These Major Brands Are Going All In On America’s 250th Birthday — From Birthday Cake Cheerios to ‘American Dew’
As America’s 250th birthday approaches, brands like Coca-Cola and Steak ‘n Shake are rolling out red, white and blue products.
The Download: AI’s popularity paradox and EmTech Future 2026
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. People really hate AI, so why can’t they get enough? —Will Douglas Heaven Over the summer I talked to the CEO of Springboards, a startup building an LLM designed to come…
Pennsylvania sues Character.AI after a chatbot allegedly posed as a doctor
According to Pennsylvania’s filing, a Character AI chatbot presented itself as a licensed psychiatrist during a state investigation, and also fabricated a serial number for its state medical license.
OpenAI releases GPT-5.5 Instant, a new default model for ChatGPT
The new GPT-5.5 Instant model will replace GPT-3.5 Instant as the default model for ChatGPT
PayPal says it’s ‘becoming a technology company again.’ That means AI.
PayPal is pitching an AI-led turnaround, tying automation and restructuring to $1.5B in savings as it cuts jobs and works to modernize its tech stack.
Etsy launches its app within ChatGPT as it continues its AI push
Etsy’s new native app within ChatGPT aims to be a conversational shopping experience for users.
Kaspersky suspects Chinese hackers planted a backdoor into Daemon Tools in ‘widespread’ attack
The cybersecurity company says it’s seen thousands of infection attempts, and at least a dozen successful hacks after users installed malicious versions of the popular Windows software.
Hackers steal students’ data during breach at education tech giant Instructure
The data breach at education tech giant Instructure includes students’ private data, according to a sample of the allegedly stolen data seen by TechCrunch.
Meta will use AI to analyze height and bone structure to identify if users are underage
The visual analysis system is now operating in select countries, but Meta says it’s working toward a broader rollout.
ElevenLabs lists BlackRock, Jamie Foxx and Longoria as new investors
4. ElevenLabs reveals new investors, hits $500M ARR, and expands enterprise footprint as voice AI becomes a critical interface.
CopilotKit raises $27M to help devs deploy app-native AI agents
The Seattle-based startup’s Series A round was led by Glilot Capital, NFX and SignalFire, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.