Netflix goes ‘all in’ on generative AI as entertainment industry remains divided
Netflix is using AI for special effects and pre-production, but CEO Ted Sarandos that Netflix “not worried about AI replacing creativity.”
Open source agentic startup LangChain hits $1.25B valuation
As TechCrunch previously reported, the maker of a popular open source framework for building AI agents has officially become a unicorn.
Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, raises $250M and launches beta
Former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe’s new startup, Sesame, is building AI-powered smartglasses with natural, humanlike voice interaction. Backed by Sequoia and Spark, the company also launched an invite-only iOS beta to
OpenAI’s new browser is a broadside shot at Google
OpenAI’s new browser announcement made it clear exactly how much Google has to lose in the AI era.
Sources: Multimodal AI startup Fal.ai already raised at $4B+ valuation
Fal.ai announced its previous round at a $1.5 billion valuation in July.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is pushing UK regulator to unbundle Google’s search and AI crawlers
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is urging regulators to rein in Google’s AI practices, arguing the tech giant’s dominance in search gives it an unfair edge in the AI race.
Bill Gates’s old climate lobbyists launch a new firm
Members of Breakthrough Energy’s policy team are back with a new organization, the Clean Economy Project, aimed at nudging lawmakers toward clean energy.
I spent a month living with a $430 AI pet, the Casio Moflin
Casio’s Moflin, a hamster-like robot pet, uses AI to develop a personality over time.
Google Fi to add AI-enhanced audio and RCS web messaging
The tech giant says calls will now use AI-enhanced audio to reduce background noise and improve voice clarity, even when speaking to someone on a landline or older device.
A16z-backed Codi launches AI agent office manager
Codi launches what it hails as the first fully automated office manager.