Shopify debuts Canvas, a way to build online stores by chatting with AI
Shopify’s new Canvas site builder lets merchants create and customize their online stores by chatting with its AI agent Sidekick, while watching the changes happen in real time.
California governor vetoes bill banning use of ‘pervert glasses’ to secretly record people
The California state bill would have penalized people who secretly recorded people in public with wearables equipped with cameras and microphones.
FedEx is buying 2,000 electric trucks for $300M, and investing in the company building them
FedEx has ordered 2,000 electric delivery trucks worth $300M from Harbinger, a Californian startup it also backed with a Series C investment last year. Europe’s equivalents, Volta…
Trump tells TIME the US might take stakes in OpenAI and Anthropic
President Donald Trump has ruled out nationalising America’s leading AI labs. But the US might still take a stake in OpenAI and Anthropic, he told TIME in an interview published o…
ABC and SBS want AI companies to pay for Australian news
Australia’s public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, want the country’s news bargaining incentive to cover AI companies. That would push them to strike commercial deals with Australi…
One year later, Tesla and Musk still don’t have a good definition of ‘abundance’
The CEO promised to get more specific about his vision. But the details are still absent.
Broadcom to lend Anthropic up to $42bn for its chips, Reuters reports
Broadcom has agreed to lend Anthropic up to $42bn to help pay for its AI infrastructure, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing Anthropic’s IPO prospectus. The loan could cover abou…
Kanu AI raises $11.7m to turn how staff work into software they own
Kanu AI has come out of stealth with $11.7m in funding. The Seattle startup builds software that runs inside a customer’s own cloud. Accel, BMW i Ventures and a16z speedrun joined…
Brian Chesky interview: AI agents need their own operating system
Brian Chesky on making Airbnb agent-friendly, the state of consumer AI, and why the world needs an AI-native operating system.
Restate raises $20m to keep AI agents running when software fails
Restate, a Berlin startup founded by the creators of Apache Flink, has raised a $20m Series A. It builds infrastructure that keeps AI agents and backend software running through f…
Metaview raises $60m to put AI agents across the whole hiring process
Metaview, a London and San Francisco startup that builds AI agents for recruiting, has raised a $60m Series C led by Insight Partners. GV, Intrepid Growth Partners, Seedcamp, Vert…
‘When everyone’s responsible, no one is’: the AI champion problem
Find a champion. Protect 20% of their time. Wait for it to spread. One of the people in the room with me had run that play before, in the era of robotic process automation. Their …
Instagram’s Edits app gets an AI assistant that reads your Reels data
Instagram is putting a chatbot inside Edits, its video editing app for creators. The tool reads a creator’s Instagram data and suggests what to make next. It is rolling out to all…
Xbox is not for sale, CEO Asha Sharma tells The New York Times
Asha Sharma was asked whether her endgame at Xbox was divestiture, Zachary Small reported for The New York Times. The question came in a profile of Microsoft’s gaming chief publis…
Google DeepMind’s watermarked AI proteins still work in the lab
Google DeepMind has brought its SynthID watermarking technology to synthetic biology. The new tool, SynthID Bio, hides a signature in the amino acid sequence or predicted 3D struc…
MI5 says over 100 UK academics worked on projects funded by China’s spies
MI5 has told UK universities to review any work with the China General Technology Research Institute (CGTRI). It says the institute funds research for China’s Ministry of State Se…
Photon held a funeral for mobile apps. Now it has $4.5M to help replace them with agents.
The startup helps developers build AI agents that work over iMessage, SMS/RCS, email, and other messaging platforms. It's a bet that consumers will increasingly use agents instead…
Nvidia-backed GMI Cloud raises $668m as contracted revenue tops $600m
GMI Cloud, a Mountain View company that rents out Nvidia GPU servers, has raised $668m in new financing, the company said on Wednesday. That is $223m of Series B equity and a $445…
OpenAI’s 2017 plan to auction AGI to China and Russia, per The Atlantic
In 2017, OpenAI co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever proposed auctioning the rights to the company’s future AGI to governments, including the US, China and Russia. Kevin R…
McDonald’s uses AI to set an optimal price at each store, Reuters reports
McDonald’s is using an AI pricing engine to recommend what each of its nearly 14,000 restaurants should charge for every menu item, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The engine covers …
Hearing tech startup Legato launches its AI hearing glasses
The glasses stem from the startup’s goal of making hearing care more accessible by addressing the cost, comfort, and stigma associated with traditional hearing aids.
Amazon introduces Kindle Click, a $35 remote for turning pages
The compact Bluetooth remote is designed to let readers turn pages without touching their Kindle.
The new Kindle ditches the bezel in a push toward a smaller, lighter e-reader
The new Kindle lineup features its lightest and thinnest designs yet, with a sleek, front-flush display that eliminates bezels for good.
Audible’s new features let you explore book worlds — and use AI to talk to characters
Audible is rolling out new features that help listeners keep track of characters, explore places and imagery mentioned in books, and even interact with characters using generative…