News coverage on artificial intelligence and machine learning tech, the companies building them, and the ethical issues AI raises today. This encompasses generative AI, including large language models, text-to-image and text-to-video models; speech recognition and generation; and predictive analytics.
Adept, a startup developing AI-powered “agents” to complete various software-based tasks, has agreed to license its tech to Amazon and the startup’s co-founders and portions of its team have joined…
Fundraising
YC alum Fluently’s AI-powered English coach attracts $2M seed round
Anna Heim
12 hours ago
There are plenty of resources to learn English, but not so many for near-native speakers who still want to improve their fluency. That description applies to Stan Beliaev and Yurii…
Startups
DEI? More like ‘common decency’ — and Silicon Valley is saying ‘no thanks’
Haje Jan Kamps
16 hours ago
Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. I…
AI
Google Gemini: Everything you need to know about the new generative AI platform
Kyle Wiggers
17 hours ago
Google’s trying to make waves with Gemini, its flagship suite of generative AI models, apps and services. So what’s Google Gemini, exactly? How can you use it? And how does…
Gadgets
Here are the hottest product announcements from Apple, Google, Microsoft and others so far in 2024
Christine Hall
22 hours ago
We’ve poked through the many product announcements made by the biggest tech companies and product trade shows of the year, so far, and compiled them into this list.
Startups
Hebbia raises nearly $100M Series B for AI-powered document search led by Andreessen Horowitz
Marina Temkin
2 days ago
Hebbia, a startup using generative AI to search large documents and return answers, has raised a nearly $100 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, according to three people with…
Robotics
Agility’s humanoid robots are going to handle your Spanx
Brian Heater
2 days ago
Digit’s first job will be moving totes around a Connecticut Spanx factory — which is most definitely not a euphemism.
Fundraising
Will AI get an A+ in edtech? MagicSchool raises $15M to find out
Ingrid Lunden
2 days ago
These days, when you hear about students and generative AI, chances are that you’re getting a taste of the debate over the adoption of tools like ChatGPT. Are they a…
AI
Zuckerberg disses closed-source AI competitors as trying to ‘create God’
Sarah Perez
2 days ago
In the conversation, Zuckerberg said there needs to be a lot of different AIs that get created to reflect people’s different interests.
Fundraising
Andrew Ng plans to raise $120M for next AI Fund
Kyle Wiggers
2 days ago
AI big shot Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, a startup incubator that backs small teams of experts looking to solve key problems using AI, plans to raise upward of $120 million…
Apps
Meta starts testing user-created AI chatbots on Instagram
Ivan Mehta
2 days ago
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that the company will begin to surface AI characters made by creators through Meta AI studio on Instagram. The tests will begin in…
AI
TechCrunch Minute: Reddit is taking a stand against AI crawlers
Anthony Ha
9:00 AM PDT • June 27, 2024
Reddit is taking a stand against AI companies — or at least asking them to pay up. Earlier this week, Reddit announced that it’s changing…
Apps
Character.AI now allows users to talk with AI avatars over calls
Ivan Mehta
2 days ago
a16z-backed Character.AI said today that it is now allowing users to talk to AI characters over calls. The feature currently supports multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese…
Startups
Illumex is using GenAI to ease pain of getting good data into LLMs
Ron Miller
2 days ago
By now we know how crucial it is to have quality data for use by large language models (LLMs), but getting data ready for the models has been an early…
AI
ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot
Kyle Wiggers
Cody Corrall
Alyssa Stringer
2 days ago
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code…
AI
Axelera lands new funds as the AI chip market heats up
Kyle Wiggers
2 days ago
Axelera designs AI-running chips and systems for applications like security, retail, automotive and robotics.
AI
Orby is building AI agents for the enterprise
Kyle Wiggers
2 days ago
Orby AI, is building a generative AI platform that attempts to automate a range of different business workflows, including workflows that involve data entry, documents processing and forms validation.
AI
Dust grabs another $16M for its enterprise AI assistants connected to internal data
Romain Dillet
2 days ago
French startup Dust has raised a $16 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital. With Dust, companies can create custom AI assistants and share them with their employees…
Startups
Synthflow picks up $7.4M for no-code voice assistance for SMEs
Natasha Lomas
2 days ago
What is AI good for? Automating repetitive tasks for the very busy people running small businesses, reckons Berlin-based startup Synthflow, which is announcing a $7.4 million seed round for its…
AI
Sonia’s AI chatbot steps in for therapists
Kyle Wiggers
3 days ago
Can chatbots replace human therapists? Some startups — and patients — claim that they can. But it’s not exactly settled science. One study found that 80% of people who’ve used…
Robotics
Persona’s founders are certain the world can use another humanoid robot
Brian Heater
3 days ago
At this early stage, Persona’s pitch doesn’t stray far from the various humanoid firms with which it’s set to compete.
AI
This Week in AI: The fate of generative AI is in the courts’ hands
Kyle Wiggers
3 days ago
Hiya, folks, and welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. This week in AI, music labels accused two startups developing AI-powered song generators, Udio and Suno, of copyright infringement. The RIAA,…
AI
TechCrunch Minute: Meta is labeling real photos as ‘Made with AI’
Amanda Silberling
9:00 AM PDT • June 26, 2024
Photographers are claiming that Meta is tagging their real photos as “Made with AI.” Meta introduced this automated tag to help people understand when what…
Unbabel among the first AI startups to win millions of GPU training hours on EU supercomputers
Natasha Lomas
3 days ago
Four startups will share €1 million in prize money and 8 million GPU hours to train their models on a couple of the bloc’s HPC supercomputers over the next 12…
AI
Formation Bio raises $372M to boost drug development with AI
Kyle Wiggers
3 days ago
Formation builds tech-forward solutions for clinical trials and drug development.
Startups
Dappier is building a marketplace for publishers to sell their content to LLM builders
Ron Miller
3 days ago
When Napster emerged in the late 1990s, it made it easy for people to grab music files without compensating the content owners. The iPod and the iTunes music store changed…
Apps
Video editing app Captions releases AI edit feature that automatically adds effects to your video
Ivan Mehta
3 days ago
Video editing app Captions, which is backed by a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital, has launched a new feature that takes an existing unedited video and adds custom graphics, zooms,…
AI
CData, which helps orgs use data across apps and build AI models, snaps up $350M
Ingrid Lunden
3 days ago
CData builds connectors that enterprises can use to stitch together data from different sources – and locations, not just in the cloud – more easily.
AI
Fetcherr lands $90M to get airlines on board with dynamic pricing
Kyle Wiggers
3 days ago
In a push to bolster profits, more airlines are turning to controversial dynamic pricing tech, which prices fares and amenities variably based on a traveler’s willingness to pay for them.
