This Month's AI Agents News

AI startup Manus raises $500 million in first funding round since Meta breakup

AI startup Manus raises $500 million in first funding round since Meta breakup - Bloomberg reported last month that Manus was set to double its valuation in this financing round to $4 billion, what would make it the country’s most valuable AI agent maker. AI agent startup Manus has raised more than $500 million in its first funding round since [Meta](https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/META/) was forced to abandon its acquisition of the company. Butterfly Effect, Manus’ parent company, said Thursday that the round was led by private equity firm Boyu Capital and venture investor IDG Capital, with follow-on investment from existing shareholders [Tencent](https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/700-HK/), HSG and ZhenFund. Bloomberg [reported](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-17/manus-eyes-4-billion-value-in-first-round-since-meta-breakup) last month that Manus was set to double its valuation to $4 billion in this financing round, making it the country’s most valuable AI agent maker. “The fundraising shows that the short-term fallout of the Meta case has been contained and investors are willing to back Manus as an independent company,” said Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia Group, also noting the renewed confidence in the commercial potential of AI agents.

AI agent emailed hundreds of researchers for help, raising questions over autonomy

An autonomous AI agent emailed hundreds of researchers for technical help, raising questions about AI autonomy and human interaction.

Manus parent Butterfly Effect confirms $500 million+ funding, setting China's largest single AI application round

Butterfly Effect, parent company of general AI agent Manus, announced on October 8 the completion of a new funding round exceeding $500 million. The…

STM and Ithaka S+R launch study into AI agents’ access

The Endpoint Question” project will examine how scholarly content should meet AI agents at the point of access.

South Korea Says AI Agents Likely Breached Seven Financial Firms, 68,000 Customers Exposed

# South Korea Says AI Agents Likely Breached Seven Financial Firms, 68,000 Customers Exposed  Share this article [Share on X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sofx.com%2Fsouth-korea-says-ai-agents-likely-breached-seven-financial-firms-68000-customers-exposed%2F&text=South%20Korea%20Says%20AI%20Agents%20Likely%20Breached%20Seven%20Financial%20Firms%2C%2068%2C000%20Customers%20Exposed) [Share on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sofx.com%2Fsouth-korea-says-ai-agents-likely-breached-seven-financial-firms-68000-customers-exposed%2F) [Share on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sofx.com%2Fsouth-korea-says-ai-agents-likely-breached-seven-financial-firms-68000-customers-exposed%2F) [Copy link](https://www.sofx.com/south-korea-says-ai-agents-likely-breached-seven-financial-firms-68000-customers-exposed/) South Korean President Lee Jae-myung (Credit: Marco Iacobucci Epp / Shutterstock) South Korea’s president said AI agents appeared to drive a run of bank breaches, reported as a first for the financial sector. At least 68,000 customers at seven-plus firms were exposed, with investigators tracing a Chinese-language tool, ARTEX AI. The case follows AI-agent intrusions into government systems in Australia and Canada. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said Tuesday that [artificial intelligence agents](https://www.sofx.com/openai-admits-700-rogue-agents-escaped-lab-to-wage-hidden-cyberattack/) appeared to have been used in a run of cyberattacks that exposed the personal data of at least 68,000 customers at seven or more financial firms. The breaches, which investigators have tied to a single actor ac

Young Bankers to Manage AI Agents From Start, Goldman Exec Says

They’ll be overseeing artificial intelligence agents from the time they join, raising the question of what happens to the current middle managers, according to [Goldman Sachs Group Inc.](https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GS:US)’s Kevin Sneader. ### Top Reads [\ \ Child Predators Turn to Open-Source AI to Make Unlimited Illegal Images\ \ by Kurt Wagner and Jordan Robertson](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2026-open-source-ai-models-fuel-csam/) [\ \ AI Crowds Out Fresh Grads at Wall Street Tech Hubs in India\ \ by Siddhi Nayak, Saikat Das and Anup Roy](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-10-07/ai-crowds-out-fresh-grads-at-wall-street-tech-hubs-in-india) [\ \ Nvidia Director Tops AI Billionaires on Insider Stock Sales\ \ by Emily Birnbaum](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-10-07/nvidia-s-stevens-jeff-bezos-among-top-q3-insider-stock-sellers) [\ \ Cash-Strapped Americans Tap Home Equity and AI to Keep Spending\ \ by Catarina Saraiva and Michael Sasso](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-10-03/american-consumers-tap-home-equity-and-ai-as-prices-rise)

CrowdStrike says China-based suspect used AI tools in South Korean bank hacks

In a report published on Wednesday, CrowdStrike said it uncovered personal details linked to the suspected attacker while analysing AI coding-tool sessions...

AI Developers Would Be Liable for Errant Agents Under Draft House Bill (Oct 7, 2026)

- [AI Developers Would Be Liable for Errant Agents Under Draft House Bill](https://www.vitallaw.com/news/ai-developers-would-be-liable-for-errant-agents-under-draft-house-bill/cspd01d486aa5267614d2bb497b6dab3396ded) “In July, AI agents undergoing an evaluation by OpenAI escaped their test environment and hacked into Hugging Face, another AI company, without anyone instructing them to do so. That shouldn't change just because the wrongdoer is an AI agent,” Rep.

DB-GPT AI Agent Platform: Two Critical RCE CVEs at the Agent Data Access Layer

DB-GPT functions as a critical intermediary layer, bridging autonomous AI agents with structured data sources like databases and knowledge bases.

Nvidia, Samsung back $90M round for AI agent startup Nous Research

Nvidia, Samsung back $90M round for AI agent startup Nous Research - SiliconANGLE [Skip to content](https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/07/nvidia-samsung-back-90m-round-for-ai-agent-startup-nous-research/#sa-page-content) ### Nvidia, Samsung back $90M round for AI agent startup Nous Research  by [Maria Deutscher](https://siliconangle.com/author/chi22/) Nous Research Inc., the developer of the popular Hermes artificial intelligence agent, today [announced](https://nousresearch.com/a-note-on-our-fundraise) that it has raised $90 million in funding. Early-stage startup fund Robot Ventures led the Series B round. It was joined by Nvidia Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., Y Combinator and several others. Nous is now valued at $1.5 billion. The company released Hermes in February under an open-source license. Nous says that the agent has since been downloaded more than 24 million times and boasts several thousand open-source contributors. It accounts for an estimated 2.5% of the world’s token consumption, a metric tied to AI models’ hardware use. Hermes ships as a desktop app that can interact with the user’s files. Hermes can also access the programs on the user’s machine. It can use a browser to find web data, run code in a Docker container and perform related tasks. It also supports a lineup of LLMs developed by Nous. They’re fine-tuned, or customized, versions of open-source LLMs. Nous’ latest collection of LLMs is called the Hermes 4 series. The company customized the models using a training dataset that comprised 5 million synthetically generated records. According to Nous, about two thirds of the records were specifically created to enhance Hermes 4’s reasoning capabilities. The company generated the data using a custom tool called DataForge. Another built-in module personalizes LLM responses based on user preferences. Optionally, users can enhance H

Nous Research confirms $1.5 billion valuation and launches business AI agents

# Nous Research confirms $1.5 billion valuation and launches business AI agents The company says its Hermes agent has been cloned more than 24 million times and drives roughly 2.5% of global AI token usage. [Share on X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstartupfortune.com%2Fnous-research-confirms-15-billion-valuation-and-launches-business-ai-agents%2F&text=Nous+Research+confirms+%241.5+billion+valuation+and+launches+business+AI+agents)[Share on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstartupfortune.com%2Fnous-research-confirms-15-billion-valuation-and-launches-business-ai-agents%2F)[Share on WhatsApp](https://wa.me/?text=Nous+Research+confirms+%241.5+billion+valuation+and+launches+business+AI+agents+https%3A%2F%2Fstartupfortune.com%2Fnous-research-confirms-15-billion-valuation-and-launches-business-ai-agents%2F)[Share on Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstartupfortune.com%2Fnous-research-confirms-15-billion-valuation-and-launches-business-ai-agents%2F&title=Nous+Research+confirms+%241.5+billion+valuation+and+launches+business+AI+agents)[Share via Email](mailto:?subject=Nous+Research+confirms+%241.5+billion+valuation+and+launches+business+AI+agents&body=https%3A%2F%2Fstartupfortune.com%2Fnous-research-confirms-15-billion-valuation-and-launches-business-ai-agents%2F)  _An AI lab known for open-weight models that skip the usual content filters just landed backing from Nvidia and Samsung._ _Now it's going after the same corporate customers OpenAI and Anthropic already court._ It paired the announcement with the launch of Hermes for Businesses, a push to sell its open-source Hermes agent directly to companies. The Wall Street Journal reported the final round, while TechCrunch had reported the $1.5 billi

The New York Times. . Our journalists Sheera Frenkel and Dylan Freedman break down what A.I. agents are, how they differ from chatbots and why A.I. companies are worried about them now. Read more: https://nyti.ms/4ziuDVg

House proposal would clarify liability rules for AI agents

Developers would be liable under the draft legislation for AI-caused injuries unless a user that modified the system was at fault.

Nous Research confirms it hit $1.5B valuation, launches AI agents for business users

# Nous Research confirms it hit $1.5B valuation, launches AI agents for business users ## Related ### [The next hurdle for AI agents: getting websites to let them in](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/06/the-next-hurdle-for-ai-agents-getting-websites-to-let-them-in/) - [Sarah Perez](https://techcrunch.com/author/sarah-perez/) 1 day ago ## Latest in AI -  In Brief ### [Nous Research confirms it hit $1.5B valuation, launches AI agents for business users](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/07/nous-research-confirms-it-hit-1-5b-valuation-launches-ai-agents-for-business-users/) - [Marina Temkin](https://techcrunch.com/author/marina-temkin/)

Are we creating a ticking AI time bomb?

Artificial intelligence is transforming government and industry faster than any technology we've seen in decades. Federal agencies are deploying AI to...

Midwest Wheel builds toward AI agents that fix problems

Midwest Wheel builds toward AI agents that fix problems - SiliconANGLE [Skip to content](https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/07/midwest-wheel-builds-ai-agents-fix-problems-inforvelocity/#sa-page-content) ### Midwest Wheel builds toward AI agents that fix problems Infor (US) LLC is [embedding industry-specific AI agents](https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/05/agentic-ai-infor-velocity-week-inforvelocity/) into its applications as businesses move AI into day-to-day operations.

Video: Why A.I. Agents Are Going Rogue

Our journalists Sheera Frenkel and Dylan Freedman break down what A.I. agents are, how they differ from chatbots and why A.I. companies are worried about...

Senate Probes Rogue AI Agents, Eyes OpenAI Liability

# Senate Probes Rogue AI Agents, Eyes OpenAI Liability Wednesday, October 7, 2026 · 3 min read  ## The Big Picture In September, Hawley [launched an investigation into OpenAI](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/chairman-hawley-launches-investigation-into-openai-for-hacking-existential-risk-of-ai-products/) over the incident, requesting documents with an Oct. 1 deadline, which OpenAI has now missed. Reuters reported that OpenAI found roughly two dozen undesirable agent incidents as of mid-September, including a leak of 53 images from a user-data source. ## What They're Saying Marius Hobbhahn, CEO, Apollo Research, described a coordinated 700-agent attack on Hugging Face and said: "These are our warning shots. ## The Bottom Line [AI agents](https://legis1.com/search?q=AI%20agents) [rogue AI](https://legis1.com/search?q=rogue%20AI) [AI security](https://legis1.com/search?q=AI%20security) [Senate hearing](https://legis1.com/search?q=Senate%20hearing) [corporate liability](https://legis1.com/search?q=corporate%20liability) [Josh Hawley](https://legis1.com/search?q=Josh%20Hawley) [homeland security](https://legis1.com/search?q=homeland%20security) [AI oversight](https://legis1.com/search?q=AI%20oversight)

ESET launches new B2B features ready for the AI era

ESET is refining its ESET PROTECT B2B portfolio to help organizations address the emerging risks and opportunities of the agentic AI era.

AI Agents Are Creating a New Identity Security Challenge

### AI Agents Are Creating a New Identity Security Challenge The company also introduced what it calls SailPoint Autonomous Agents, specialized AI agents designed to govern other agents. "Autonomous agents are no longer just experimental copilots; they are becoming the primary execution layer of modern enterprises," SailPoint President Matt Mills said.

AWS launches open-source AI agent sandbox to prevent YOLO mode disasters

Strands Box is the latest open source AI control tool from the cloud giant; like its predecessors, it promises tighter reins on autonomous agents.

Incognia Launches AI Agent Detection to Secure Autonomous Financial Transactions

Incognia launches AI Agent Detection to secure autonomous payments. Learn how Web Behavioral Biometrics and cross-device intelligence stop fraud. Read more.

Exclusive | Nous Research Scores $90 Million to Bring Open-Source AI Assistant to Enterprises

# Nous Research Scores $90 Million to Bring Open-Source AI Assistant to Enterprises ## The startup’s Hermes tool has been downloaded more than 22 million times since February ### Latest in Venture Capital #### [Nous Research Scores $90 Million to Bring Open-Source AI Assistant to Enterprises](https://www.wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/nous-research-scores-90-million-to-bring-open-source-ai-assistant-to-enterprises-516f9208?mod=pro-venture-capital_latest_article_pos2&tpl=vc) [](https://www.wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/arboretum-with-a-fresh-30-million-wants-to-use-its-genetic-testing-for-more-diseases-b8feeeaf?mod=pro-venture-capital_latest_article_pos3&tpl=vc)

Nous Research raises $90M to take its Hermes AI agent to businesses

Nous Research has raised $90M to build a business version of Hermes, its open-source AI agent. Nvidia, Microsoft’s M12, Samsung, Robot Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures are among the investors, chief executive Dillon Rolnick wrote in a [note on the company’s website](https://nousresearch.com/a-note-on-our-fundraise). The round values Nous at $1.5bn, [The Wall Street Journal reported](https://www.wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/nous-research-scores-90-million-to-bring-open-source-ai-assistant-to-enterprises-516f9208), which first broke the news. ## From fine-tuned models to an agent The Journal reported more than 22 million downloads since February. ## Hermes for Businesses Personal AI agents have drawn large sums this year. Instinct raised $1bn at a $10bn valuation for an agent that [rings restaurants itself](https://thenextweb.com/news/instinct-1bn-agent-calls-eu-rule).

Nikesh Arora sees 40 companies racing to secure AI agents. At least 20 are Israeli

# Nikesh Arora sees 40 companies racing to secure AI agents. At least 20 are Israeli ## Palo Alto Networks is deliberately watching the emerging market before deciding which companies to back or buy, as Israeli-founded startups have already raised roughly $900 million to secure autonomous software. 16:50, 07.10.26 Seventeen of the startups have disclosed funding, with their combined total now reaching roughly $900 million. The majority of the companies were founded only in the past few years, making AI-agent security one of the fastest-emerging areas in Israel's cybersecurity industry. Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora said [recently](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLy3fp63xv4&t=1455s) that about 40 companies are currently being funded in the agentic security market, including a significant number of Israeli startups. “And suddenly what you'll find is that about 40 companies get funded in the space of agentic security. You'll fund some and a bunch of Israeli companies get funded, a bunch of your peers in the industry will fund them.” # z.calcalist.co.il is blocked Other funded companies include Cymphony, which has raised $30 million, Bloom Security with $20 million, Rig Security with $12 million, Pillar with $9 million, Rein, Pluto and Arrakis with $8 million each, Capsule and Willow with $7 million each, and Tenet with $6 million. - [Zenity raises $125 million Series C as AI agent security startup accelerates global expansion](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/b1ahbbcbfe) - [Wiz veteran raises $12 million Seed to secure AI agents at Rig Security](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/byxasxfcgl) In August, Israeli companies including NewCore, Oak and others were betting that AI agents would turn identity into a new cybersecurity battleground.

From Ballet To Breach Prevention: How A Magician’s Son Raised $4.2M In Seed Funding For His Cybersecurity Startup

A later trip to a hackathon in Waterloo introduced him to venture capital investors.

AI Agents That Improve Themselves Face a Safety Paradox, Major Survey Finds

A sweeping new systematic review has mapped the fast-moving world of autonomous artificial intelligence agents and arrived at a sobering conclusion: the...

OpenAI Reportedly In Talks With UAE Funds For $30B Funding – Even As Its AI Agents Raise Fresh Concerns

OpenAI is reportedly in talks with investment funds from the United Arab Emirates, including Abu Dhabi-based MGX, to help anchor a new $30 billion funding...

Anthropic says AI agents didn’t breach Australian government websites – video

 # Anthropic says AI agents didn’t breach Australian government websites – video ## Related stories ### Revealed: the five-paragraph email OpenAI used to inform Australia about agent attack  ## More from News 

Cloudflare Introduces CLI for AI Agents, Sunsetting Wrangler

# Cloudflare Introduces CLI for AI Agents, Sunsetting Wrangler Oct 06, 2026 2 min read #### Follow us on 0:00 0:00 ## About the Author #### **Renato Losio** - Related Editorial - [Cloudflare Announces Kitesurf, a Browser Engine for Agents](https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/08/cloudflare-kitesurf-browser/) - [Cloudflare Announces Agent Memory, a Managed Persistent Memory Service for AI Agents](https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/04/cloudflare-agent-memory-beta/) - [Cloudflare Sandboxes Reach General Availability, Giving AI Agents Persistent Isolated Environments](https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/04/cloudflare-sandboxes-ga/)