AI Weekly Wrap: From Flagship Models to Climate Tech - November 24

1. Overstory gets US $43 M Series B to scale AI-driven wildfire prevention & grid resilience tools

On November 25, Amsterdam-based climate-tech/AI company Overstory announced a $43 million Series B funding round. The company uses satellite imagery + AI to help utilities map vegetation risks - tree by tree - around power infrastructure, to prevent wildfires and outages. This is a great example of AI being applied beyond software and into environmental/climate-tech, infrastructure resilience and real-world risk mitigation. With climate change raising wildfire risk globally, such tools may become increasingly essential.

2. Claude Opus 4.5: new flagship from Anthropic

On November 24, Anthropic officially launched Claude Opus 4.5, positioning it as “the best model in the world for coding, agents, and computer use.” The update emphasizes real-world workflows: coding, spreadsheet/slide automation, long-context reasoning, and “agentic” tasks like multi-step planning and tool usage. The release suggests we’re entering an era where AI isn’t just for chatting or text-generation; it’s becoming a helper for complex work, especially for developers, analysts, or teams orchestrating tasks.

3. Boom in AI Funding: 49 US AI Startups Hit $100 M+ in Deals

According to a report published November 26, there are now 49 U.S.-based AI startups that have raised US $100 million or more in 2025. That matches the intensity of last year’s “mega-round” record. The tally includes several “mega-rounds” of $1 billion+, showing investors remain deeply confident in AI companies across various sectors. This signals healthy momentum in the AI ecosystem, which often foreshadows more innovation, more competition and faster product roll-outs in the next 6–18 months.

4. More competition & momentum in open-source AI - increased pressure on proprietary models

According to a November 2025 summary of model releases, the AI world continues seeing many open-source or alternative-model launches. For example: a Chinese group called DeepSeek released a new open-source model with strong capabilities. This growing ecosystem of open-source, lower-cost and globally diverse models could push more innovation, especially outside major tech hubs. It suggests AI development is becoming more distributed and accessible.

5. The tone around AI is shifting from hype and experimentation to demand for real-world results and accountability

With events like big infrastructure-AI funding (SF Compute), enterprise-workforce AI planning (Adecco + Salesforce), climate-tech applications (Overstory), and productivity-focused AI tools (Claude Opus 4.5), there’s a clear trend: AI isn’t just a novelty or experiment -companies want tools that solve actual problems. The demand for governance, realistic ROI, transparency, and risk-aware adoption appears increasingly common.

Taken together, these stories tell a bigger story: AI is no longer just a frontier technology; it’s becoming infrastructure. Whether preventing wildfires, powering enterprise workflows, or expanding through open-source efforts, the field is growing broader, deeper, and more grounded in real utility. The weeks ahead will likely continue this shift toward meaningful, sustainable AI impact.

References:

1. https://www.overstory.com/blog/series-b-announcement

2. https://champaignmagazine.com/2025/11/30/ai-by-ai-weekly-top-5-november-24-30-2025

3. https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/26/here-are-the-49-us-ai-startups-that-have-raised-100m-or-more-in-2025

4. https://www.ninjaai.com/recent-ai-model-releases-november-2025-highlights