‍A weekly digest of the biggest moves, model releases, and power shifts shaping the future of AI.

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Welcome to The AI Loop #12. This week, we're coming to you live from Korea, where the Perle Labs team has been hanging out with the incredible community that's been with us since day one. Meanwhile, the AI world keeps moving, from a viral lobster-themed assistant to DeepMind cracking the code of life. Let's get into it.

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Perle Labs Update, Live from Korea!

The Perle Labs team is in Korea this week, and we're having an amazing time.

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We've been having dinners with crypto leaders, speaking at Blockchain Valley, and hosted a meetup with DeSpread. Sure, it’s a little cold here, but meeting so many people from our community who are excited to build the future of AI us keeps us warm.

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If you're curious about who's behind Perle Labs, we published a deep dive on the founding team this week:

• Ahmed Rashad, Founder & CEO: MIT grad, former Amazon leader, early Head of Operations at Scale AI where he helped scale operations 100x
• Arthur Ding, Chief Commercial Officer: Former Venture Partner at NGC Ventures, managed $500M+ in assets, executed $2B+ in derivative trades
• Moe Abdelfattah, Head of Product Operations: Scale AI alum, former Head of Product Operations at EvenUp, drives NLP growth and cross-functional execution at Perle

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We've raised $17.5M led by Framework Ventures, HashKey, and CoinFund. And we're just getting started.

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→ Read the full team intro here 

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Top AI Stories

Moltbot: The Viral Lobster AI That Actually Does Things

The latest AI sensation has an unexpected mascot: a lobster. Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot, before a challenge from Anthropic that was apparently a very warm interaction) is a personal AI assistant that promises to "actually do things"  (e.g., managing calendars, sending messages, and checking you in for flights). Built by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger as a personal project, it went viral within weeks of launch.

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What makes Moltbot stand out is its action-first approach. While most AI assistants talk, Moltbot executes, tapping into your favorite apps to complete real tasks. It's scrappy, technical to set up, and exactly the kind of product that captures the DIY energy of this AI moment.

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Source: TechCrunch

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Apple Acquires Israeli AI Startup Q.ai

Apple has acquired Q.ai, an AI startup led by CEO Aviad Maizels, who previously sold PrimeSense to Apple in 2013. No purchase price was disclosed, but the acquisition was confirmed by Apple's SVP of Hardware Technologies, Johny Srouji, who said, "We're thrilled to acquire the company, with Aviad at the helm."

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Q.ai was reportedly working on "communication enhancement technology," which could tie into Apple's AirPods AI features like live translation and intelligent noise cancelling. The move comes as investors have called on Apple to make bigger AI acquisitions, and follows Apple's recent deal with Google to have Gemini power some Apple Intelligence features.

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Source: Reuters

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DeepMind's AlphaGenome Reads the Recipe for Life in DNA

Google DeepMind has unveiled AlphaGenome, an AI model that can analyze one million letters of DNA code at a time and predict how even a single letter change impacts gene function. The model is already being used by 3,000 scientists to explore the "dark genome," which is the 98% of DNA that doesn't code for proteins but plays a crucial role in disease.

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Researchers are using AlphaGenome to understand mutations linked to obesity, diabetes, and cancer. Dr. Robert Goldstone of the Francis Crick Institute called it "a major milestone in the field of genomic AI." The DeepMind team, which won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2024 for AlphaFold, sees this as the start of a new era of AI-driven scientific discovery.

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Source: BBC

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Stay in the Loop

That's a wrap on Edition #12. We're grateful to be here in Korea meeting so many of you in person, and we're just getting started. 

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Join the Perle Labs community on X, Discord, and Telegram to stay connected and catch the next drop of insights from across the ecosystem.