Agents at work
5 stories, newest first.
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Microsoft merges chat, coding and agents into one Copilot app
Microsoft's redesigned Copilot app now has three tabs, Home, Code and Autopilot, and rebrands its Scout assistant as Autopilot, the Verge reports. Code lets anyone build sandboxed internal apps, while Autopilot gets its own cloud identity, memory and workspace for enterprise use.
Why it matters. Enterprise teams get a single agent surface with usage-based billing, which changes how coding and automation costs show up.
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Ando raises $20 million for a team chat where AI agents are members
Ando came out of stealth with a messaging app that gives AI agents their own identities and inboxes, so they can join channels and message people directly, TechCrunch reports. Its pre-seed and seed rounds total $20 million, with Accel and Index Ventures among the investors.
Why it matters. It is a bet that agents will sit in team chat as members, with their own inbox and the right to speak first.
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Ema raises $77 million to run company processes with teams of AI agents
Ema raised a $77 million Series B led by Bengaluru-based Creaegis, taking its total funding to $140 million, TechCrunch reports. The startup says it has more than 50 active enterprise deals and that its software can draw on more than 150 models.
Why it matters. Ema builds on other companies' models and sells the integration and orchestration around them, the same layer most agent builders work in.
Agents at workCompaniesIndia and Gulf Permalink Read at techcrunch.com
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Amazon lets sellers run their stores from Claude through a new plugin
Amazon released a plugin that lets independent sellers check inventory, change prices and update listings from Anthropic's Claude or Amazon's Quick assistant, GeekWire reports. Sellers choose what data it can reach and approve each action, and it is in beta in US stores.
Why it matters. A large platform is opening its back office to outside agents on its own terms, days after it blocked Meta's Muse shopping agent from its store.
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Nearly 1,000 Claude agents found a new gene-editing-like enzyme
Anthropic says close to 950 Claude agents worked 21 hours and used 210 million tokens to find an uncharacterized enzyme system in bacteriophage DNA, comparing it loosely to CRISPR, The Verge reports. Scientists only wrote the initial prompt and ran the lab work that followed.
Why it matters. It is a worked example, with token and time counts, of what many agents working together can do on a research task.