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AfterQuery reportedly becomes Y Combinator’s fastest-ever unicorn, now valued at $3.2B
AI model-training startup AfterQuery has reportedly raised a round that valued it at $3.2 billion, just five months after announcing its $30 million Series A at a $300 million valuation in April.
Open AI’s Astra model is on the way — and very good at breaking into computer systems
OpenAI previewed the precautions it is taking as it prepares to release Astra, its newest, cyber-critical LLM.
Google’s Android update tackles motion sickness, accessibility, and more
While some of the features see Google playing catch-up to Apple, which already offers similar features for iPhone users, others specifically leverage Gemini to provide various improvements.
OpenAI Is About to Release Its First AI Model With ‘Critical’ Cyber Abilities
The company will give select partners early access to its Astra AI model—so they have time to shore up their defenses.
Anthropic’s new Fable release is cheaper, less restrictive
Fable 5.1 includes changes meant to reduce token cost and false-positive restrictions from the model's safeguards.
How AI plotted an interstellar journey to Alpha Centauri
A nonprofit organization called the Fermi Explorer Mission announced today that it intends to launch a spacecraft to our nearest star system by the end of 2029. It’s a hugely ambitious mission—if...
Google’s answer to Canva is an AI tool where you prompt instead of design
With Google Pics, Google is pushing deeper into the creative software market dominated by Canva and Adobe, but with a distinctly AI-first approach.
WhatsApp Remittance Startup Félix Secures $200M Series C Led By A16z, General Catalyst
Félix, a Miami-based AI-powered WhatsApp remittance platform for Latino immigrants, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $200 million in Series C funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and General...
ChatGPT Health adds Epic integration for clinicians to import patient data
OpenAI said that the integration provides read-only access to health records for clinicians.
Sequoia-incubated Empirik launches with $21M to predict outages before they happen
The startup wants to do for IT infrastructure what Cursor did for software engineering.
AIR raises $50M to help companies vet the skills and add-ons AI agents use
AIR's platform can discover agents running at a company, continuously vets any skills and add-ons they use, and blocks any unwanted behavior.
Fambot introduces an ‘AI chief of staff’ for families
Fambot is building an AI “chief of staff” to help families manage the emails, calendars, school updates, sports schedules, and other logistics of raising kids.
Sonos Ace Ultra, Beam Ultra, Sonos Fabric, and a New App: Everything Sonos Just Announced
Sonos is cramming AI into its software because it’s “very hot these days.” The new features, which include agentic automation, are opt-in.
Making the AI-powered case for legacy modernization
For years, legacy technology has been a problem companies knew they needed to solve, but one they often struggled to tackle. The cost, complexity, and risk of replacing business-critical systems...
Sector Snapshot: Proptech Funding Holds Up, But Investors Are Placing Different Bets
Real estate tech startup investors are being more selective about their bets and putting more money into companies using AI and other technology to make construction, property operations and real...
Apple shares ‘shocking evidence’ against former employee accused of stealing company data for OpenAI
Apple says it has evidence that a former employee destroyed evidence of data theft after learning he was under investigation.
The Pentagon now has its own version of ChatGPT and Grok
Versions of OpenAI's ChatGPT and SpaceXAI's Grok will join Google's Gemini on the Pentagon's central portal for AI tools.
Harvard Law dropout raises $6M for Blue Voice to build a ‘Harvey for police officers’
Blue Voice is trained on department-specific laws, local ordinances, protocols, and guidelines that general-purpose AI tools can't access on the public internet.
The Hugging Face hack could indicate cultural issues at OpenAI
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. By now you’ve probably heard about last month’s major AI...
Clipto uses AI to search terabytes of video and is now valued at $250M
The three-year-old startup says it reached $15 million in ARR and profitability before raising its latest $15 million round.
Nvidia’s $3.5B MediaTek bet reveals its plan for tackling Big Tech’s AI chip buildout
Nvidia invests $3.5 billion into Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek. The deal shows how Nvidia plans to stay essential to AI infrastructure as Big Tech begins to build its own AI chips.
Biotech Startup Investment Held Steady Even As AI Funding Surged
While the AI boom has disrupted funding patterns across the startup sphere, biotech has remained a rare steady sector for investment. For the past few years, global funding to biotech startups has...
You Know Who Really Hates AI? Insurance Claims Adjusters
Of the Glassdoor reviews from claims adjusters that mentioned AI, a staggering 98 percent were negative. “AI is just a tool,” one person tells WIRED. “It should never be given the keys.”
The US is building barriers around drones and robots, but China has scale to get around them
The U.S. is shutting out more foreign-made drones and robots. China’s scale means the global competition may simply move elsewhere.
Caterpillar is bringing to AI deployment what it learned from automating mining
Caterpillar has spent decades putting autonomous machines to work at remote mining sites. It's now bringing that experience to AI deployment.
The Cybersecurity Apocalypse Is Coming in ‘Months,’ AI Giants Warn
Plus: Hackers target over 100 US water systems, ICE puts in an order for robot dogs, and you’ll never guess what “MrChildPorn” was arrested for.
How to Run a Chatbot on Your Own Computer
Installing a large language model on your personal computer gives you a handy digital assistant that won’t compromise your data privacy.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: AI Tools And Assistants Lead Sparser Lineup Of Megadeals
Most of this week’s largest funding recipients were AI-focused startups, with Instinct, a developer of AI assistants, pulling in the biggest round.
The Download: a secretive antiaging drug and joining virtual power plants
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. A startup claims it’s found a drug to make your blood young...
He Scraped All of Their Art for AI. Now He’s Collaborating on a Tool to Help Them
The art portfolio platform Cara, designed for creators who don’t want their work used to train AI, has been under assault by trolls seizing and publishing its data.
Startup Funding Hits Record $510B in H1 2026 — AI Took the Lion's Share
Global venture funding smashed every record in the first half of 2026, and AI swallowed most of it — OpenAI and Anthropic alone pulled in $217B.
MGX Raises $49 Billion — One of the Biggest AI Funds Ever
Abu Dhabi's MGX, just two years old, closed a $49B fund dedicated to AI deals — instantly one of the most consequential investors in the sector.
AI Agents Market Hits $7.6B — Individual Developers Are Building Custom Agents for $500-1,500 Each
The AI agents market reached $7.63 billion in 2025, projected to hit $183 billion by 2033. Solo builders are cashing in.
Anthropic Raises $3.5B at $61.5B Valuation — AI Safety Race Intensifies
Anthropic's latest funding round makes it the second most valuable AI startup after OpenAI.
OpenAI Slashes API Prices by 40% — Startups See Immediate Margin Boost
GPT-4o API costs drop significantly, making AI products cheaper to build and run.
Cursor Becomes #1 AI Coding Tool — Developers Are Switching in Droves
The AI-first code editor surpasses GitHub Copilot in developer satisfaction surveys.
EU AI Act Enforcement Begins — Companies Face Up to 7% Revenue Penalties
The world's first comprehensive AI law starts enforcing compliance requirements across Europe.
DeepSeek V3 Proves You Don't Need Billions to Build Frontier AI
The Chinese open-source model matches GPT-4 performance at 1/10th the API cost.
Enterprise AI Adoption Hits 58% — What Separates Winners from Failures
More than half of enterprises now use AI in production, but 42% of projects fail to deliver ROI.
Hot Right Now
AfterQuery reportedly becomes Y Combinator’s fastest-ever unicorn, now valued at $3.2B
Open AI’s Astra model is on the way — and very good at breaking into computer systems
Google’s Android update tackles motion sickness, accessibility, and more
OpenAI Is About to Release Its First AI Model With ‘Critical’ Cyber Abilities
Anthropic’s new Fable release is cheaper, less restrictive