Salesforce Boosts AI Partnership with $1.5 Billion Genesys Investment | Small Biz Trends

August 7, 2025August 6, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Small business owners navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of customer expectations may want to take note of a significant development in the AI customer experience (CX) space. Genesys, a leader in AI-powered experience orchestration, has secured a $1.5 billion investment from enterprise giants Salesforce and ServiceNow. This funding underscores a growing industry shift toward smarter, more autonomous CX systems—and it could shape the tools available to small and midsize businesses in the coming years.

Each company, Salesforce and ServiceNow, is contributing equally to the investment, which will be used to repurchase shares from existing equity holders. While that financial restructuring won’t directly impact small businesses, the strategic implications of these partnerships might.

Amazon Reports Strong Growth in Q2 Earnings, Surpassing Expectations | Small Biz Trends

August 7, 2025August 6, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Amazon recently released its second-quarter results, showcasing significant milestones that could impact small businesses across various sectors. As small business owners seek ways to navigate an evolving economic landscape, understanding these developments can help them leverage new opportunities and mitigate potential challenges.

In its latest report, Amazon revealed a revenue increase that highlights its strong performance in e-commerce and cloud services. The company announced net sales of $134.4 billion for the second quarter, a notable year-over-year increase that demonstrates a resilient consumer appetite. This growth can serve as a strong indicator for small business owners who are considering expanding their online presence or exploring new revenue streams through e-commerce platforms.

Google throws shade at Apple’s Siri AI delay in latest Pixel 10 teaser | Digital Trends

August 5, 2025August 4, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As Google builds up to the Pixel 10 launch on August 20, the company has posted a cheeky 30-second video on YouTube that playfully throws shade on the delayed AI-enhanced Siri features, which were first announced at WWDC 2024 and meant to land on iPhones in April 2025.

The voice over begins by saying, “If you buy a new phone because of a feature that’s coming soon, but it’s been coming soon for a full year, you could change your definition of soon” – a direct jab at Apple.
The video (above) continues, showing us the outline of the Pixel 10 while the voice muses, “or you could just… change your phone” – cheeky.

Apple Salaries Revealed: How Much AI Staffers, Engineers Make in 2025 | Business Insider

August 1, 2025July 31, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Four of Apple’s top AI researchers have defected to Meta in the past month, Bloomberg reported, and Apple has upped pay for researchers within its Apple Foundation Models (AFM) group, Bloomberg reported — another symptom of the ongoing talent wars.

Apple unveiled its Apple Intelligence AI platform last year. At this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, said Apple’s work on Siri needed “more time.”

Proton releases a new app for two-factor authentication | TechCrunch

July 31, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Privacy-focused productivity tool company Proton released a new authenticator app today, allowing users to log in to services using dynamically generated two-factor authentication codes.

The free app is available on all platforms starting today, including iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. The app allows users to sync codes and accounts across devices. The company said that just like its other products, Proton Authenticator is open source and uses end-to-end encryption to protect user data.

Users can easily import login codes from other authentication apps, the company said. Plus, the app automatically backs up codes and also works without any internet connection.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says AI Will Create Millionaires | Entrepreneur

July 30, 2025July 29, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In a new interview, Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang says that AI will mint more millionaires in the next five years than the Internet did in two decades.

On a recent episode of “The All-In Podcast,” Huang said that AI technology enables people to create new things, filling in skill gaps and allowing for more chances to generate revenue.

For example, Huang noted that AI is “the greatest technology equalizer of all time” because it can turn anyone into a programmer, removing the barrier of learning a coding language like Python or C++ to be able to build an app or create a website for a business.

Self-Funded Founder’s 3 Secrets for $25M Revenue and 2 Brands | Entrepreneur

July 30, 2025July 29, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Growing up in Toronto, Canada, Tanya Taylor, now founder of her namesake womenswear brand and a second eveningwear brand, Delphine, didn’t really know she could build a career in fashion, she says. However, as someone from a “very entrepreneurial” family, she’d always dreamed of running her own business.

“ I took for granted that our dinner table conversations were always about small businesses, the people you work with, the values you have in your work and how rewarding it is when you can build a company,” Taylor says. That foundation led her to study finance at McGill University, but Taylor couldn’t shake the “creative itch” she felt to join the fashion world. So Taylor moved to New York City, where she didn’t know anyone at the time, and applied to the Parsons AAS Fashion Design program — after which her “whole world changed.”

Taylor went on to work for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on their contemporary lifestyle brand, Elizabeth and James, for several years.

“ What I found so inspiring, and what I still like to think about today, is how personal they were with their design process,” Taylor recalls, “and how working for a female founder that was creating product for a customer that they could really relate to, whether through age or just lifestyle, felt fun. We weren’t guessing who this person was. It wasn’t fantasy; it was grounded in reality.”

Deciding in the Dark: How Great Leaders Make Smart Choices in Uncertain Times | Getentrepreneurial.com

July 29, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Uncertainty is not a passing storm—it’s the new climate. To thrive, leaders must abandon the illusion of perfect information and instead adopt a mindset of adaptability, a skillset of structured judgment, and toolsets that support iterative decision-making.

Core Insights & Impact

1. Embrace Probabilistic Thinking

Mindset: Replace “What will happen?” with “What could happen, and how likely is each scenario?”

Skillset: Estimate outcomes based on likelihoods, not certainties—consider a range of scenarios and update beliefs as new data emerges.

Toolset: Use frameworks like decision trees or Bayesian updating.

Impact: Reduces overconfidence and helps teams make informed bets rather than risky leaps.

China Debuts World’s First 500 MW Impulse Turbine, Redefining Hydropower Scale | Cool Business Ideas

July 28, 2025July 27, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Harbin Electric has unveiled the world’s first 500?MW impulse turbine, a massive hydroelectric marvel with a 6.2?m diameter and 80-ton weight, engineered for the Datang?Zala Hydropower Station in Tibet. It’s the biggest and most powerful impulse turbine ever built—but it won’t be generating electricity until its 2028 debut.

Impact:

A New Record in Hydropower Engineering Each turbine—including its 21 precision water buckets—is forged from martensitic steel and weighs approximately 80 tons, claiming the title of the largest and highest-capacity impulse runner globally. Unmatched Efficiency Gains Designed for the high-head Datang Zala site (2,201?ft drop), advancements in bucket design boost efficiency from 91% to 92.6%, resulting in an extra ~190?MWh of electricity daily. Clean Energy with Significant Emission Reductions Once operational, the plant’s 1,000?MW capacity is expected to generate ~4 billion kWh annually—the equivalent of burning 1.3 million tons of coal and avoiding approximately 3.4 million tons of CO? per year. Fully Homegrown Innovation From design and forging to welding, China Datang and Harbin Electric executed all processes domestically. Cutting-edge welding tech—3D metrology, simulation, fatigue-resistant joints—was critical for managing the turbine’s sheer size and stress thresholds. Strategic Clean-Energy Leap The turbine marks China’s leadership in hydropower innovation and aligns with its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. The Datang Zala project is also a flagship for high-head impulse hydropower in complex terrain.