New startup from Amazon vets uses AI agents to model customer behavior

An agent in the empty chair: At Amazon, the tradition is to keep a seat open in the room for the customer. Now Primitive Labs — a startup founded by former Amazon colleagues CTO Jean Farmer, CEO Rohit Talluri and COO Gabriel Fong (L-R, above) — is filling that seat with AI, building agents that act like a company's real customers so product teams can see how people will react to a new feature or design before it ships. Read more. 

“The tech talent market here is really second to none.” Diego Panama, CEO of Chicago-based software company LogicGate, said the startup is planting a flag in the Seattle area with a new office in Bellevue and an expanding local leadership team, aiming to tap into the region's deep pool of AI and enterprise tech talent. Read more.

Does AI bolster or undercut democracy? In his latest column, computer scientist Oren Etzioni weighs the polarizing arguments surrounding AI’s impact on democracy, suggesting that the ultimate outcome hinges on the critical tension between who controls the power of AI and who gets cheap, widespread access to use it. Read more.

Amazon layoffs: The tech giant cut 57 jobs in Washington across various teams, according to a new state filing. The company said a few businesses “made organizational changes that each impacted a small number of employees.” Read more.

Hot Links:

• Vancouver, B.C.–based work‑based learning platform Riipen, ranked No. 61 on the GeekWire 200, announced a new Google‑supported initiative helping community colleges deliver AI‑focused, employer‑designed projects to students. (PR Newswire)

• Shareholders officially approved the merger between General Fusion and Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III, setting the combined company up to debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "GFUZ" around July 10. (General Fusion)

• The University of Washington is exploring a redevelopment of UW Medical Center-Montlake, the Magnuson Health Sciences Center and west campus to expand its healthcare and research capacity. (UW) 

• Traffic intelligence company INRIX announced a report providing insights into 276,880 traffic lights nationwide to help transportation departments evaluate their performance. (Business Wire)

• Microsoft named its 2026 AI Economy Institute cohort, selecting two dozen researchers to scrutinize frontier AI firms and the real‑world shifts they’re triggering in jobs, productivity, and regional economies. (Microsoft)

Thanks for subscribing, and have a great day. — GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, [email protected]; reporter Kurt Schlosser, [email protected]; and reporter Lisa Stiffler, [email protected].