Listen to today’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silk-logic-small-business-daily/id1841930957
Small Business Daily Podcast 12/13/2025
Today’s podcast episode was created from the following stories:
AI tools could drive $263 billion in holiday sales. Walmart and Target are racing to get in
Author: Gabrielle Fonrouge and Melissa Repko | Published: December 12, 2025
Generative AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini are reshaping holiday shopping, with Salesforce estimating AI will drive $263 billion in online sales — about 21% of orders. Retailers from Walmart and Target to Etsy are integrating with OpenAI to meet shoppers where they search, while early data shows AI-referred visitors convert more and spend longer browsing. As brands shift budgets from SEO to “answer engine optimization,” Amazon is blocking external chatbots from scraping its listings, highlighting diverging strategies.
Maharashtra partners with Microsoft to deploy AI system for cybercrime investigations
Author: Not specified | Published: December 12, 2025
Maharashtra unveiled MahaCrimeOS AI, an Azure OpenAI–powered platform co-developed with CyberEye to standardize cybercrime investigations, now piloting across 23 police stations. The state plans a rollout to all 1,100 stations, integrating legal references and open-source intelligence to link cases, analyze evidence, and accelerate response. The move aligns with Microsofts broader $17.5B commitment to Indias AI infrastructure.
Medra, a developer of AI-powered lab robots and scientists to advance drug discovery, raises $52M
Author: Mike Wheatley | Published: December 11, 2025
Medra raised $52 million to build a physical AI scientist that designs and executes lab experiments end-to-end, aiming to compress timelines and costs in drug discovery. Its Scientific AI plans experiments while a Physical AI system runs them autonomously on standard lab equipment, with early use by Genentech and others. The company will scale its platform and launch a fully automated lab next year.
Disney does a dubious deal with OpenAI, even as trust in AI wanes
Author: Robert Hof | Published: December 12, 2025
Disneys $1 billion deal with OpenAI to bring its characters to Sora signals a strategic embrace of generative video despite brand and IP risks. The move comes amid a broader trust gap in AI as regulators and researchers flag hallucinations and security concerns, even as enterprises push ahead. The piece argues that pragmatic, worker-bee AI strategies may outlast flashier AGI visions.
How can lawyers stop AI’s hallucinations? More AI, of course.
Author: Melia Russell | Published: December 12, 2025
After embarrassing chatbot-generated citations, law firm Cozen OConnor added Clearbriefs AI hallucination detector to flag fabricated cases and mismatched facts before filings go to court. The legal sector is shifting to vetted, walled garden AI tools (LexisNexis, Westlaw, Harvey) while training lawyers to treat AI output as a draft to verify. Documented hallucination incidents have surged, making AI-for-AI oversight a practical safeguard.
Oracle’s lease commitments jump by almost 150% as company builds out to meet AI demand
Author: Jordan Novet | Published: December 11, 2025
Oracle is ratcheting up its AI infrastructure push, boosting capex to $50B and disclosing $248B in long-term lease commitments, including $10B for cloud capacity. With OpenAI and other AI leaders as customers, Oracle is racing to add GPUs and data centers, even as investors question leverage and near-term revenue softness. The stock slid after earnings, underscoring execution and funding scrutiny.
AI inference startup Runware raises $50M to make AI run faster
Author: Mike Wheatley | Published: December 11, 2025
Runware secured $50 million to speed up and cut the cost of AI inference with custom hardware and its Sonic Inference Engine, offering real-time generation across image, video, and audio. Optimized for open-source models with zero-day access, it claims up to 10x lower pricing and supports hundreds of thousands of models via a simple API. A usage-based, per-output pricing approach differentiates it from rivals as it scales to new modalities.
BYT Capital announces 80 crore early-stage fund focused on deep-tech and frontier engineering
Author: BL Bengaluru Bureau | Published: December 12, 2025
BYT Capital launched a 80 crore Category II AIF to back 18 20 Indian deep-tech startups in space, life sciences, robotics, clean energy, and frontier AI, with over half the corpus already subscribed. The fund is geared toward patient capital, hands-on incubation, and translating lab breakthroughs into globally scalable products. It arrives as Indias deep-tech ecosystem surpasses $600 million in 2025 funding.
From AI-driven shopping and legal safeguards to massive infrastructure builds and fresh funding for frontier tech, todays lineup shows how AI is moving from experiments to everyday operations. For small businesses, the throughline is clear: optimize for AI discovery, verify what tools produce, and watch for new platforms and funds that can accelerate growth.
