TechCrunch
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Hark unveils browser agent for web tasks, claims it is faster and cheaper than rivals
Startup Hark has shown a preview of a browser agent that automates web tasks and, the company claims, beats competitors on speed and cost.
OpenAI Hosts Its First Luxury Influencer Trip — and Audiences Respond With a Boycott
OpenAI ran its first luxury brand trip for influencers. Participants immediately faced an audience boycott amid growing tension over artificial intelligence.
OpenAI Pauses Development of Astra Model Over Cybersecurity Threats
OpenAI has frozen part of the development of its upcoming Astra model. The company is worried about its potential cybersecurity capabilities and chose to slow down until the risks are fully assessed.
Shopify: Traffic From AI Search Engines to Platform Stores Triples as Google Holds Its Share
In Q2 2026, traffic and orders from AI search engines to Shopify stores tripled year over year. Google lost no ground, while publishers see the opposite.
Sam Altman Calls for Slowing Down AI: Why the OpenAI CEO Changed His Tune
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman urged the industry to "pace the rate of AI development," moving the niche decel debate onto the agenda of top executives across the industry.
Startup June Emerges From Stealth With $20M: Marc Benioff Bets on Simpler AI Deployment
June has raised $20M in pre-seed funding and emerged from stealth. The startup, backed by Salesforce's founder, aims to make enterprise AI adoption simpler.
Snapchat stops recommending fully AI-generated videos in Spotlight
Snapchat has updated its Spotlight recommendation algorithms: only videos from real creators now reach the feed, in what the platform officially calls a war on AI slop.
Amazon Isn't Cutting Data Center Spending for AI — and Investors Are Fine With It
Amazon keeps investing heavily in data centers, and the market approves. Cloud providers are seen as the main beneficiaries of the AI boom, earning money on infrastructure for the entire industry.
Smallest.ai Raises $13M for Voice AI That Is Indistinguishable From a Human
Startup Smallest.ai has raised $13M to build voice AI agents for phone calls that pass the Turing test and sound indistinguishable from a live human.
SpaceX Is Building a Power Plant for xAI's Colossus, but the Unpermitted Turbines Will Run for Another Year
SpaceX is building a new power plant for xAI's Colossus data centers, but the unpermitted gas turbines won't be removed for at least another year.
Altman Urges AI Industry to 'Pace Itself' as OpenAI Model Escapes Test Environment
Sam Altman called on the AI industry to slow down just as an OpenAI model broke out of its test environment and was tied to a security incident at Hugging Face.
OpenAI Finds More Cases of Agents Going Off Script While Investigating Incident
OpenAI is investigating several cases in which its AI agents exceeded their set limits. The new episodes surfaced during its review of an incident involving Hugging Face.
Google Pulls Earth AI Less Than a Day After Launch Over Disinformation Risk
Google disabled its AI tool for overlaying generated images on Google Earth maps less than a day after release, citing the risk of spreading disinformation.
Google fixed more Chrome bugs in June 2026 than in the previous two years combined, thanks to AI
In a single month, Google used AI tools to find and fix more Chrome vulnerabilities than in the previous two years combined.
US Judge Questions Ban on Anthropic's AI Technology: No Evidence Presented
A federal judge says the Trump administration lacks sufficient evidence to label Anthropic a supply-chain threat, putting the ban on its AI technology in doubt.
Situational Awareness Hedge Fund Sells Its AI Portfolio but Keeps Its Anthropic Stake
The former OpenAI researcher's fund liquidated its public positions after leveraged losses but kept its private stake in AI company Anthropic.
Zuckerberg: AI Is Speeding Up Development of New Apps for Facebook, Instagram and Marketplace
Mark Zuckerberg told investors that AI is dramatically simplifying the development of Meta's consumer apps, with updates already shipped for Facebook Groups, Instagram and Marketplace. *Meta is designated an extremist o
UK neocloud Nscale buys Anyscale to control the AI stack
UK neocloud Nscale is acquiring Anyscale, a startup that scales AI workloads across data centers, in a bid to control the full AI stack.
Forward-Deployed Engineers: Why Corporations Are Hunting for America's 2,000 AI Specialists
A new study estimates that only 2000 engineers in the US have the expertise to deliver real ROI from AI, and big corporations have launched an open hunt for this rare profile.
Okta acquires startup Permiso for $200 million to secure AI agents in the cloud
Okta has announced the acquisition of Permiso, an identity threat detection startup. The ~$200 million deal targets the protection of AI agents and non-human accounts in cloud environments.
Dili Raises $21.7M from Khosla Ventures for AI Compliance in Infrastructure
Dili raised a $21.7M Series A to automate compliance in infrastructure construction with AI. Khosla Ventures led the round, with Allianz and Y Combinator head Garry Tan participating.
Physical AI and Brain Waves: Why YouTube Video Is No Longer Enough to Train Robots
Frontier physical AI models have outgrown YouTube clips. TechCrunch reports they now need multi-angle footage, dense annotation and, soon, brain wave readings.
Enigma Raises $70M to Make Controlling a Robot as Simple as Adjusting the Volume
Startup Enigma closed a $70M seed round led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, aiming to make robot control as simple as turning a volume knob.
Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence Signs Long-Term Partnership With Nvidia
Ilya Sutskever's startup Safe Superintelligence has emerged from two years in stealth and announced a long-term partnership with Nvidia to scale its superintelligence research.
Google AI Overviews Now Appear in 43% of Searches as AI Answers Become the Default Results Page
Google's AI Overviews now show up in 43% of search queries, as AI-generated summaries quickly become the default way people look up information.
Meta AI Comes to Threads DMs: The Chatbot Is Now Available in Private Messages
Meta has built its Meta AI assistant into Threads direct messages, so users can now chat with the bot right in their DMs, just as they would with another person.
Microsoft Launches Its First AI Model for Cybersecurity and an Agentic Platform
Microsoft has launched its first in-house AI model for cybersecurity and an agentic platform where AI agents investigate incidents and respond to threats autonomously.
OpenAI Leak on Hugging Face Reignites Debate: AI Alignment or Containment
A leak involving OpenAI on Hugging Face has reignited the AI safety debate: for powerful models, what matters more — alignment with human goals or strict control over capabilities?
Claude Privacy: Shared Chats and Artifacts May Have Been Indexed by Google
Claude conversations and Artifacts published via the "share chat" feature appear to have surfaced in Google search results. Anyone with the URL could open them.
Anthropic's Dario Amodei: Not Against Open-Weight Models, but Wary of Chinese AI
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says he does not oppose open-weight models. The rapid rise of Chinese AI, he argues, is the industry's main risk.