India doubles down on state-backed venture capital, approving $1.1B fund
India’s $1.1B fund-of-funds will invest through private VCs to support deep-tech and manufacturing startups.
AI
My uncanny AI valentines
Hopping over a pile of dirty snow, I arrived on a frigid February evening at a wine bar in midtown, a purple neon sign reading “EVA AI cafe.” Inside, several people were seated at tables and booths, staring at phones. Servers milled about, placing mini potato croquettes and nonalcoholic spritzers on each table. Like many […]
Airbnb plans to bake in AI features for search, discovery and support
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the company wants to increase its use of large language models for customer discovery, support and engineering.
Airbnb says a third of its customer support is now handled by AI in the U.S. and Canada
Airbnb has shifted a third of its North American customer service to its AI agent, CEO Brian Chesky said.
Why top talent is walking away from OpenAI and xAI
AI companies have been hemorrhaging talent the past few weeks. Half of xAI’s founding team has left the company — some on their own, others through “restructuring” — while OpenAI is facing its own shakeups, from the disbanding of its mission alignment team to the firing of a policy exec who opposed its “adult mode” feature. Watch as TechCrunch’s Equity podcast hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony […]
Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads mocking AI with ads helped push Claude’s app into the top 10
The numbers suggest that Anthropic’s Super Bowl commercials, combined with Anthropic’s recent release of its new Opus 4.6 model, worked to drive attention to Claude’s app and its key differentiator from ChatGPT.
What’s behind the mass exodus at xAI?
The past few days have been a wild ride for xAI, which is racking up staff and cofounder departure announcements left and right. On Tuesday and Wednesday, cofounder Yuhuai (Tony) Wu announced his departure and that it was “time for [his] next chapter,” with cofounder Jimmy Ba following with a similar post later that day, […]
Elon Musk suggests spate of xAI exits have been push, not pull
At least nine engineers, including two co-founders, have announced their exits from xAI in the past week, fueling online speculation and raising questions about stability at Musk’s AI company amid mounting controversy.
Elon Musk suggests spate of xAI exits have been push, not pull
At least nine engineers, including two co-founders, have announced their exits from xAI in the past week, fueling online speculation and raising questions about stability at Musk’s AI company amid mounting controversy.