She Turned Her Fitness Side Hustle Into a Global Business in Just 8 Months: ‘I Made a Commitment to Keep Working When It Would Have Been Easier to Stop’
Hilary Hoffman discusses the launch and growth of SotoMethod, her omnichannel fitness company.
Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab closes on $2B at $10B valuation
Thinking Machines Lab, the secretive AI startup founded by OpenAI’s former chief technology officer Mira Murati, has closed a $2 billion seed round at a $10 billion valuation.
Waymo to launch robotaxi service in Washington D.C. in 2026
Waymo said Tuesday it will begin offering robotaxi rides via the Waymo One app in Washington D.C. in 2026. Before it can launch commercially, the company will have to up its lobbying game in the capitol, where autonomous vehicle permits still require a human behind the wheel. The news from Waymo comes as the Alphabet-owned […]
Ethically sourced “spare” human bodies could revolutionize medicine
Why do we hear about medical breakthroughs in mice, but rarely see them translate into cures for human disease? Why do so few drugs that enter clinical trials receive regulatory approval? And why is the waiting list for organ transplantation so long? These challenges stem in large part from a common root cause: a severe…
Why the world is looking to ditch US AI models
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. This week’s edition of The Algorithm is brought to you not by your usual host, James O’Donnell, but Eileen Guo, an investigative reporter at MIT Technology Review. A few weeks ago, when…
Daphni secures $215M for its third fund
French VC firm Daphni is announcing the first closing of its new fund, Daphni Blue. The firm has raised €200 million (around $215 million at current exchange rates). It expects to raise as much as €250 million ($270 million) by the end of the year. Some of Daphni’s most remarkable past investments include Back Market, […]
OpenAI says its AI voice assistant is now better to chat with
OpenAI released updates Monday for Advanced Voice Mode, its AI voice feature that enables real-time conversations in ChatGPT, to make the AI assistant more personable and interrupt users less frequently. Manuka Stratta, an OpenAI post-training researcher, announced the changes in a video posted Monday to the company’s official social media channels. OpenAI’s latest update aims […]
A new, challenging AGI test stumps most AI models
The Arc Prize Foundation, a nonprofit co-founded by prominent AI researcher François Chollet, announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it has created a new, challenging test to measure the general intelligence of leading AI models. So far, the new test, called ARC-AGI-2, has stumped most models. “Reasoning” AI models like OpenAI’s o1-pro and […]
A Chinese tech giant says it slashed AI costs using only Chinese chips
Earlier this year, DeepSeek briefly crashed Nvidia’s stock because of speculation that its models require far fewer chips. Now, Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, which is backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, is claiming a major AI breakthrough. Ant was able to use Chinese chips made by Alibaba and Huawei to create methods that cut […]
a16z and Benchmark-backed 11x has been claiming customers it doesn’t have
Last year, AI-powered sales automation startup 11x appeared to be on an explosive growth trajectory. However, nearly two dozen sources – including investors, current and former employees – tell TechCrunch that the company has experienced financial struggles, largely of its own making. Numerous people in the U.S. and U.K. told TechCrunch that the situation has […]
Snap’s CEO Says This One Trait Is ‘the X Factor’ for Entrepreneurs
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says anyone looking to follow in his entrepreneurial footsteps should develop their creativity, especially in the age of AI.