Daily AI Briefing
The latest breakthroughs in AI — aggregated from top sources and paired with original analysis.
Microsoft revealed the specs and price for its Surface Laptop Ultra, AI PCs that run on Nvidia chips that are designed to run AI models and agents.
Meta’s AI agent Muse is now available on iPad, just a month after its mobile debut, as the company rapidly expands the assistant’s reach and integrations.
ChatGPT’s teen safeguards are meant to protect vulnerable users, but new testing found the chatbot continues encouraging engagement during crises and potentially encourages unhealthy relationships with the AI itself.
OpenAI is launching a new user interface that will bring interactive visuals to ChatGPT.
Meta launches new AI tools after discovering ads on its platforms that may look normal but direct users to harmful content elsewhere online.
The financing includes an $8M seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, and a $30 million Series A led by Hummingbird Ventures.
The “father of the iPod” says the first generation of AI gadgets failed to solve real problems — and the next wave will need to earn consumers’ trust.
Google Labs is working on a new AI-powered game-creation platform called Playground for users to build browser-based games using simple text prompts.
OpenAI’s Alexander Embiricos is coming to the AI Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, just days after the launch of Dots. Join this conversation by registering for your pass. Get you pass now to save up to $100 and get a second at 50% off.
From Nvidia and Chime to Obvious Ventures and Anthropic, explore the entire roundtable agenda at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register now to save up to $100 on your pass and get a second pass at 50% off.
Google on Tuesday launched a new site that lets anyone verify whether a piece of media, be it an image, a video, or an audio clip, is generated using AI.
In 6 days, 10,000+ people from across the global startup and tech ecosystem will come together at San Francisco’s Moscone West for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. If you’re planning to be one of them, register for your ticket before prices increase at the door. Save up to $100 on your pass, plus 50% on a second of the same type.
College Planner is coming to ChatGPT for Teens to help students manage college applications, alongside new flashcards, quizzes, and a teen AI council.
Radisson partnered with Accenture to build a ChatGPT plugin using OpenAI technology, helping travelers find, compare, and book hotels while planning their trips.
GPT‑6 is rolling out globally in ChatGPT with Intelligent UI, delivering faster responses with visuals and interactive experiences you can explore and use directly.
Commissioner said Shenzhen Qingcheng, the app maker behind the HeyCyan app in the smartglasses, failed to respond to her inquiries Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Australian privacy regulator has opened an investigation into the China-based software company behind the HeyCyan app in Kmart’s $89 smartglasses, following public outrage over the covert use of the devices. In August, Guardian Australia reported Kmart had sold out of the Anko-branded discount version
OpenAI has revealed solutions to a number of long-standing mathematics problems produced by an unreleased frontier model in a batch of 722 manuscripts, covering 372 result families that group related papers. It extends a run of breakthroughs that have both impressed and unsettled parts of the mathematical community while raising questions about research ethics and academic conduct. According to AGMAI, the newly formed independent advisory group of elite mathematicians put together to work on com
Don’t read the logs. Watch the crab. Continue reading on Towards AI »
Instead of helping marketers manage and optimize ad spend, the company is focusing on building the tools that generate the creative assets and campaigns.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told employees that Microsoft is getting ready to do something around Grand Theft Auto VI that "no other platform holder is doing" during an employee all-hands this morning. According to sources familiar with Microsoft's plans, Xbox has managed to land a deal for the exclusive game streaming rights for Grand Theft Auto VI. The deal will mean only Xbox Cloud Gaming can stream Grand Theft Auto VI to players at launch, but it's not clear how long the agreement will be in place.
Your test fails with an error you have never seen before. You copy it, paste it into the AI, and a few seconds later you have a fix. It… Continue reading on Towards AI »
The Dreame X60 Ultra in action. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Spending too much time constantly sweeping and mopping? If you have the money to delegate those chores to a robot cleaner, you could save a lot of personal time. Thankfully, it’s cheaper than usual to buy a robot vacuum / mop hybrid during Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, and some of our favorite models are discounted. The deals aren’t just for Amazon Prime members either, with other retailers like Best Buy and manufac
Apple is collaborating with LG on a new lineup of smart home devices, including a video doorbell, thermostat, indoor camera, and more, according to a report from Bloomberg. The products will reportedly feature LG branding but integrate with the company's rumored smart home hub that's expected to launch during an event on October 13th. Sources tell Bloomberg that the upcoming line of devices also includes a deadbolt lock, outdoor security camera, and a floodlight camera. Several of the devices w
Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco is facing backlash from fellow comics who claim his takeover of SiriusXM's Raw Comedy channel is harming up-and-coming talent, as reported earlier by Deadline. Many established comics, including Patton Oswalt and Margaret Cho, have posted videos online calling on Maniscalco to carry on Raw Comedy's legacy by highlighting newer comedians on his channel, instead of mostly focusing on well-known ones. SiriusXM launched Sebastian Maniscalco's Comedy Radio in April, whic
If Claude disappeared for ten minutes after you sent an answer, could you keep the conversation going? Continue reading on Towards AI »
Some Tesla Model 3 and Model Y owners can use their EV battery to keep the lights on longer during a power outage, now that Tesla's expanding the Powershare Home Backup feature. It was previously only available on the Cybertruck, and also requires owning Tesla's Powerwall 3. However, support for the Powerwall 2 and Powerwall Plus is "coming soon." Tesla's EVs aren't the first or only ones with bidirectional charging; companies like Kia and GM also offer vehicle-to-home power on their vehicles, w
On Tuesday, Musubi announced a lightweight decision model made for real-time moderation called PolicyLM-1.7B, released with open weights.
Google announced a new agreement to update six nuclear power plant sites across the US as the tech giant seeks to generate more electricity for its power-hungry data centers. Google signed the 20-year deal with Constellation, the leading nuclear power plant operator in the US. The power purchase agreement is meant to guarantee the revenue needed to cover the cost of efficiency upgrades at existing nuclear plants and "represents more than $4.3 billion of new investment by Constellation," accordin
Qwen3.5 9B, Copilot and Smart Connections on an M5 Mac: the one Ollama setting guides skip, what broke, and a one-minute citation check. Continue reading on Towards AI »
Nvidia-backed Lambda is raising up to $4 billion at a $14.5 billion pre-money valuation ahead of a planned 2027 IPO, led by Coatue and Blackstone.
Calling something “last-gen” usually means it comes with big compromises compared to the latest version. That’s not as true for the last-gen Kindle Paperwhite as it is with some other tech. The newer version can open books 30 percent faster (not the same as page-turning speed), and its aluminum design is a millimeter thinner — but it costs $50 more. The 2024 edition has the same fantastic 300ppi screen, an auto-adjusting front light, and waterproof (IPX8) design. And the Signature Edition that’s
Personal AI agents promise to shop, book flights, and make reservations for you. But deliberate blocks and anti-bot defenses are getting in the way, leaving consumers caught in the middle. A new standard aims to help.
The MacBook Air laptops are among the discounted Apple products. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Amazon’s October Big Deal Days are underway (lasting through tomorrow night), and we spotted a ton of Apple products and accessories in the sale, ranging from laptops and headphones to desktops and more. Some of the deals are only for Prime members, but other retailers are often matching or beating Amazon’s prices, and we’ll continue to update our coverage as we spot those deals. If yo
Is Sony about to announce a new PlayStation Portal game streaming handheld? The Wi-Fi Alliance recently certified two unannounced PlayStation products of some kind, and the certification documents indicate that they could be updates to the PlayStation Portal, which might mean we're getting the OLED screen rumored earlier this year. The two devices, which are classified as "Gaming Console/Peripherals," have model numbers of CFI-Y2000 and CFI-Y2105, which sound like a clear step up from the CFI-Y1
The AI lab's personal assistant is an operating system from the future designed to compete with Muse, Dots, and Instinct.
How OpenAI stripped down the original encoder-decoder architecture — and why removing half of it made language models better, not worse. Continue reading on Towards AI »
New York film festival: The origin story of Sam Altman’s company is reimagined as a campy comedy starring Andrew Garfield On the day that Luca Guadagnino’s film about Sam Altman and OpenAI premiered, Vanity Fair released a cover story on Altman. Alongside glossy portraits from Annie Leibovitz, the world’s pre-eminent portrait photographer, the story describes him as the Oppenheimer of his day, evoking the image of a man leading humanity towards its own inevitable demise at the hands of sentient
Martyn Thomas wonders how any rational person can argue that independent oversight and regulation will be sufficient Once again a frontier AI model has been withdrawn because it fails safety tests (OpenAI scraps release of new model over safety concerns in internal testing, 28 September). There is the usual call for “independent oversight and regulation”, though never any explanation of how this would work or, most importantly, what evidence should persuade a regulator that an AI system is adequ
Mirror Particle will launch at TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield 200 with a world model built from scratch to predict human behavior, arguing that LLM role-play falls short for market research and brand strategy.
We would like to speak to people about their experience of using AI agents when dealing with their finances Following the release of Meta’s Muse and Open AI’s dots there’s now capacity for these AI agents to assist with some financial transactions on a user’s behalf. With this in mind, we would like to speak to people who use AI agents to manage their finances. Continue reading...
Atlassian and OpenAI are expanding their partnership to connect frontier models with enterprise knowledge and help teams plan, build, and deliver work.
"We created this program because we believe the benefits of AI will reach most people through the companies that build on top of models, rather than through the models alone."
OpenAI’s CEO seems to want to privatise his company’s huge financial gains while making all of us pay for any negative consequences Tech bros’ messianic streaks can show up in subtle ways. But one of Sam Altman’s flaws is that he often lacks that subtlety. “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology,” said the OpenAI chief executive in an interview with Politico last weekend. That’s easy for Altman to say. But it’s pretty galling to hear
The maker of the open source document editor says it has no plans to add AI to its software's default configuration, citing user privacy.
