The state of AI in June: Global adoption rises as demands for transparency grow

This week, Ipsos released the fifth edition of its AI Monitor report, which revealed an interesting development in the acceptance of artificial intelligence across the globe. 

The annual report tracks attitudes towards AI across 32 countries worldwide, with its 2026 AI Monitor suggesting that excitement and reticence are now almost on a par. On the one hand, 62% of workers report that AI has saved them time at work in the last 12 months. 49% also think that the benefits of AI outweigh the environmental costs. 

However, trust continues to have a notable impact on the acceptance of AI. Additionally, this appears likely to grow as more companies in the market: across 32 countries, 46% said they would trust AI less if responses included ads and content paid for by brands. 

This could undermine the viability of commercialization efforts that some AI providers are exploring, and highlights the importance of impartial models in the eyes of users. 

Trust also looks to be a question that governments are weighing in on heavily.

To highlight this, in June OpenAI was asked by the White House to limit the release of its upcoming GPT 5.6 due to its advanced capabilities, keeping its use in the hands of a limited number of approved partners. 

This follows on from Anthropic’s decision to stall on the public release of Mythos due to similar concerns about advanced model capabilities. Although the AI industry is driven by private tech companies, these developments highlight the need for a collaborative approach at a local and global level. 

Elsewhere, the true cost of AI seems to be adding up. Tech companies have spent years working to allay public concerns around how AI will disrupt society and labor markets. As acceptance grows and usage rates increase, the demand is causing prices to surge. 

Apple hiked the prices of some laptops and tablets by 20% this month due to massive surges in demand for chips and components. This has also led Microsoft to increase the price of its popular Xbox consoles by $100 in a short period of time. 

Beyond the high-level AI trends, here’s a round up of stories and headlines that you have missed this June. 

In June GetCovered acquired Revyse to consolidate AI tools for risk and compliance in real estate rentals 

GetCovered, a risk and compliance platform for multifamily housing operators led by Brandon Tobman, announced it had acquired Revyse, an AI-powered vendor intelligence platform led by CEO Bobbi Stewart.

The deal created the first unified platform managing risk across both residents and vendors in the multifamily sector. Revyse specializes in vendor management, handling bids, contracts, credentials and compliance documentation whilst automating enforcement when vendors fall out of compliance. 

GetCovered automates certificate of insurance (COI) tracking, policy administration, and embedded insurance workflows, helping property managers reduce compliance burdens and eliminate risk. 

Straive acquired NextGenInvest to transform legacy enterprise systems to unlock AI value 

Straive, a leader in data and AI operationalization, has carved out an important role in the AI industry thanks to its ability to transform legacy enterprise systems in order to better unlock value from the technology. 

This week, the company achieved a new milestone to expand its engineering service offerings through the acquisition of AI engineering provider NextGen Invent, in a move that looks to help more organizations address the challenges associated with scaling the technology. 

The acquisition means that the  AI engineering, data expertise, and deep domain knowledge at Straive will be complemented by domain expertise and NextGen Invent’s ability to deliver tailored AI engineering solutions for specific industries such as Life Sciences and Manufacturing. Together, Strive and NextGen Invent are looking to offer the depth of expertise and reach to recoup the trillions of dollars in value that is currently tied up in technical enterprise debt. 

ADvendio launched specialized Agentic workforce for advertising 

ADvendio, a leading revenue OS for agentic advertising, launched a new category of Agentic AI that marks the first time publishers, broadcasters, and retail media networks will have access to agents that are built specifically for the advertising industry. 

The first Specialised Agentic Workforce signals a new era of autonomous co-workers capable of executing workflows and scaling operations with minimal manual intervention. The company’s new solution is different from other agents as it has been designed and built from the ground up for media operations environments.

The launch signals a new era of autonomous co-workers capable of executing workflows and scaling operations with minimal manual intervention for publishers and media companies in advertising. 

QuickBlox revealed the missing layer in most AI strategies 

AI agents are no longer isolated automation tools. They are becoming active participants in customer communication, patient engagement, employee support, and operational workflows. 

According to QuickBlox, although the AI industry is spending enormous energy debating models, frameworks, and agent architectures, the communication infrastructure is now equally important as the platform itself when it comes to AI agent deployments.

The communication layer plays a critical role in making agentic AI useful in real-world use cases. For healthcare, this means the ability to automatically send a secure message, escalate to a human, schedule a consultation or coordinate multiple participants. More information can be found about the importance of the communication layer in AI tech stacks here.

MyUser CEO shares key lessons on building high-growth ventures 

Founder of MyUser Ibrahim Hasanov this month shared some pertinent advice for other founders in the high-stakes age of AI where startups are under increasing pressure to achieve 6-figure revenue with ever tighter resources. 

His first company was a payment processor for dropshippers, the merchants Stripe and the banks treat as too risky to touch. Although this venture went from zero to $600K MRR in six months, it wasn’t sustainable in the long term, and the company failed. 

By sharing this story, Ibrahim highlights the risk associated with building solutions that are overly dependent on external stakeholders and how this has influenced his strategy as a founder today.

Effie.AI supports Nestlé in overhauling retail execution in Ukraine

Nestlé’s Ukraine business had historically struggled with a lack of real-time visibility at store level, making it difficult to manage merchandising across a large and complex retail footprint.

Working with Effie.ai, it built a digital twin of its retail execution, combining image recognition, GPS and timestamps with machine-readable planograms and promotional rules to track shelf activity, SKUs and store visits in near real time across 45,000 monthly visits.

As a result, Nestlé’s data accuracy rose from 75% to 97%, shelf audit time dropped by 60%, and promotional availability improved from 84% to 95%. With those foundations in place, Nestlé is now looking to embed agentic functionality into the platform, a sign of where AI-powered retail execution is heading more broadly. 

QuickLaunch puts AI front and center in battle against identity fraud in higher education during recent townhall session 

This June, Edtech identity management platform QuickLaunch hosted its Q2 townhall meeting and revealed that AI agents will become frontline battle agents against ghost scams and student fraud. 

California cut ghost-student fraud losses by two-thirds in one fiscal year and intelligent AI is going to play a growing role in protecting higher education institutions from the financial costs of identity fraud.

Here, the Los Rios District suspected 64% of its early-2025 applications were fraudulent and federal investigators are reviewing more than $350 million in ghost-student fraud across roughly 200 open cases.

The company was also featured by Barchart in an article exploring the latest AI investment trends as an example of the significant runway for AI tools in education to scale. 

Microsoft MCAPS Start for Partners announces July 22 date

Microsoft is preparing to host MCAPS Start for Partners on July 22, a flagship event that gives partners an inside look at the company’s strategic priorities and investment areas for the year ahead.

Among the partners attending MCAPS Start is Sonata Software, one of the first companies recognized as a Microsoft Frontier Partner. “MCAPS Start for Partners is an important opportunity to align with Microsoft’s vision for the next phase of AI-driven transformation,” said Manu Swami, CTO of Sonata Software. “As enterprises move from experimentation to scaled adoption, success will depend on strong partner ecosystems that can combine AI innovation, cloud modernization, and industry expertise to deliver measurable business outcomes,” he added.

Swami also emphasized that enterprise AI success depends not only on capability, but on governance: “But capability alone is not the point. Autonomous action without governance is a liability. The agents we have built on Dynamics 365 and Copilot Studio have a control layer built in from day one. They act where the process allows, escalate where human judgment is needed, and leave a full audit trail behind them. That is what makes them trustworthy in production, not just impressive in a demo.”

This year’s MCAPS Start reflects Microsoft’s broader strategy of enabling partners to help customers move beyond isolated AI pilots and toward trusted, production-ready AI systems that deliver measurable business value at scale.