Lightspeed

Amazon generated $68.6 billion in advertising revenue in 2025, much of that from placements where shoppers browse and compare. What happens to that business when an agent does the shopping instead of a person? Part of Amazon’s advertising business reaches shoppers as they browse and compare products. If agents handle more of that comparison, shoppers may see fewer sponsored placements. That could change where brands pay to reach them. More on Lightwork: https://lnkd.in/gQJYi458

In audit, getting it right once isn’t enough. Today, Modus launched Financial Audit Bench, testing 11 frontier models across 45 audit workpaper tasks, with more than 1,100 hours of auditor input across development and review. The results show both how far the technology has come and how much work remains. The highest strict pass rate on a single attempt was 69.17%, while requiring the same model to succeed across all eight independent runs brought the best result down to 44.4%. Reliability is critical in a field like audit, where quality and trust are critical. Understanding why an AI agent chose the wrong evidence gives builders something specific to improve. We first invested in Modus earlier this year, backing their mission to deliver higher-quality audits on much shorter timelines. This project presents the first release from Modus Labs, a team that brings leading PhDs and Applied AI Engineers together with some of the top minds in public accounting. Congratulations to Arush Jain, Pranav Pillai, Vinay Kasat, Jim Burton, NACD.DC, and the entire Modus team on the launch. Read more in our blog: https://lnkd.in/gEaWfzjb CC: Justin Overdorff, Isaac Kim, Amish Desai, Alexa Boghosian, Steven Munsie

NVIDIA’S RESPONSE TO SANDBOX ESCAPES Ali Golshan (NVIDIA’s Senior Director of AI Software) breaks down OpenShell and Sentry - the open-source runtime and hardware watchdog built to keep autonomous agents inside their guardrails. 🤝 100+ industry partners, including Microsoft, SpaceX, Intel, Mistral, and Skild AI 🛡️ OpenShell governs software, traces agent actions and enforces policy in real time 📡 Sentry enables NVIDIA to quarantine breaches in milliseconds 🧱 Why control has to live outside the agent's own process 🧭 How 20+ years in security shapes Ali’s next bet: agent-native identity and policy controls FULL SEGMENT BELOW NVIDIA AI Lightspeed

"The mentality of security has to change completely.” Congratulations to Yotam Segev (CEO of Cyera) on being named to the TIME100 Next 2026, commemorating some of the world's most influential rising stars. We are proud to be Cyera’s partner.

Census’s August 2026 estimates put e-commerce at 17.1% of U.S. retail sales, up from 0.6% in late 1999. Agent-driven shopping asks people to hand over more of the purchasing decision. Reordering a familiar item may be an easier starting point than delegating a purchase that depends on fit or taste. That could make adoption uneven across categories, even as the technology improves. More on Lightwork: https://lnkd.in/gQJYi458

HyperGuest has secured a $25M investment from Apax! 🚀 This is a major milestone for our company and for direct hotel distribution. The investment will accelerate our international growth and power the next phase of our platform, helping hoteliers compete as AI reshapes the distribution landscape. "We built HyperGuest around a simple idea: Hotels and travel companies should be able to work together directly, quickly and at scale. This investment is a major milestone and will help us accelerate our ambition to transform hotel commerce globally." — Nir Yaron, Co-founder & CEO Thank you to Apax and all our hotel partners, distribution partners and team for building this opportunity with us. 👉 Read the full story on PhocusWire: https://lnkd.in/dC-R6t-i

More than half of U.S. adults who have never used AI chatbots cite concerns about their personal data as a major reason. For shopping agents, that raises a practical question: what information can an assistant access, and which purchases still need your approval? “We've all given so much data to Meta, I feel like people are concerned about giving more of their data to the company.” Claire Zau on Lightwork.

What happens if AI gets 1,000x cheaper? Jevons paradox says demand may rise even faster than the cost falls. "If you make something half the price, you'll potentially consume more than 2x." "If we disrupt AI by 1,000x, I think this will create the largest market humanity has ever seen." Naveen thinks this might create the largest market that humanity has ever seen. Naveen Rao, CEO of Unconventional AI, at the All-In Podcast Summit:

#FortuneCyber60 nominations are officially open.🎉 Our annual list, created in partnership with Lightspeed and sponsor Amazon Web Services (AWS), recognizes important venture-backed startups and growth-stage companies in the cybersecurity infrastructure space. ➡️ Submit your application today: https://lnkd.in/eccVnaQM

Nominations for the 4th annual Cyber 60 list are now open. Cyber 60 is an annual report presented by Lightspeed, in partnership with Fortune and sponsor Amazon Web Services (AWS), spotlighting some of the most innovative and fastest-growing companies in cybersecurity. The list recognizes 60 teams building to advance next-gen infrastructure, AI security, and how we approach threat detection across early, mid, and late stage categories. Applications are open until October 4th. Nominate your company today: https://lnkd.in/eccVnaQM