TORUS
Hey crew, this week we’re cutting through the noise and focusing on what actually moves creators forward.
No buzzwords, just clear shifts you can use: AI that learns from your process, inboxes beating feeds, bite-sized products outselling bundles, and browser-native motion tools that let you ship in hours, not days. Think practical plays, simple setups, and one clear win per send.
Let’s dive in.
Today’s AI Signal
London AI lab Recursive hits $4.65B valuation with $650M mega-round
Recursive Superintelligence, a stealth London AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta AI leaders, closed a $650 million funding round at a $4.65 billion valuation led by GV and Greycroft.
NVIDIA and AMD Ventures both participated, signalling that chip makers are backing the firm's work on self-improving AI systems targeting a mid-2026 public launch.
For UK AI teams, this shows that London can now attract Silicon Valley-scale funding for ambitious technical bets, not just SaaS or fintech. Read more
Oxford's Fractile secures $220M for in-memory AI inference chips
Fractile, an Oxford deeptech startup, raised $220 million in Series B funding led by Accel, Factorial Funds, and Founders Fund to build in-memory compute chips optimised for AI inference.
The firm is addressing efficiency bottlenecks that matter when models get deployed at scale, where inference cost often dwarfs training cost.
This funding proves that specialised AI hardware solving real pain points can draw top-tier VC even in a tighter market. Read moreEU agrees to delay high-risk AI rules until December 2027
EU governments and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement to extend the deadline for high-risk AI system regulations from August 2026 to December 2027, giving companies more time to comply with the AI Act.
The deal also exempts machinery already covered by sectoral rules and bans AI applications that generate unauthorised sexually explicit images, responding to deepfake concerns.
For UK startups selling into Europe, this buys 16 extra months before core compliance obligations kick in, but you should start planning now rather than waiting until 2027. Read more
Global AI headlines
TODAY’S LESSON
Prompt of the Day: Turn messy meeting notes into clear next steps
Most teams walk out of meetings with a shared Google Doc or Slack thread full of half-formed ideas and no clear owner for anything.
This prompt turns rough meeting notes into a clean action list in under 60 seconds.
When to use it:
After any meeting where decisions were made, especially client calls, planning sessions, or team standup where you scribbled notes but did not structure them.
Why it works:
You give the AI your raw notes, context on who was there, and what decisions matter. It pulls out action items, assigns them to people (if you say who owns what), and flags any open questions.
The prompt:
I just finished a meeting. Here are my rough notes:
[Paste your notes here]
People in the meeting: [List names or roles]
Pull out:
1. Clear action items with owners where obvious
2. Any decisions we made
3. Open questions or blockers we need to resolve
4. Format as a short bullet list I can paste into Slack or email
Example output:
Action: Sarah to draft Q3 budget proposal by Friday.
Action: James to confirm vendor pricing by Wednesday.
Decision: We will pause the Paris launch until September.
Open question: Do we need legal sign-off before announcing the partnership?
Paste this into your project tool or send it back to the team. Everyone knows what to do, and nothing slips.
If you use Microsoft 365 Copilot or ChatGPT, you can run this right after the meeting ends.
UK AI tools and offers
Tool: Microsoft 365 Copilot for Small Business
If your UK SMB already uses Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Business Premium, you can add Copilot for £13.80 per user per month (paid yearly) to get AI across Outlook, Word, Excel, and Teams. One simple workflow: after a client call in Teams, ask Copilot to summarise the discussion, pull out action items, and draft a follow-up email. You edit it once and send. Read more
Offer: Otter.ai 50% off Pro Plan (annual billing)
Otter.ai, the AI transcription tool used by thousands of UK teams, offers 50% off the Pro Planwhen you pay annually, dropping the monthly cost significantly. Students and teachers with a .edu email get an extra 20% off on top of that. Use it to transcribe meetings, interviews, or client calls with speaker identification and searchable text, then export summaries to share with your team. Read more
Alternative tool: SuperWhisper, WisprFlow
UK AI Job Opportunities
Robert Half (for fintech client) – AI Engineer (contract, hybrid, London) – build and deploy ML models in cloud-native environment; 6-month initial contract.
Apply → https://www.roberthalf.com/gb/en/jobs/london-london/ai-engineerStructureFlow (legal tech scale-up) – Senior AI Engineer, £79K–£106K per year (London, flexible hours) – join engineering team building AI tools for Magic Circle law firms and US AMLAW 200.
Apply → https://www.totaljobs.com/jobs/artificial-intelligence/in-londonPA Consulting – Senior AI Engineer (London, hybrid, 2 days/week in office) – experiment with generative AI frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face, and advise clients on what scales.
Apply → https://uk.jooble.org/jobs-ai-engineer/LondonMorgan Hunt (public sector) – SC Cleared AI Engineer, £700/day (contract until March 2026) – two separate roles, one focused on Azure AI Foundry, one on Copilot Studio.
Apply → https://uk.jooble.org/jobs-ai-engineer/London
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