As agentic AI moves from pilots to enterprise-wide deployment, orchestration, data, governance, and clear business objectives are becoming critical for scaling, says chief operating officer at NiCE Arun Chandra. As agentic AI moves from experimentation toward enterprise deployment, the challenge is figuring out how agents can work together, connect to the systems and data they need, and operate safely across the workflows that run a business. Although agentic AI has been adopted by some 80% of Fortune 500 companies, progress toward meaningful scale remains uneven, with many organizations still working through isolated pilots. For Arun Chandra, chief operating officer at NiCE, the first step is moving beyond experimentation for its own sake. "Everybody's trying to figure out what can we do with this technology?" he says. But scaling requires a clearer connection to business strategy: Organizations need to define whether they are trying to increase revenue, reduce costs, or pursue another strategic or financial objective.

When the biotech company Insilico Medicine used its computer models to propose a promising drug for pulmonary fibrosis, it enthusiastically claimed in a press release that the molecule had been "discovered by" its generative AI platform. Insilico leads a pack of companies using AI to rapidly come up with drug ideas humans might never think of, potentially speeding the race to new cures. AI models are now able to generate atomic designs for drugs almost as easily as ChatGPT can write a thank-you note. However, when it came time to file for an all-important patent to protect that new chemical structure, the company made no mention of AI. Instead the patent names five humans, including CEO Alex Zhavoronkov, as the drug's "inventors."

Watch a subscriber-only conversation to learn about what this idea means for the future of American democracy and the internet. The "censorship-industrial complex" is an idea that a network of government, tech, and research groups is collaborating to suppress conservative online speech. This was fodder for the right-wing information sphere for years--then it began making its way into US policy. Watch a conversation exploring how it started, where it's going, and what it means for the future of democracy and the internet. A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that's holding back LLMs Will Douglas Heaven A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that's holding back LLMs Subquadratic has now shared more details about its new model. But some are still skeptical.

Click here for the September/October 2026 Puzzle Corner, brought to you by Michael S. Branicky, ScD '95, of the Puzzle Corner Puzzle Crew (aka PC), which also includes Edward Faulkner '03, MEng '04, and Abe Kunin '03. This column includes solutions to the May/June issue. Editor emeritus Allan Gottlieb '67 launched Puzzle Corner in 1966. A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that's holding back LLMs Will Douglas Heaven The "steroid olympics" were a circus--and a window into our culture Amit Katwala A startup claims it broke through a bottleneck that's holding back LLMs Subquadratic has now shared more details about its new model. But some are still skeptical. The "steroid olympics" were a circus--and a window into our culture Dozens of athletes on performance-enhancing drugs competed in the Enhanced Games.

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Sperm donor 9623 looked good on paper. Ontario couple Elizabeth Hanson and Angela Collins thought they had found the perfect father for their baby. Seven years after their son was born, Collins and Hanson discovered that donor 9623 was a college dropout with schizophrenia, a narcissistic personality disorder and a criminal history. He had spent eight months in prison for burglary, and 10 years on probation. The sperm bank had inadvertently included the donor's name, Christian Aggeles, in an email to the couple.