AI Agents Updates - TL;DR - 8th May 2025
Your quick-read brief for May 1 – 8, 2025, when investors pumped fresh cash into agent OS players, Microsoft and ServiceNow put agents in every cubicle, and Washington signaled it may reopen the....
$71 million flowed into three agent-startup rounds (Relevance AI, Game Sett, StackOne).
Big-co tooling leapt ahead: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat now lets any worker spin up task-focused agents, while ServiceNow’s new AI Control Tower promises one dashboard for every enterprise agent.
In Washington, the Trump administration moved to scrap Biden-era AI-chip export curbs—potentially reopening Nvidia’s biggest market.
Recent Job Openings in AI:
📈 Momentum Meter
Funding: ▲ — Three >$15 M rounds in 48 h.
Enterprise Pilots: ▲ — University of California system green-lit Copilot & ChatGPT pilots.
Open-Source Launches: ▲ — Agent S2 desktop-automation framework went public.
Policy / Ethics: 🔥 — U.S. signals reversal on AI-chip export bans.
🚀 Rapid Round-Up
Relevance AI × $24 M Series B × Fuels “teams of agents” OS for vertical use-cases.
Game Sett × $27 M stealth debut × Builds agents that automate game-asset generation and QA.
StackOne × $20 M Series A × Low-code layer to let SaaS apps talk through autonomous agents.
Microsoft × Copilot Chat upgrade × Users can now discover, create, and store agents inside 365.
ServiceNow × AI Control Tower launch × One pane to govern every internal or third-party agent.
Agent S2 × OSS release × Open desktop agent hits GitHub with hierarchical planning.
White House × Export-curb rollback plan × Could reopen advanced AI-chip sales to mid-tier nations.
🔍 Deep Dives
Funding & Market Moves
Within 48 hours, venture backers poured $71 M into three specialist plays: Relevance AI ($24 M Series B) to orchestrate “teams” of domain agents; Game Sett ($27 M seed/Series A) targeting game-dev automation; and London’s StackOne ($20 M Series A) offering agent-driven SaaS integrations. The spree signals investor belief that infrastructure and vertical tooling—rather than core models—will capture near-term enterprise spend.
Shipped Capabilities
Microsoft quietly flipped the switch that lets any Copilot Chat user spin up declarative or Graph-grounded agents, complete with metered billing controls for IT. Meanwhile at ServiceNow Knowledge 25, the company unveiled AI Control Tower and Agent Fabric: a governance layer plus “agent-to-agent” comms that promise audit trails and cross-model orchestration out-of-the-box. Together, the two launches push agent management from hacky scripts into enterprise-grade UX.
New Use-Cases & Case Studies
The University of California Office of the President (UCOP) approved pilots for Microsoft 365 Copilot (PPL3 data) and ChatGPT Edu, aiming to streamline staff workflows by month-end. At SAS Innovate, Procter & Gamble demoed a quantum-hybrid AI agent that cut complex product-formulation time dramatically—a first in CPG R&D.
The takeaway: sector-specific agents are moving from slide-ware to production pilots.
Tooling & Infra Arms-Race
Open-source picked up pace with Agent S2, a computer-using agent that tackles GUI tasks via hierarchical planning (34.5 % success at 50 steps). On the commercial side, ServiceNow’s Control Tower plus “Agent Fabric” positions the vendor as Switzerland for multi-model agent ops, echoing cloud-agnostic observability stacks. Expect monitoring, benchmarking, and policy-as-code to become table stakes for serious deployments.
💡 Startup to Watch
Game Sett came out of stealth with $27 M to drop AI agents into the game-development toolchain—automating level design, QA passes, and live-ops balancing. Early pilots with two AAA studios trimmed build-test cycles from days to hours. If it nails middleware integrations, Game Sett could become the Unreal Engine of agentic content creation.
🔢 Numbers That Popped
$71 M — Aggregate funding into agent startups in 48 hours (Relevance AI + Game Sett + StackOne).
65 % — Enterprises now running agentic-AI pilots, up from 37 % last quarter.
34.5 % — Agent S2’s task-success rate at 50 steps, showing how far desktop agents must climb.
3 % — Nvidia stock pop after news of potential export-curb rollback.
👀 Worth the Click / Listen / Watch
Read: TechCrunch on Relevance AI’s “agent OS” funding round—good insight into vertical stacks.(TechCrunch)
Listen: Test Guild podcast “The Rise of Agentic AI” (7 May) dives into DevOps impacts.(TestGuild)
Watch: SuperDataScience episode From Text to Action: The Rise of Agentic AI (3 days ago) for an accessible primer on autonomous workflows.(YouTube)
⏭️ On the Radar (Next 7 Days)
May 9 — ServiceNow Knowledge 25 wraps; look for follow-up releases on Agent Fabric SDK.
May 15 — Original Biden AI-chip export rule was due to kick in; watch Commerce Department for the Trump administration’s replacement text.
🧠 Cheat-Sheet Glossary
Agent Fabric: ServiceNow’s mesh that lets multiple agents and models talk and share context.
AI Control Tower: Central console for governing, monitoring, and auditing enterprise AI agents.
Declarative Agent (Microsoft): Lightweight Copilot Chat agent defined by system instructions minus tenant data; free to run.
Agentic AI: Goal-driven software that plans and acts autonomously—not just chat.
