Welcome to The AI Loop #10. January 2026 is absolutely stacked for AI and the month is not even halfway over yet! This week we saw a massive funding round in AI infra, Google pushing AI deeper into your inbox, and Walmart going all-in on AI-powered retail. 

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Let's get into it.

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Perle Labs Update

‍Season 1 is loading!

The Perle Labs Beta is officially in the books. Here's what the community built:

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• 1.7M+ cumulative tasks completed
• 333M+ total points earned across the platform

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A huge thank you to the contributors who showed up early, completed real tasks across text, audio, image, and motion, and helped shape the first working version of Perle Labs.

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As you may have heard, Season 1 is just around the corner. We'll have more to share on that very soon.

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Top AI Stories

ClickHouse Raises $400M at $15 Billion Valuation

ClickHouse, the real-time analytics and database startup, has raised $400 million in a Series D round led by Dragoneer, valuing the company at $15 billion, which is more than double its valuation from less than a year ago. The company also announced the acquisition of Langfuse, an open-source LLM observability platform, and a new native Postgres service to unify transactional and analytical workloads.

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The raise signals continued investor appetite for the infrastructure powering AI applications. As AI agents become more embedded in production systems, demand is surging for platforms that can handle high-throughput, low-latency data workloads. ClickHouse now serves over 3,000 customers, including Meta, Cursor, Tesla, and Sony, with ARR growing more than 250 percent year over year.

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Source: MorningStar

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Google Brings AI to Gmail With New Gemini-Powered Features

Google is rolling out a suite of AI tools inside Gmail, powered by its Gemini assistant. The biggest addition is AI Inbox, a new view that automatically generates a to-do list based on tasks discussed in recent emails. Other features include natural-language email search ("What's the name of the recruiter I met last month?"), AI-generated summaries at the top of threads, and a "Help Me Write" button for composing messages.

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For the features to work, Gemini needs access to your entire inbox. Google says no humans are reading your emails and the data won't be used to train Gemini. However, privacy experts note that interactions with Gemini in Gmail could still be accessed via legal warrants. The tools are on by default; users who want to opt out can do so in settings.

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Source: New York Times

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Walmart Doubles Down on AI With New Leadership Focused on Agentic Commerce

Walmart is positioning itself at the forefront of AI-powered retail. Ahead of incoming CEO John Furner's start next month, the company promoted a slate of leaders with deep expertise in AI and the emerging world of agentic commerce. Seth Dallaire, currently EVP of Walmart U.S., will step into a new chief growth officer role overseeing digital ads, subscriptions, and data platforms. The capabilities are becoming essential as shopping shifts from websites and apps to AI-driven experiences.

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The moves signal that the world's largest retailer sees AI as central to its next chapter. "As AI rapidly reshapes retail, we are centralizing our platforms to accelerate shared capabilities," Furner said in a statement. With holiday results due in mid-February, the report may offer an early look at how AI is already transforming shopping habits at scale.

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Source: Axios

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Stay in the Loop

That's a wrap on Edition #10. Season 1 is coming, and we can't wait to share what's next.

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In the meantime, follow along with us on X, Discord, and Telegram to stay connected so you don’t miss what’s coming.