- Cahn's Newsletter
- Posts
- Giant Valuations & Gemini Deals Cahn's AI Canvas #Edition 29 (Nov 7 - Nov 14)
Giant Valuations & Gemini Deals Cahn's AI Canvas #Edition 29 (Nov 7 - Nov 14)
This week, government partnerships scaled up, AI valuations exploded, and Google × Apple made “trillion-parameter” dinner-table vocabulary.
Cahn Studios
November 16, 2025
The Big Conversation
Cursor’s $29B Leap & AI’s Billion-Dollar Frenzy
Cursor raised a staggering $2.3B Series D—catapulting the coding automation startup to a $29.3B valuation, tripling in months, and leading a record week of AI mega-rounds. Meanwhile, Google and Apple announced their strategic Siri-Gemini integration: $1B/year for a custom 1.2T-parameter model, aiming to reboot consumer AI as mainstream.
Why it matters:
AI investment is now not just accelerating, but compressing—what used to take years is happening quarter to quarter.
The tension:
“AI is everywhere” vs. “AI is for experts”: Can massive capital and mainstream plays like Apple-Google make next-gen AI truly accessible? Source: CNBC Nov 13, 2025 [Read]
Headlines This Week
Genspark raises $200M for enterprise AI agents — Target: low-code orchestration of tasks at scale. Read Here
Google, Apple announce $1B+/yr Gemini deal — Siri overhaul leaks revealed, with an in-phone trillion-parameter model. Read Here
Maryland partners with Anthropic/Percepta for “AI-powered government” pilot — Tackling child poverty and modernizing public services. Read More
Thinking Machines chases a $50B valuation — Founded by ex-OpenAI exec Mira Murati; the hype for AI-native enterprise is real. Read More
Purdue and Google launch university-wide AI partnership — Every student, AI-native by 2026. Read More
Alembic lands $145M for AI marketing analytics — Sharper measurement of campaign ROI.Read More
Milestone raises $10M to map AI tools to engineering productivity — “AI for ROI” is now the investor mantra. Read More
Quantum computing headlines — Google touts new algorithm outpacing supercomputers, aiming at oncology and material sciences. Read More
Vidu Q2 and Krea Nodes — New launches in video AI creativity and unified agent interfaces. Read More
The Money Reality
xAI in talks to raise $15B — Elon Musk’s company set the year’s ambition level. Read Here
November’s funding tally: $3.5B+ into AI startups — Investors not pulling back, but crowding in. Read More
Alembic, Milestone, TeraDAR, and Genspark all raised $100M+ rounds targeting AI for marketing, sensors, and enterprise productivity. Read More
Startup Radar — who to watch (and how to help)
Startup | One-liner (what it builds) | Stage | Why promising | What they need |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Genspark | Enterprise AI agent builder | Series B | Agent workflow for every function | Design partners, pilots |
Alembic | AI marketing analytics | Series B | Attribution at scale | Brand/agency betas |
Milestone | AI + engineering ops dashboards | Seed Funding | Mapping AI use to ROI | Dev community, pilots |
Fast capital is following clear metrics and vertical focus—AI for measured outcomes, not demos.
In the 1990s, Apple tried something radically different. Instead of giant all-in-one apps, they dreamed of a world built from tiny, modular tools that snapped together like digital LEGO bricks. It was called OpenDoc — a bold framework where documents weren’t owned by one app, but assembled from ‘parts’ made by different developers.
Dev Corner : What to Build Next
Unified Agent Console: Orchestrate agents anywhere (hello, agentic work OS!)
Automate code reviews: Pair OpenAI’s repo reasoning with security agents for faster QA
“AI for ROI” Dashboards: Help orgs prove value of AI investments—fastest route to budget
University Play: Tap into new educational partnerships (see: Google–Purdue) for multi-agent pilots
Voice as the New Interface
Hardware and embedded AI partnerships are ramping (see Google–Apple, ElevenLabs voice pilots).
The Agentic Shift
Coding: The enterprise race is for secure, multi-agent setups—Github and Cursor are setting pace.
Creative: Google/Apple’s Gemini teams are powering “personal AI studios” on-device.
Government: Anthropic + Maryland’s pilot is the first genuinely whole-of-state, multi-agency AI experiment.
Tools to Try
S. No | Tool | What it does |
|---|---|---|
1. | ERNIE 5.0 Omni-Modal foundation model | Jointly process and generate text, images, audio, and video Try Here |
2. | Marble 3D Text-image-videos | Create persistent 3D worlds from images, videos, and text prompts. Try Here |
3. | GPT-5.1 Advanced AI Chatbot | OpenAI’s upgraded model with personality customization. Try Here |
4. | Code Arena Live evals for agentic coding | LM Arena’s evaluation platform for testing coding models. Try Here |
5. | AI chatbot | A service launched by Nebius to provide scalable production AI inference. Try Here |
Need more analytics and comparisions on the top rated tools for your workflows? Email us at [email protected], and we will send you the updated reports.
Breakthrough Tools
1. Google Suncatcher: Next-gen research tools spanning quantum, cancer research.
2. Vidu Q2/Krea Nodes: Unified creative and video agent platforms.
3. OpenAI TEAR: New transparency/reporting standard for enterprise AIAI x Creativity Exclusive
Apple-Google Gemini for Siri — On-device, private, and trillion-parameter: a new class of creative assistant
University-wide AI partnerships — Purdue’s AI-for-all push could be a US model
Maryland Anthropic pilot — AI meets public good at scale
Tactical tip:
Turn metrics into momentum—report every efficiency or creative jump you get from a workflow agent.
Two quick plays
Creators: The 60-Minute AI Studio: Turn one idea into a full stack of content (posts, shorts, hooks, captions) using AI—creativity scaled without burnout.
Founders: The Narrative Engine: Convert your daily product updates into polished public stories using AI—build trust while you build the company.
Not to Miss Events
AI Frontiers: Google-Purdue Summit — A first-of-its-kind university × industry showpiece
State of Agentic AI (Founders’ Edition) — Deep-dive on agent orchestration and scaling
Must-read: Official Google AI recap (Oct–Nov): From Gemini Enterprise to quantum jumps
Section AI - Guide to What’sto do Next
Fireside Chat
Can government lead in responsible AI?
Maryland’s experiment: first mover or cautionary tale?
AI PUN
Trust your Gut!!!
Cahn’s POV
This week, AI funding records fell, and the platform wars heated up. As high-profile partnerships promise “AI for everyone,” the question is whether trillion-parameter models will be relatable—or just “more compute.” Every sector, from universities to governments, is now playing for keeps. The next battle: building workflows and tools the rest of us can use, measure, and trust.
That's it for today!
Before you go we’d love to know what you thought of today's newsletter to help us improve Cahn’s AI Canvas experience for you.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Nailed it
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Average
⭐️ Fail
See you Next Week,
Aditi and Swati — the humans behind Cahn’s AI Canvas.
📩This week felt like AI stopped asking for permission and started filing expense reports. Agents got gutsier, platforms picked sides, and chat stopped being “just chat.”
If you're a creator, dev, or artist trying to figure out where you fit—you're not alone. This isn't doom and gloom. It's about knowing what's real, what's hype, and where the actual opportunities are.
Want our setup checklist for local AI agents + our best prompt pack? Reply "Loop."
Stay Creative. Stay Updated. Get in Touch : [email protected]
Edition #29 covered Nov 8-14, 2025. All news verified from mainstream sources with direct article links provided.
Disclaimer: The information presented in this newsletter is curated from public sources on the internet. All content is for informational purposes only.