SirCozyCrow5 hours agoThe sound track is PEAK! I loved playing this, and my partner who normally doesn't play games like this one had a good time as well. I enjoyed the learning curve and I can't wait to play the harder difficulties.Here's a video I made, my partner jumped in for a few minutes as well.Replyso funReplyDrew.a.Chain1 day ago(+1)Very addictive!ReplyTrashpanda1191 day ago(+1)love the playstyle and the art style definitly fun to play plus the music is the cherry on topReplyAhoOppai1 day ago(+1)really fun game cant wait for the full gameReplyDin Xavier coding1 day agoI chose the laser eye. How do I turn the attack around? Can I even do that?Replyoverboy1 day agoHey, the laser eye gets a random direction at the start of each wave, it's one of the specificities of this attack ;)ReplyFort Kenmei1 day agoGameplay and Critique ;)Replyoverboy1 day ago(+1)Thanks a lot for the awesome video and the feedback! :)ReplyTLGaby2 days agoJust to know browser progress keep getting reset.Replyoverboy1 day ago (2 edits) (+1)Thanks for the report! Could it be due to some of your browser settings?Unfortunately, browser-based games can't always guarantee reliable local saves due to how browsers handle storage.To avoid this in the future, I recommend trying the downloadable version of the demo,  it provides a more stable environment for saving progress. :)Replyepic.Replyoleekconder2 days ago (1 edit) (+1)Very nice. Spent couple hours easy=) UPD: And some moreReplyMaximusR3 days agoes un juego que ya jugue en su momento cuando tenias menos cosas y ahora que esta actualizado quisiera grabarlo otra vezReplyEPIClove the spiders ♥ReplynineGardens3 days ago (1 edit) (+2)Okay so.... tried out a few things, and some Dev suggestions to report: Bigfoot is such a cool idea, and running around at that speed with like.... all THAT going on just gave me motion sickness.Summoner is hysterical fun. All hail spiders. Tomatoe's are pretty fun too.The Adept is so cool in theory, but... once you have the right build is a bit of a "standing still simulator"  Also, if you have totoms or other turrets, there's very much the question each round of "Will my circle spawn NEAR the totoms (instant win), or far from them (oh no)"   I kind of wonder if the mage circle should like... fizzle out after 20 seconds and appear somewhere else. Just... something to give a bit more dynamism, and to make the original spawn point less critical.Okay: added thoughts:Watering psycotic tomatoes feels great.Being a malevolent spider with 8 arms feels amazing. Feels very good and natural."Orbital" is one of the greatest and most fun abilities in the game.  I would take this even without the damage boost.Lots of fun, but also very silly. Good job.Replydave99993 days agowith some size you can kick the totems around to reposition them towards your circle, it benefits them too, adept can choose the wand at the start and with it you have no sustain problem anyway whatever build you want to set upReplynineGardens3 days agoOh damn- only just found out you can kick the totems!Okay, yeah in this case all is well. Or at least.... I still think a moving circle could be cool, but the fact that you can move your totems over to where the circle is makes things much better.Replyjust get enough amount+size and they hit everything, bounce is overkill ReplyLost track of time 10 hours in and still hooked. Absolutely love it! Can't wait for the full releaseReplyDriftedVoid4 days agoPretty good! ReplyIndyot4 days agoIt's a pretty addictive game, congrats! I lowkey missed a bit of satisfaction on the weapons though.ReplyCongrats on the game! I really like the weapons that you interact with which gives it a fun spin. (i.e. the spike ball)Reply1Soultaken4 days agoAnyone know good combos for the items? (I just pick randomly.)Replydave99994 days ago (1 edit) (+2)lasers plus amount+adept some arcane for basic dmg (its instable to setup and only overboy starts with one) totems +amount+ bounce+adept optional size and arcane you can stand still in the endall shovels with crit, strength their extra souls help you snowball hard and easy probably the most straightforward and stable very good build you can beat the game with nearly anything its well balanced but this one is very strong and easy (realized in the end that all size was wasted on this) soul flask, more chests are near always must pick, the high luck value ones give you better items the free reroll is a must pick, lightning dagger is somewhat unique as it  can carry you the entire early game even if you do not get enough element damage (I understand that the more gimmicky things like pets and kickables give the game versatility but to min max they are not that competative)Replydave99998 days agounderestimated totems Replylimey8 days agoi like how you made like MULTITUDES of updates on this so like as soon as i check my feed its just thisReplydave99998 days ago (1 edit) (+1)my best run so far,  there s a hidden mechanic that  makes weapons  you have more likely to drop?Replyoverboy8 days ago(+2)Lmao, awesome — looks like a really fun build to play! Yeah, Shop RNG uses a lot of hidden tricks to help you find relevant attacks, while still allowing unrelated ones to appear. That way, you can discover unique builds and experiment freely!Replyoverboy8 days ago (1 edit) Thank you so much for the incredible reception of the web demo on Itch, and to everyone who wishlisted the game! Many of the changes—along with much more to come in future updates—are directly based on your feedback here and on the game’s Discord. I’m also excited to announce that the game will release on Steam on 8 July 2025! Demo - Update 35 (06 June 2025)Singleplayer UI: Level Up Upgrade Phase and Chest Pickup Phase UI now display the items and attacks inventories (useful to check the scaling of current equipped attacks for example) Singleplayer Shop: subtle animation while selecting a Buy Button Many Balancing tweaks Balancing: nerfed Life Steal in various ways (lower values gained from items) Balancing: nerfed Knockback in various ways (lower values gained, higher item rarity, lower max applied value) Balancing: too much items enhancing HP Max were put in the Demo, this means it was easier to get a lot of HP and to survive in the Demo due to higher ratio of items providing HP Added a subtle duration during which the player can still pickup Souls even if they’re slurped by the Soul Portal Fine tuned the color of some weapons to improve the visibility Balancing: Ballista don’t double their projectiles based on amount anymore (only number of ballistas scales with amount) If Player HP is Full and HP Max > 20, the player can’t be one-shot Bugfix: in-game achievement pop up could be displayed below other UI elements while it should always be above everything else Potential Bugfix for a rare bug happening in Multiplayer shop where player2 Shop sections wasn’t displayed at allRework the save system in preparation for upcoming features ReplyxHELLO_WORLDx10 days agocontracts on the gameReplydave999910 days agoelijah_ap10 days agoLove the art style, upgrades, controls, etc. Balance might be the only thing off about this. If you were to add anything, I would want to see more variety in the stages, similar to Vampire Survivor. Otherwise- really great.ReplyThank you so much! I’ll keep working on the balance with each update, and I appreciate the suggestion on stage variety!ReplyNetsmile10 days agoTorch IV has a problem rounding numbers in the stats hover over display. Other levels of torches workReplyoverboy10 days ago (1 edit) Thanks, I'll fix this displayed rounding number issue soon!ReplySkeppartorsk10 days agoFor now I'd say it's fun, but lacking a bit in balance. I absolutely suck at brotatolikes. But find this one easy, so it's probably undertuned as far as difficulty is concerned. The power and availability of HP and regen items, makes you just literally not care if you get hit. Then the relatively strong armor on top and you're just too tanky for anything to feasibly ever kill you.Replyoverboy10 days ago (1 edit) (+1)Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like tanky builds might be a bit too forgiving right now, i'll do some balancing changesReplySkeppartorsk9 days ago (2 edits) Life steal has similar issues too. There's also the standard issue with knockback in these kinds of games. The lack of any enemy resistance/diminishing returns, means it's way too easy to get enough knockback that enemies cannot touch you anymore. Ranged attacks are too few and far between to worry about with the current levels of sustain. Meaning you can just Stand Still and Kill way too realiably. Edit: Lategame with 6x Wands I'm getting so much screen shake it's triggering simulation sickness. It was due to having Pierce + Bounce. The screen shake from my projectiles bouncing off the edge of the map.Replyoverboy8 days ago (2 edits) (+1)thanks for your feedback, it will help for the game balancing!For now I try to avoid diminishing returns by design to make sure each feature and stat is super easy to understand because I dislike when roguelike gets too opaque, I prefer that the player fully and easily undestand each of its choices, but yeah that involves a good balance to find!In future updates, Life Steal will become harder to get, Knockback will be capped at lower maximum applied values.Regarding the overall difficulty, the full version has 3 extra level of difficulties, and based on some feedbacks i have from beta testers, the balance between the 5 difficulty modes seem to be close to what i'm aiming for (minus some issues like you pointed out, and of course some balancing required on specific builds and items)There is already an option to disable screenshakes ;)Edit: Would you be interested to join the beta-test of the full game? If so please join the Discord and ping me in DM ;)ReplySkeppartorsk8 days ago (4 edits) I did notice that you could turn off screen shake entirely. But admittedly a lot of the visceral feel of the combat goes away when you fully disable the screen shake. But when you have too many Leeroy/knockback projectiles/bouncing projectiles. It just reaches the point where simulation sickness sets in. Wish there was something like an intensity setting, or a way for it to cap out at how often a screen shake can get triggered. I agree on the opaque thing. But I was more thinking something akin to how CC Diminishing Returns works in WoW. Where 1st hit = full value, 2nd hit within 10s = half value, 3rd hit = 1/4 value. Then 10s of immunity before it resets. That way you still get knockback when you pick knockback. But you can't just perma nail enemies against the wall. Edit: Also there's a wording issue (or a bug) with how multiple pentagrams work. If you have adept pentagram and the item pentagram the wording is "when you stand inside a pentagram" But the item one gives the 20% damage ONLY and the adept one gives the adept bonuses ONLY. The wording would mean that both pentagrams should give adept bonus AND 20% damage bonus.Edit2: I'd suggest reformatting Grimorius tooltip so that the -10% armor is above the "on level up"portion. The indentation difference between the +1% speed and -10% armor is small enough that I read it as losing 10% armor on every level up.Replyoverboy8 days agoThanks a lot for the interesting insights!I nerfed HP, Lifesteal and Knockback using various techniques in the last update, along with many other changes.Just tested Pentagram/Adept and it works as expected: the 2 effects stack correctly as the wording impliedI reformatted Grimorius tooltip as you suggested ;)ReplyView more in threadBad Piggy11 days agoVery cool in it's current state. I love how much it really emphasises movement like how some active abilities need to be grabbed from around the arena to do themThat said, I think enemy projectiles could honestly stand out more. I could hardly see them at times in all the chaos.Still, I think this is a pretty solid base right now, and as always, you have a beautiful visual style, though I feel like the game suffers a little from how busy it can get. Great stuff so far thoughReplyThanks Bad Piggy! Really glad you’re enjoying the mechanics. I appreciate the feedback on projectile visibility and how busy things can get. I’ll definitely look into ways to improve those aspects. Really grateful for the kind words and thoughtful feedback!ReplyLeoLohandro11 days agoA copy of the brotato), but still fun.Replyoverboy11 days ago (2 edits) (+1)Hey thanks a lot! Yes this game is a Brotato-like with many twists and new innovative mechanics, such as:- Equippable Boss Patterns (active skills you can trigger by picking orbs on the map)- Minion Summoning- Growing Plant Minions with a watercan- Amount and Size stats - Physics-Based Weapons – like chained spikeballs- Kickable stuff (you can even play soccer with your minions or other co-op players)- Playable character merge feature (get the effect of 2 different characters or more at the same time)- Dozens and dozens of unique effects (turning enemies into Sheep, or Golden Statues, or both?)I'm aiming for something like The Binding of Isaac meets Brotato — a deep, replayable experience full of chaotic synergies and wild builds that feel totally unique each run, with all the "being a boss fantasy and humor" deeply included in the mechanics and content :)Reply

Google and OpenAI struck a cloud computing deal in May, according to a Reuters report. The deal surprised the industry as the two are seen as major AI rivals. Signs of friction between OpenAI and Microsoft may have also fueled the move. The partnership is a win-win.OpenAI gets more badly needed computing resources while Google profits from its $75B investment to boost its cloud computing capacity in 2025. In a surprise move, Google and OpenAI inked a deal that will see the AI rivals partnering to address OpenAI’s growing cloud computing needs. The story, reported by Reuters, cited anonymous sources saying that the deal had been discussed for months and finalized in May. Around this time, OpenAI has struggled to keep up with demand as its number of weekly active users and business users grew in Q1 2025. There’s also speculation of friction between OpenAI and its biggest investor Microsoft. Why the Deal Surprised the Tech Industry The rivalry between the two companies hardly needs an introduction. When OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in November 2022, it posed a huge threat to Google that triggered a code red within the search giant and cloud services provider. Since then, Google has launched Bard (now known as Gemini) to compete with OpenAI head-on. However, it had to play catch up with OpenAI’s more advanced ChatGPT AI chatbot. This led to numerous issues with Bard, with critics referring to it as a half-baked product. A post on X in February 2023 showed the Bard AI chatbot erroneously stating that the James Webb Telescope took the first picture of an exoplanet. It was, in fact, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope that did this in 2004. Google’s parent company Alphabet lost $100B off its market value within 24 hours as a result. Two years on, Gemini made significant strides in terms of accuracy, quoting sources, and depth of information, but is still prone to hallucinations from time to time. You can see examples of these posted on social media, like telling a user to make spicy spaghetti with gasoline or the AI thinking it’s still 2024.  And then there’s this gem: With the entire industry shifting towards more AI integrations, Google went ahead and integrated its AI suite into Search via AI Overviews. It then doubled down on this integration with AI Mode, an experimental feature that lets you perform AI-powered searches by typing in a question, uploading a photo, or using your voice. In the future, AI Mode from Google Search could be a viable competitor to ChatGPT—unless of course, Google decides to bin it along with many of its previous products. Given the scope of the investment, and Gemini’s significant improvement, we doubt AI + Search will be axed. It’s a Win-Win for Google and OpenAI—Not So Much for Microsoft? In the business world, money and the desire for expansion can break even the biggest rivalries. And the one between the two tech giants isn’t an exception. Partly, it could be attributed to OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft. Although the Redmond, Washington-based company has invested billions in OpenAI and has the resources to meet the latter’s cloud computing needs, their partnership hasn’t always been rosy.  Some would say it began when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was briefly ousted in November 2023, which put a strain on the ‘best bromance in tech’ between him and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Then last year, Microsoft added OpenAI to its list of competitors in the AI space before eventually losing its status as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider in January 2025. If that wasn’t enough, there’s also the matter of the two companies’ goal of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). Defined as when OpenAI develops AI systems that generate $100B in profits, reaching AGI means Microsoft will lose access to the former’s technology. With the company behind ChatGPT expecting to triple its 2025 revenue to $12.7 from $3.7B the previous year, this could happen sooner rather than later. While OpenAI already has deals with Microsoft, Oracle, and CoreWeave to provide it with cloud services and access to infrastructure, it needs more and soon as the company has seen massive growth in the past few months. In February, OpenAI announced that it had over 400M weekly active users, up from 300M in December 2024. Meanwhile, the number of its business users who use ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Team, and ChatGPT Edu products also jumped from 2M in February to 3M in March. The good news is Google is more than ready to deliver. Its parent company has earmarked $75B towards its investments in AI this year, which includes boosting its cloud computing capacity. In April, Google launched its 7th generation tensor processing unit (TPU) called Ironwood, which has been designed specifically for inference. According to the company, the new TPU will help power AI models that will ‘proactively retrieve and generate data to collaboratively deliver insights and answers, not just data.’The deal with OpenAI can be seen as a vote of confidence in Google’s cloud computing capability that competes with the likes of Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. It also expands Google’s vast client list that includes tech, gaming, entertainment, and retail companies, as well as organizations in the public sector. As technology continues to evolve—from the return of 'dumbphones' to faster and sleeker computers—seasoned tech journalist, Cedric Solidon, continues to dedicate himself to writing stories that inform, empower, and connect with readers across all levels of digital literacy. With 20 years of professional writing experience, this University of the Philippines Journalism graduate has carved out a niche as a trusted voice in tech media. Whether he's breaking down the latest advancements in cybersecurity or explaining how silicon-carbon batteries can extend your phone’s battery life, his writing remains rooted in clarity, curiosity, and utility. Long before he was writing for Techreport, HP, Citrix, SAP, Globe Telecom, CyberGhost VPN, and ExpressVPN, Cedric's love for technology began at home courtesy of a Nintendo Family Computer and a stack of tech magazines. Growing up, his days were often filled with sessions of Contra, Bomberman, Red Alert 2, and the criminally underrated Crusader: No Regret. But gaming wasn't his only gateway to tech.  He devoured every T3, PCMag, and PC Gamer issue he could get his hands on, often reading them cover to cover. It wasn’t long before he explored the early web in IRC chatrooms, online forums, and fledgling tech blogs, soaking in every byte of knowledge from the late '90s and early 2000s internet boom. That fascination with tech didn’t just stick. It evolved into a full-blown calling. After graduating with a degree in Journalism, he began his writing career at the dawn of Web 2.0. What started with small editorial roles and freelance gigs soon grew into a full-fledged career. He has since collaborated with global tech leaders, lending his voice to content that bridges technical expertise with everyday usability. He’s also written annual reports for Globe Telecom and consumer-friendly guides for VPN companies like CyberGhost and ExpressVPN, empowering readers to understand the importance of digital privacy. His versatility spans not just tech journalism but also technical writing. He once worked with a local tech company developing web and mobile apps for logistics firms, crafting documentation and communication materials that brought together user-friendliness with deep technical understanding. That experience sharpened his ability to break down dense, often jargon-heavy material into content that speaks clearly to both developers and decision-makers. At the heart of his work lies a simple belief: technology should feel empowering, not intimidating. Even if the likes of smartphones and AI are now commonplace, he understands that there's still a knowledge gap, especially when it comes to hardware or the real-world benefits of new tools. His writing hopes to help close that gap. Cedric’s writing style reflects that mission. It’s friendly without being fluffy and informative without being overwhelming. Whether writing for seasoned IT professionals or casual readers curious about the latest gadgets, he focuses on how a piece of technology can improve our lives, boost our productivity, or make our work more efficient. That human-first approach makes his content feel more like a conversation than a technical manual. As his writing career progresses, his passion for tech journalism remains as strong as ever. With the growing need for accessible, responsible tech communication, he sees his role not just as a journalist but as a guide who helps readers navigate a digital world that’s often as confusing as it is exciting. From reviewing the latest devices to unpacking global tech trends, Cedric isn’t just reporting on the future; he’s helping to write it. View all articles by Cedric Solidon Our editorial process The Tech Report editorial policy is centered on providing helpful, accurate content that offers real value to our readers. We only work with experienced writers who have specific knowledge in the topics they cover, including latest developments in technology, online privacy, cryptocurrencies, software, and more. Our editorial policy ensures that each topic is researched and curated by our in-house editors. We maintain rigorous journalistic standards, and every article is 100% written by real authors.

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more When DeepSeek released its R1 model this January, it wasn’t just another AI announcement. It was a watershed moment that sent shockwaves through the tech industry, forcing industry leaders to reconsider their fundamental approaches to AI development. What makes DeepSeek’s accomplishment remarkable isn’t that the company developed novel capabilities; rather, it was how it achieved comparable results to those delivered by tech heavyweights at a fraction of the cost. In reality, DeepSeek didn’t do anything that hadn’t been done before; its innovation stemmed from pursuing different priorities. As a result, we are now experiencing rapid-fire development along two parallel tracks: efficiency and compute.  As DeepSeek prepares to release its R2 model, and as it concurrently faces the potential of even greater chip restrictions from the U.S., it’s important to look at how it captured so much attention. Engineering around constraints DeepSeek’s arrival, as sudden and dramatic as it was, captivated us all because it showcased the capacity for innovation to thrive even under significant constraints. Faced with U.S. export controls limiting access to cutting-edge AI chips, DeepSeek was forced to find alternative pathways to AI advancement. While U.S. companies pursued performance gains through more powerful hardware, bigger models and better data, DeepSeek focused on optimizing what was available. It implemented known ideas with remarkable execution — and there is novelty in executing what’s known and doing it well. This efficiency-first mindset yielded incredibly impressive results. DeepSeek’s R1 model reportedly matches OpenAI’s capabilities at just 5 to 10% of the operating cost. According to reports, the final training run for DeepSeek’s V3 predecessor cost a mere $6 million — which was described by former Tesla AI scientist Andrej Karpathy as “a joke of a budget” compared to the tens or hundreds of millions spent by U.S. competitors. More strikingly, while OpenAI reportedly spent $500 million training its recent “Orion” model, DeepSeek achieved superior benchmark results for just $5.6 million — less than 1.2% of OpenAI’s investment. If you get starry eyed believing these incredible results were achieved even as DeepSeek was at a severe disadvantage based on its inability to access advanced AI chips, I hate to tell you, but that narrative isn’t entirely accurate (even though it makes a good story). Initial U.S. export controls focused primarily on compute capabilities, not on memory and networking — two crucial components for AI development. That means that the chips DeepSeek had access to were not poor quality chips; their networking and memory capabilities allowed DeepSeek to parallelize operations across many units, a key strategy for running their large model efficiently. This, combined with China’s national push toward controlling the entire vertical stack of AI infrastructure, resulted in accelerated innovation that many Western observers didn’t anticipate. DeepSeek’s advancements were an inevitable part of AI development, but they brought known advancements forward a few years earlier than would have been possible otherwise, and that’s pretty amazing. Pragmatism over process Beyond hardware optimization, DeepSeek’s approach to training data represents another departure from conventional Western practices. Rather than relying solely on web-scraped content, DeepSeek reportedly leveraged significant amounts of synthetic data and outputs from other proprietary models. This is a classic example of model distillation, or the ability to learn from really powerful models. Such an approach, however, raises questions about data privacy and governance that might concern Western enterprise customers. Still, it underscores DeepSeek’s overall pragmatic focus on results over process. The effective use of synthetic data is a key differentiator. Synthetic data can be very effective when it comes to training large models, but you have to be careful; some model architectures handle synthetic data better than others. For instance, transformer-based models with mixture of experts (MoE) architectures like DeepSeek’s tend to be more robust when incorporating synthetic data, while more traditional dense architectures like those used in early Llama models can experience performance degradation or even “model collapse” when trained on too much synthetic content. This architectural sensitivity matters because synthetic data introduces different patterns and distributions compared to real-world data. When a model architecture doesn’t handle synthetic data well, it may learn shortcuts or biases present in the synthetic data generation process rather than generalizable knowledge. This can lead to reduced performance on real-world tasks, increased hallucinations or brittleness when facing novel situations.  Still, DeepSeek’s engineering teams reportedly designed their model architecture specifically with synthetic data integration in mind from the earliest planning stages. This allowed the company to leverage the cost benefits of synthetic data without sacrificing performance. Market reverberations Why does all of this matter? Stock market aside, DeepSeek’s emergence has triggered substantive strategic shifts among industry leaders. Case in point: OpenAI. Sam Altman recently announced plans to release the company’s first “open-weight” language model since 2019. This is a pretty notable pivot for a company that built its business on proprietary systems. It seems DeepSeek’s rise, on top of Llama’s success, has hit OpenAI’s leader hard. Just a month after DeepSeek arrived on the scene, Altman admitted that OpenAI had been “on the wrong side of history” regarding open-source AI.  With OpenAI reportedly spending $7 to 8 billion annually on operations, the economic pressure from efficient alternatives like DeepSeek has become impossible to ignore. As AI scholar Kai-Fu Lee bluntly put it: “You’re spending $7 billion or $8 billion a year, making a massive loss, and here you have a competitor coming in with an open-source model that’s for free.” This necessitates change. This economic reality prompted OpenAI to pursue a massive $40 billion funding round that valued the company at an unprecedented $300 billion. But even with a war chest of funds at its disposal, the fundamental challenge remains: OpenAI’s approach is dramatically more resource-intensive than DeepSeek’s. Beyond model training Another significant trend accelerated by DeepSeek is the shift toward “test-time compute” (TTC). As major AI labs have now trained their models on much of the available public data on the internet, data scarcity is slowing further improvements in pre-training. To get around this, DeepSeek announced a collaboration with Tsinghua University to enable “self-principled critique tuning” (SPCT). This approach trains AI to develop its own rules for judging content and then uses those rules to provide detailed critiques. The system includes a built-in “judge” that evaluates the AI’s answers in real-time, comparing responses against core rules and quality standards. The development is part of a movement towards autonomous self-evaluation and improvement in AI systems in which models use inference time to improve results, rather than simply making models larger during training. DeepSeek calls its system “DeepSeek-GRM” (generalist reward modeling). But, as with its model distillation approach, this could be considered a mix of promise and risk. For example, if the AI develops its own judging criteria, there’s a risk those principles diverge from human values, ethics or context. The rules could end up being overly rigid or biased, optimizing for style over substance, and/or reinforce incorrect assumptions or hallucinations. Additionally, without a human in the loop, issues could arise if the “judge” is flawed or misaligned. It’s a kind of AI talking to itself, without robust external grounding. On top of this, users and developers may not understand why the AI reached a certain conclusion — which feeds into a bigger concern: Should an AI be allowed to decide what is “good” or “correct” based solely on its own logic? These risks shouldn’t be discounted. At the same time, this approach is gaining traction, as again DeepSeek builds on the body of work of others (think OpenAI’s “critique and revise” methods, Anthropic’s constitutional AI or research on self-rewarding agents) to create what is likely the first full-stack application of SPCT in a commercial effort. This could mark a powerful shift in AI autonomy, but there still is a need for rigorous auditing, transparency and safeguards. It’s not just about models getting smarter, but that they remain aligned, interpretable, and trustworthy as they begin critiquing themselves without human guardrails. Moving into the future So, taking all of this into account, the rise of DeepSeek signals a broader shift in the AI industry toward parallel innovation tracks. While companies continue building more powerful compute clusters for next-generation capabilities, there will also be intense focus on finding efficiency gains through software engineering and model architecture improvements to offset the challenges of AI energy consumption, which far outpaces power generation capacity.  Companies are taking note. Microsoft, for example, has halted data center development in multiple regions globally, recalibrating toward a more distributed, efficient infrastructure approach. While still planning to invest approximately $80 billion in AI infrastructure this fiscal year, the company is reallocating resources in response to the efficiency gains DeepSeek introduced to the market. Meta has also responded, With so much movement in such a short time, it becomes somewhat ironic that the U.S. sanctions designed to maintain American AI dominance may have instead accelerated the very innovation they sought to contain. By constraining access to materials, DeepSeek was forced to blaze a new trail. Moving forward, as the industry continues to evolve globally, adaptability for all players will be key. Policies, people and market reactions will continue to shift the ground rules — whether it’s eliminating the AI diffusion rule, a new ban on technology purchases or something else entirely. It’s what we learn from one another and how we respond that will be worth watching. Jae Lee is CEO and co-founder of TwelveLabs. Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

A Microsoft-backed AI startup that relied on hundreds of human workers posing as chatbots has collapsed into bankruptcy amid fraud allegations. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images A once-hyped AI startup backed by Microsoft has filed for bankruptcy after it was revealed that its so-called artificial intelligence was actually hundreds of human workers in India pretending to be chatbots.Builder.ai, a London-based company previously valued at $1.5 billion, marketed its platform as an AI-powered solution that made building apps as simple as ordering pizza. Its virtual assistant, "Natasha," was supposed to generate software using artificial intelligence.In reality, nearly 700 engineers in India were manually coding customer requests behind the scenes, the Times of India reported.The ruse began to collapse in May when lender Viola Credit seized $37 million from the company's accounts, uncovering that Builder.ai had inflated its 2024 revenue projections by 300%. An audit revealed the company generated just $50 million in revenue, far below the $220 million it claimed to investors.A Wall Street Journal report from 2019 had already questioned Builder.ai's AI claims, and a former executive sued the company that same year for allegedly misleading investors and overstating its technical capabilities.Despite that, the company raised over $445 million from big names including Microsoft and the Qatar Investment Authority. Builder.ai's collapse has triggered a federal investigation in the U.S., with prosecutors in New York requesting financial documents and customer records.Founder Sachin Dev Duggal stepped down earlier this year and was replaced by Manpreet Ratia, who reportedly uncovered the company's internal misrepresentations.The company now owes millions to Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing costs and has laid off around 1,000 employees. On LinkedIn, the company announced its entry into insolvency proceedings, citing "historic challenges and past decisions" that strained its finances.The fallout is seen as one of the biggest failures of the post-ChatGPT AI investment boom and has renewed scrutiny of "AI washing"—the trend of rebranding manual services as artificial intelligence to secure funding.© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

In Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California, trees that have persisted through rain and shine for thousands of years are now facing multiple threats triggered by a changing climate. Scientists and park managers once thought giant sequoia forests were nearly impervious to stressors like wildfire, drought and pests. Yet, even very large trees are proving vulnerable, particularly when those stressors are amplified by rising temperatures and increasing weather extremes. The rapid pace of climate change—combined with threats like the spread of invasive species and diseases—can affect ecosystems in ways that defy expectations based on past experiences. As a result, Western forests are transitioning to grasslands or shrublands after unprecedented wildfires. Woody plants are expanding into coastal wetlands. Coral reefs are being lost entirely. To protect these places, which are valued for their natural beauty and the benefits they provide for recreation, clean water and wildlife, forest and land managers increasingly must anticipate risks they have never seen before. And they must prepare for what those risks will mean for stewardship as ecosystems rapidly transform. As ecologists and a climate scientist, we’re helping them figure out how to do that. Managing changing ecosystems Traditional management approaches focus on maintaining or restoring how ecosystems looked and functioned historically. However, that doesn’t always work when ecosystems are subjected to new and rapidly shifting conditions. Ecosystems have many moving parts—plants, animals, fungi, and microbes; and the soil, air and water in which they live—that interact with one another in complex ways. When the climate changes, it’s like shifting the ground on which everything rests. The results can undermine the integrity of the system, leading to ecological changes that are hard to predict. To plan for an uncertain future, natural resource managers need to consider many different ways changes in climate and ecosystems could affect their landscapes. Essentially, what scenarios are possible? Preparing for multiple possibilities At Sequoia and Kings Canyon, park managers were aware that climate change posed some big risks to the iconic trees under their care. More than a decade ago, they undertook a major effort to explore different scenarios that could play out in the future. It’s a good thing they did, because some of the more extreme possibilities they imagined happened sooner than expected. In 2014, drought in California caused the giant sequoias’ foliage to die back, something never documented before. In 2017, sequoia trees began dying from insect damage. And, in 2020 and 2021, fires burned through sequoia groves, killing thousands of ancient trees. While these extreme events came as a surprise to many people, thinking through the possibilities ahead of time meant the park managers had already begun to take steps that proved beneficial. One example was prioritizing prescribed burns to remove undergrowth that could fuel hotter, more destructive fires. The key to effective planning is a thoughtful consideration of a suite of strategies that are likely to succeed in the face of many different changes in climates and ecosystems. That involves thinking through wide-ranging potential outcomes to see how different strategies might fare under each scenario—including preparing for catastrophic possibilities, even those considered unlikely. For example, prescribed burning may reduce risks from both catastrophic wildfire and drought by reducing the density of plant growth, whereas suppressing all fires could increase those risks in the long run. Strategies undertaken today have consequences for decades to come. Managers need to have confidence that they are making good investments when they put limited resources toward actions like forest thinning, invasive species control, buying seeds or replanting trees. Scenarios can help inform those investment choices. Constructing credible scenarios of ecological change to inform this type of planning requires considering the most important unknowns. Scenarios look not only at how the climate could change, but also how complex ecosystems could react and what surprises might lay beyond the horizon. Scientists at the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center are collaborating with managers in the Nebraska Sandhills to develop scenarios of future ecological change under different climate conditions, disturbance events like fires and extreme droughts, and land uses like grazing. [Photos: T. Walz, M. Lavin, C. Helzer, O. Richmond, NPS (top to bottom)., CC BY] Key ingredients for crafting ecological scenarios To provide some guidance to people tasked with managing these landscapes, we brought together a group of experts in ecology, climate science, and natural resource management from across universities and government agencies. We identified three key ingredients for constructing credible ecological scenarios: 1. Embracing ecological uncertainty: Instead of banking on one “most likely” outcome for ecosystems in a changing climate, managers can better prepare by mapping out multiple possibilities. In Nebraska’s Sandhills, we are exploring how this mostly intact native prairie could transform, with outcomes as divergent as woodlands and open dunes. 2. Thinking in trajectories: It’s helpful to consider not just the outcomes, but also the potential pathways for getting there. Will ecological changes unfold gradually or all at once? By envisioning different pathways through which ecosystems might respond to climate change and other stressors, natural resource managers can identify critical moments where specific actions, such as removing tree seedlings encroaching into grasslands, can steer ecosystems toward a more desirable future. 3. Preparing for surprises: Planning for rare disasters or sudden species collapses helps managers respond nimbly when the unexpected strikes, such as a severe drought leading to widespread erosion. Being prepared for abrupt changes and having contingency plans can mean the difference between quickly helping an ecosystem recover and losing it entirely. Over the past decade, access to climate model projections through easy-to-use websites has revolutionized resource managers’ ability to explore different scenarios of how the local climate might change. What managers are missing today is similar access to ecological model projections and tools that can help them anticipate possible changes in ecosystems. To bridge this gap, we believe the scientific community should prioritize developing ecological projections and decision-support tools that can empower managers to plan for ecological uncertainty with greater confidence and foresight. Ecological scenarios don’t eliminate uncertainty, but they can help to navigate it more effectively by identifying strategic actions to manage forests and other ecosystems. Kyra Clark-Wolf is a research scientist in ecological transformation at the University of Colorado Boulder. Brian W. Miller is a research ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. Imtiaz Rangwala is a research scientist in climate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Apple — and almost everybody else — has gotten a slight reprieve as a US court yesterday set aside the Trump tariff tax. But conflict and confusion continue to batter global trade, and while the news will provide a glimmer of relief, it will probably be short-lived. There’s always another dead cat to throw into the flames. Three judges from the US Court of International Trade found that the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the Trump administration invoked to justify the imposition of these tariffs, does not give the president the authority to levy these taxes on trade. “The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” they wrote. The judgement does not impact the 25% “trafficking tariffs” imposed on Mexican and Canadian products and does not prevent the 20% trafficking tariff in place on Chinese goods. It does, however, end the “worldwide and retaliatory” 10-50% tariffs the administration threw at 57 countries. A coalition of small businesses took the case to court, arguing that only Congress has the authority to levy tariffs under the law used by the president’s office. They seem to have prevailed in the argument — at least, so far. It is interesting to note that the administration wanted all the tariff-related lawsuits moved to this particular court, as it felt it would receptive to the administration’s arguments.  This turned out to be an error. What is an emergency? Responding, a White House statement from spokesperson Kush Desai maintained the need for these tariffs, calling US trade deficits a “national emergency that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind and weakened our defense industrial base — facts that the court did not dispute.”  But can a trade in cheap consumer goods be seen as an unusual threat after it has been part of US culture for decades? Not according to the US Court of International Trade. The judges say the trade deficit does not meet the Nixon-era International Emergency Economic Powers Act requirement that an emergency can only be triggered by an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”  The journey is by no means over, of course. With the president recently threatening additional tariffs on iPhones made in India (“I have a bit of a problem with my friend, Tim Cook”), the reprieve may be brief.  Desai’s statement said “unelected judges” are not the right people to decide how to handle what he calls a national emergency. “The administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness.”  It seems likely to end at the Supreme Court, even while the administration argues that it should not be bound by the checks and balances that still remain under the US Constitution. For now, an appeal has been lodged with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.  Where is the off-ramp? Apple, the world’s biggest consumer electronics company, which contributes a fortune to the US treasury and employs tens of thousands of Americans, will likely be relieved the tariffs have been set aside.  The reprieve implies that US consumers won’t need to pay more for their iPhones for a little longer yet and better reflects the reality that even if Apple were to shift iPhone manufacturing to the US, doing so would take years, cost billions, require engineering skills in quantities that do not yet exist in the US, would involve automation rather than large numbers of new jobs, and would be hampered by the availability of components and materials.  For the time being, at least, the judgment is a significant obstacle to the tariff taxes, albeit one that casts another spanner in the works for ongoing international trade talks. However, there is still scope for the administration to impose sector-specific taxes. All the same, “Tim Apple” will be acutely aware that the future will not look like the past, and the company’s $500 billion investment in the US will be part of the company’s future approach to manufacturing and trade. It suggests that while moving iPhone manufacturing to the US may be impractical, moving manufacture of some components and hardware may make sense. It is possible that as Apple and the US administration continue to negotiate, they may yet identify a road that enables both to declare some form of victory. You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Long-time 9to5Mac readers will remember that the native Shortcuts app started as an indie project called Workflow, a clever, approachable tool that made automation fun and accessible to less technical users. Today, Shortcuts remains a powerful utility, particularly on the Mac. However, compared to how agentic AI tools have reshaped how we think about automation, it’s feeling a bit stagnant. That may be about to change. As reported by Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter, Apple is preparing a significant overhaul of its Shortcuts app, integrating AI capabilities through its Apple Intelligence initiative: “A revamped version of its Shortcuts app, which today lets users create actions such as launching certain features within apps or playing a particular playlist. The new version will let consumers create those actions using Apple Intelligence models. (This had long been planned for 2025, but delays may push it to 2026.)” In other words, an AI-based Shortcuts app might allow more natural language interactions, further lowering the barrier for automation-curious users who might find the current interface a bit challenging to navigate. This move aligns with broader industry trends where AI is increasingly integrated into system-level functionalities. Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs, for instance, feature an AI agent capable of performing actions and daisy-chaining system adjustments based on user requests through natural language commands. Imagine combining this capability with AI-generated automations triggered by simple voice or text prompts, such as: “When I start a Zoom, Teams, Meet, or FaceTime call, activate Do Not Disturb, dim the screen, and open Notes. During the meeting, capture participant names, job titles, and key discussion points. After the call, draft an email summarizing the meeting and outlining each person’s action items.” This might be trivial for you, but it sure isn’t for most users. And having this sort of stuff one voice command away could be really powerful. I’ll say it again: MCP And then there’s Anthropic’s MCP, an open standard designed to facilitate seamless integration between AI assistants and external data sources and tools. Against all odds, it has been adopted by major players, including Google and OpenAI (who also offer their own solutions), in a rare case of cross-industry collaboration. While it’s uncertain whether Apple will ever embrace MCP, its adoption would absolutely benefit users by enabling automation even further, beyond just system settings and limited local app control. Given Gurman’s report that this AI-powered Shortcuts feature, initially planned for 2025, might be delayed to 2026, it’s unlikely we’ll see it showcased at the June 9 WWDC keynote. Still, it’s a relief to know that Apple has been paying attention to this aspect of agentic AI. Whether it will deliver on its promise remains to be seen. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

3D printer manufacturer Bambu Lab has issued a new update after an early fix was withdrawn. Termed a critical calibration bug, the company has acted swiftly to deliver new code to its many users. The Shenzhen-based company has now released firmware version V01.01.02.07 for its H2D 3D printer through its Public Beta Program. Rolled out on May 23, this update introduces a comprehensive set of new features, performance enhancements, and critical bug fixes designed to elevate print quality, expand hardware compatibility, and offer users greater control. The release builds on feedback gathered from earlier beta phases. The Bambu Lab H2D Laser Full Combo in a workshop. Image via Bambu Lab. Features and Improvements Firmware V01.01.02.07 adds native support for the CyberBrick time-lapse kit. It also expands the H2D’s onboard AI failure detection system, now giving users the ability to individually toggle detection functions for nozzle clumping, spaghetti printing, air printing, and purge chute pile-ups from the printer’s interface. Hardware compatibility has been further extended. The AMS 2 Pro and AMS HT systems now support RFID-based automatic matching of drying parameters and can perform drying operations without rotating spools. Additionally, the Laser & Cut module can now initiate tasks directly from USB drive files, improving workflow support. Performance updates include improved foreign object detection on the smooth PEI plate, better regulation of heatbed temperatures, enhanced first-layer quality, more reliable chamber temperature checks before printing begins, and improved accuracy of laser module flame detection. The update also enhances the accuracy of nozzle clumping and nozzle camera dirty detection, while optimizing the pre-purging strategy. A collision issue between the nozzle flow blocker and nozzle wiper—previously triggered during flow dynamics calibration—has been resolved. Calibration reliability for the liveview camera has also improved, and issues with pre-extrusion lines sticking to prints during layer transitions have been addressed. Bambu Lab H2D Launch. Image via Bambu Lab. However, two known issues remain in this beta release: detection of filament PTFE tube detachment is currently disabled, and users cannot adjust heatbed temperature via the Bambu Handy app. The latter is expected to be fixed in a future app update. This version replaces V01.01.02.04, which was briefly released on May 20 before being withdrawn due to a critical calibration bug. That earlier version caused the right nozzle to crash into the wiper during left-nozzle calibration, damaging the printer. The firmware also temporarily disabled filament detachment detection. Bambu Lab quickly pulled the update and advised users to revert to the previous stable firmware while working on a corrected release—now realized in version V01.01.02.07. Accessing the Firmware To access the beta firmware, users can opt into the Public Beta Program through the Bambu Handy app by navigating to the “Me” section and selecting “Beta Firmware Program.” Once enrolled, the update will be rolled out gradually. Participants can leave the program at any time and revert to the most recent stable firmware version. Bambu Lab recommends updating Bambu Studio Presets before installing the firmware to ensure full compatibility. Full technical documentation and the official changelog are available on Bambu Lab’s website. Bambu Lab Hardware Line: H2D and Beyond The new firmware update applies to the H2D 3D printer, Bambu Lab’s flagship desktop manufacturing system unveiled in March 2025. Designed for professional users, the H2D offers the company’s largest build volume to date—350 x 320 x 325 mm—and includes two new AMS systems with integrated filament drying. Dual-nozzle extrusion and servo-driven precision deliver high accuracy, while a 350°C hotend and 65°C heated chamber allow reliable printing with high-performance, fiber-reinforced materials. With a toolhead speed of up to 1000 mm/s and acceleration of 20,000 mm/s², the H2D is built for productivity without compromising quality. The Bambu Lab H2D’s digital cutter. Image via Bambu Lab. Bambu Lab’s broader portfolio also includes the X1E, released in 2023 as an enterprise-grade upgrade to its X1 series. Developed with professional and engineering applications in mind, the X1E features LAN-only connectivity for secure, offline operation, enhanced air filtration, and precise thermal regulation. An increased maximum nozzle temperature expands its material compatibility, making it suitable for demanding industrial applications. At its core, the X1E builds on the proven performance of the X1 Carbon, extending the system’s capabilities for use in sensitive or regulated environments. Take the 3DPI Reader Survey — shape the future of AM reporting in under 5 minutes. Who won the 2024 3D Printing Industry Awards? Subscribe to the3D Printing Industry newsletter to keep up with the latest 3D printing news. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry Youtube channel to access more exclusive content. Featured image shows Bambu Lab H2D Launch. Image via Bambu Lab. Paloma Duran Paloma Duran holds a BA in International Relations and an MA in Journalism. Specializing in writing, podcasting, and content and event creation, she works across politics, energy, mining, and technology. With a passion for global trends, Paloma is particularly interested in the impact of technology like 3D printing on shaping our future.

Reading Time: 11 minutes Choosing the right drip email software can be a game-changer for your marketing strategy. With a variety of options available, understanding the pricing models and features each tool offers is key to making an informed decision. In this guide, we’ll walk you through essential factors to consider when evaluating pricing, so you can select the best solution that fits your needs and budget for your drip email campaigns. Ready to dive deeper? Let’s explore your options.   What Does Drip Email Marketing Software Cost? Drip email marketing software typically follows a few different pricing models, depending on the provider. Here’s a quick breakdown of the most common ones: Pricing Based on MAUs (Monthly Active Users): You pay based on how many unique subscribers actually engage with your emails (or your system) each month, not your entire list size. It’s a much fairer, scalable way to pay, especially if your audience fluctuates. You only pay for real activity. Flat-Rate Pricing: You pay a fixed monthly fee, regardless of usage, list size, or activity. But flat rates are often bloated to cover all usage types, so you’re likely overpaying if you’re not sending a massive volume of emails. It’s not cost-efficient for scaling brands. List-Based Pricing: You pay based on the total number of contacts in your database, whether they engage or not. However, you end up paying for cold leads, dead emails, and inactive contacts. This makes your costs climb unnecessarily as your list grows. Email Volume-Based Pricing: You’re charged based on how many emails you send each month. It can discourage you from running important nurturing campaigns or re-engagement flows because every email adds to your bill. It’s unpredictable and can spike costs during promotions. For email marketers, this model means added pressure to limit sends, often at the cost of customer experience and long-term engagement. Some platforms even bundle unnecessary features into expensive tiers, which bloats the pricing, especially for features you may not actually need. This is where MoEngage stands out. The platform offers a more transparent and scalable approach so that pricing is aligned to your actual usage and outcomes rather than inflated send limits.   6 Biggest Factors that Affect Drip Email Pricing Drip email pricing depends on several factors. Here are some of the biggest ones: 1. Number of active contacts Some platforms, particularly the ones that use the MAU pricing model, charge based on the number of customers who interact with your emails. The higher the number of active customers, the higher the pricing. 2. List size Managing an email list is easier said than done. Nevertheless, if you have a large database of contacts, you will be charged a higher monthly fee. In this case, pricing will remain the same even if you don’t have many active subscribers on your list. 3. Email volume The number of emails you send plays a big role in pricing. This is because high-volume automated email marketing campaigns require significant infrastructure for email delivery, tracking, and reporting. 4. Advanced features Platforms offering advanced features like RFM segmentation, automation, A/B testing, analytics, and AI-driven personalization typically charge more than others. Some pricing models allow you to opt for some or all of these features, depending on your business requirements. 5. Automation complexity If your drip campaign involves complex workflows, like different stages, conditions, triggers, etc., it can impact the pricing. Automation requires more resources to set up and maintain, which increases the price. 6. Integration with other tools Connecting your email platform with CRMs, Ecommerce tools, or analytics systems can drive up costs, especially if platforms charge extra for native integrations or require third-party connectors. Before signing up, ask yourself: how many of these tools are truly essential? Can any be replaced with ones that integrate more easily? A cluttered tech stack not only costs more but also complicates your workflows.   Top Features to Look For in a Drip Email Marketing Software Since you’re on the lookout for a drip email marketing software platform, focus on the features we’ve mentioned below. Core features that drip email software absolutely needs These features are the must-haves. They are the foundational tools required to automate, personalize, and optimize your email drip campaigns at scale. Journey designer: Easily set up multi-step workflows triggered by parameters like customer actions, behaviors, or time delays with minimal coding. Behavioral targeting: Send emails based on real-time customer behavior, such as cart additions, subscriptions, app activity, and more, for highly relevant messaging. Personalization engine: Dynamically include customer attributes based on past interactions and preferences to personalize emails at scale. High inbox deliverability: Tools and practices that ensure you have a healthy sender reputation and high inbox placement. Campaign optimization with A/B testing: Test different email versions to learn what drives higher engagement and optimize your drip flows continuously. Real-time analytics and insights: Access detailed reports and dashboards that track key drip email marketing metrics like opens, clicks, and conversions, and identify drop-offs in your drip journeys. Other features that are very useful to have These features aren’t absolutely necessary to run an effective campaign, but they can improve customer experience and operational efficiency. AI-based predictive segmentation: Leverage AI to predict customer behavior like churn or likelihood of conversion, and automatically adjust campaigns accordingly. Omnichannel messaging: Integrate messaging across various channels, like push notifications, SMS, WhatsApp, and in-app messaging for a cohesive customer journey. Pre-built templates: Quickly access pre-built, customizable email templates to launch campaigns faster without heavy design work.   9 Steps to Choosing a Drip Email Marketing Software With so many options available in the market, choosing the right drip email marketing software can seem like an uphill battle. No worries! We’ll even walk you through exactly how to evaluate and compare drip email tools for yourself. Once you’ve asked the right questions and gathered the facts during demos, it’s time to break down your decision-making process into clear, actionable steps. Step 1: Define Your Non-Negotiable Features The first step is to make a list of all the features that are necessary for you. For example, if your goal is to send behavior-triggered drip campaigns (like abandoned cart emails or re-engagement nudges), then features like behavioral targeting and multi-step customer journey automation are non-negotiable. On the other hand, if you only need basic scheduled newsletters, you might not need advanced workflow builders or AI recommendations. Once you have a list of non-negotiable features, it becomes easier to narrow down your platform choices. Step 2: Research and Compare All Viable Options Don’t just go with the most well-known or even the most affordable-looking tool. Research platforms that fit your business size and industry. Use peer reviews, comparison guides, and case studies to understand how the platform performs in real-world use cases. Also, remember that low entry pricing can be misleading. What matters is the total cost of ownership. Look for things like hidden fees, integration costs, or feature-based tier upgrades. These will add to the pricing later. Step 3: Book a Personalized Demo (and Demand Proof) When choosing your drip email marketing tool, make sure you request a personalized demo based on your business context, use cases, and workflows. A simple, generic walkthrough isn’t helpful because this is your first real glimpse into how the platform is going to support you long-term. If the demo isn’t tailored to your business, that’s a red flag—because if they can’t offer personalized attention when they’re trying to win your business, you’re unlikely to get it during onboarding or implementation. Ask to see features live, rather than just screenshots or slide decks. If a feature is critical, ask to see it in action. At times, sales teams may promise features that are still ‘in development’. Step 4: Attend the Demo with a List of Questions Once you’ve booked a demo, prepare a checklist of questions, like the one we shared above. This will help you stay focused and gain the clarity you need. Ask whether the features you care about are included in the base plan or locked behind premium tiers. Dig into pricing: will the costs scale predictably as you grow, or are there hidden fees that only show up later? Some platforms may offer attractive deals upfront but raise prices later or charge extra for essentials like API access, automation workflows, or deliverability support. The demo is your chance to surface all of this before signing anything. Step 5: Evaluate Ease of Use The drip email software you choose must be easy to use. Since marketers with little to no technical knowledge are most likely to use the platform, look for solutions that allow you to build email campaigns, segment audiences, and personalize messages easily. Say no to complicated or clunky interfaces that are not intuitive and require a steep learning curve. Step 6: Check for Advanced Capabilities Ask about AI features like predictive segmentation or email send-time optimization. Even if you don’t need them right now, having future-ready capabilities ensures you won’t outgrow the tool too soon. Step 7: Test for Scalability and Deliverability This is an important one. Look for solutions that can handle large volumes of emails with good email deliverability rates. Make sure the software you choose has a high inbox placement rate. Check if they have a solid infrastructure and dedicated IPs, should you need them. Also, consider scalability: will this platform still meet your needs when your contact list grows from 10,000 to 100,000? Make sure you’re not locked into expensive pricing jumps or performance bottlenecks. Step 8: Review Integration Options Make sure the tool you choose fits seamlessly into your existing workflow. It should integrate with your CRM, mobile app, Ecommerce system, and anything else in your ecosystem. Even if it doesn’t directly integrate, ensure that it offers flexible APIs and webhooks, or supports third-party connectors like Zapier, so you can still automate data flow without manual workarounds. Step 9: Compare Customer Support Quality Good software with bad support can be a nightmare. Check for onboarding help, technical support, availability, account management, and resources. Ask about how quickly the support team responds and resolves software issues to ensure that you have minimal downtime.   5 Best Email Drip Campaign Software and Tools It’s time to weigh your options in choosing an email drip campaign software for your business. Give this list a quick read! 1. MoEngage: Best for Omnichannel Engagement and Behavioral Targeting   MoEngage is a comprehensive customer engagement platform designed to deliver personalized and automated drip email campaigns at scale. Its powerful AI capabilities allow you to use behavioral targeting to reach customers at the right time with the right message at different stages of their customer journey. Why MoEngage is Best for Omnichannel Engagement and Behavioral Targeting: MoEngage offers multiple features that allow you to provide cohesive customer experiences across various touchpoints. You can reach out to customers via not just email, but also SMS, push notifications, in-app messages, and even ad networks without missing a beat. Features like advanced segmentation enable you to send hyper-personalized drip email campaigns tailored to individual customer actions, such as cart abandonment or inactivity. This ensures that messages are timely, relevant, and effective in driving engagement. How Pricing Works: MoEngage offers flexible drip email pricing based on the scale of your business and the exact features you’d need. You can always reach out to their sales team to learn more about their custom pricing plans. How to Set Up a Demo: To experience MoEngage firsthand, you need to book a demo first. Their team will then contact you to schedule a personalized walkthrough that showcases how the platform can meet your specific drip email marketing goals. 2. ActiveCampaign: Best for Email and Marketing Automation ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation platform that allows you to create email campaigns on channels your customers connect with. The platform offers predictive content features that help you show customers the most meaningful content. Why ActiveCampaign is Best for Email and Marketing Automation: ActiveCampaign excels in delivering sophisticated automation campaign workflows that can be tailored to various customer journeys. How Pricing Works: ActiveCampaign offers a four-tiered drip email pricing plan. The basic plan starts at $15/month for 1K contacts, while the Enterprise plan starts at $1,169/month for 50K contacts. If you have contacts upwards of that number, you need to talk to their sales team. 3. Kit: Best for Creators Using Emails Kit is tailored for creators, bloggers, and solo entrepreneurs who want to send customer relationship emails. It offers a user-friendly interface with powerful automation capabilities. Why Kit is Best for Creators and Solo Entrepreneurs: Kit’s email-first operating system allows creators to build long-term connections with customers. Its intuitive email designer can be used to create effective on-brand emails that are optimized for deliverability. Plus, it allows you to send email broadcasts for announcing product launches, sharing content updates, or promoting limited-time offers to your entire list in bulk. How Pricing Works: Kit offers a free Newsletter plan with basic features like visual automation, opt-in forms, and email broadcasts to up to 10K subscribers. But you can implement just 1 visual automation and an email sequence on the free plan. Advanced plans start at $25 per month for up to 1K subscribers, and go up to $2,166/month for 400K contacts. 4. Drip: Best for Ecommerce Marketing Automation Drip is a marketing automation platform designed specifically for Ecommerce brands. It offers tools to create personalized email campaigns that drive customer engagement and sales. Why Drip is Best for Ecommerce Marketing Automation: Drip provides deep integrations with Ecommerce platforms, allowing businesses to leverage customer data for targeted campaigns. Features like behavior-based automation and pre-built workflows help in crafting effective drip campaigns. How Pricing Works: Drip’s pricing starts at $39/month for up to 2,500 contacts. The cost scales up to $1,999/month based on the number of contacts, with custom pricing available for larger lists of over 180K subscribers. 5. Mailmodo: Best for Interactive Email Marketing Mailmodo is an email marketing platform that enables the creation of interactive drip emails using AMP technology. This allows recipients to take actions like filling out forms or booking appointments directly within the email. Why Mailmodo is Best for Interactive Email Marketing: Mailmodo stands out by offering interactive email capabilities that enhance customer engagement and conversion rates. Its drag-and-drop editor simplifies the creation of dynamic emails without any coding required. How Pricing Works: Like the other drip email marketing software on this list, Mailmodo’s pricing is based on the number of contacts and emails sent per month. Its three-tiered pricing model starts at $39/month for 500 contacts, going up to $939/month for 250K subscribers. Any more contacts, and you have to reach out to their sales team.   How to Get the Most Value Out of Your Drip Email Software Here are some of the ways in which you can leverage your drip email software to its maximum potential. Save time through automation: Automate welcome emails, follow-ups, and re-engagement campaigns to free up your team for more strategic work. Boost engagement with timely messaging: Set up triggers so that emails are automatically sent based on customers’ actions. This keeps your audience interested at every stage of their customer journey. Drive higher conversions with targeted sequences: Send the right email at the right time to move leads through the sales funnel towards a conversion. Personalize customer experiences at scale: Use segmentation and dynamic content to create a personalized customer experience without manually customizing every email. Continuously optimize with data-driven insights: Track performance metrics like open rates and conversions to refine your drip email campaigns and maximize results over time.   Maximize Engagement With MoEngage’s Drip Email Marketing Software To sum it up, drip email marketing can be quite powerful for engaging customers at different stages of their journey. Having the right drip email software in your tech stack ensures smooth, efficient workflows. Your team can focus on higher-value tasks while automating routine processes. It also ensures that your drip emails always reach the right person with the right message at the perfect time. MoEngage’s powerful email automation platform allows you to automate personalized campaigns that drive higher engagement and conversions. With advanced segmentation, behavior-triggered messaging, and seamless integration with your ecosystem, you can nurture relationships more effectively than ever. Curious to see how MoEngage can elevate your campaigns? Schedule a discovery call today. The post Drip Email Software: The Ultimate Pricing and Buying Guide appeared first on MoEngage.

Credit: Ian Moore / Mashable Composite; Goodboy Picture Company / E+ / pialhovik / iStock / Getty Images May is National Masturbation Month, and we're celebrating with Feeling Yourself, a series exploring the finer points of self-pleasure. When I look back at pictures of myself in my early 20s, I see a confident young woman who was willing to talk about anything with anyone. But behind closed doors, I was hiding a secret shame that totally contradicted my public brand. I couldn't orgasm — not with a partner, not on my own.There had been fleeting attempts over the years to get the ol' engine rolling. I thought I could reason my way to climax: the internet, with its endless resources in the form of Reddit threads, message boards, and YouTube videos, seemed like the place to go. I turned online for information, emotional (first-person narratives from others who struggled) and practical (sex toys and tutorials). Nothing helped. In fact, all the accumulating knowledge only served to make me feel worse. For it to finally happen, at the age of 25, I had to strip everything back and take my sex drive fully offline for the first time.Failing to climaxThere's a scene in Eve Ensler's legendary play The Vagina Monologues when the audience hears from a woman who didn't have an orgasm until she was 72. "When she finally found her clitoris, she said she cried," the introduction goes. I remember hearing those words at the age of 18 and feeling a fluttering sense of recognition. Then came the chaser: dear god, please let me have one before I'm a septuagenarian. You May Also Like At that age, the inability to orgasm wasn't something that surprised me all that much. I'd read enough teen magazines, seen enough Sex and the City, to know all about the orgasm gap, and that 61 percent of men orgasm every time they have sex compared to 30 percent of women.Multiple studies have found that women are more likely to orgasm during masturbation than intercourse; a similarly consistent finding is that 10 percent of women never orgasm, no matter the circumstances.Yet as I moved through my twenties and failed to rectify the problem, I realised the friends I'd once bonded over this experience with weren't struggling anymore. I felt likeBut as a forthright young feminist on the cusp between the Gen Z and millennial generations, I was also unofficially educated under the tutelage of sex education YouTubers like Shan Boodram, Laci Green, and Hannah Witton. They taught me about the importance of people with vulvas knowing their bodies and having the confidence to tell sexual partners if they weren't getting them off. I spread their message far and wide. Female pleasure was so my brand that a close male friend once gave me a T-shirt with the words "The Future is Female (Ejaculation)" as a Secret Santa gift. I laughed, then went to the bathroom and cried, so deeply full of shame at the disconnect between my public confidence and inward inadequacy.Theoretically speaking, I knew just about everything there was to know about the orgasm…apart from how to have one myself. Very few people, beyond a handful of friends and former partners, knew about my struggle with anorgasmia (where people struggle to climax even with the application of sexual stimulation). I was scared of speaking the words "I can't come" into reality, or of feeling like even more of a failure if they checked in on my progress in the future and I had to tell them that no, I still couldn't.  Theoretically speaking, I knew just about everything there was to know about the orgasm…apart from how to have one myself. As Emily Nagoski writes in her bestselling book Come As You Are, so much of the female orgasm is in the mind. Nagoski theorises that female sexual pleasure has dual controls — an accelerator to turn you on and a brake to turn you off — and that balance is needed to achieve orgasm. But my brake was hyper-sensitive thanks toSex toys felt like a good starting point (god forbid I actually touch myself!), and my limited student budget meant I wanted a vibrator that gave a good bang for my buck, so to speak. I'd spend hours trawling through positive customer reviews for phrases like "can't come" or "never usually orgasm," hoping the same would happen for me if I purchased a clitoral stimulator or CBD lube. When it didn't, I felt more frustrated than ever. Mashable Trend Report: Coming Soon! Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up! What I was searching for was a sense of recognition — an "oh, I'm not alone in this" feeling that my friends, while empathetic, understandably couldn't provide. (Yet whenever I now mention to friends that I didn't have an orgasm until I was 25, similar stories are divulged.) So I looked further afield, scouring message board threads and online articles for narratives from people who'd not been able to come either. The snatched moments of understanding made me feel less alone, albeit not necessarily always better.The next approach was more unconventional. Two friends bought me a subscription to OMGYes, the adult sex education website dedicated to facilitating female pleasure. Initially, I was embarrassed that it had come to this, but I gave it a go. A membership provided access to a library of practical (and extremely NSFW) tutorials on different masturbation techniques. I tried to follow along, but lacked perseverance and was quick to abandon the mission when things didn't happen immediately.At every stage, my attempts to orgasm were hindered by these deeply rooted feelings of shame and inadequacy, and a fear of feeling like even more of a failure should I try and not succeed. I knew I was missing out on an integral part of the human experience, but once the terrifying words "you're going to be on your deathbed never having had an orgasm" enter the mind, they're hard to shake. In order to halt this nihilistic spiral, I stopped trying altogether. It wasn't all bad. The sex, with both long-term and casual partners,So the problem bubbled away beneath the surface, rectifying it as simply not a priority. As with much of life, the arrival of COVID-19 changed things. I remember turning 25 and looking down the barrel of a new year and a third lockdown in the UK. I'm officially in my mid-twenties, I thought. If not now, when? Those interconnected feelings of embarrassment and failure were clearly holding me back. If I was going to figure out how to orgasm, that would only be achieved by removing expectation; expectation that, I realised, was coming directly from the internet aids I'd sought out for help. I needed to strip away the technological trappings and do the one very simple thing I'd been so scared to do: touch myself, and do it consistently. Related Stories What finally helped me orgasmI set myself a challenge. Every day, I would put my phone on the other side of the room and masturbate without sex toys.think these faint flutters were orgasms, and briefly returned to the message boards to see if others had experienced anything similar. Nobody described my exact feelings, but I kept at it.It was a conversation with a close friend, a doctor, that made the most marked difference. I told her about my current state, where I wasn't sure whether I was experiencing an orgasm or not. "You know if you want that to count, it counts," she told me. For the first time, someone was saying that I was on the right path, and not crashing into a wall. Without being dramatic (although said friend still laughs about how I credit her with my first orgasm), those words triggered a switch in my brain. As soon as I stopped feeling like I was foolish for even attempting to fight what I'd always perceived to be a losing battle, orgasms — proper ones, I was sure — came. I didn't cry or rush to text the friends greatly invested in my journey. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled, but it felt like a wholly personal achievement, and one I wanted to sit in for a while. SEE ALSO: What is a ruined orgasm? Mostly, the feeling was one of relief, the lifting of a huge weight from my chest and the dissipation of so much secret shame. I remember thinking that if I never had an orgasm again, I would be happy. Given how easy I was now finding it once that bridge was crossed, though, I was pretty sure that wasn't going to be the case. I remember thinking that if I never had an orgasm again, I would be happy. If there's one thing I now know, it's that you can't intellectualise, let alone buy, an orgasm. Sure, products and internet resources may help, and in those most isolating moments, it was undoubtedly useful to see my experience reflected back in others. But over time, I found the accumulation of all this knowledge only added to my feelings of failure. I had to remove it all from my mind and do the thing I was most scared to — confront my own body — to make it happen. Given all that, I'm aware of the irony of writing my own "how I finally had an orgasm" narrative. But I know a story like mine, as long as it wasn't dwelled on too long or used as a point of comparison, would have helped my younger self. It's why I keep far less personal aspects of my life out of my work, yet have always known I wanted to write about this experience someday. There are so few narratives about a total inability to orgasm out there. If you're reading this now and see something of yourself in my story, I hope it can provide some. It can happen for you — I truly believe that — whether you're 25 or 72. You'll get there. Isobel Lewis Isobel Lewis is a freelance culture and lifestyle journalist based in London. Formerly of The Independent, she now regularly writes for The New York Times, Service95, and Time Out.