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Powering next-gen services with AI in regulated industries
Businesses in highly-regulated industries like financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and health care are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools to streamline complex and sensitive tasks. Conversational AI-driven interfaces are helping hospitals to track the location and delivery of a patient’s time-sensitive cancer drugs. Generative AI chatbots are helping insurance customers answer questions and solve problems. And agentic…
The Download: the AI Hype Index, and “normal” AI
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The AI Hype Index: AI agent cyberattacks, racing robots, and musical models Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of…
Here’s how to watch LlamaCon, Meta’s first AI developer event
On Tuesday, Meta is hosting LlamaCon, its first-ever AI developer event. It’ll center around the company’s Llama family of open AI models, and we’re expecting some big updates for developers. Also on the agenda: keynotes from Meta executives and fireside chats with Big Tech CEOs and Meta’s chief, Mark Zuckerberg. Meta is hosting a small […]
Yelp debuts AI voice agents for restaurants and service providers
Yelp said on Tuesday that it’s working on deploying AI-powered “voice agents” to help service providers and restaurants handle calls, answer basic questions, and accomplish tasks like adding a customer to a restaurant waitlist. Yelp says its agents don’t require a complicated setup or API integrations, and can draw from existing metadata along with data […]
The AI Hype Index: AI agent cyberattacks, racing robots, and musical models
Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. AI agents are the AI industry’s hypiest new product—intelligent assistants capable of completing tasks without human supervision. But while they can be theoretically…
Government hackers are leading the use of attributed zero-days, Google says
Governments like China and North Korea, along with spyware makers, used the most recorded zero-days in 2024.
Is AI “normal”?
Right now, despite its ubiquity, AI is seen as anything but a normal technology. There is talk of AI systems that will soon merit the term “superintelligence,” and the former CEO of Google recently suggested we control AI models the way we control uranium and other nuclear weapons materials. Anthropic is dedicating time and money…
A16z backs UK startup Dex to scale ‘AI talent agent’ and recruitment matchmaker
Storied Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is backing a fledgling U.K. startup that’s setting out to “redefine” how AI is used to match companies with talent. Dex, as the startup is called, targets candidates and companies with various AI-powered recruitment smarts, including matchmaking and coaching, with a view toward improving retention in the long […]
Grouphug is a stealth-mode startup that plans use AI inside WhatsApp groups
Veterans of the European startup scene, who’ve launched multiple consumer apps in the past, are partly coming out of stealth Tuesday with a new app. On the face of it, Grouphug will simply generate memes from the archive of a group WhatsApp chat. However, that masks a wider play. Grouphug is led by Felix Petersen, […]
IXI raises $36.5M from Amazon and more to bring the concept of autofocus to prescription glasses
Blink and you’ll miss it: a startup out of Finland is taking a new look at the market for prescription eyewear. Tapping into innovations in eye-tracking and liquid crystal lens technology, IXI is building low-power glasses that will invisibly, automatically adjust to account for Presbyopia (far-sightedness), for the wearer. Four years into its life, Hensinki-based […]