Events

New York – September 24, 2026 -- Direct AI-model usage accounts for just 9.4% of an AI agent's recurring monthly operating cost, according to an illustrative model cited in a new report from The Conference Board, underscoring how governance, monitoring, and human supervision drive the bulk of expenses in agentic AI deployments.

Executives rank AI as the top investment priority for 2026

In The Conference Board's C-Suite Outlook 2026, 43.6% of executives identified AI and technology as their leading investment priority, ahead of any other category. The new report argues that capturing value from that spending requires more than purchasing tools or running pilots.

New York – September 24, 2026 -- The Italian Trade Agency will roll out Italian Wine Week across the New York Metropolitan Area from October 12 to October 25, 2026, enlisting more than 100 wine retailers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Jersey City to drive consumer traffic ahead of Vinitaly USA's New York debut.

Retail activation precedes trade-only exhibition at Pier 36

The two-week citywide campaign functions as the consumer-facing lead-in to Vinitaly USA, the industry-only exhibition set for October 26-27 at Pier 36. That trade show will draw more than 300 Italian wine producers and over 400 qualified trade professionals for tastings, networking, and business meetings, according to the Italian Trade Agency.

Mukilteo, Wash. – September 24, 2026 -- The Inner Circle has named Derreck D. Travers a Lifetime member, citing his management of $3.18 billion in cumulative supply chain budgets and $576 million in documented year-over-year cost savings and revenue growth across a career spanning Amazon, Saks and SmartKargo.

Travers led AMZL rollout across seven countries with 346 personnel

Travers oversaw the global deployment of Amazon's in-house last-mile delivery network, AMZL, across seven countries. His logistics oversight extended to 18 countries and 38 states, coordinating more than 346 personnel and supporting services for airlines including Delta Air Lines.

Chicago – September 24, 2026 -- Keeper Security has launched a zero-knowledge Google Chat integration that lets organizations approve privileged access requests, retrieve credentials and manage secrets without leaving Google Workspace.

Integration eliminates tool-switching for privileged access approvals

The new Google Chat App allows teams to submit vault access requests with justification and custom permission levels, retrieve secrets, and approve just-in-time elevation requests directly within chat channels. Administrators can enforce time-limited access windows and policy-driven approval routing without requiring users to navigate separate systems, while full audit trails and reporting remain intact.

Austin, Texas – September 24, 2026 -- Buchanan Capital Partners (BCP), an Austin-based zero-fee commercial real estate investment firm, has acquired Churchill Tower, a 277,268-square-foot Class A office building in Dallas's Park Central submarket, marking its second major acquisition after the 2025 off-market purchase of Westbank Pointe in Austin.

Paris – September 24, 2026 -- BNP Paribas has signed a five-year partnership with Google Cloud to expand its access to AI-optimized infrastructure, Gemini models and Gemini Enterprise, the companies announced.

BNP Paribas will integrate Gemini models into its internal AI assistant used by 65,000 employees

The bank's Corporate & Institutional Banking (CIB) division plans to fold Gemini models into LLM@CIB, its generative AI assistant, and deploy agentic AI across sales, trading, research and structuring workflows, including the preparation of corporate credit memos.

Gemini already powers customer support for 200 advisers at Nickel

Google Cloud and Gemini technologies are already live at Nickel, BNP Paribas' payment account business within its Commercial, Personal Banking & Services division, where Gemini underpins Nickel Assist, a tool helping 200 customer advisers resolve client requests based on operating procedures.

Allentown, Pa. – September 24, 2026 -- PPL Electric Utilities has been selected to receive up to $71.5 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to rebuild 29.3 miles of an existing 230-kilovolt transmission corridor under the Montour Grid Resilience and Advanced Reconductoring Project.

DOE Secretary Chris Wright joins officials to announce the SPARK Program award

The funding flows through DOE's Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK) Program, part of the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships initiative. Wright said the investment will help move more electricity across existing infrastructure and deliver lower-cost, more reliable power.

Washington – September 24, 2026 -- Knox Systems, which operates the largest FedRAMP and DISA-managed cloud, said veterans now make up 25% of its security workforce as it launches new recruiting partnerships with VetJobs, Military Spouse Jobs, and Hire Heroes USA.

Knox partners with three veteran-employment organizations to widen its hiring pipeline

The company will connect with veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses across its security, technology, and operations lines through the new agreements. All open roles at Knox are open to veteran applicants, with hiring managers working to match military experience to technical and security positions.

Menlo Park, Calif. – September 24, 2026 -- MyOme, Inc. has made its predictive genomic insights platform and testing services available worldwide by running them on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), the companies announced.

MyOme joins Oracle PartnerNetwork to widen healthcare distribution

The clinical whole-genome analysis firm has also joined Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), enabling distribution of its capabilities through the Oracle ecosystem and Oracle Marketplace to a broader base of healthcare organizations.

Overland Park, Kan. – September 24, 2026 -- Aria Care Partners has appointed Veda Lewis-Simmons, DPM, MHA, as chief medical officer of podiatry, giving her oversight of operational effectiveness and clinical quality for the company's onsite podiatry services across skilled nursing facilities (SNFs).

Aria Care Partners taps board-certified podiatrist to lead clinical quality for SNF foot care programs

Dr. Lewis-Simmons holds a master's degree in healthcare administration and a Doctor of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery from Des Moines University Medicine and Health Sciences. She completed her residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and is board certified.

San Diego – September 24, 2026 -- ACROBiosystems has launched CHO-Direct, a rapid high-throughput affinity validation service that delivers antibody affinity data in as little as four days from sequence submission, alongside a broader infrastructure platform called ACRO AIx aimed at AI-driven drug discovery (AIDD).

CHO-Direct compresses antibody validation timelines to four days

Using an optimized CHO cell system, CHO-Direct converts computationally generated antibody sequences into structured affinity data within days, addressing a bottleneck where AI tools generate candidate sequences faster than labs can validate them. The service leverages the protein-folding and post-translational modification environment of mammalian cells while maintaining compatibility with CHO systems already used in downstream development and manufacturing.

Dallas and Tel Aviv – September 24, 2026 -- Enterprises have working detections for only 63% of the cyber threats they have already identified as relevant, leaving more than a third of known risks operationally uncovered, according to new research from Conifers based on an analysis of 14,652 detections in live enterprise environments.

The report, titled The Detection Blind Spot, found that detection coverage extended to just 64% of the MITRE ATT&CK techniques relevant to each environment studied. Nearly half of all detections examined, 47%, required attention before they could be trusted to function as intended, despite appearing as deployed or healthy in standard inventory-based reporting.

Santa Fe, N.M. – September 24, 2026 -- Snow Secure's insulated mats retained 85% of stored snow volume through a full Colorado summer, according to drone measurements taken by Aspen Snowmass management on August 31, 2026, at the resort's Buttermilk and Snowmass locations.

Aspen Snowmass tested Colorado's first deployment of the European snow-storage system

Snow was covered under the insulated mats in April 2026, marking the first-ever Colorado deployment of Snow Secure's patented technology. Continuous temperature monitoring ran from April 30 through August 31, tracking how the insulation performed against seasonal heat and sun exposure.

Jacksonville Beach, Fla. – September 24, 2026 -- FaverGray has broken ground on a 415-unit market-rate multifamily community on the former site of Adventure Landing in Jacksonville Beach, marking the general contractor's second project with developer Trevato Development.

Development spans 10.7 acres with 410,509 square feet of new construction

The project will introduce a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units across two three-story residential buildings. Approximately 1,800 square feet of ground-floor commercial space will be included alongside the residential units.

Austin, Texas – September 24, 2026 -- A proposed Medicare payment change involving Modifier 25 would reallocate approximately $889 million in annual fee-for-service payments, with private practices and solo physicians absorbing $724.4 million, or 81.5%, of the modeled reductions, according to a new analysis from Jiro Health.

Six specialties bear 82.3% of the total reduction

Jiro's Practice Impact Analysis, titled "Who Pays for CMS's Modifier 25 Proposal?", found that six medical specialties account for roughly $732 million of the modeled impact. Dermatology alone represents $395.4 million, or 44.5% of the total reallocation. Podiatric medicine and surgery, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, ophthalmology and family medicine together account for an additional $336 million.

Boston – September 24, 2026 -- RS2 Healthcare Partners has completed an investment in KMM Group, a Hatboro, Pennsylvania-based precision contract manufacturer for the medical device industry, marking the Boston private equity firm's first new platform deal since narrowing its focus exclusively to lower middle-market healthcare investing.

RS2 names industry veteran J. Mark King as KMM's new CEO

J. Mark King, who brings more than 30 years of medical device industry experience, has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of KMM. King previously served as President and CEO of Tegra Medical, a medical device contract manufacturer and former RS2 portfolio company, and has also acted as an advisor to KMM prior to the deal.

"I am honored and excited to continue building on KMM's momentum," King said, citing a long working history with RS2's principals.

Washington – September 24, 2026 -- More than half of US adults did not attempt to get a flu, COVID-19, RSV, or pneumococcal vaccine in the past year, even though 77% agree vaccines are among the best proven tools against serious infectious disease, according to a new national survey released by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).

Survey finds 48% of adults tried to get at least one of four respiratory vaccines in the past year

The survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago among 1,206 US adults age 18 and older between August 13-17, 2026, has a margin of sampling error of ±3.6 percentage points. Just 44% tried to get a flu vaccine and only 23% attempted a COVID-19 vaccine, despite 89% of respondents agreeing that anyone who wants vaccine access should have it and 71% saying benefits strongly outweigh risks.

Fulton County, Ill. – September 24, 2026 -- Lightstar Renewables confirmed continued expansion of its Illinois development portfolio spanning community solar, agrivoltaic solar, and battery energy storage systems (BESS), building on a national pipeline that now exceeds 1,000 MW across 15 states.

Illinois clean energy mandates drive developer demand

Illinois' Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) sets a target of 100% clean energy by 2050, while the Illinois Shines Adjustable Block Program opens its 2026-2027 cycle on June 1, 2026. The state's Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act (CRGA) permits co-location of projects up to 10 MW on a single parcel or adjacent properties, and 2026 statewide energy storage legislation established new storage targets, reinforcing demand for grid-responsive infrastructure.

West Chester, Ohio – September 24, 2026 -- E Tech Group will present on the compliance and data integrity risks of scaling laboratory automation from pilot to full production at the ISPE Boston Area Chapter 2026 Product Show on October 7 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Session targets the gap between pilot success and regulated production failure

Sura Hadi, Director of Laboratory Automation and Industrial Robotics (LAIR) at E Tech Group, will lead the 3:00 p.m. ET session, "From Pilot to Production: Scaling Lab Automation Without Breaking Compliance, Data Integrity, or Teams," in West Red Level, Suite 81. The talk addresses why automation pilots that succeed in contained workflows frequently break down when expanded into regulated manufacturing environments, where instruments must connect to scheduling systems, Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELN), and other enterprise platforms.

Durham, N.C. – September 24, 2026 -- The International Society of Automation (ISA) has released the Fourth Edition of A Guide to the Automation Body of Knowledge, the sole officially authorized text mapping ISA's core competencies for automation professionals.

Nearly 30 experts update the industry's reference text for certification exams

The revised guide was edited and written by close to 30 leading automation specialists and covers process instrumentation, control valves, discrete and batch control, digital twins, cybersecurity, safety systems, and asset management. It is designed to prepare candidates for ISA's Certified Automation Professional (CAP), Certified Control Systems Technician (CCST), and the Professional Engineer Control Systems Engineer (PE CSE) exams.