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European Banks Plan to Cut 200,000 Jobs as AI Takes Hold
European banks could eliminate more than 200,000 jobs by 2030 as AI reshapes operations, representing roughly 10% of staff across 35 major institutions. The cuts will focus on back‑office, risk management and compliance functions, where algorithms promise up to 30% efficiency gains. Dutch lender ABN Amro already announced a 20% workforce reduction by 2028, while Société Générale’s CEO signaled no role is immune. Similar AI‑driven restructuring is unfolding in the United States, exemplified by Goldman Sachs’ OneGS 3.0 initiative.
‘College Dropout’ Has Become the Most Coveted Startup Founder Credential
The tech press notes a resurgence of the college‑dropout narrative among startup founders, especially at Y Combinator Demo Days, even as academic research shows most unicorns are built by degree‑holders. The AI boom intensifies the perception that time‑to‑market is critical, prompting...
VCs Predict Enterprises Will Spend More on AI in 2026 — Through Fewer Vendors
Enterprise AI budgets are set to rise in 2026, but the growth will be concentrated on a limited set of vendors. Venture capitalists surveyed by TechCrunch expect firms to trim experimental spend, consolidating contracts around tools that demonstrate clear ROI....
Meta Just Bought Manus, an AI Startup Everyone Has Been Talking About
Meta Platforms announced a $2 billion acquisition of Singapore‑based AI startup Manus, a company that quickly amassed millions of users and $100 million in annual recurring revenue after a viral demo. Manus, valued at $500 million in a recent $75 million funding round, offers...
Plaud Note Pro Is an Excellent AI-Powered Recorder that I Carry Everywhere
Plaud Note Pro is a credit‑card‑sized AI recorder that slips into a wallet and mounts magnetically to phones. It records offline on 64 GB of internal storage, offering up to 30 hours of continuous capture and 60 days of standby on a single...
Waymo Is Testing Gemini as an In-Car AI Assistant in Its Robotaxis
Waymo is piloting Google’s Gemini chatbot as an in‑car AI assistant for its robotaxis, revealed through a 1,200‑line system prompt. The assistant is designed to answer rider queries, manage cabin functions such as climate, lighting and music, and personalize greetings...
Marissa Mayer’s New Startup Dazzle Raises $8M Led by Forerunner’s Kirsten Green
Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has launched Dazzle, an AI personal‑assistant startup, after shuttering her photo‑sharing venture Sunshine. Dazzle secured an $8 million seed round at a $35 million valuation, led by Forerunner Ventures partner Kirsten Green, with participation from Kleiner Perkins and...
Lemon Slice Nabs $10.5M From YC and Matrix to Build Out Its Digital Avatar Tech
Lemon Slice announced a $10.5 million seed round backed by Y Combinator, Matrix Partners, and notable tech leaders to accelerate its Lemon Slice‑2 model. The 20‑billion‑parameter diffusion model adds a real‑time video layer to AI avatars, streaming 20 fps on a single GPU...
OpenAI Says AI Browsers May Always Be Vulnerable to Prompt Injection Attacks
OpenAI admits that prompt‑injection attacks on its Atlas AI browser are unlikely to be fully eliminated and has rolled out a hardening update that flags suspicious instructions. The firm introduced a reinforcement‑learning‑trained automated attacker to probe the system for hidden...
Waymo Suspends Service in San Francisco as Robotaxis Stall During Blackout
Waymo temporarily suspended its robotaxi service in San Francisco after a massive citywide blackout left many autonomous vehicles stalled on streets. The outage, triggered by a fire at a PG&E substation, knocked out power for roughly 120,000 customers and disabled traffic...
OpenAI Allows Users to Directly Adjust ChatGPT’s Enthusiasm Level
OpenAI has added a new Personalization menu that lets ChatGPT users directly adjust the model's enthusiasm, warmth, and emoji usage. The settings can be set to More, Less, or Default, complementing existing tone presets such as Professional, Candid, and Quirky....
New York Governor Kathy Hochul Signs RAISE Act to Regulate AI Safety
Governor Kathy Hochul signed the RAISE Act, making New York the second U.S. state to adopt comprehensive AI safety legislation after California. The law obliges large AI developers to publish safety protocols and report incidents to the state within 72 hours, with...
Ex-Splunk Execs’ Startup Resolve AI Hits $1 Billion Valuation with Series A
Resolve AI, founded by former Splunk executives Spiros Xanthos and Mayank Agarwal, announced a Series A round that carries a $1 billion headline valuation, though a multi‑tranche structure means the blended valuation is lower. The startup, less than two years old, reports...
Yann LeCun Confirms His New ‘World Model’ Startup, Reportedly Seeks $5B+ Valuation
Yann LeCun announced the launch of Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) Labs, appointing Alex LeBrun as CEO. The startup aims to develop world‑model AI and is seeking €500 million at a €3 billion valuation. LeCun will serve as executive chairman, while his former...
Pickle Robot Adds Tesla Veteran as First CFO
Pickle Robot, a Massachusetts‑based maker of autonomous unloading robots, appointed Jeff Evanson as its first chief financial officer. Evanson, a former Tesla vice president of global investor relations, had been consulting for Pickle since September and now joins full‑time. The...
Peripheral Labs Taps Into Self-Driving Car Sensors to Bring Sports Fans Right Into the Game
Peripheral Labs is adapting self‑driving car sensor technology to create affordable volumetric video for sports, reducing camera arrays from over 100 to as few as 32. The AI‑powered platform captures 3D reconstructions, offering fans multi‑angle views and coaches biomechanical data....
Luma Releases a New AI Model that Lets Users Generate a Video From a Start and End Frame
Luma AI unveiled Ray3 Modify, a generative video model that lets users edit existing footage while preserving the original actor’s performance. Creators can supply character reference images and define start and end frames to generate smooth transitions and transform scenes....
Adobe Hit with Proposed Class-Action, Accused of Misusing Authors’ Work in AI Training
Adobe faces a proposed class‑action lawsuit alleging it used pirated books to train its SlimLM language model. The suit, filed by author Elizabeth Lyon, claims the model’s training data derives from the SlimPajama‑627B dataset, which copies the RedPajama and Books3...
Amazon Appoints Longtime AWS Exec Peter DeSantis to Lead New AI Org
Amazon announced that longtime AWS executive Peter DeSantis will head a new AI-focused organization. The unit will oversee Amazon’s AI models such as Nova, custom silicon development, and quantum computing initiatives. DeSantis brings 27 years at Amazon, including eight as...
Google Launches Gemini 3 Flash, Makes It the Default Model in the Gemini App
Google unveiled Gemini 3 Flash, a faster and cheaper AI model that now serves as the default engine in the Gemini app and AI‑enhanced search. The model hits 33.7% on the Humanity’s Last Exam benchmark and 81.2% on the MMMU‑Pro multimodal reasoning...
Mozilla’s New CEO Says AI Is Coming to Firefox, but Will Remain a Choice
Mozilla has named Anthony Enzor‑DeMeo as its new chief executive, signaling a fresh strategic direction for the Firefox maker. The appointment arrives as AI‑driven browsers from Perplexity, Arc, OpenAI and Opera pressure traditional players. Enzor‑DeMeo pledged to embed AI features...
Skana Robotics Helps Fleets of Underwater Robots Communicate with Each Other
Skana Robotics unveiled SeaSphere, an AI‑driven software that lets underwater autonomous vessels exchange data and coordinate missions without surfacing. The platform uses mathematically‑focused AI algorithms to enable real‑time decision‑making across large fleets. Skana, founded in 2024, is targeting European defense...
Weeks After Raising $100M, Investors Pump Another $180M Into Hot Indian Startup MoEngage
MoEngage announced a $180 million Series F follow‑on round, adding $123 million in secondary sales and $57 million in primary capital. The funding pushes the post‑money valuation to well over $900 million and supports a target of $100 million annualised recurring revenue. Proceeds will fuel the...
Meta’s AI Glasses Can Now Help You Hear Conversations Better
Meta has released software version 21 for its Ray‑Ban and Oakley Meta smart glasses, adding a conversation‑focus mode that amplifies the voice of the person you’re speaking with. The update also introduces a Spotify integration that can cue music based...
Uber Eats Alum Lands $14M Seed From A16z to Fix WhatsApp Chaos for LatAm’s Doctors
Leona Health announced a $14 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz to modernize doctor‑patient messaging in Latin America. Founder Caroline Merin, former Uber Eats GM, built an AI‑copilot that plugs into doctors’ WhatsApp accounts, sorting messages by urgency and suggesting...
Databricks Raises $4B at $134B Valuation as Its AI Business Heats Up
Databricks closed a $4 billion Series L round, lifting its valuation to $134 billion—up 34% from three months earlier. The funding fuels its AI‑focused product suite, including the Lakebase database, the Agent Bricks platform, and partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI. Run‑rate revenue now exceeds...
VCs Discuss Why Most Consumer AI Startups Still Lack Staying Power
Venture capitalists at TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event warned that most consumer‑focused generative AI startups still lack durable business models, with revenue largely coming from enterprise customers. They likened the AI platform’s current stage to the early mobile era, when smartphones needed...
Merriam-Webster Names ‘Slop’ the Word of the Year
Merriam‑Webster announced “slop” as its 2025 Word of the Year, defining it as low‑quality digital content mass‑produced by artificial intelligence. The term captures the surge of AI‑generated books, podcasts, ads and even movies that now dominate online feeds. A May...
First Voyage Raises $2.5M for Its AI Companion Helps You Build Habits
First Voyage announced its AI companion app, Momo Self Care, has closed a $2.5 million seed round led by a16z speedrun and other investors. The app uses a digital pet to gamify habit formation, rewarding users with coins for completing tasks....
Mirelo Raises $41M From Index and A16z to Solve AI Video’s Silent Problem
Mirelo, a Berlin‑based AI startup, secured a $41 million seed round led by Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz to add synchronized sound effects to AI‑generated videos. Its Mirelo SFX v1.5 model interprets visual cues and automatically layers appropriate audio, addressing the...
Grok Got Crucial Facts Wrong About Bondi Beach Shooting
Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok circulated multiple inaccuracies about the Bondi Beach mass shooting in Australia. The AI misidentified the civilian hero, Ahmed al Ahmed, as an Israeli hostage and even fabricated a different rescuer named Edward Crabtree. It also injected irrelevant...
AI Data Center Boom Could Be Bad News for Other Infrastructure Projects
AI‑driven data‑center construction is surging, with private spending reaching an annualized $41 billion—roughly equal to state and local governments' transportation outlays. Governments have sold a record $600 billion in debt to fund infrastructure, but the data‑center boom is siphoning labor and capital....
1X Struck a Deal to Send Its ‘Home’ Humanoids to Factories and Warehouses
Robotics firm 1X announced a strategic partnership with EQT to ship up to 10,000 Neo consumer‑grade humanoid robots to more than 300 EQT portfolio companies between 2026 and 2030. The Neo, originally marketed for home use at a $20,000 price...
Disney Hits Google with Cease-and-Desist Claiming ‘Massive’ Copyright Infringement
Disney sent a cease‑and‑desist letter to Google, alleging massive copyright infringement by the company’s Gemini AI service, which it says reproduces and distributes protected characters at scale. The letter claims the AI‑generated images are branded with the Gemini logo, falsely...
Runway Releases Its First World Model, Adds Native Audio to Latest Video Model
Runway unveiled its first world model, GWM‑1, which predicts video frames pixel‑by‑pixel to simulate physics and real‑world dynamics. The release includes three specialized versions—GWM‑Worlds for interactive scenes, GWM‑Robotics for synthetic training data, and GWM‑Avatars for lifelike human simulations. In parallel,...
TIME Names ‘Architects of AI’ Its Person of the Year
TIME Magazine has named the “Architects of AI,” a collective of leading AI CEOs, as its 2025 Person of the Year. The group includes OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, AMD’s Lisa Su, Anthropic’s...
Interest in Spoor’s Bird Monitoring AI Software Is Soaring
Norwegian startup Spoor has scaled its computer‑vision platform to monitor birds within a 2.5‑kilometer radius, achieving roughly 96% species‑identification accuracy. The firm recently closed an €8 million Series A round, adding more than 20 major energy companies to its client roster and...
Port Raises $100M at $800M Valuation to Take on Spotify’s Backstage
Port, an Israeli startup founded in 2022, announced a $100 million Series C round that values the company at $800 million. The funding, led by General Atlantic with Accel, Bessemer and Team8, brings total capital to $158 million. Port’s platform extends the open‑source Backstage...
Harness Hits $5.5B Valuation with $240M Raise to Automate AI’s ‘After-Code’ Gap
Harness announced a $240 million Series E round that lifts its post‑money valuation to $5.5 billion. The AI‑driven DevOps platform aims to close the "after‑code" bottleneck—testing, security, and deployment—that consumes roughly 70 % of engineering time. Founder Jyoti Bansal projects annual recurring revenue exceeding...
Baby Delivered in Waymo Continues Proud Tradition of Not Making It to the Hospital
A Waymo robotaxi in San Francisco delivered a baby while en route to UCSF Medical Center after the vehicle’s remote team detected unusual activity and alerted 911. The autonomous car arrived at the hospital before emergency responders, marking the second...
Google’s Answer to the AI Arms Race — Promote the Guy Behind Its Data Center Tech
Google has created a new C‑suite role, chief technologist for AI infrastructure, and appointed long‑time AI systems architect Amin Vahdat to it. The position reports directly to CEO Sundar Pichai, underscoring the strategic priority of AI compute as Alphabet targets...
State Attorneys General Warn Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, and Other AI Giants to Fix ‘Delusional’ Outputs
State attorneys general have sent a joint letter to Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and nine other AI firms demanding safeguards against "delusional" chatbot outputs that have been linked to suicides and violent incidents. The letter calls for transparent third‑party audits, incident‑reporting...
Nvidia Is Reportedly Testing Tracking Software as Chip-Smuggling Rumors Swirl
Nvidia is testing optional tracking software that can verify the geographic location of its AI chips, starting with the Blackwell line. The system infers location by analyzing performance latency and server communication delays. The move follows unverified rumors that Blackwell...
AI Startup Tavus Founder Says Users Talk to Its AI Santa ‘for Hours’ per Day
Tavus, the AI startup behind digital voice‑and‑face clones, has relaunched its AI Santa experience for a second year, adding real‑time visual perception, memory and task‑execution capabilities. The upgraded "Tavus PAL" can read users' expressions, recall prior chats and even browse...
Google Launches Sub-$5 AI Plus Plan in India to Compete with ChatGPT Go
Google has introduced a low‑cost AI Plus subscription in India, priced at ₹199 ($2.21) per month for the first six months and rising to ₹399 thereafter. The plan upgrades users to higher limits on Gemini 3 Pro, the Nano Banana Pro image‑editing model, video generation...
Unconventional AI Confirms Its Massive $475M Seed Round
Former Databricks AI chief Naveen Rao has secured a $475 million seed round for his new venture Unconventional AI, valuing the startup at $4.5 billion. The financing, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Ventures with participation from Lux Capital and DCVC, is...
Cashew Research Is Going After the $90B Market Research Industry with AI
Cashew Research, a Calgary‑based startup, is using generative AI to design market‑research surveys and automatically synthesize human responses, delivering fresh data in days instead of weeks. The platform blends large‑language‑model planning with real‑world survey execution, cutting costs enough for small‑and‑medium...
Why Cursor’s CEO Believes OpenAI, Anthropic Competition Won’t Crush His Startup
Anysphere, the maker of the Cursor AI coding assistant, posted $1 billion in annualized revenue and secured $2.3 billion in new capital at a $29.3 billion valuation, yet the CEO Michael Truell ruled out an IPO for now. The company is doubling down...
Rivian Is Building Its Own AI Assistant
Rivian has spent nearly two years building an in‑house AI assistant that operates independently of its multibillion‑dollar joint venture with Volkswagen. The system is engineered to integrate directly with vehicle controls through a model‑agnostic, agentic framework that blends edge and...
Three in 10 US Teens Use AI Chatbots Every Day, but Safety Concerns Are Growing
The Pew Research Center reports that roughly three in ten U.S. teenagers use AI chatbots every day, with 59% favoring ChatGPT. Overall teen internet use remains high—97% go online daily and 40% are almost constantly connected, though that figure fell...