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Good morning and welcome to another edition of Friday Tech News! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week.
First off - WOW - Morning Brew sponsoring FTN? Super cool. If you don’t read anything there, that’s where I learn a ton and get a ton of information. Definitely click the link at the top of this to subscribe to their content.
Secondly - I’m going to focus on AI stuff in this edition. I know I said I’d talk more about my decision to move companies, but we’ll have plenty of AppSec convos coming with leaders and people I’ve been meeting recently. Man, Phoenix.security is freaking cool and I am having so much fun here. Look for a #FounderFocus with Francesco soon.
AgenticAI
We’ve seen a lot in the media (surprisingly with SFDC commercials) about Agentic AI and the rise of the future assistants. I think there are some advancements coming, like Tasks from OpenAI that will be revolutionary IMO to how we start speaking and interacting with our computers more to give them more autonomy.
Take a read below for additional news, but I’m most curious - what do you think you could use a personal Agentic AI assistants help with the most? Would you have one solely for work and personal life, or one for each? I think these are questions we’re all going to have to answer.
Have a marvelous weekend, and stay tuned for another edition of FTN next week!
Stay physically and digitally safe,
Phil
OEM News & Updates 📰
Salesforce | Salesforce launches Agentforce For Retail
includes library of pre-built agent skills relevant to retail, such as order management, appointment scheduling, guided shopping, and loyalty promotion management.
This offering brings online + offline inventory data together into a single platform. Capabilities include clienteling, omnichannel fulfillment, mobile first design, and inventory management.
Seems low risk for retail to try out versus fintech.
Cohere has launched an early access program for North, an AI workspace platform that combines LLM models, search, and agents to help enterprise employees integrate AI into daily workflows.
North allows orgs to create, customize, and deploy AI agents that assist users in finding relevant information, conducting research, and performing complex tasks.
Cohere aims to take on Copilot and Vertex Agent Builder from Google with this announcement, focusing on stringent security and privacy standards.
Datadog has configured its Compliance Frameworks solution to support DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) EU regulation, providing real-time visibility into misconfigurations affecting DORA audits.
The solution includes over 250 OOTB rules mapped to DORA controls, remediation. context, guidance, and triaging capabilities for misconfigs, and 15-month retention for evaluating posture changes over time.
Pretty neat - they’re offering continuous configuration audits, identity risk assessments, vulnerability checks, and real-time threat detection across clouds to enable security and Devs to prioritize issues quickly.
SmartBear | SmartBear launches AI driven Hubs
SmartBear has launched the API Hub, featuring HaloAI and the Insight Hub, consolidating its developer tools into modular hubs to streamline workflows and scale with team growth.
Powered by Swagger, the Hub simplifies the API lifecycle with tools for design, portal, contract testing, and exploration.
Insight Hub provides observability features including error monitoring, performance monitoring, and distributed tracing.
CrowdStrike | CRWD launches Insider Risk Services
CRWD has introduced a comprehensive set of services to help organizations detect and prevent insider threats from negligent employees, malicious insiders, and sophisticated adversaries.
The services include insider risk program and technical reviews, tabletops, red team sims, and expert led IR.
They’re combining threat detection and response capabilities with threat intel and tailored assessments to help organizations proactively address vulnerabilities in human form.
Orca Security | Orca Launches the Cloud Runtime Protection Sensor
Orca has introduced a new agent (not the agentic kind) that’s lightweight and integrates runtime visibility and protection into their security platform.
The sensor offers non-intrusive installation, real-time monitoring, and customizable policies.
Orca Sensor supports advanced vulnerability management and expanded workload visibility, helping organizations secure their cloud-native applications without sacrificing performance.
Interesting to see them and others in the CDR space now.
Contextual AI | Contextual AI launches RAG 2.0
Contextual AI has announced the GA of its flagship product, the Contextual AI Platform (everythings a damn platform right?) which enables enterprises to create specialized RAG Agents for automating knowledge work.
The platform is based on RAG 2.0 Technology which improves the way AI models retrieve data from third party datasets.
Wants to perform sophisticated, domain specific knowledge work, similar to how humans have domain subject matter expertise.
Commvault | Commvault introduces Active Directory Recovery
Commvault has launched a new solution for automated forest recovery of AD. Woot! Good work.
The solution includes automated runbooks for streamlined recovery, visual topology views for quick identification of domain controllers, and integration with their Cloud Platform for comprehensive protection.
They aim to reduce recovery times in this truly manual traditional process of rebuilding.
Take a look at Commvault’s stock price over the last 3 years and tell me they’re not doing something right.
Articles I Liked This Week 💡
Geeky Gadgets | OpenAI Halts AI Agents Launch Over Security Concerns
delaying due to concerns in prompt injection and other security measures.
Help Net Security | GitHub CISO on security strategy and Open-Source
PR Web | 2025 SaaS Management Index from Zylo
Who’s the rep getting paid on this? #retirement.
Tech Funding & M&A 💸
AnySphere | AnySphere raises $105M for AI Coding Softeware
Anysphere is a California based IT firm that develops AI powered coding assistants for developers. Similar to Presidio’s HumanAI project.
WatchGuard | WatchGuard acquires ActZero for MDR services
ActZero is a California based company that develops an AI based platform that allows businesses to detect and monitor threats.
Gluware | Gluware acquired by Cuadrilla Capital
Gluware is a California based digital platform that offers solutions such as cloud security & network automation management for enterprises.
UpSolver is a California based no-code data lake engineering platform that helps developers to manage, integrate, and structure streaming data for analysis.
Synthesia | Synthesia raises $180M at 2.1B valuation
Synthesia is an England b ased GenAI platform that provides solutions s uch as real-life avatar creation and audiovisual content generation for enterprises.
Orchid Security | Orchid Security raises 36M
Orchid Security is a Delaware based ISPM solution for enterprises.
Meme of the week 🤣
☠️ LMAO
Recommendations 👉🏻
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Thank you so much for making this a part of your Friday morning coffee time. I'm Phil Moroni, and I'm an Account Executive in the Information Technology industry here with another edition of Friday Tech News!
What is this? This is a newsletter that provides updates and insights on the latest trends and developments in the technology industry. I am a professional who specializes in supporting IT leaders in evaluating, investing, and managing people, processes, and technology tools that support their businesses.
Each week, I summarize relevant industry updates from popular Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's), software publishers, and managed providers. The goal of my research and newsletter is to keep you informed about current trends and events that may impact your business from a trusted and reputable source. It's just information I'm sharing, and I follow and work with hundreds of partners in the industry, keeping track of their growth, changes, and evolution so that you don't have to.
Bottom Line: As you focus on improving your business through digital initiatives, my commitment is to keep you informed of the fast-paced changes and trends taking place so that you can plan ahead and stay ahead of the game.
Key areas of focus for me are:
Cloud Computing, Security, Trends
Developer & Security Tools
Networking & Infrastructure Tools
End User Tools & Workspace Tech
Emerging Technologies and Future Concepts
If you have any questions, would like information about any specific vendors I follow, or would like to have a conversation about any topic that is challenging you, I invite you to engage with me! I value feedback immensely and would love to know what you find valuable about this newsletter so feel free to reach out!
Thank you for reading and stay digitally and physically safe!
Phil
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