From TechCrunch · 40 stories
Instacart and Shipt Launch AI Shopping Assistants for Meal Planning and Grocery Orders
Instacart introduced Clementine, an AI-powered grocery shopping assistant that converts conversational requests, grocery lists, or recipes into ready-to-buy carts. Simultaneously, Shipt launched "Ask Shipt," a similar AI tool. These launches position delivery apps to become planning tools for households, competing beyond delivery speed and variety.
US Approves $1.9 Billion Loan for Iowa Nuclear Reactor to Power Google AI Data Centers
The U.S. Department of Energy approved a $1.9 billion loan for NextEra Energy to refurbish the Duane Arnold Energy Center, a 615-megawatt nuclear facility in Iowa. Google will purchase power from the plant to supply its AI data centers, addressing the increasing energy demands of AI infrastructure. The plant, which ceased operations in 2020, is expected to restart in 2029.
Stoke Space raises $1 billion Series E to scale operations and develop new rocket
Stoke Space Technologies completed the initial closing of a $1 billion Series E funding round to scale its operations, increase production and flight frequency, and fund the development of a second-generation vehicle. This funding will support the company's goal of developing a fully reusable rocket, a capability not yet achieved by any company, including SpaceX.
US Military Disables Ad Tracking on Devices to Protect Troops from Location-Based Threats
The U.S. Department of Defense has disabled advertising tracking on government-issued phones and computers across all military branches. This action was taken to prevent adversaries from using commercially obtained location data to target service members, following reports of such incidents in the Middle East.
Microsoft Exchange Online Experiences Widespread Outage Affecting Email and Authentication
Microsoft is investigating a widespread service issue impacting Exchange Online customers, causing email delays, failures, and authentication problems. The outage, tracked as EX1464935, is attributed to core authentication configuration issues within the Exchange Online infrastructure. This incident affects tens of thousands of users and follows several other Exchange Online outages in recent months.
AIR Raises $50M to Secure AI Agent Software Supply Chain
AI security startup AIR emerged from stealth with $50 million in seed funding to develop a platform for vetting AI agent skills and add-ons. The platform discovers AI agents, continuously vets their components, and blocks interactions that fail security criteria, addressing risks associated with AI agents operating autonomously across enterprise systems.
Palo Alto Networks Acquires AI Agent Platform Console to Enhance Cortex Capabilities
Palo Alto Networks has acquired Console, an AI-native platform that enables organizations to build agentic workflows and automate operational tasks using natural language. This acquisition will integrate Console's technology into Palo Alto's Cortex platform, allowing security teams to automate investigation, prioritization, and action across enterprise environments.
SpaceX begins in-house turbine blade manufacturing to accelerate AI data center generator deployment
SpaceX has started manufacturing turbine blades and vanes in-house to reduce delays in acquiring gas-powered generators for AI data centers. This move aims to cut generator delivery times by 18 months, addressing a bottleneck caused by high demand for turbines in AI infrastructure development.
YouTube Creators Can Now Tag Amazon Products for Affiliate Commissions
YouTube has integrated Amazon into its Shopping affiliate program, allowing eligible creators in the U.S. to directly tag Amazon products in their videos, Shorts, and livestreams. This enables creators to earn commissions from sales generated through these links, providing a new revenue stream and expanding YouTube's e-commerce capabilities.
NHTSA increases scrutiny on GM EV brake problems after hundreds of incidents
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has upgraded its investigation into brake problems affecting over one million General Motors (GM) vehicles, including EVs, to an "engineering analysis." This escalation follows hundreds of reported incidents, over 20 crashes or fires, and at least six injuries, indicating a potential widespread safety defect in GM's eBoost brake-by-wire system.
Apollo Global Management Confirms Data Breach Affecting Personal Information
Private equity firm Apollo Global Management confirmed a data breach where hackers stole personal information from its cloud systems between July 6 and July 10. The incident involved a social engineering attack and is part of a wider hacking campaign targeting financial institutions.
OpenAI Advocates for Stronger Safeguards in California's AI Safety Bill SB 53
OpenAI has called for California to strengthen its AI safety bill, SB 53, by adding requirements for monitoring frontier models during training and enhancing cybersecurity protections. This marks a shift in OpenAI's stance, as it previously opposed the bill, and now supports a "reverse federalism" approach for AI regulation.
Patreon launches 30 new creator features, including short-form Clips and revamped discovery
Patreon released 30 new features for creators, including short-form video Clips and an updated discovery algorithm. These changes aim to help creators reach new audiences and build community on the platform, addressing challenges creators face with broader social media platforms.
Google Introduces 'Preferred Sources' Button for Search and Gemini Integration in Discover Feed
Google has launched a "Preferred Sources" button for webmasters, allowing users to designate favorite news sites to appear more frequently in Google Search results. Additionally, Google is integrating its Gemini chatbot into the Discover feed for content curation and enhancing customization for audio briefings in the Google News app. These updates aim to provide users with more control over their news consumption and offer publishers a new way to engage readers within Google's ecosystem.
OpenAI Completes $7 Billion Secondary Share Sale at $852 Billion Valuation
OpenAI completed a $7 billion secondary share sale, allowing current and former employees to sell stock based on an $852 billion valuation. This tender offer provides liquidity for employees and follows a $122 billion funding round in March.
Google hires former Gmail lead Jacob Bank as Chrome VP of Product, focusing on AI integration
Jacob Bank, former Director of Product Management for Gmail, Calendar, and Chat, has rejoined Google as VP of Product for Chrome. His appointment follows the shutdown of his AI workflow automation startup, Relay.app, and indicates Google's focus on integrating AI capabilities into the Chrome browser.
India introduces legislation to allow merchant fees on UPI transactions
India is enacting new legislation to enable merchants to pay charges on some transactions made through its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) network. This policy shift aims to create a sustainable business model for UPI, which has operated without merchant fees since 2020, by allowing payment companies to recover infrastructure and operational costs.
California DMV Permits Self-Driving Truck Testing, Teamsters Sue Over Job Loss Concerns
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has approved new regulations allowing autonomous heavy-duty trucks to test on public roads, leading to permits for companies like Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI. Kodiak AI has already begun testing. The California Teamsters union is suing the state, arguing the regulations were improperly implemented and could result in 400,000 job losses, claiming the DMV did not conduct a required economic study.
X Open-Sources Ranking Algorithm and Tests 'Shadowban' Transparency Tool
X has open-sourced the code for its "For You" timeline algorithm and core ranking engine on GitHub under the Apache v2 license, significantly expanding its public codebase. Concurrently, X is testing a new transparency tool that allows users to download a JSON file of their aggregate stats to see if their account or posts have been impacted by ranking systems, addressing user concerns about "shadowbanning."
Databricks Secures $5 Billion Funding Round at $190 Billion Valuation
Databricks has completed a $5 billion funding round, valuing the company at $190 billion. The company plans to use the capital to expand its enterprise AI capabilities, including its Unity AI Gateway governance tool and Genie agentic tool. This funding follows a previous $5 billion round six months prior and comes as Databricks reported crossing $7 billion in revenue run rate.
Spotify Expands AI Music Remix and Cover Project with Merlin and Kobalt Partnerships
Spotify has partnered with Merlin and Kobalt, adding over 30,000 independent labels and publishers to its upcoming AI music product. This initiative allows fans to create AI-powered covers and remixes of artists' music with consent, aiming to provide new revenue streams and discovery opportunities for participating artists.
Toni Schneider Appointed Permanent CEO of Bluesky; Jay Graber Becomes Chief Innovation Officer
Toni Schneider has been appointed the permanent CEO of Bluesky, transitioning from his interim role. Former CEO Jay Graber is now the Chief Innovation Officer. Schneider and COO Rose Wang will present at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to discuss Bluesky's strategy for an open, protocol-based social media.
Lovable Secures $400M Series C Funding, Reaching $13.3 Billion Valuation
Lovable, a European software creation platform, has raised $400 million in Series C funding, bringing its valuation to $13.3 billion. The round was led by Menlo Ventures and the Scaleup Europe Fund, with participation from over a dozen other investors. This funding follows Lovable reaching $500 million in annualized run rate revenue and expanding its infrastructure, including a multiyear deal with Google Cloud.
Anthropic's Claude AI Improves Riemann Hypothesis Lower Bound to 67.2%
An unreleased research version of Anthropic's Claude AI has increased the known lower bound for the fraction of Riemann zeta function zeros satisfying the Riemann hypothesis from 41.6% to 67.2%. This development, achieved by an AI model without significant mathematical training, demonstrates progress in AI's mathematical problem-solving capabilities.
Joby Aviation Acquires Resonant Sciences for $500 Million to Expand Defense Business
Joby Aviation is acquiring Dayton, Ohio-based defense firm Resonant Sciences for $500 million, comprising $450 million in cash and $50 million in equity. This acquisition establishes a dedicated defense division for Joby, integrating Resonant Sciences' radio frequency, sensing, and mission systems capabilities, and allowing Joby's commercial division to focus on air taxi development.
Malachyte Raises $10M Seed Funding to Bring Spotify-like AI Recommendations to E-commerce
Malachyte, a startup founded by former Spotify engineers Sidd Motwani, Ian Anderson, and Shivaditya Sinha, secured $10 million in seed funding to apply its AI-driven recommendation technology to e-commerce. The company aims to provide real-time, intent-aware shopping experiences, moving beyond traditional personalization methods based on past purchases or demographics. Its platform uses a "two-headed Vector AI" system, similar to Spotify's Vector AI which powers 90% of its recommendations, to predict shopper intent.
Tesla and SpaceX to Build $16.8 Billion Terafab Chip Factory in Texas
Tesla and SpaceX announced an initial $16.8 billion investment to build "Terafab," an advanced chip factory in Grimes County, Texas. The facility, planned for over 100 million square feet, aims to produce AI inference processors and high-power processors to meet the future computing demands of both companies, including Tesla's Optimus robots and SpaceX's space-based data centers. The factory will be powered by natural gas plants and large battery arrays.
Airbnb Attributes Strong Growth to AI Investment, Reports Faster Feature Development
Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky stated that AI has reduced product development time by 60% and increased the number of shipped features by 80% year-over-year. The company's stock surged 15% after reporting strong growth, which Chesky directly attributed to increased AI investment, indicating plans for significantly more spending on AI tokens.
Hadrian Raises $1.37 Billion at Nearly $8 Billion Valuation for Defense Manufacturing
Hadrian, a manufacturing startup focused on defense and aerospace, secured $1.37 billion in a new funding round, bringing its valuation to approximately $7.9 billion. This investment will support scaling its workforce, software platform, and addressing production challenges in defense sectors, including submarines, munitions, and drones.
Mirendil Secures $100M+ Google Cloud Deal for Self-Improving AI Compute
AI lab Mirendil has signed a multi-year partnership with Google Cloud, valued at over $100 million, to acquire compute capacity for its self-improving AI research. This agreement provides Mirendil with access to Google's TPUs and Nvidia GPUs, enabling the startup to scale its work on AI systems that iteratively improve themselves.
Reddit Introduces AI-Powered Moderation Tools and Aims to Reduce Karma's Importance
Reddit is rolling out "Rules Hub," a new suite of AI-powered moderation tools that use large language models (LLMs) to evaluate post and comment intent against rules. This system is currently expanding to all newly created communities and is intended to eventually replace the keyword-dependent Automoderator, aiming to make communities more accessible to new users by reducing reliance on karma and account age for posting permissions.
Hark Launches Handoff AI Agent for Autonomous Web Navigation
Hark, an AI startup founded by Brett Adcock, has released Handoff, a computer use agent designed to autonomously navigate the open web for tasks like ordering food or booking flights. Hark claims Handoff achieved the highest score on the Online-Mind2Web benchmark and offers lower token pricing compared to competing models. The company raised $700 million in Series A funding in May.
MacPaw Partners with Liquid AI for On-Device AI on Mac, Starting with Eney Assistant
MacPaw has partnered with Liquid AI to develop an on-device AI technology stack for macOS, beginning with MacPaw's Eney AI assistant. This collaboration aims to integrate Liquid AI's Liquid Foundation Models with MacPaw's Elix for inference and Mnemos for memory, enabling local AI processing for privacy, security, and offline functionality. MacPaw plans to make this technology available to developers through its Setapp app store.
Wispr Flow Launches AI-Powered Meeting Notetaker for Mac Users
Wispr Flow, previously known for its voice-to-text AI tool, has launched Notetaker, an AI-powered meeting assistant for Mac. The new feature generates transcripts, summaries, action items, and insights from meeting audio, expanding Wispr Flow's offerings beyond dictation and positioning it to compete with existing meeting notetaker services.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp Criticizes Frontier AI Labs Over Data Control and IP
Palantir CEO Alex Karp reiterated his criticism of frontier AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI, stating that enterprises should not have to surrender intellectual property to use their models. Karp argued that businesses should maintain control over their own models and data, working with application-layer companies like Palantir to keep data in-house. This stance highlights ongoing industry debate regarding data ownership and control in AI development.
Snap to Detail $2,195 AR Specs at September 16 Event
Snap will host an event on September 16 to provide an in-depth look at its standalone augmented reality glasses, Specs. The glasses, priced at $2,195, are expected to ship in the US, UK, and France this fall, with CEO Evan Spiegel demonstrating their features. Spiegel previously stated that mass-market adoption is not anticipated until closer to the end of the decade.
OpenAI and Anthropic Increase Lobbying Spending Ahead of Elections
OpenAI and Anthropic spent a combined $3.17 million on federal lobbying in Q2 2026, marking a 23% increase from Q1. This surge occurs as AI companies intensify efforts to influence legislation ahead of midterm elections and their upcoming IPOs.
Horizon3 Raises $250M Series E, Reaching $2 Billion Valuation
Cybersecurity startup Horizon3 secured $250 million in Series E funding, increasing its valuation from $650 million to $2 billion in 14 months. The funding, co-led by NightDragon and NEA, will support the company's growth as enterprises seek solutions for continuous, automated vulnerability testing against escalating AI-driven threats.
Nscale Acquires Anyscale for $1.65 Billion to Expand AI Compute Stack
British AI neocloud Nscale has acquired software startup Anyscale for an estimated $1.65 billion. This acquisition integrates Anyscale's AI workload scaling capabilities, built around the open-source Project Ray framework, into Nscale's infrastructure, allowing Nscale to offer a more comprehensive AI compute stack from energy and data centers to workload management.
Apple Services Revenue Misses Expectations Due to Gaming Slowdown and App Store Changes
Apple's services revenue in the fiscal third quarter reached $30.74 billion, falling short of Wall Street expectations of $31.22 billion. CFO Kevan Parekh attributed this miss to a slowdown in mobile gaming and changes to the App Store's business model, which now allows developers to process payments outside Apple's commission system in certain countries, including the U.S.