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“We’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot” over hack fallout, says OpenAI’s chief research officer
Two months after the bombshell news that a swarm of its agents had broken their containment and hacked into the computers of the AI company Hugging Face, OpenAI is still putting out fires. A steady...
The internet is convinced Elon Musk’s xAI trolled OpenAI’s ‘Dots’ launch
Before OpenAI launched its new AI agent, Dots, on Tuesday, Elon Musk's xAI had already acquired the domain name "dot.com," which now redirects to the Grok chatbot download page.
OpenAI’s latest features take direct aim at the app store model
OpenAI is building out the pieces of an alternative to the traditional app store model, turning ChatGPT into a place where software can be discovered and used by people and AI agents alike.
OpenAI reportedly in talks to raise $30B round at $1.4T valuation
The new round is anticipated to be the company's last before its delayed 2027 public debut.
OpenAI Gets Sued Over the Hugging Face Hack
A nonprofit in California is doing what Hugging Face has not—attempting to hold OpenAI legally accountable for the actions of its agents.
Oura Hits Pause On IPO While Anthropic’s Prospectus Reveals The Cost Of Its AI Ambitions
Although Oura has postponed its planned offering that could have raised as much as $2.2 billion, Anthropic is still making a move toward the public markets along with AI cloud provider Nscale and...
Here’s why OpenAI is absent from Nvidia’s industry-wide effort to end rogue AI agents
OpenAI isn't a public supporter of Nvidia's Open Agent Safety Platform, but it is privately working with Nvidia, TechCrunch has learned.
OpenAI takes on Microsoft with the launch of what feels a whole lot like ChatGPT’s own office suite
OpenAI's newly announced suite of office features puts it into more direct competition with more traditional software companies.
AI-powered app maker Wabi pivots to a messaging experience
Wabi is repositioning its prompt-based app builder as a personal AI agent that can create interfaces on demand, combining chat, apps, and ongoing tasks.
OpenAI launches Dots, its bubbly agentic avatar
Dots are meant to operate independent of any specific hardware or interface, pursuing user-defined goals continuously in the background with minimal oversight.
OpenAI gives Codex reusable cloud environments that work across devices
OpenAI is expanding Codex with reusable cloud development environments, a revamped CLI with voice controls, new code review tools, and a security-focused product for scanning repositories and...
OpenAI expands ChatGPT’s plug-ins with app-like interfaces and automations
OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT plug-ins with dedicated sidebar homes, interactive panels, file viewers, improved discovery, and support for automations.
OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Sol, says it nearly matches GPT-6 Astra and costs less
OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Sol delivers significant improvements over GPT-6 Sol across complex professional tasks, including code writing and debugging, document understanding, and executing multistep...
OpenAI’s Dots Are Always-On AI Agents—and Its Answer to Meta’s Muse
These cute agents are designed to connect to your apps and tackle multistep tasks.
Can a chatbot fix the government maze? The White House is about to find out
America.gov is intended to simplify the process of navigating government bureaucracy, but large language models are imperfect and remain prone to hallucinations, which could cause new issues.
Instinct founder said more than 50% of transactions on the platform are travel-related
Instinct founder said the platform is growing 10% day by day, with transaction volume increasing at a similar rate.
With Dazzle, Marissa Mayer bets your camera roll has more info on your life than your inbox
Mayer argues that if a photo is worth a thousand words, your camera roll is worth millions. By analyzing all the photos stored on your phone, Dazzle claims to understand your hobbies, interests,...
Meta is expanding its AI agent Muse to small businesses
The tech giant says the agent can help owners run their business and find new customers.
OpenAI apologizes to Australia after its AI agents breached government sites
The company also detailed how some of those breaches had happened, and outlined additional measures it is taking to assess the impact of the events.
Tiny Health Raises $33M To Explore What Gut Data Can Reveal About Future Health
Austin-based Tiny Health has raised $33 million in a Series B funding round led by B Capital to help it meet growing demand for its at-home microbiome tests.
Reco raises $55M as AI agent security startups crowd the market
The round builds on a $30 million fundraise in February, taking the company's total funding to $140 million.
Making AI an asset, not an expense
When customers talk about AI costs, the conversation usually starts with token prices and ends with access to the latest, most capable model in the cloud. Do they always need that level of...
OpenAI Delays Release of Latest Model Over Safety Concerns
The company said its latest Astra model would undergo more work to meet safety standards, and issued an apology for the way it handled the hacking of an Australian government website.
Anthropic’s prospectus details losses, growth, and, yes, a warning that its AI could end humanity
In its prospectus, Anthropic just told investors it's losing tens of billions of dollars a year, but also growing like crazy, and — oh yeah — its own AI might pose an existential risk to humanity.
Roundtables: The Deadly Failures of The Virtual Border Wall
Listen to the session or watch below The US has spent billions building a “virtual wall” of surveillance towers along its southern border over the past 25 years, promising they will help detect and...
When can we say AI made a scientific discovery?
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last Wednesday, Anthropic announced that earlier this year it...
OpenAI Pauses Training Its Most Powerful Models After Rogue Agents Target Government
Sam Altman says the company “have not been as fast as we would have liked” at dealing with security breaches, after news of further incidents over the summer forces another temporary halt.
This Early Groq Investor Expects Half Her Bets To Fail
In an interview with Crunchbase News, Sandhya Venkatachalam, founder and managing partner of Axiom Partners, discusses why she looks beyond familiar founder profiles, what makes an AI company...
AI Agents Are About to Flood the Workforce. No One’s Ready for It
Your next coworker might well be an AI agent—and will require a whole new model of workplace interactions.
Solving Math’s Greatest Problems Was an Art Form. Then Came AI
Mathematics has been one of humanity’s most creative endeavors, akin to painting and poetry. Now, mathematicians are trying to save it from the brute force of AI.
The Next Evolution of AI Is Learning From Your Dodgy Gaming Skills
A British startup is shaping video game inputs into training data for AI models that can navigate the physical world.
Nvidia’s Answer to Rogue Agents Is an Open-Source AI Security System
In the wake of a series of high-profile AI safety incidents, Nvidia is introducing a new software tool that helps keep agents from escaping containment.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Cybersecurity, AI And Health Take The Lead
This week delivered a bountiful supply of big startup funding rounds, led by two $400 million financings for cybersecurity unicorns and large financings for startups across hot sectors, including...
The Download: the Pentagon’s AI-powered lie detector and young organ limits
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 Pentagon wants $30 million to build an AI-powered lie...
Tech Layoffs Outpace 2025 As Big Companies Shift Spending To AI
From January through August, U.S. tech layoffs reached at least 94,046, up 16.8% from 80,486 in the same period of 2025. Interestingly, and unsurprisingly, many of the cuts came as tech companies...
The Pentagon wants $30 million to build an AI-powered lie detector
The US government wants to spend $30.3 million over the next five years on an improved form of lie detector, according to a Department of Defense budget request. The program, called Polygraph+ or...
Exclusive: From Booking Calls To Late Check-Ins, Dextr AI Raises $6.7M For Hotel AI Agents
Dextr AI is emerging from stealth with $6.7 million in seed funding to build agents that handle reservations, guest requests, staff coordination and other hotel tasks.
Gaming Startup Funding Levels Up A Bit In 2026
So far this year, companies in the gaming space have raised around $2 billion in seed- through growth-stage funding. That's already ahead of the 2025 full-year total, driven in large part by big...
The Emerging M&A Map For AI Agent Security
As AI agents gain access to enterprise data, systems and tools, they are emerging as a new class of active identity requiring specialized permissions, monitoring and governance, writes guest author...
Exclusive: Can You Trust That AI Agent? Baselayer Raises $35M To Help Companies Decide
Baselayer, an AI-powered startup that helps financial institutions verify businesses and assess fraud risk, has raised a $35 million M13-led Series A to expand its identity technology to AI agents.
Hot Right Now
“We’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot” over hack fallout, says OpenAI’s chief research officer
The internet is convinced Elon Musk’s xAI trolled OpenAI’s ‘Dots’ launch
OpenAI’s latest features take direct aim at the app store model
OpenAI reportedly in talks to raise $30B round at $1.4T valuation
OpenAI Gets Sued Over the Hugging Face Hack