OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor lays out the bull case for AI agents
We still didn’t get a straight-up definition of exactly what an AI agent is during Bret Taylor’s Mobile World Congress fireside chat in Barcelona on Tuesday. The Sierra founder and OpenAI board chair preferred to sidestep CNN moderator Anna Stewart’s question asking how “age
Google's March Pixel Drop adds AI-powered scam detection and live location sharing with friends
Google on Tuesday announced new software updates for the Pixel phones as part of its “Pixel Drop” program for March. Pixel Watches and all Android devices are also receiving some new features with this release. The most notable parts of the update include using AI to detect scams in mes
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg talks succession — ‘I don’t want to pass it to a committee’
Calls for WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg to step down from his leadership role have increased in recent months amid his controversial fight and legal battle with hosting company WP Engine.
Mullenweg not only intends to stay, he’s also thinking about how he plans to ma
Cohere claims its new Aya Vision AI model is best-in-class
Cohere For AI, AI startup Cohere’s nonprofit research lab, this week released a multimodal “open” AI model, Aya Vision, the lab claimed is best-in-class.
Aya Vision can perform tasks like writing image captions, answering questions about photos, translating text, and generating s
Solar installer Sunnova races to raise cash as it issues 'going concern' warning
Solar installer Sunnova issued a “going concern” warning as the company runs short on cash.
The stock is currently down around 68% as investors gauge the risk that Sunnova is headed for bankruptcy, a frequent outcome for companies that issue such warnings. In a bid to stave off insolvency, Sun
On a quest to revive the woolly mammoth, Colossal Biosciences has created a woolly mouse
Colossal Biosciences, known for its outlandish goal to resurrect the woolly mammoth by 2028, is claiming steady progress. Its evidence: genetically engineering mice to have mammoth-like fur.
To engineer the woolly mouse, the company’s scientists found mouse versions of mammoth genes and then
OpenAI launches $50M grant program to help fund academic research
OpenAI on Monday said it is supporting a new consortium called NextGenAI that would focus on supporting AI-assisted research at top universities.
NextGenAI, whose 15 founding academic partners include Harvard, the University of Oxford and MIT, will be funded with $50 million in research grants, co
Apple launches a new iPad Air with M3 chip
Apple has introduced new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air models with the M3 chip. The new iPad Air can be preordered starting Tuesday, and will launch on March 12.
The device starts at $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model. It comes in four colors: blue, purple, starlight, and spa
Swap banks $40M to build tools for merchants to deal with tariffs and other cross-border trading nightmares
Cross-border trade could become significantly more challenging with the wave of new tariffs getting introduced across different markets. Today, in a timely piece of news, a London-founded startup called Swap — which is building tools for e-commerce companies to better navigate the cross-border tr
Scrunch AI is helping companies stand out in AI search
As more people turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT to look things up on the internet, the way companies approach their online presence has to change. Scrunch AI wants to help enterprises better prepare for a world in which more AI bots and agents visit their website than humans do.
Scrunch AI says it
LlamaIndex launches a cloud service for building unstructured data agents
Agents are the next big thing in AI. Some define these “agents” differently from others, but the general idea is, they’re AI-powered tools that can perform tasks autonomously.
The agent hype has reached a fever pitch, but one startup was relatively early to the game: LlamaIndex.
Hotel management platform Mews books $75M round led by Tiger Global
Despite clouds of uncertainty looming over the economy and geopolitics, people still want to travel. To meet that demand, Mews, an Amsterdam-founded “unicorn” building an SaaS platform for hotel management, has raised a fresh $75 million.
The funding is coming at a crossroads in the tr
Uber users in Austin are getting matched with Waymo robotaxis
Uber users in Austin now have a choice between a Waymo robotaxi and a human driver.
The two companies officially launched Tuesday the “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service in Austin as part of a partnership that has deepened in recent months. The launch comes just days before SXSW, the ann
Mistral urges telcos to get into the hyperscaler game
Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch brought a sales pitch to Mobile World Congress on Tuesday, urging delegates at the world’s biggest telecoms confab in Barcelona to invest in building data center infrastructure and “becoming hyperscalers” to boost the regional AI ecosystem.
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