Google launches new protocol for agent-driven purchases
Called the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), the system is meant to be interoperable between AI platforms, payment systems and vendors.
What’s next for Chinese open-source AI
The past year has marked a turning point for Chinese AI. Since DeepSeek released its R1 reasoning model in January 2025, Chinese companies have repeatedly delivered AI models that match the performance of leading Western models at a fraction of the cost. Just last week the Chinese firm Moonshot AI released its latest open-weight model,…
This $30M startup built a dog crate-sized robot factory that learns by watching humans
MicroFactory has more than 100 preorders for its general purpose tabletop robotic factory which it hopes to start shipping in two months.
The Download: regulators are coming for AI companions, and meet our Innovator of 2025
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 looming crackdown on AI companionship As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin.…
The Branding Trick That Helped Dude Wipes, Colgate, Oatly, and Uber Rise Above the Rest
It’s called “strategic enemy” — a way to position your brand against an enemy your consumer hates. Here’s how to do it.
Y Combinator-backed Rulebase wants to be the AI coworker for fintech
Y Combinator-alum Rulebase is betting that the next wave of automation in financial services will be the unglamorous tasks.
Kayak co-founder takes on Calendly with new Supercal scheduling platform
The entrepreneur has launched Supercal, a free scheduling platform that’s designed to make booking meetings more efficient and simple.
Amazon to host Prime Big Deals Day sales event on October 7 and 8
Amazon is hosting its Prime Big Deals Day sales event in October again.
The looming crackdown on AI companionship
As long as there has been AI, there have been people sounding alarms about what it might do to us: rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, or environmental ruin from data center sprawl. But this week showed that another threat entirely—that of kids forming unhealthy bonds with AI—is the one pulling AI safety out of the academic…
Nothing closes $200M Series C led by Tiger Global, plans AI-first device launch
Carl Pei’s Nothing is raising $200 million in a Series C round from Tiger Global at a $1.3 billion valuation.
Anthropic Releases a Report That Confirms AI Is ‘Displacing Workers’
The study highlights the risk that AI is replacing employees entirely, instead of merely supporting their work.