AI News
Recent AI news and official updates
Follow recent AI announcements and reporting with concise PopAIExplorer summaries and direct original-source links.
Reddit is using LLMs to solve a problem LLMs largely created
TechCrunch AI published: In the AI era, platforms have no choice but to fight fire with fire to cull spam.
Station F ramps up as a launchpad for Europe’s hottest AI startups
TechCrunch AI published: Station F, a Paris-based startup hub founded by French billionaire Xavier Niel, is gearing up for a new edition of its F/ai accelerator program in a bid to strengthen its positioning as a stepping stone for promising AI startups.
New Google commercial imagines a Declaration of Independence written with help from AI
TechCrunch AI published: Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new commercial asks: What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace?
Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage
TechCrunch AI published: As part of an ongoing legal dispute with three Hollywood studios, Midjourney is seeking to compel those studios to reveal how they use AI themselves.
Alibaba reportedly bans employees from using Claude Code
TechCrunch AI published: Alibaba has reportedly classified Claude Code as high-risk software.
What is Mistral AI? Everything to know about the OpenAI competitor
TechCrunch AI published: Mistral AI, which offers some open source AI models, has raised significant funding since its creation in 2023, with the ambition to “put frontier AI in the hands of everyone.”
The only AI glossary you’ll need this year
TechCrunch AI published: The rise of AI has brought an avalanche of new terms and slang. Here is a glossary with definitions of some of the most important words and phrases you might encounter.
The UK’s generational tobacco ban might not work. I’m supporting it anyway.
MIT Technology Review published: As the parent of two little girls, I often think about how their childhood is different from mine. The seven-year-old is learning about AI at school. The five-year-old is given internet-based homework every week. And they are both absolutely repulsed by the idea of smoking. That was not the prevailing sentiment when I was young.…
Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven’t progressed as quickly as he’d hoped
TechCrunch AI published: At an internal meeting, the Meta CEO reportedly said that AI development efforts were not moving as quickly as anticipated.
Jersey Mike’s IPO illustrates how bad the AI hype has become
TechCrunch AI published: Just for kicks, I took a look at Jersey Mike's IPO documents. Surely a sandwich shop would have no need to mention AI. But lo and behold.
Meta quietly launches vibe-coded gaming app Pocket
TechCrunch AI published: Meta has quietly launched Pocket, an experimental AI app that lets users generate and share interactive mini games using text prompts.
Anthropic is discussing a new custom chip with Samsung
TechCrunch AI published: The news comes about a week after OpenAI announced its own custom AI chip in a partnership with Broadcom.
Achieving operational excellence with AI
MIT Technology Review published: Frameworks like Lean Six Sigma and business process management (BPM) first gained traction because they promised clarity in the chaos—a structured way to bring order to messy, sprawling operations. Lean Six Sigma emphasized statistical rigor and quality control; BPM created end-to-end maps of how work should flow across departments. Both offered a repeatable way to…
OpenAI proposed donating 5% of its equity to a US sovereign wealth fund
TechCrunch AI published: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reportedly proposed giving 5% of the company’s equity to a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, reviving discussions about letting the public share in the financial gains from the AI boom.
Microsoft launches its own AI deployment company with $2.5 billion commitment
TechCrunch AI published: Microsoft follows Amazon, OpenAI, and Anthropic with its new AI deployment group.
Teaching AI to run with the turbines
MIT Technology Review published: Artificial intelligence may have captured the public imagination through chatbots and image generators, but some of its most consequential use cases are unfolding far from consumer-facing tools. In industries where physical infrastructure, operational continuity, and safety are paramount, AI is becoming a core operating layer. With its sprawling industrial systems and constant stream of operational…
The Download: a startup has a solution for AI’s groupthink problem
MIT Technology Review published: This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. LLMs are stuck in a groupthink groove. This startup is trying to get them out. Open up your chatbot of choice—Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini—and type “Give me a random number between 1…
Yep, we’re using OpenClaw to date now
TechCrunch AI published: Ben Guez has "a bunch of potential international wives in [his] DMs," thanks to an automated script he set up using OpenClaw, Claude code, and Instagram trials.
Indian tech tycoon bets $30M of his own money to build AI alternative to Microsoft Office
TechCrunch AI published: Neo is Bhavin Turakhia’s fifth venture and his latest involving enterprise software. This time he's taking on Microsoft Office and Google Apps with AI.
SpaceX has an AI device prototype, and it sure sounds phone-ish
TechCrunch AI published: SpaceX reportedly showed investors a "handset-like" AI device before going public. It could be another signal SpaceX wants to expand into wireless.