Daily AI Briefing
The latest breakthroughs in AI — aggregated from top sources and paired with original analysis.
Consulting firm McKinsey & Company is going to ask some entry-level candidates to have a 10-minute conversation with an AI simulation of a client as part of the interview process, according to The Wall Street Journal. The AI simulation "aims to reflect 80% of the scenarios McKinsey consultants might encounter in their day-to-day work," the WSJ says, and it isn't designed to "mimic an unhinged client." The AI won't score the candidates - humans will be in the room to assess the candidates and see
I recently found myself thinking about something that would have sounded strange a few years ago. Continue reading on Towards AI »
Apple’s HomeView smart display seems tailor-made for the kitchen. (That aluminum base looks like it will hold up better than my now off-white kitchen HomePod.) I'm just going to come right out and say it. I love the approach Apple has taken with the HomeView. I think it's the shared, always-available household interface that my family might finally use. Is Apple's first smart display my dream smart home dashboard? No. But is it the right product for Apple Home at this moment? Absolutely. A lot
US states sue ChatGPT maker and seek to force the company to change how its products work for young users Eight US states sued OpenAI Wednesday, alleging the ChatGPT maker is harming children en masse. Kansas, Arizona, Montana, Iowa and four others allege the company’s products carried out “willful, dangerous, reckless and unlawful conduct” by coaxing children into harming themselves. Continue reading...
Langley’s comments come amid mounting scrutiny of Flock from privacy advocates, including the ACLU, and members of the public who are concerned about the misuse of its technology.
OpenAI is facing a new wave of lawsuits from eight US states that accuse the company of harming children and misleading customers about the safety of ChatGPT, as reported earlier by Reuters. The lawsuits, filed separately by Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana, allege OpenAI unlawfully put profits over safety when developing ChatGPT. The string of complaints claims that OpenAI violated local consumer protection laws by failing to warn customers about the
Which codes better? Compare GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1 on coding benchmarks, independent agent scores and cost per task before you… Continue reading on Towards AI »
Hours before Apple and the ChatGPT maker were due to face off in court, a new allegation delayed the showdown An OpenAI employee who left the ChatGPT maker for Apple sent more than 100 files about an unreleased product to a personal account and later made a presentation about the unreleased product to senior Apple leadership, a new filing in the lawsuit between OpenAI and Apple alleges. In the filing in US federal court in San Jose, California, OpenAI alleged that the presentation happened
We've all gotten a scam text about a nonexistent parking ticket or a fake package delivery, but hopefully you'll start seeing fewer of them. Microsoft says it helped dismantle a marketplace for scammers sending phishing messages like those around the world. Through an investigation with Japan's National Police Agency, it tracked scam activity back to a marketplace called YAM Store and a pair of phishing kits, CoGUI and Iron Man: Since January 2026, YAM Store, CoGUI and Iron Man have collectively
I was about to write “grab your free $1,000 in Claude API credits before they run out.” Then I opened the program page and found out the… Continue reading on Towards AI »
Eight environment variables point Claude Code at muse-wonder-1.0. Here is what each one changes inside Claude Code, how to check the setup… Continue reading on Towards AI »
Accounts for the Westminster-based company behind ChatGPT show that 110 staff shared £87m in salaries and £168m in shares last year OpenAI’s London staff each received £2,318,181 on average last year, as the ChatGPT-maker poured Premier League football salaries into its bid to dominate the global AI race. Accounts for OpenAI UK Ltd, which is based in Westminster but is opening a new HQ in London’s King’s Cross area, showed that 110 staff shared £87m in salaries and £168m in shares in the company
Last week, Anthropic and OpenAI looked like they had the AI race to themselves, pulling ahead with increasingly powerful models that left their rivals in the dust. Google seemed hopelessly far behind, while Meta, despite spending billions to revive its floundering AI ambitions, had yet to establish itself as a serious contender. Even the latest models coming out of China, impressive as they were, appeared to be playing catch-up. Then, in the space of a few days, everything changed. Google and Me
Article in Atlantic claims The Blue Fighter was artificially generated, days after it won Caine prize for African writers The Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated. Kundizeza’s story The Blue Fighter was announced as the winner of the prestigious Caine prize for African writers on 6 October. Five days later, The Atlantic published an article by
Paperclip now lets Claude Code and Codex act as you. The OAuth is careful. The trust rules behind it were written for humans. Continue reading on Towards AI »
New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed a years-long multi-state investigation against Character.AI as they now seek to require protections on consumer data sold through its bankruptcy proceeding. James is among 40 bipartisan AGs who filed a notice of interest in Character.AI's bankruptcy case "to put all parties on notice of the regulatory issues that will need to be addressed in any sale or transfer of the Debtor's business or assets." Character.AI announced Tuesday it was filing for
The new Apple TV 4K and remote look just like the old ones and mostly have the same features. It's been four long years since the last Apple TV 4K was released, and in that time there have been lots of hopes and dreams for features in whatever comes next. A new chip, 4K/120Hz support, audio passthrough, a remote locator, better home control integration - the 2022 Apple TV 4K is a great box, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. With the fourth-gen Apple TV 4K announced on Tuesday,
What can we learn even when a transformation changes every direction? Continue reading on Towards AI »
The label will appear on the player page and include songs entirely generated by AI or partially, such as AI involved in composition and vocals.
YouTube is adding a "Made with AI" label to tracks that were "altered or fully generated" using AI, with a similar approach to its existing process for applying AI labels to videos. It doesn't sound like this will apply to any and all use of AI tools in making music, but according to YouTube, it includes things like "using a generative model to create the composition and vocals." In its rules for music partners who upload their songs, YouTube lays out how to disclose generative AI use, and says
While we cover a lot of deals on specific products, it’s rare that we find worthwhile savings on gift cards that let you save on essentially anything the store sells. However, until October 19th, you can save up to twenty percent on gift cards when you buy them through the Google Play store. There are a variety of discounts and retailers available, including 20 percent off $50 at Barnes and Noble, 20 percent off $100 at REI, and 10 percent off $100 at GameStop. You don’t need an Android phone or
A learner’s map to Google’s Gemini stack in 2026 — what it is, what to learn, and the order to learn it in. Continue reading on Towards AI »
Most companies use AI agents to ship products faster or speed up workflows. Apate.ai sends them undercover to get scammed.
Experts say the technology could help terrorists and nation states with production but that significant hurdles remain In his annual speech on threats to the nation, Sir Ken McCallum, the head of the UK’s intelligence service, MI5, warned that AI had the potential to “change the stakes” on existing and even new bioweapons. Here we look at how AI might help in the development of bioweapons and the hurdles that remain. Continue reading...
It’s like a big Apple Watch for the home. | Image: Apple Apple only just announced on Tuesday that its first smart display, the HomeView, will arrive on November 13th, but you can already save a couple bucks on it. Right now, you can buy the display for $289.99 ($10 off) in gray and the creamy white “starlight” colorway at Amazon. Sure, it’s a small discount, but deals on new Apple devices ahead of launch are rare. Apple HomeView Where to Buy: $299 $289.99 at Amazon $299 at Apple $299 at
Kate Fleming says the government must look beyond the models it rewards today, while Jenny Haigh says unlocking potential means recognising that creativity and science are partners Gordon Brown wants Britain to invent, invest in and own the future (British households would be £5,000 richer if we were more innovative. Let’s unleash our talents, 9 October). But invent what, and for whom? His hunt for “lost Einsteins” rests on a narrow vision: a lone genius invents, commercialisation scales, the pr
Get a 50% discount on the last two days of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, October 14-15, in San Francisco. Register now and join the rest of the startup ecosystem. Today, it's all about physical and software AI.
The problem Floqer is trying to solve is familiar to anyone who has worked in sales or revenue operations.
Day 2 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, full of all themes across AI, as well as an investor-only session, more roundtables, Side Events, and more. Register to save 50% on your pass.
With OpenAI Daybreak, SentinelOne cuts weeks of malware analysis to hours, creating capacity to investigate more threats.
See how Amp pushes the frontier of what agents can do with GPT-6 Astra, Ultrafast, GPT-Live-1, and Sign in with ChatGPT.
Pledge spanning five years from world’s most valuable firm comes as concerns about AI agents have risen The $5.5tn (£4.1tn) US chipmaker Nvidia is donating $250m worth of computing power to the UK to support AI safety research. The donation from the world’s most valuable company comes as the UK government confirmed its AI Security Institute (AISI), which tests advance AI models, will be able to examine cutting-edge technology developed by companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google before th
From the FBI to local police departments, US authorities are increasingly warning of would-be terrorists using chatbots to plan attacks and anti-AI extremist threats In May 2025, a 25-year-old man detonated a car bomb outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic, killing himself and injuring four others. For many, it was a wake-up call about the threats to reproductive care facilities. For the FBI, though, it was also a sign of what the agency had feared for years: bad actors were using generative A
A fight over a datacentre in Utah has been a testing ground for citizens’ assemblies, paving the way to oversight What’s your “(p)doom” – the percentage chance that rogue AI will create an existential catastrophe? Judging by their recent warnings, it is rising among tech bosses. On 25 September, OpenAI paused training of its latest frontier models as reports of AI agents going rogue mounted. A day later, Australia’s Senate asked the bosses of OpenAI and Anthropic to appear before an inquiry afte
Kristalina Georgieva says online fraud could lead people to opt out of system and turn to ‘shoeboxes under their bed’ The heads of the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund have issued a stark warning that rising cyber-attacks risk undermining trust in the financial system. Speaking on a panel about online fraud at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, pointed to alarming headlines about self-replicating AI agents hijacking
With GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol, Codex, and Daybreak for cybersecurity, this AI lab builds agents that focus for days and improve with use.
Block is building AI-powered security with OpenAI. Its security team investigates threats faster and proposes patches in minutes.
We embraced the internet and then forgot how to do things in the real world Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...
New analysis shows how agentic AI adoption is growing across EU enterprises and small businesses—and where deeper use could unlock more value.
Max Hodak, the former president and co-founder of Neuralink, detailed on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt how his company's work with PRIMA is part of its path toward a novel brain-computer interface (BCI).
Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman predicts a future where personal AI assistants become as commonplace as household appliances, running partly on local devices and partly in the cloud.
Body representing some of Britain’s biggest graduate employers reveals misconduct is at a record high It is obvious when someone is using AI to drum up answers in a job interview, according to Chris Morrow, who runs a recruitment agency in Manchester. “It’s like they are reading off an Autocue,” he said. Continue reading...
Industrial Next helps manufacturers automate complex, delicate tasks that have traditionally required human labor.