#autonomous-ai

#autonomous-ai

Robot vacuums quietly went from novelty to background appliance, yet many still behave like polite bumper cars. They avoid walls, follow schedules, and send maps, but they do not really understand what they are seeing. A cable, a sock, and a pet toy often get the same treatment, which is why people still hover nearby during automatic cleaning runs, ready to intervene when the robot inevitably gets confused by something obvious.

Rivian Automotive ( NASDAQ:RIVN ) is betting its future on the R2, a midsize electric SUV scheduled to enter production in the first half of 2026. Priced at approximately $45,000 before any incentives, the R2 is designed to reach a much broader audience than Rivian's current premium R1 lineup, which starts above $70,000. The EV maker hopes the more affordable model will drive significantly higher volumes, improve gross margins, and finally put Rivian on a path to profitability.

Microsoft plans to enhance its M365 productivity suite with "Agentic Users," autonomous AI agents with their own identities and access to enterprise IT systems that can collaborate with one another and with humans. "These agents can attend meetings, edit documents, communicate via email and chat, and perform tasks autonomously," Microsoft said in an addition to its product roadmap entitled "Microsoft Teams: Discovery and Creation of Agentic Users from Teams and M365 Agent Store."

As AI is increasingly helping hackers to launch mass-scale email attacks, former Google security leaders have joined forces to build autonomous AI agents that aim to stop phishing, malware, and business email compromise threats before they ever reach user inboxes. That is the mission behind AegisAI, a new email security startup that has just emerged from stealth with $13 million in seed funding co-led by Accel and Foundation Capital.

According to Marc Fischer, CEO of Invariant Labs, this approach is necessary because agentic AI systems are a new category of software.