AI

A new a16z report looks at which AI companies startups are actually paying for

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On Thursday, Andreessen Horowitz released its first AI Spending Report in partnership with the fintech firm Mercury. Using transaction data from Mercury, the report analyzes the top 50 AI-native application layer companies that startups are spending money on, similar to the previously published Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps.  A16z partners Olivia Mooe and Seema […]

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Perplexity acquires the team behind Sequioa-backed AI design startup Visual Electric

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Sequoia-backed AI design startup Visual Electric said that it is joining search startup Perplexity today. The company noted on its site that the team would be joining a new Agent Experiences group at Perplexity. Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity’s CEO, confirmed the acquisition with a post on X. Deal terms were not disclosed. The startup said that

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California’s new AI safety law shows regulation and innovation don’t have to clash 

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SB 53, the AI safety and transparency bill that California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law this week, is proof that state regulation doesn’t have to hinder AI progress.   So says Adam Billen, vice president of public policy at youth-led advocacy group Encode AI, on today’s episode of Equity.  “The reality is that policy makers themselves know that we have to do something, and

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CharacterAI removes Disney characters after receiving cease-and-desist letter

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Character.AI received a cease-and-desist letter from Disney, urging the chatbot company to remove Disney characters from among the millions of AI companions on its platform, Variety reports. The company allows users to generate AI chatbots that can range from real people like Elon Musk to fictional characters like Hermione Granger, plus users’ own original creations.

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OpenAI’s new social app is filled with terrifying Sam Altman deepfakes

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In a video on OpenAI’s new TikTok-like social media app Sora, a never-ending factory farm of pink pigs are grunting and snorting in their pens — each is equipped with a feeding trough and a smartphone screen, which plays a feed of vertical videos. A terrifyingly realistic Sam Altman stares directly at the camera, as

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Waymo can keep testing robotaxis in NYC until end of 2025 

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New York City regulators have extended Waymo’s autonomous vehicle testing permit through the end of the year, the company said Wednesday.   The permit was initially granted in August to allow Waymo to test its robotaxis in the city until the end of September. The terms of the extended permit are the same: Waymo can deploy up to eight of its

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Meet the end-of-life planning startup co-founded by NBA All Star Russell Westbrook

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When Donnell Beverly Jr. decided to launch end-of-life planning startup Eazewell after the loss of both of his parents, he knew exactly who to call to help launch the business: longtime friend, and nine-time NBA All Star, Russell Westbrook.   “The main thesis with Russ across every business that he touches is how do we impact people?” Beverly Jr. [pictured above] told TechCrunch. “He’s been very vocal about

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Creative machines and where AI meets imagination at Disrupt 2025

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AI isn’t just crunching data — it’s helping humans dream bigger. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, three leaders from TwelveLabs, Wonder Dynamics (an Autodesk company), and Pocket Entertainment, at the intersection of creativity and AI, will explore how machines are becoming co-creators in storytelling, film, and media. Together, they’ll dive into how AI is blurring the

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OpenAI ropes in Samsung, SK Hynix to source memory chips for Stargate

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OpenAI is leaving few stones unturned in the race to build compute capacity for its AI efforts. The ChatGPT maker on Wednesday said it had struck agreements with two of the world’s biggest manufacturers of memory chips, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, to make DRAM wafers for the Stargate AI infrastructure project, and build data

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New project makes Wikipedia data more accessible to AI

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On Wednesday, Wikimedia Deutschland announced a new database that will make Wikipedia’s wealth of knowledge more accessible to AI models. Called the Wikidata Embedding Project, the system applies a vector-based semantic search — a technique that helps computers understand the meaning and relationships between words — to the existing data on Wikipedia and its sister

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