Firefly Global Group and recognized by Forbes as the 30th most powerful woman in the world-used a phrase that deeply resonated with me. Taking Tom Wolfe's famous moniker from The Bonfire of the Vanities, "Masters of the Universe," she paired it with a stark counterpoint: "Monsters of the Universe." It instantly occurred... CONTINUE HERE
Source: thefinancials.com | Updated every 30 minutes, M-F during market hours
The DWN AI Index™ is a benchmark stock index of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector. The index is comprised of a diversified group of stocks deriving a significant percentage of their revenue from AI applications. REVIEW HISTORICALS HERE
STOCKS COMPRISING DWN AI INDEX:
Amazon (AMZN) * Arista Networks (ANET) * AI (C3.ai) * CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) * Duolingo (DUOL) * iRhythm Technologies (IRTC) * Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) * NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) * Palantir Technologies (PLTR) & * Taiwan Semiconductor * Manufacturing (TSM)
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