Forbes Daily Briefing

AtThe Odyssey premiere in Mumbai on Saturday, director Christopher Nolan joked about its prospects as an international summer blockbuster. “It's wonderful how [the movie] kind of brings us together, and for us to go on the road and travel and come here,” the British-born director told the audience, before taking a Spider-Man jab at one of his movie’s stars. “but if you see only one Tom Holland film this summer…”

Because, of course, The Odyssey isn’t a Tom Holland movie. Even with a cast that includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron and other A-list actors, the only name listed on the poster is the one listed above the title:“A film by Christopher Nolan.”

The 55-year-old director has achieved name-brand status among the most casual moviegoers and developed an army of cinephile devotees for his spectacle-driven films like Inception, Interstellar and a Batman trilogy, culminating in 2023 when he turned Oppenheimer—a three-hour historical drama about the father of the atomic bomb—into a nearly billion-dollar blockbuster and a winner of seven Oscars. This time around he’ll put that drawing power to the test with an even riskier project, a $250 million sword-and-sandal epic shot entirely in IMAX 70mm that rivals the most ambitious movies of all time.

By Matt Craig,

Reporter
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Texas state police’s purchase of four brand new Chevrolet Tahoes this March was unusual. Not just because of the staggering $4.5 million price tag, but because the vehicles were kitted out with technology that could monitor the locations of nearby cell phones.

Made by Israeli surveillance company Cognyte, the tech simulates a mobile phone tower, which forces nearby phones to connect to it. That enables cops to keep tabs on any phones in the vicinity — whether they’re owned by a suspect in a case or not. Cognyte’s contract with the state of Texas reveals that the simulator, called FalcoNet, can be concealed within the vehicles, hidden in a backpack for on-foot missions or attached to a helicopter. It’s the same technology as the infamous Stingray, one of the original cell-site simulators made by defense giant L3Harris.

Texas state police is one of a growing number of local law enforcement agencies signing deals with Cognyte, an Herzliya, Israel-based company listed on the Nasdaq with a $560 million market cap. The six-year-old company, which was spun out of Israeli surveillance giant Verint in 2021, sells a range of surveillance tech. That includes software that claims to find leads in big police datasets and predict where crime is likely to occur in the future. The firm, which touts itself as the “leading alternative” to $315 billion market cap Palantir, made most of its $400 million in 2025 revenue in Israel and Europe. But it’s slowly making inroads in the U.S, with American revenue gradually rising from $10 million in 2023 to $15 million in 2025, per filings with the SEC.

By Thomas Brewster,

Forbes Staff
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Would you pay $15 to go on a date? It’s just the price of a cocktail, argue Stanford dropouts Celeste Amadon and Asher Allen. They started dating app company Known based on their belief that frustrated Gen Z singles, tired of endless swiping, are willing to pay up.

Those signing up for Known start by talking with an AI, an onboarding experience similar to a phone call designed to encourage users to talk more naturally rather than type out answers into a form. Then the San Francisco-based startup introduces daters to one potential match at a time. If both people say yes, the app uses AI agents to book the first date for them and charges each person.

Fifteen dollars might sound like a lot for a single date, but Hinge subscriptions can cost between $30 and $50 monthly and Bumble’s monthly cost can range from $40 to almost $100. Amadon and Allen believe the incentives are skewed. They think dating apps should only make money when they actually help people meet IRL.

By Sofia Chierchio,

Fellow

Edited by Katharine Schwab,
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In the not-too-distant future everyone will be using so-called AI agents.

Connected to the cloud, they will live inside your mobile phone ready to assist in whatever tasks you need accomplished, from replying to emails and booking flights to tax-loss harvesting in your portfolio.

Robinhood’s customers now use AI agents to analyze stock market gyrations and make autonomous trades based on custom instructions. SAP’s Joule helps its enterprise customers analyze inventory, source the best suppliers and procure goods. Shopping agents operating at machine speed like Amazon’s Buy for Me will scan the web for the best deals, negotiate terms with agents representing the seller, establish delivery windows and make purchases.

Well-known AI and crypto companies, from Anthropic and OpenAI to Coinbase and Circle, are already racing to make this bot-driven future a reality for all.

But what happens when the couch your agent ordered arrives in the wrong color? Or gets delivered two weeks late, or damaged in a way the seller insists happened after delivery?

By Nina Bambysheva,

Deputy Editor
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When Andrew Kurzrok’s wife, Michelle, became pregnant with their first son in 2023, he decided it was time for his life spending over 200 days a year on the road as a mid-level executive of Amphenol Sensors to end. He wanted a career that would keep him closer to their suburban Washington, D.C. home, while utilizing his manufacturing experience. And with a background in mergers and acquisitions, he thought about buying. So the Kurzroks evaluated hundreds of local companies for sale. Finally, last September, he closed on the purchase of 45-year-old family-owned Hopewell Sheet Metal Manufacturing, which operates out of a 30,000 square foot facility in Hagerstown, Maryland.

“It is a classic baby boomer-run business that was time for transition,” with no third generation member of the family ready to run it, observes Kurzrok, who holds Yale MBA and bachelor degrees. But it suited his goals just fine. “I am home with my family every single night. I am proud to say that I no longer have any frequent flyer status with the airlines,” he laughs. “It’s great. I’m 30 pounds lighter because I’m not eating food in airports all day long. Blood pressure is lower. That doesn’t mean business ownership is easy; it’s got its own stress, but I’m really happy with the tradeoff I’ve made.”

By John Schroyer,

Staff Writer
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