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.
Enterprise
Adobe’s GenStudio brings brand-safe generative AI to marketers
Frederic Lardinois
9:04 am PDT • March 26, 2024
Brands want to use generative AI to personalize their marketing efforts — but they are also deathly afraid of AI going off message and ruining their brand. At its annual…
AI
YC-backed SigmaOS browser turns to AI-powered features for monetization
Ivan Mehta
8:30 am PDT • March 26, 2024
Web browsers have realized they are one of the best ways for users to access the present set of AI tools, so they are working on being the first-choice containers…
Startups
Fireworks.ai open source API puts generative AI in reach of any developer
Ron Miller
7:00 am PDT • March 26, 2024
Just about everyone is trying to get a piece of the generative AI action these days. While the majority of the focus remains on the model vendors like OpenAI, Anthropic…
Crypto
0G Labs launches with whopping $35M pre-seed to build a modular AI blockchain
Jacquelyn Melinek
6:00 am PDT • March 26, 2024
As the crypto space heats back up, so has funding for new startups. 0G Labs, a web3 infrastructure firm,” has raised $35 million in a pre-seed round, the team exclusively…
Hardware
Viam looks beyond robotics with its automation platform
Brian Heater
6:00 am PDT • March 26, 2024
Since the last time we spoke, Viam didn’t pivot exactly, according to founder and CEO Eliot Horowitz — it’s more of a “rebrand.” Roughly six months ago, the Manhattan-based startup…
Privacy
Worldcoin hit with another ban order in Europe citing risks to kids
Natasha Lomas
5:36 am PDT • March 26, 2024
Controversial crypto biometrics venture Worldcoin has been almost entirely booted out of Europe after being hit with another temporary ban — this time in Portugal. The order from the country’s…
AI
AI is a data problem — Cyera is raising up to $300M on a $1.5B valuation to secure it
Ingrid Lunden
2:51 am PDT • March 26, 2024
A cybersecurity startup called Cyera is betting that the next big challenge in enterprise data protection will be AI, and it’s raising a big round of funding as demand picks…
AI
Profluent, spurred by Salesforce research and backed by Jeff Dean, uses AI to discover medicines
Kyle Wiggers
3:08 pm PDT • March 25, 2024
Last year, Salesforce, the company best known for its cloud sales support software (and Slack), spearheaded a project called ProGen to design proteins using generative AI. A research moonshot, ProGen…
Robotics
Large language models can help home robots recover from errors without human help
Brian Heater
1:01 pm PDT • March 25, 2024
There are countless reasons why home robots have found little success post-Roomba. Pricing, practicality, form factor and mapping have all contributed to failure after failure. Even when some or all…
AI
Can you hear me now? AI-coustics to fight noisy audio with generative AI
Kyle Wiggers
11:43 am PDT • March 25, 2024
Noisy recordings of interviews and speeches are the bane of audio engineers’ existence. But one German startup hopes to fix that with a unique technical approach that uses generative AI…
Featured Article
Nvidia could be primed to be the next AWS
The question is whether Nvidia can sustain that growth to become a long-term revenue powerhouse like AWS has become for Amazon.
Ron Miller
Alex Wilhelm
8:00 am PDT • March 24, 2024
Featured Article
Why it’s impossible to review AIs, and why TechCrunch is doing it anyway
Every week seems to bring with it a new AI model, and the technology has unfortunately outpaced anyone’s ability to evaluate it comprehensively. Here’s why it’s pretty much impossible to review something like ChatGPT or Gemini, why it’s important to try anyway, and our (constantly evolving) approach to doing so. The tl;dr: These systems are…
Devin Coldewey
6:01 am PDT • March 23, 2024
AI
Stability AI CEO resigns because you’re ‘not going to beat centralized AI with more centralized AI’
Manish Singh
10:58 pm PDT • March 22, 2024
Stability AI founder and chief executive Emad Mostaque has stepped down from the top role and from the unicorn startup‘s board, the buzzy firm said Friday night, making it the…
AI
Calmara suggests it can detect STIs with photos of genitals — a dangerous idea
Amanda Silberling
8:00 am PDT • March 22, 2024
You’ve gone home with a Tinder date, and things are escalating. You don’t really know or trust this guy, and you don’t want to contract an STI, so… what now?…
AI
Here’s how Microsoft is providing a ‘good outcome’ for Inflection AI VCs, as Reid Hoffman promised
Julie Bort
3:50 pm PDT • March 21, 2024
Exactly how much Microsoft is paying all the investors of Inflection AI as part its oddly structured deal to abscond with the co-founders, much of the staff and the rights…
Venture
Reddit stock closes up nearly 48% on its first day of trading
Alex Wilhelm
Rebecca Szkutak
1:11 pm PDT • March 21, 2024
Shares of social forum giant Reddit closed its first day of trading at $50.31, up nearly 48% from its IPO price of $34 per share. The company had indicated a…
Featured Article
Why is AI so bad at spelling? Because image generators aren’t actually reading text
AIs are easily acing the SAT, defeating chess grandmasters and debugging code like it’s nothing. But put an AI up against some middle schoolers at the spelling bee, and it’ll get knocked out faster than you can say diffusion. For all the advancements we’ve seen in AI, it still can’t spell. If you ask text-to-image…
Amanda Silberling
11:47 am PDT • March 21, 2024
AI
TechCrunch Minute: All about Microsoft’s mega AI push after it hired Inflection AI’s co-founders
Alex Wilhelm
Yashad Kulkarni
9:00 am PDT • March 21, 2024
Microsoft’s latest gambit to snag much of the human talent from Inflection AI is causing waves this week. Redmond has previously invested in the company, but is now absorbing much…
Hardware
Copilot gets its own key on Microsoft’s new Surface devices
Brian Heater
9:00 am PDT • March 21, 2024
We’re still a month or so out from Build, but Microsoft is doing a bit of a trial run this week in the form of an online-only event. What’s been…
Enterprise
Microsoft really wants to talk about Copilot
Frederic Lardinois
9:00 am PDT • March 21, 2024
Microsoft announced two new Surface devices and a slew of new accessories at a virtual event today, but the first part of the presentation focused squarely on how its AI…
AI
Astera Labs’ IPO pops 72% on first day, showing that investor demand for tech with an AI twist is high
Rebecca Szkutak
Alex Wilhelm
4:30 pm PDT • March 20, 2024
Astera Labs started its life as a public company trading at $52.56 per share, up 46% when the bell rang. The company priced its IPO last night at $36 per…
Enterprise
GitHub’s latest AI tool can automatically fix code vulnerabilities
Frederic Lardinois
9:00 am PDT • March 20, 2024
It’s a bad day for bugs. Earlier today, Sentry announced its AI Autofix feature for debugging production code and now, a few hours later, GitHub is launching the first beta…
Enterprise
ServiceNow is developing AI through mix of building, buying and partnering
Ron Miller
6:09 am PDT • March 20, 2024
Every enterprise software company out there is working to bring more workflow automation and AI to the platform. ServiceNow has been on this journey for some time now, and given…
AI
Google hit with $270M fine in France as authority finds news publishers’ data was used for Gemini
Natasha Lomas
Romain Dillet
5:20 am PDT • March 20, 2024
In a never-ending saga between Google and France’s competition authority over copyright protections for news snippets, the Autorité de la Concurrence announced a €250 million fine against the tech giant…
AI
OpenAI’s chatbot store is filling up with spam
Kyle Wiggers
5:15 am PDT • March 20, 2024
When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced GPTs, custom chatbots powered by OpenAI’s generative AI models, onstage at the company’s first-ever developer conference in November, he described them as a way…
Hardware
White House proposes up to $8.5B to fund Intel’s domestic chip manufacturing
Brian Heater
3:11 am PDT • March 20, 2024
Well before President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law back in August 2022, Intel has been a cornerstone of U.S. efforts to increase domestic chip manufacturing.…
AI
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says AI hallucinations are solvable, artificial general intelligence is 5 years away
Haje Jan Kamps
2:13 pm PDT • March 19, 2024
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) — often referred to as “strong AI,” “full AI,” “human-level AI” or “general intelligent action” — represents a significant future leap in the field of artificial…
AI
Nvidia’s keynote at GTC held some surprises
Haje Jan Kamps
1:55 pm PDT • March 19, 2024
Nvidia’s keynote at GTC on Monday held some surprises. In a way, it was a return to the company’s original mission.
Featured Article
Astera Labs IPO will reveal how much investors want in on AI
While the technology world breathlessly awaits Reddit’s public debut, another company you might never have heard of is about to go public: Astera Labs.
Alex Wilhelm
Julie Bort
12:59 pm PDT • March 19, 2024
