AI Weekly: Linux Foundation's Agentic Push, Salesforce MuleSoft, ServiceNow-OpenAI, and $400M for ClickHouse - Jan 23, 2026

Artificial Intelligence News for Managers: Week of January 23, 2026

Your AI plans are moving from slideware to operations. This week's brief highlights what matters to leaders: production data pipelines, agentic orchestration, governance, observability, edge scale, skills, and the budget signals driving each.

Data Infrastructure and Real-Time Pipelines

• ClickHouse raises $400M Series D: Capital flows to low-latency analytics as AI apps push higher query volume and tighter SLAs. Expect faster product velocity and enterprise features that support production AI workloads. Details
• Artie lands Series A for real-time data: Fully managed streaming from operational stores (e.g., Postgres) into analytics platforms (e.g., Snowflake) without teams building streaming infra. Faster time to fresh data for AI and BI. Details

Agentic AI Platforms, Orchestration, and Automation

• Akkodis rolls out AI-Core globally: A flagship platform blending multimodal models, automation engines, agents, GenAI, and analytics for sectors like aerospace, auto, healthcare, and manufacturing. Details
• Salesforce MuleSoft Agent Fabric: Automatically discovers, catalogs, and governs enterprise AI agents and automations across integration footprints. Central oversight for where agents run and what they touch. Details
• ServiceNow + OpenAI multi-year deal: Embedding frontier models (e.g., GPT-5.2) to let agents understand workflows, decide next steps, and execute end-to-end inside secure environments. Details
• ConnectWise to acquire zofiQ: Agentic AI embedded in PSA to automate high-volume MSP service desk tasks. Early partners report margin gains by shifting people from repetitive tickets to higher-value work. Details
• CGI's Gemini Enterprise: A framework and services wrapping Google's Gemini models with consulting, data, and integration to take agentic use cases from design to MLOps. Details
• Airbyte joins the Agentic AI Foundation: Open-standards connectors for secure, policy-controlled data movement so agents can access context in real time. Details
• BMC extends AI-powered automation: Control-M and BMC AMI add an AI Workflow Creator (natural-language workflow design), event-driven orchestration (Kafka and cloud queues), and AMI Assistant features. Details

Governance, Discovery, and Observability

• LatticeFlow AI acquires AI Sonar: Adds on-prem discovery of models, pipelines, and data assets to evidence-based AI governance. Useful for regulated environments and shadow AI inventory. Details
• New Relic for LLM/ChatGPT apps: End-to-end tracing from prompts to downstream services, with latency, errors, cost, and safety signals in one view. Details
• LighthouseIQ for legal and compliance: AI-driven platform to surface early insights, improve defensibility, and reduce review costs across huge data sets. Details
• Linux Foundation webinar: Why AI runs on open source and real humans-skills across Linux, cloud native, platform engineering, and security are rising in value. Details

If you're updating policy, consider aligning with the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to set shared language across legal, security, and data teams.

Edge, IoT, and Data Center Scale

• Balena secures growth investment: Expanded fleet management for Linux-based IoT and edge AI devices-easier onboarding, stronger remote diagnostics, and AI-centric edge use cases. Details
• Omnion Power names Philip Zuk SVP: Focus on high-efficiency power systems and sustainability for AI-heavy data centers. Energy strategy becomes a core part of AI strategy. Details

Partnerships and Leadership

• Qlik adds Mark Relph (AWS) to its AI Council: Guidance on cloud-native AI, ecosystems, and responsible GenAI in analytics-signal of deeper ties with hyperscalers. Details

Expert Insights, Events, and Resources

• Insight Jam Mesh Lab (year-long): Monthly expert series on re-architecting work and learning for the AI era. Episode 1 features leaders across education and industry.
• Human-AI Ledger newsletter: Weekly brief on how AI affects how we learn, work, lead, and live.
• Jan 28: The next generation of observability in the agentic AI era (Impetus + Forrester).
• Jan 29: Break the metadata bottleneck for agentic AI and contextual insights (Promethium + BARC).
• Feb 19: Cloud-Native Masterclass for executives with a Northeastern University certificate (Nutanix + Northeastern).
• Insight Jam LIVE panels:
  • Augmentation over replacement: practical career strategies as roles shift.
  • Policies must evolve as fast as models: agile, human-centered governance.
  • Soft skills are the new hard skills: critical thinking, creativity, resilience.
  • Responsible AI is cultural: operationalize principles, empower frontline teams.
  • Ethics has tradeoffs: move ethics left, define red lines early.
• Thought leadership:
  • Cloud AI Innovators focus executive time on metrics and production data.
  • Why boards lose confidence in data programs-slow drift, not sudden failure.
  • Insight theory: use analytics to see how learning actually happens.
  • Class frames the future of work: learning becomes a property of work.
  • Data literacy is the unlock for GenAI at scale; agentic systems depend on it.
  • Four realities of AI governance: set a clear stance and enforce it.

What leaders should do this week

• Audit agent sprawl: Inventory agents, actions, and data access. Target a single catalog and policy layer (see MuleSoft Agent Fabric as a pattern).
• Set observability KPIs for LLM apps: Track latency, cost per interaction, safety signals, and regression rates before scale-up.
• Pilot real-time data: Identify one use case where fresh data changes outcomes (fraud, personalization, ops) and test a managed pipeline.
• Update AI governance: Align policies to the NIST AI RMF; add model discovery and on-prem controls for regulated workloads.
• Plan for edge and energy: If you run devices at scale, revisit fleet management; if you run AI clusters, revisit power efficiency and grid constraints.
• Invest in skills that compound: Linux, cloud native, platform engineering, and security fluency increase leverage across AI efforts.

If you're upskilling teams for AI projects, browse practical training and credentials here:
- Courses by job role
- Popular AI certifications