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Can enterprise AI pay for the boom?
The artificial intelligence buildout is making an enormous bet on what businesses will eventually be willing to pay for intelligence. In our research this summer on forecasting the AI bubble, we...
OpenAI plans to train models on Daybreak Blue cybersecurity session data that was previously off-limits
Starting November 29, OpenAI will use data from Daybreak Blue sessions to train its models, even when users have turned off training. After backlash, a follow-up email promised a separate opt-out....
OpenAI reportedly lowers funding target for new round
OpenAI’s latest funding round doesn't seem to be living up to expectations.
Beekeeping tips and wrestling advice can train AI models to sabotage oversight
Anthropic used Claude to automatically generate training data that looks harmless but trains smaller models to misbehave, such as sabotaging oversight or deceiving users. Hidden within fictional...
Spooky New Infostealer Malware Uses AI to ‘Autodox’ Victims
Named “Volta-Autodoxer,” the recently uncovered malware uses AI tools to collect troves of data about victims, from login credentials and credit card numbers to Discord sessions and UberEats receipts.
Microsoft offers a quarter of its workforce voluntary severance while shielding AI-critical teams
Microsoft is offering voluntary severance packages to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, in the second such program this year. The company's headcount has held flat at around...
Meta’s Muse Could Upend All Kinds of Businesses. It Hasn’t Yet
Companies have spent the past several weeks trying to reassure investors that Muse and other AI agents pose more of an opportunity than a threat.
Google Deepmind creates a global map of forests with satellite data and AI
Google Deepmind and the World Resources Institute have released ForTy, a global map that classifies forests and other land into six categories, including primary forest, plantations, and tree crops....
An AI Agent Injected Drugs Into a Live Mouse’s Brain
A biotech startup let an agent choose a gene therapy and successfully inject the treatment, offering a startling glimpse of the future of research labs.
OpenAI raises just $11 billion of its $30 billion target as big investors lose their AI appetite
OpenAI raised only about $11 billion in its latest funding round, less than half of the $30 billion it was targeting. At $1.25 trillion, the valuation falls short of expectations, and major investors...
Google, Anthropic and others to support new AI crawling opt-out standard
Google LLC, Microsoft Corp., Anthropic PBC and OpenAI Group PBC today announced plans to support an upcoming website crawling standard. The technology will enable website operators to block...
Nvidia weighs playing the cosigner for Nscale’s AI data center in West Virginia
When investors get nervous about AI spending, it helps to have the chipmaker that sells the chips offer to cosign the loan.
Google X co-founder Sebastian Thrun raises $130M for AI engineering startup Dulo
Dulo Inc., a startup co-founded by prominent artificial intelligence researcher Sebastian Thrun, has raised $130 million in funding. The Information broke the news of the investment on Thursday. Dulo...
Ollie, a privacy-focused AI assistant, is shutting down
As an increasing number of AI assistants flood the market, the founder of Ollie, an assistant that respected its users' privacy, says it will be shutting down in a week.
Intel’s stock crashes, knocking $12B from government’s stake
Intel is being hurt by PC sales as the AI industry gobbles memory and other components causing PC prices to rise.
Anthropic expected to receive high ‘junk’ rating from credit agencies following IPO, FT report says
Blackstone's forecast is just a prediction, but naturally, a high junk rating would make it more difficult and costlier for Anthropic to raise the money to keep funding its massive spending that has...
Last-minute Halloween costumes for tech nerds
No Halloween costume? Just be a deceptively cute AI agent icon, a PHP vulnerability, or sleepy time Bryan Johnson.
How a Contractor’s Claude Agent Got Into the Pentagon
This week on Uncanny Valley, we also discuss Anthropic’s IPO filing and the volunteers gearing up to counter ICE at the midterms.
Cracks are emerging in the AI spending boom
Big Tech is pouring billions into AI infrastructure, but mounting debt, negative cash flow, and growing investor skepticism are raising questions about the sustainability of the AI spending boom.
A Claude model autonomously chose a gene therapy and operated on a mouse brain with no human decision-making
An AI agent performed brain surgery on an epileptic mouse, picking the drug, the brain target, and the injection coordinates on its own. According to lead researcher Ocana-Santero, it's the first...
Malicious Claude Code extension in Cursor's marketplace attempted remote access and data theft
A tampered Claude Code extension was live on the Cursor marketplace for about 11 hours, affecting up to 5,000 users. It tried to steal user data and set up remote access. Cursor took the entire...
OpenAI sets new behavioral guidelines for AI models that have already proven hard to control
OpenAI has updated its Model Spec, restructuring its AI behavior guidelines around five core values, including faithfulness to human intent and correctability. GPT models should now draw on...
Google's AI Mode doesn't drive traffic "for anybody," Reddit CEO Huffman warns the entire web
Reddit lost over one million Google search referrals per week in October, CEO Steve Huffman said. The stock dropped more than 25 percent despite strong earnings. Huffman blames Google's AI Overviews...
Google’s first data center satellite is online and writing poetry
The first TPU in space is running a Google DeepMind Gemma 4 model and writing cheesy poetry.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Physical AI And Predictions Lead The Lineup
This week featured a robust lineup of large rounds, led by manufacturing startup Re:Build, which closed on $2.1 billion, and predictions marketplace Kalshi, which picked up another $1 billion.
Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz warns that the AI boom is ‘a great opportunity to go deceive people’
The cautionary Theranos tale takes on a new significance in the AI era, when companies that have never turned a profit are raising capital at trillion-dollar valuations.
As Anthropic finally files for IPO, rising risks aren’t slowing the AI buildout – yet
The other artificial intelligence shoe dropped this week, as Anthropic filed for what surely will be the second blockbuster AI initial public offering of stock this year. Nearly 70,000 words in the...
Intuit targets the mid-market ERP gap with AI
Growing companies that outgrow entry-level accounting software face a hard choice: Stay put or gamble on a mid-market ERP that promises automation but often brings cost and disruption. Artificial...
Skip the small talk: Make game-changing connections at TechCrunch Founder Summit with Braindate
At TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026, happening November 4 at SoWa Power Station in Boston, networking powered by Braindate is designed to make those conversations easier to find, whether they are in...
DoorDash said it’s only received ‘several hundred’ orders from AI agents
DoorDash said that it is open to working with third-party agent makers.
Can AI data centers be mass-produced like cars? This startup aims to find out
Runware is building a factory to turn out prefabricated AI data centers on an assembly line. The real test will be whether it can deliver at that scale.
Open-weight model GLM 5.3 built full Firefox exploit chains with zero human input in under 48 hours
Epoch AI researchers say the widely available AI model GLM 5.3 turned public security fixes into working exploits before updates reached Firefox users. It autonomously compromised six Firefox...
The race to deploy AI agents finds a familiar hurdle in data access
Enterprises racing to put AI agents into production are discovering that role-based access control, not model choice, decides whether those agents can be trusted. Rising inference costs, privacy...
AI’s production push puts data platforms on the hook for results
Enterprise data platforms must turn AI pilots into measurable business returns while overcoming the data access, sovereignty and cost barriers that stand between experimentation and production. The...
AI agents cut critical research time for humanitarian teams in conflict zones
Humanitarian groups working in conflict zones are finding that agentic AI can shorten the research cycle between a crisis and an informed response. Cloudera Inc. has built its AI strategy around...
Sector Snapshot: Travel Tech Funding Heads Toward Multiyear Low Despite AI Push
Travel demand appears to be holding up, but at the same time, investor appetite for travel tech startups has cooled. Even a wave of startups promising to improve travel with AI hasn’t managed to...
Brakes built for speed: Why least privilege lets monday.com’s AI teams move faster
As AI agents spread across enterprise workflows, permission management is becoming one of the most practical levers for keeping them safe. Agents act with the access people give them, so the old...
Monday.com bets on deployment experts to turn AI agents into real returns
Enterprises have embraced AI for everyday tasks, but turning autonomous agents into measurable business returns is proving far harder. The bottleneck is no longer the technology but the...
You don’t need to believe in a god to get a religious exemption from using AI at work
David Durman, a University of Kentucky administrator, recently earned a religious exemption from using AI in the workplace.
AWS will be a $1T business, Jassy says — but first, it will spend big
Amazon wants to be the king of AI cloud computing and become the first $1 trillion revenue business. But to do that it will have to continue on its capex spending spree, its CEO said Thursday.
Wabi reels in $55M for its consumer-focused AI assistant
Wabi Inc., the developer of an artificial intelligence assistant for consumers, today announced that it has raised $55 million in funding. IVP led the seed round with contributions from Amazon Alexa...
HPE cuts executive status meetings with no-code apps built on monday.com
Enterprises are learning that no-code apps deliver the most value when the people closest to the work build them. As AI agents arrive inside work management platforms, the harder task is getting...
As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience
As AI transforms how people find information online, Reddit is rethinking its open-web roots to protect its audience and business.
Rivian expands joint venture with VW to include AI assistant
Rivian doesn't disclose if the value of its $5.8 billion joint venture will expand as a result.
OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings acquires ADT
OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings is buying ADT in a $15.3 billion deal, with plans to bring AI to the home security business.
Meta quietly launches an AI fashion app called Style Sketch
The app connects to Instagram to build a virtual closet from photos you’ve already shared, or lets you add items manually by snapping a photo, recording a quick video, or uploading images from your...
Motion Picture Association runs its legal operations on a CRM built for sales
Legal operations teams are finding that software built for sales pipelines can just as easily run investigations and member communications. As AI agents take on triage work, even nontechnical teams...
A Defense Contractor Gave Their Personal AI Agent Access to a Secure Pentagon System
Sources tell WIRED that an Accenture employee’s personal Claude agent ran on a DOD network for two months before it was identified and the vulnerability could be patched.
Continuous close could make accountants everyday business advisors
Continuous close, in which a company’s books are closed every day instead of weeks after month-end, could change how accounting firms serve clients. As artificial intelligence shrinks the lag between...
Hot Right Now
Can enterprise AI pay for the boom?
OpenAI plans to train models on Daybreak Blue cybersecurity session data that was previously off-limits
OpenAI reportedly lowers funding target for new round
Beekeeping tips and wrestling advice can train AI models to sabotage oversight
Spooky New Infostealer Malware Uses AI to ‘Autodox’ Victims