Every now and then, a Silicon Valley startup launches with such an “absurdly” described mission that it’s difficult to discern if the startup is for real or just satire. Such is the case with Mechanize, a startup whose founder – and the non-profit AI research...
When an AI model for code-editing company Cursor hallucinated a new rule, users revolted....
Techstars, a nearly 20-year-old startup accelerator, announced new terms for startups that enter its three-month program. The organization will now invest $220,000, which is $100,000 more than it offered previously, in companies starting with its fall 2025 batch. The capital will be divided into two...
OpenAI’s recently launched o3 and o4-mini AI models are state-of-the-art in many respects. However, the new models still hallucinate, or make things up — in fact, they hallucinate more than several of OpenAI’s older models. Hallucinations have proven to be one of the biggest and...
Some ChatGPT users have noticed a strange phenomenon recently: occasionally, the chatbot refers to them by name as it reasons through problems. That wasn’t the default behavior previously, and several users claim ChatGPT is mentioning their names despite never having been told what to call...
The Trump administration and DOGE tried to cut more than 1,400 employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. An employee union and other groups are fighting to keep the regulator intact....
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week brought us mixed messages. A fresh IPO filing, but a bleak outlook for exits overall....
OpenAI is upgrading ChatGPT’s “memory” again. In a changelog and support pages on OpenAI’s website Thursday, the company quietly announced “Memory with Search,” a feature that lets ChatGPT draw on memories — details from past conversations, such as your favorite foods — to inform queries...
The company sells “cooling credits” for its sulfur dioxide-based geoengineering projects....
In a document published Thursday, ICE explained the functions that it expects Palantir to include in a prototype of a new program to give the agency “near real-time” data about people self-deporting....
Kodiak Robotics made a financial move that was ubiquitous in 2021. Yup, the self-driving truck startup plans to go public through a merger with Ares Acquisition Corporation II, a special purpose acquisition company. It’s a bold bet in a market where SPACs have lost their...
For startups around the world, the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield program offers unmatched exposure, credibility, and connections to scale their businesses. TechCrunch has long been committed to spotlighting companies solving real-world problems in scalable and sustainable ways — making it a powerful launchpad for startups both...
Today’s the day! The application to speak at TechCrunch All Stage closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT — this is your final chance to share real-world insights with 1,200+ startup founders and VCs attending the event. Whether you’ve built or backed startups, battled bottlenecks, or...
As the FTC trial has shown, a lack of competition allowed the company to shift its focus away from users—and toward its bottom line....
When news broke that OpenAI was in talks to acquire AI coding company Windsurf for $3 billion, one of the first questions on the mind of anyone following the space was likely: “Why not buy Cursor creator Anysphere instead?” After all, OpenAI Startup Fund has been...
On February 18, 2024, Ian Laffey posted on X that he and two others he’d just met built a cheap drone at a hackathon that calculated its coordinates simply by using its camera and Google Maps. He and his colleagues, Sacha Lévy and Carl Schoeller,...
Expense management startup Ramp is being considered for a charge card pilot program by the U.S. government’s General Services Administration, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The government’s internal expense card program, dubbed SmartPay, is a $700 billion program. It is estimated that the...
In a bid to more aggressively compete with rival AI companies like Google, OpenAI is launching Flex processing, an API option that provides lower AI model usage prices in exchange for slower response times and “occasional resource unavailability.” Flex processing, which is available in beta...
President Donald Trump’s tariffs have underscored the increasing geopolitical risk that almost all businesses now face. As the situation continues to shift with Trump’s unpredictable deal-making, it’s also becoming clear how challenging it is for companies, nonprofits, consultants, and lawyers to keep up with the...
Geoff Ralston, known for his years at Y Combinator, has a new AI VC fund called SAIF. It is seeking AI startups focused on safety....
On Thursday, weeks after launching its most powerful AI model yet, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google published a technical report showing the results of its internal safety evaluations. However, the report is light on the details, experts say, making it difficult to determine which risks the...
The future of Google's advertising business is at stake after a federal judge found the company illegally monopolized parts of it....
The future of Google's advertising business is at stake after a federal judge found the company illegally monopolized parts of it....
Chatbot Arena, the crowdsourced benchmarking project major AI labs rely on to test and market their AI models, is forming a company called Arena Intelligence Inc., reports Bloomberg. In a blog post published Thursday, Chatbot Arena said that the company will “give [it] the resources...
Here's what you need to know about surveillance technology and protests—and how you can best protect yourself....
Workers who recently lost their jobs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety say they’re concerned that there’s no plan for managing biological samples tied to research projects....
Stargate, a $500 billion project headed up by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank to build AI data centers and other AI infrastructure in the U.S., is considering investments in the U.K. and elsewhere overseas, according to a Financial Times report. While Stargate was initially launched as...
There’s a somewhat concerning new trend going viral: People are using ChatGPT to figure out the location shown in pictures. This week, OpenAI released its newest AI models, o3 and o4-mini, both of which can uniquely “reason” through uploaded images. In practice, the models can...
Want to tap into the energy of 1,000+ startup founders, investors, and tech leaders descending on Boston for TechCrunch All Stage on July 15? Host your own Side Event during “TC All Stage Week,” happening July 13–19! Whether it’s a networking mixer, workshop, morning run,...
The New Jersey attorney general claims Discord's features to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content are inadequate....