Larry Dignan

Smartphone shipments fell 4.1% in the first quarter due to price increases and memory shortages, according to IDC data. IDC said the first quarter slowdown is "a mild precursor for what lies ahead in 2026."

Salesforce is going headless and extending its entire platform via APIs, MCP and CLI commands for humans and agents to build. The move extends Salesforce as a platform and means you can now work outside of the Salesforce environment.

The effort, Salesforce Headless 360, is outlined in a blog. My bet is that the ability to go headless is going to be critical to evaluating your software vendor.

• SaaS under the microscope: How to evaluate your vendor

Meta and Broadcom said they will extend their partnership to co-develop multiple generations of Meta's MTIA chips. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan will leave Meta's board. The expanded partnership indicates Meta is ready to rapidly scale its custom chips for AI workloads.

• Meta launches new set of AI chips, but its approach is the big lesson

Large language model (LLM) giants have new favorite words: Repeatable and routines.

Anthropic launched routines in Claude Code in research preview. A routine is a Claude Code automation you configure once and run on a schedule. Claude Code routines can schedule code reviews, API calls and GitHub chores. Routines are available on Anthropic Claude Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans.

On a more personal level, Google launched Skills, repeatable AI prompts that users can run in Chrome with a keyboard shortcut. You can set up your own Skill or use a set of more than 50 presets.

Bottom line: AI agents are going mainstream on multiple levels.

Instacart acquired Instaleap, which is a global fulfillment platform for retailers scaling online.

The move expands Instacart's international footprint and builds out its enterprise offerings. Instacart is best known for its online grocery delivery, but is pitching retailers with offerings including Storefront Pro, a commerce platform, Carrot Ads, Caper Carts and FoodStorm.

Amazon announced the Amazon Leo Aviation Antenna, which aims to deliver reliable internet connectivity to airlines with up to 1 Gbps download and 400 Mbps uploads. That speed roughly equates to what a lot of folks see for their home broadband.

Amazon has said that Leo is a big push for the company as it offers broadband using low-orbit Earth satellites. The company said the antenna has no moving parts and can be installed quickly. Ongoing maintenance is expected to be minimal.

Stanford HAI released its 2026 AI Index Report and it's worth a read for a few themes:

• The US-China model gap has closed.
• The US hosts the most AI data centers and most of the chips are fabricated in Taiwan.
• AI capabilities are outpacing governance and safety.
• Productivity gains from AI mean declining entry-level employment.

I'll loop back to this one, but it's a good overview of where AI stands at the moment.

Seventy-eight percent of senior business leaders lack full confidence that they could pass an independent AI governance audit within 90 days, according to a Grant Thornton survey of 950 senior business leaders.

Slate Auto said it has raised $650 million in a Series C round. Slate is developing an electric vehicle that is easily customizable. The company has taken more than 160,000 reservations and expects to deliver an EV priced in the mid-$20,000 range.

SugarCRM is now SugarAI. The company announced the new brand identity said SugarAI represents "the company's transformation and redefined strategy focused on precision selling, where AI transforms CRM from a system of record into a system of proactive sales guidance, interpreting signals from across the business to guide sellers toward the highest-value accounts and opportunities."

Eighty three percent of CFOs plan to increase enterprise AI spending by more than 15% over the next two years and 42% of CFOs see AI budgets growing more than 30% in that same time frame, according to Bain.

Bain surveyed more than 100 CFOs to track momentum for AI spending. CFOs are allocating the biggest share of AI budget for finance functions including financial planning, analysis and reporting.

Celonis said its Process Intelligence platform will be available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

The two companies already have integration between Celonis and Oracle Fusion Cloud apps for use cases in finance, supply chain and other functions.

Celonis said the integrations with OCI and Oracle Fusion Cloud apps can incorporate Celonis Process Intelligence into AI services running on OCI, identify automation targets, orchestrate processes across Oracle applications as well as third party and custom apps and orchestrate processes.

Oracle recently launched Fusion Agentic Applications for finance, supply chain, HR and customer experience.