Daily AI News — August 02, 2026

🧠 AI Brain / Memory

• Hy-Memory launches a "second brain" for agents (late July 2026) — A new persistent-memory layer aimed at giving AI agents durable, retrievable long-term memory across sessions rather than one-shot context. (Sources: Futunn News)
• The agent memory problem goes mainstream (2026) — Practitioner writing this cycle frames persistent, structured "second brain" memory as the missing piece for reliable agents, with side-by-side comparisons of the leading open-source agent-memory stacks. (Sources: Medium, Powerdrill, Taskade)

🤖 AI Agents

• OpenAI launches Presence (Jul 29, 2026) — An enterprise platform for deploying trusted voice and chat AI agents in customer-service workflows. (Sources: AI Agents Directory)
• Google DeepMind unveils Gemini Robotics 2 (Jul 31, 2026) — Gives humanoid robots intelligent whole-body control and improved dexterity, extending agentic AI into the physical world. (Sources: AI Agents Directory)
• Microsoft Copilot hits 30M paid seats (Jul 31, 2026) — A milestone signaling deep enterprise adoption of agent-assisted productivity. (Sources: AI Agents Directory)
• WEXTL launches visual agent workflow builder (Aug 1, 2026) — A no-/low-code tool for deploying AI agents at scale as an automation alternative. (Sources: AI Agents Directory)
• Agent security in focus (Jul 28–Aug 1, 2026) — Snowflake's Cortex AI Gateway and Tines 3B target agent governance and data-access control, while researchers warn AI-generated code may hide vulnerabilities standard scanners miss. (Sources: Snowflake, AI Agents Directory, CIO Dive)
• Funding keeps flowing — Freehand ($75M Series B, supply-chain agents), Emergent (unicorn after $130M), and Ant International ($1.2B for payment agents) all landed capital this cycle. (Sources: AI Agents Directory)

🛠️ AI Tools

• OpenAI GPT-5.6 "Luna" (August 2026) — New flagship reasoning model shipping alongside tiered Terra and Sol variants. (Sources: mean.ceo)
• DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 (Jul 31, 2026) — A faster, cost-optimized model aimed at high-volume business workflows. (Sources: mean.ceo)
• Moonshot AI Kimi K3 (July 2026) — Latest frontier release in the intensifying international model race. (Sources: mean.ceo)
• Meta Muse Spark 1.1 (August 2026) — Meta's newest model, leaning on its platform ecosystem for distribution. (Sources: mean.ceo)
• Thinking Machines Inkling (July 2026) — Open-weight option emphasizing user control and privacy for custom workflows. (Sources: mean.ceo)

🎓 AI Skills

• Only 13% of enterprise employees can work effectively with AI agents (2026) — A Workera report finds a wide readiness gap, with agent-oversight and evaluation skills the scarcest. (Sources: Workera via PR Newswire)
• Agent-building and AI-fluency top the demand charts (2026) — Roundups from CertiProf, Gloat, and Hire in South put prompt engineering, agent orchestration, AI evaluation, and data literacy as the most sought-after skills of the year. (Sources: CertiProf, Gloat, Hire in South)
• AI-skill demand widening across industries (Jul 2026) — Bipartisan Policy Center data shows the fastest AI-skills growth is now spreading beyond tech into healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. (Sources: Bipartisan Policy Center)

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Sources: Futunn News, Medium, Powerdrill, Taskade, AI Agents Directory, Snowflake, CIO Dive, blog.mean.ceo, Workera / PR Newswire, CertiProf, Gloat, Hire in South, Bipartisan Policy Center.