Listen to today’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silk-logic-small-business-daily/id1841930957
Small Business Daily Podcast — December 16, 2025
Today’s podcast episode was created from the following stories:
DuploCloud launches AI DevOps engineers that execute real infrastructure work
Read the full article | By Duncan Riley | Published: Dec 15, 2025
DuploCloud introduced AI DevOps Engineers that can safely provision, troubleshoot, and optimize cloud infrastructure within guardrails across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. The offering includes an Agentic Help Desk for ticket triage and incident resolution, aiming to reduce MTTR while maintaining compliance. For lean teams, this promises faster releases and improved reliability without adding headcount.
Agoyu wins 2025 Supply & Demand Chain Executive Top Tech Startup Award
Read the full article | By Bill Mulholland (quoted); press contact: Erika Cassidy | Published: Dec 15, 2025
Agoyu’s AI estimates moving costs in minutes by calculating weight and volume, then opens a real-time bidding marketplace so verified movers compete on price. The platform reports 2,000+ bookings and 420% YoY revenue growth, signaling strong demand for transparent relocation logistics. Businesses planning office moves or employee relocations could see faster quotes and lower costs.
Mirelo raises $41M from Index and a16z to solve AI video’s silent problem
Read the full article | By Anna Heim | Published: Dec 15, 2025
Berlin-based Mirelo builds AI that auto-generates synced sound effects for video and is expanding via APIs and a creator workspace called Mirelo Studio. Backed by Index and a16z, the startup emphasizes rights-respecting sound libraries and revenue-sharing with artists. For marketers and creators, better audio could boost engagement on AI-generated video without complex sound design.
ServiceNow mulls $7bn acquisition of Armis
Read the full article | By BV Swagath | Published: Dec 15, 2025
ServiceNow is in advanced talks to acquire Armis, a fast-growing cyber risk and device security company serving a large portion of the Fortune 100. Combined with ServiceNow’s pending Veza acquisition and its Moveworks deal earlier this year, the move points to a broader security and AI consolidation strategy. Expect tighter, platform-level security capabilities to show up in enterprise workflows—good news for organizations consolidating vendors.
Tuhk raises $6 million USD to crack down on financial cybercrime
Read the full article | By Madison McLauchlan | Published: Dec 15, 2025
Toronto-based Tuhk secured $6M to scale a platform that unifies siloed data into a shared intelligence network for proactive fraud detection. Backed by FINTOP, Lloyds Banking Group, and Capital One Ventures, the company plans expansion across the US, UK, and Canada. Merchants and fintechs could benefit from faster approvals, better dispute resolution, and reduced fraud losses.
Feeding the machine
Read the full article | By Josh Dzieza & Hayden Field | Published: Dec 15, 2025
The Verge explores the booming market for high-quality human training data powering the next wave of AI—spanning coding, finance, consulting, and more. As frontier labs chase “reasoning,” demand (and budgets) for expert-built rubrics and task environments is surging, reshaping staffing and data vendors. For experts and businesses, this creates new revenue streams—yet it also highlights the cost and complexity behind AI ROI.
QuEra: Thousands of neutral atom qubits a few years from commercial quantum advantage
Read the full article | By Brian Wang | Published: Dec 15, 2025
QuEra previewed a 2026 roadmap toward commercial quantum advantage using neutral atom qubits, sharing progress at the Q2B conference. While timelines remain fluid, the company signals practical milestones that could impact optimization and materials simulation. Small businesses need not act today, but it’s smart to monitor vendors’ quantum-readiness for medium-term planning.
This startup wants to build self-driving car software—super fast
Read the full article | By Aarian Marshall | Published: Dec 15, 2025
HyprLabs unveiled a “run-time learning” approach that teaches autonomous driving systems on-the-fly with far less data, using modified Teslas as testbeds. It’s not production-ready, but early results hint at cheaper, faster development cycles for robotics and autonomy. If the method scales, it could lower barriers for startups building task-specific robots and automated services.
Conclusion: From AI agents running cloud ops and smarter audio for video to an arms race in training data and a push toward integrated security, today’s stories share a theme—automation is moving deeper into critical workflows. Keep an eye on platforms that blend AI execution with human oversight, emerging data networks that curb fraud, and consolidation that simplifies security stacks. Together, they point to a 2026 where speed, trust, and interoperability decide who wins.
