Business·301 stories·Updated October 21, 2026
More from Business
Launches
Beyond Now launches Wave AI Framework for CSP agents
Beyond Now unveiled the Wave AI Framework on October 20, 2026, an open, model-agnostic platform for activating and orchestrating AI agents across communications-service-provider revenue lifecycles. Th
Launches
IBM Bob now runs on-premises for enterprises demanding AI sovereignty
IBM launched self-hosted deployment for its Bob software-development agent on October 1, 2026, allowing enterprises to operate the AI system within their own controlled infrastructure rather than IBM'
Business
Salesforce to acquire Listen Labs for AI customer research
Salesforce agreed on September 29, 2026, to acquire Listen Labs, an AI-powered customer-research platform whose agents automate study design, research execution, and insight synthesis. Financial terms
Launches
Google launches Gemini agent for autonomous enterprise work
Google Cloud introduced the Gemini agent on October 8, 2026, a unified AI system that can autonomously complete assigned objectives, answer questions, and generate code across enterprise workflows. Th
Business
DXC, LangChain partner on governed agents for enterprise IT
DXC Technology and LangChain announced a partnership on October 13, 2026, in Ashburn, Virginia, integrating LangChain's LangGraph agent framework and LangSmith observability platform into DXC's OASIS
Business
Kyndryl deploys agentic AI in Toyota Finance IT ops
Kyndryl, Toyota Systems, and Toyota Finance announced October 14 deployment of agentic AI across infrastructure design, change management, and impact analysis. The production-scale rollout aims to red
Launches
Samsara reports 7x growth in AI-agent adoption since June
Samsara Inc. said on October 13, 2026, that adoption of its AI Agents accelerated sevenfold since June, with more than 1,000 organizations now using the agents weekly. The company made Agent Studio, a
Business
Workday acquires ConductorOne agentic identity platform
Workday, Inc. agreed to acquire ConductorOne (C1.ai), an agentic identity platform that manages access for people and AI agents across enterprise systems, in a deal announced October 13, 2026, at Work
Policy
Character.AI files bankruptcy, Disney bids $20M for assets
Character Technologies Inc., the U.S. entity operating Character.AI, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 12, 2026, in Delaware federal court amid investigations into its chatbots' role in child
Launches
Dataiku launches agent management platform; Air Canada, Aviva deploy a
Dataiku released Agent Management on October 15, 2026, a standalone product for discovering, monitoring, and governing enterprise AI agents. The platform debut coincides with customer deployments at A
Launches
Huawei Cloud scales AgentArts to 100+ enterprises, plans global launch
Huawei Cloud announced on September 18, 2026, that its enterprise agent platform AgentArts has served more than 100 customers across China, with over 1,000 deployed projects and access to thousands of
Business
Ema raises $77M Series B to automate enterprise work
Ema announced a $77 million Series B funding round led by Bengaluru-based venture firm Creaegis on September 23, 2026, bringing its total funding to $140 million and more than quadrupling its valuatio
Business
Instinct raises $1B at $10B valuation on agent demand
AI agent company Instinct raised $1 billion from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Coatue on September 28, 2026, quadrupling its valuation to $10 billion. The funding round reflects accelerating
Launches
OpenAI partners with Amp on developer AI agents
OpenAI announced on October 14, 2026, that Amp—a startup building frontier AI agents for software development—is using OpenAI models as the backbone of its platform. The agent helps developers decide
Launches
IBM ships Agent Identity and third-party agent management in watsonx
IBM released expanded third-party agent management and Agent Identity capabilities for watsonx Orchestrate on October 2, 2026, enabling enterprises to discover, manage, and verify agents built on comp
Research
79% of enterprises run AI agents; only 2% have security tools
SailPoint reported October 6, 2026, that 79% of organizations are running AI agents in production, while only 2% use purpose-built identity-security tools to govern them—a 40-to-1 gap that leaves the