President Trump secured a $600 billion AI investment from Saudi Arabia.

Welcome to a new version of The AI Business!

This week, we have:

● President Trump secured a $600 billion AI investment from Saudi Arabia.

● Perplexity and PayPal Join Forces to Bring AI to Shopping.

● 100 ChatGPT prompts to transform your work efficiency. (FREE)

● Why is Y Combinator’s new startup hiring AI agents for $1M?

● OpenAI turns ChatGPT into a software engineering teammate!

AI news
Huge Investments and Collaborations in The World of AI in Business: Check it out:

● Saudi Arabia’s $600 Billion Bet Puts AI at the Heart of US Ties: In a landmark agreement during his Gulf tour, President Trump secured a $600 billion investment from Saudi Arabia, with $20 billion allocated to AI data centers and energy infrastructure in the U.S. Tech giants like Google, Oracle, and AMD added another $80 billion in pledges to accelerate innovation across both nations. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is partnering with Nvidia to build a national network of AI factories, aiming to shift its economy away from oil. While the deal strengthens U.S.–Saudi ties and positions both as leaders in the AI race, experts caution about transparency, long-term viability, and the geopolitical implications of such a massive tech alliance. (Read Article)

● Perplexity and PayPal Join Forces to Bring Instant Shopping with AI: Perplexity AI has announced a major partnership with PayPal to enable instant purchases within its conversational search engine, bringing agentic commerce to life by letting users book travel, buy tickets, or shop directly in chat. Launching this summer, the integration will use PayPal’s secure wallet, passkey checkout, and streamlined back-end tools to make the process nearly frictionless. Both companies frame the move as a step toward a more trustworthy, intelligent form of conversational commerce. The announcement comes as Perplexity nears a $500 million funding round that could raise its valuation to $14 billion, continuing its rapid rise as it challenges Google’s search dominance. (Read Article)

● OpenAI Upgrades ChatGPT with Faster, Smarter GPT-4.1 Models: OpenAI has rolled out its GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini models to ChatGPT, enhancing speed and code-handling capabilities for Plus, Pro, and Team users, while offering the mini version to all users for free. Designed to outperform GPT-4o in coding and instruction following, GPT-4.1 replaces GPT-4.0 mini in the app. The move comes as OpenAI pledges greater transparency, launching a new Safety Evaluations Hub amid past criticism for releasing GPT-4.1 without a safety report. With rival tools like Google’s Gemini also advancing, the update arrives as OpenAI reportedly closes in on acquiring leading AI coding platform Windsurf. (Read Article)

● Shopify Gets Smarter with Bluecore’s Conversational AI Shopping Agent: Retail tech firm Bluecore has launched its AI assistant alby on Shopify, allowing merchants to offer real-time, personalized shopping help through conversational agents. Alby stands out by proactively guiding customers with predictive prompts and instant product recommendations, requiring no staff training or complex setup. Early adopters across sectors like fashion, electronics and beauty report engagement rates 15 times above industry norms. With ambitions to unify customer interactions across email, SMS and web, Bluecore aims to give smaller retailers AI tools to match Amazon-level service and drive conversions through individualized shopper journeys. (Check it out)

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AI Agents
Why is Firecrawl’s $1M AI Hiring Plan a Wake-Up Call for Business Leaders?

Y Combinator startup Firecrawl just did something bold: it launched a $1 million hiring campaign—but not for humans. It’s actively looking to hire AI agents as employees. And while the idea might sound like a Silicon Valley stunt, this experiment has big implications for how companies might build, scale, and structure teams in the AI era.

Let’s break down why this matters and what leaders should be paying attention to.

A Glimpse Into the AI-Powered Workforce:

Firecrawl is offering three roles to AI agents: a content creator, a customer support engineer, and a junior developer. Each position pays $5,000/month and comes with expectations typical of any full-time employee, from shipping quality work to handling customer interactions.

These aren’t glorified chatbots. Firecrawl wants agents that can:

● Autonomously generate, post, and optimize SEO content.

● Manage customer tickets with near-instant response times.

● Write code, triage issues, and even maintain developer docs.

Crucially, it’s not just about hiring the bots. Firecrawl also wants to partner with the humans building these agents, whether as contractors, full-time staff, or startups offering AI agent services. This dual-track strategy—hiring both the creators and the creations—reflects a new kind of workforce model: humans as AI operators, not just workers.

The Strategic Signal for Business Leaders:

So, what should you take away from this if you lead a company?

● AI Agents Are Becoming Strategic Assets
AI isn’t just about automation anymore—it’s about delegation. Firecrawl’s move signals a shift where AI agents are treated not just as tools but as team members with defined outputs, KPIs, and responsibilities.

● New Roles Are Emerging Around Agent Ops
Firecrawl’s founder Caleb Peffer envisions a future where “10x engineers” are the ones who build and oversee armies of AI agents. This opens up a new category of professionals—agent operators—who create, monitor, and scale digital workforces.

● The Labor Market Is Evolving, Fast
The $1M budget may cover a blend of AI and human contributors, but the direction is clear: cost-effective, always-on agents that augment or even replace traditional roles. Business leaders need to ask: which roles in our org could become AI-native?

A Reality Check: What’s Actually Possible Today?

Despite the hype, even Firecrawl admits the AI agents they want don’t fully exist yet. Their February search came up short, and they’re still hoping the right blend of models, workflows, and human oversight can bridge the gap.

This doesn’t mean the idea is ahead of its time—it means now is the time to experiment.

Companies that start integrating AI agents early—especially in content, customer success, and backend workflows—will gain first-mover advantages in cost, scale, and responsiveness. Those that wait for "perfect AI" might find themselves disrupted by competitors who were willing to build imperfect agents and refine them fast.

Final Thought: The Future Team Might Be Part Human, Part AI:

The big takeaway? AI hiring isn’t a gimmick—it’s the beginning of a new operational paradigm.

Business leaders must now consider how to:

● Audit roles that could be AI-assisted or AI-run

● Upskill staff into agent creators and operators

● Build a hybrid workforce strategy that combines human judgment with machine efficiency

Whether Firecrawl finds its ideal AI hires or not, its bold move sets the stage for a future where building teams also means building technology.

The companies that embrace this shift early will shape the standards—and the outcomes—of the AI-powered enterprise.

AI Tools
OpenAI Turns ChatGPT Into a Software Engineering Teammate:

OpenAI has launched Codex, a powerful new AI coding agent, directly inside ChatGPT, marking a significant move toward automating software development at scale.

A New Kind of Developer Assistant:

Codex runs in a virtual cloud environment and connects with GitHub to access codebases. It can write features, fix bugs, run tests, answer technical questions, and iterate on tasks—all within minutes.

Available now to Pro, Enterprise, and Team ChatGPT users, Codex is designed to act as a “virtual teammate,” working autonomously on engineering tasks that would normally take hours or days for a human.

Implications for Engineering Teams:

For tech leaders, Codex represents a meaningful shift in how software teams might be staffed and structured:

● Routine coding and debugging could be offloaded to agents

● Human engineers can focus on architecture, creativity, and oversight

● Productivity gains may reduce the need for outsourcing or bloated dev teams

OpenAI is already using Codex internally to scaffold features and draft documentation.

The Competitive Coding Landscape:

Codex arrives in a hot market: AI-written code now accounts for ~30% of output at Google and Microsoft. Startups like Cursor are reaching nine-figure revenues, and OpenAI has reportedly acquired Windsurf, another AI coding firm, for $3B.

With this launch, OpenAI isn’t just chasing the future of AI—it’s shaping how companies will build software in it.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading till the end. 😊 

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See you next week.