Pocket FM doubles revenue to $500M as AI powers 93% of catalog

🚀 RELEASES & LAUNCHES

• Universal Music and ElevenLabs launch licensed AI music platform
  Universal Music is developing an ElevenLabs-powered platform for licensed song remixes and mashups.

  • The platform is for artists and users creating remixes, mashups, and new takes on UMG tracks.
  • UMG and ElevenLabs signed a multiyear licensing agreement covering UMG’s catalog; artists can choose whether to participate.
  • The platform will be separate from ElevenLabs’ Music API and ElevenMusic generator.
  • The deal adds licensed AI music creation and future fan experiences while providing compensation for artists and songwriters.
  Sources 📎 Coverage: theverge.com · 👁 via The Verge AI

• React Native ExecuTorch v0.10 delivers up to 92x faster inference
  Software Mansion released React Native ExecuTorch v0.10 with major on-device inference speedups.

  • For React Native developers building mobile apps with local vision, language, speech, and text-to-speech models.
  • The ground-up rewrite replaces monolithic native modules with inspectable TypeScript pipelines and supports Core ML, MLX, Vulkan, and XNNPACK across 130+ model variants.
  • FastSAM instance segmentation reached up to 92x speedups, while Qwen3 0.6B ran over 3x faster on long prompts.
  • The release gives developers custom model execution, hardware acceleration, worklet threading, and on-demand native binaries for smaller app bundles and lower battery use.
  Sources 📎 Coverage: github.com · 👁 via r/LocalLLaMA

• Thesys introduces OUI-1, an open-weight model for generative UI
  Thesys introduced OUI-1, an open-weight model that generates user interfaces in OpenUI-Lang.

  • For developers building agent-driven interfaces and local generative-UI applications.
  • OUI-1 is a DiffusionGemma 26B-A4B fine-tune with 4B active parameters that writes OpenUI-Lang screens.
  • The model has a 16,384-token context window and is available on Hugging Face under the Gemma Terms of Use.
  • It scored 71.7% on the Generative UI Benchmark versus 13.0% for base DiffusionGemma, with light screens generated in about one second on an A100.
  Sources 📄 Source: huggingface.co · 📎 Coverage: openui.com · 👁 via r/LocalLLaMA

🔬 RESEARCH

• César de la Fuente’s lab uses Codex to find new antimicrobials
  César de la Fuente’s lab uses Codex and ChatGPT to find antimicrobial candidates in genomes.
  • César de la Fuente’s interdisciplinary bioengineering lab uses AI for antimicrobial discovery.
  • Codex and ChatGPT help search living and extinct genomes, write code, process datasets, analyze results, and develop hypotheses.
  • The lab’s AI-assisted approach can reduce initial candidate searches from years to hours.
  • Researchers still need laboratory experiments to validate candidates and assess effectiveness, toxicity, resistance, and manufacturability.
  Sources 📎 Coverage: openai.com · 👁 via OpenAI News

📊 BENCHMARKS & EVALS

• Cyber-Tiel 35B-A3B 4-bit coder claims to beat Opus 4.6 on code issues
  Peculiar-ragdoll released Cyber-Tiel-Coder, an uncensored 35B-A3B coding model in 4-bit formats.
  • It targets local software developers and offensive-security researchers.
  • The release includes GGUF and MLX 4-bit variants, plus MTP versions.
  • The accompanying post claims it beats Opus 4.6 medium on real codebase issues and takes 27% of the time reported for Qwen3.8-27B medium.
  • An improved imatrix built from cybersecurity and agentic software-engineering data supports the quantization, enabling local coding and security workflows.
  Sources 📄 Source: huggingface.co · 📎 Coverage: reddit.com · 👁 via r/LocalLLaMA

💰 BUSINESS & FUNDING

• Pocket FM doubles revenue run rate to $500M as AI powers 93% of catalog
  Pocket FM reported a $500 million annualized revenue run rate and 93% AI-powered catalog.

  • Pocket FM serves more than 250 million listeners across over 20 countries and has 550,000-plus creators.
  • AI powers 93% of its catalog and 99% of new content, while humans continue developing story ideas.
  • AI has made production about 80 times cheaper, reducing the time to create 100 hours of content from about a year to one day.
  • Pocket FM produces about 2.5 million AI-powered content hours annually and has built more than 770,000 audio series.
  • Its 12-month revenue retention rate rose to 76% from 44% two years ago as the larger catalog matched more listener preferences.
  Sources 📎 Coverage: techcrunch.com · 👁 via TechCrunch AI

• Maven Robotics emerges with $100M Series A and warehouse robot deployments
  Maven Robotics raised $100 million to scale its warehouse robotics business.

  • Maven targets consumer-goods and logistics companies with warehouse automation needs.
  • Its wheeled robots use two arms to lift up to 30 kilograms and build mixed pallets.
  • The company has up to eight robots deployed for 16 hours daily with at least 99% uptime.
  • Maven plans to build 250 third-generation robots and develop a fourth-generation platform.
  • Its task-by-task approach connects robots to warehouse workflows and retrains them using operational data.
  Sources 📎 Coverage: techcrunch.com · 👁 via TechCrunch AI

• Google’s Spirit Airlines data purchase draws objections over vendor IP
  Google won a Spirit Airlines bankruptcy auction for an enterprise dataset.

  • Google plans to use part of Spirit’s enterprise dataset to improve its products and AI models and says it will not receive personal information.
  • Springshot, Spirit’s airline-operations software vendor, says the sale may include its proprietary data, trade secrets, and intellectual property.
  • International Aero Engines also alleges that Spirit’s dataset may contain confidential commercial, technical, and financial information.
  • The vendors want Spirit to segregate proprietary data through a forensic review before Google receives it.
  • The objections could affect how bankruptcy courts handle vendor data and intellectual property in AI-related asset sales.
  Sources 📎 Coverage: arstechnica.com · 👁 via Ars Technica AI

⚠️ INCIDENTS & SAFETY

• AI tools linked to sharp rise in public-service requests
  AI tools are associated with surging public-service applications and complaints.
  • Public-service applicants are using AI assistants to submit welfare claims, complaints, petitions, and appeals.
  • Researcher Chris Schmitz identified 84 potential cases of “agentic flooding” across 11 jurisdictions.
  • UK housing ombudsman complaints rose from 2,600 in 2022 to more than 7,000 last year; U.S. CFPB complaints increased fivefold.
  • The increase may reduce administrative burden for legitimate claimants while forcing public agencies to process more requests with existing resources.
  Sources 📎 Coverage: techcrunch.com · 👁 via TechCrunch AI