AI News
Recent AI news and official updates
Follow recent AI announcements and reporting with concise PopAIExplorer summaries and direct original-source links.
Amazon ups India bet with fresh $13B AI infrastructure investment
TechCrunch AI published: Amazon’s latest India investment comes as global tech companies race to expand AI infrastructure in the country.
Improving the speed and energy-efficiency of AI agents
MIT News AI published: A new system, known as Murakkab, optimizes the design and deployment of multistep workflows that power AI applications.
Cerebras stock plunges after earnings as CEO says margin outlook was misunderstood
TechCrunch AI published: In its first earnings report since going public, the AI chipmaker forecast a narrower gross margin in its core business, scaring investors.
AI was supposed to kill engineering jobs, but new data suggests they’re the most resilient
TechCrunch AI published: While AI dominates the layoff narrative, engineers are actually making up a larger share of new hires, according to SignalFire data.
AI researchers continue to leave Google for its rivals
TechCrunch AI published: Top AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are leaving Google for Anthropic, following departures from top scientists Noam Shazeer and John Jumper.
Companies are scrambling to stop employees from maxing out AI budgets with small tasks
TechCrunch AI published: The tokenmaxxing era was brief. We now appear to be entering the era of token rationing.
Facebook rolls out an AI companion app for creators
TechCrunch AI published: The new app, which is currently being tested with select creators, will have Facebook's recently launched AI creator assistant built into it.
Agility Robotics plans to go public via SPAC in a $2.5B deal
TechCrunch AI published: Agility Robotics, the humanoid robotics startup that spun out of Oregon State University in 2015, expects to generate $620 million in proceeds.
Figma adds code layers, support for animations, more AI features in new update
TechCrunch AI published: Figma's update adds a new code layer, support for motion and shaders, and the ability to create custom plug-ins for various tasks using AI.
OpenAI unveils its first custom chip, built by Broadcom
TechCrunch AI published: Named Jalapeño, the new processor was designed specifically for the unique needs of OpenAI's inference systems.
Stripe, Anthropic, and OpenAI are backing an effort to stop respiratory infections
MIT Technology Review published: The common cold comes for us all—often more than once a year. And there is no way to prevent it. The best you can do is take vitamin C and stay away from people with the sniffles. Now the payment company Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, says it will fund a new…
The emergence of the web data infrastructure layer for AI
MIT Technology Review published: AI is booming. New use cases are emerging each day. To capitalize on the technology’s potential, enterprises require data at scale. In many cases, though, the relevant information is blocked or unstructured, which limits its use by AI models. To understand this challenge, consider the foundation of the web itself. The web was not designed…
India’s MoEngage bets that the future of marketing is millions of AI agents
TechCrunch AI published: The all-cash deal gives MoEngage access to technology that assigns AI agents to individual customers.
Sharing a love for calculus
MIT Technology Review published: The national conversation about the value of education is currently dominated by speculation about the risks and positive potential of AI. Whatever your own perspective on that debate, I hope you’ll be glad to know that MIT is also working on a deeply important but comparatively old-fashioned challenge: American high school students’ startlingly uneven access…
Ultrasound imaging turns a robot hand into a skillful mimic
MIT Technology Review published: Our hands are the nimblest parts of our bodies, coordinating 34 muscles, 27 joints, and over 100 tendons and ligaments to perform countless nuanced movements and gestures. So far, robots have been notoriously bad at mimicking that dexterity, in part because researchers struggle to capture what is actually going on under our skin in order…
Exploring the societal impacts of AI
MIT News AI published: During the AI and Society Forum, leading MIT researchers examined critical questions about AI’s influence on employment and democracy.
Anthropic’s Claude Tag is learning your company, one Slack message at a time
TechCrunch AI published: Anthropic’s new Claude Tag brings an always-on AI teammate to Slack. But beyond productivity, the feature is a strategic play to capture organizational context, institutional knowledge, and enterprise workflows.
Fika Jobs raises $4M to build a video-first hiring platform where AI agents interview candidates
TechCrunch AI published: Stockholm-based startup Fika Jobs is building a video-first hiring platform that combines AI interview agents with short-form video profiles, creating something that feels like a cross between LinkedIn and TikTok.
Elephant alert! AI warning systems aim to avoid deadly clashes
MIT Technology Review published: India is home to about 60% of the world’s wild Asian elephants, and around 80% of the animals’ habitat lies outside protected areas, according to the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change. That brings people and wildlife into close contact, and clashes can turn lethal: There have been some 3,000 human casualties in the…
The running list: major tech layoffs in 2026 where employers cited AI
TechCrunch AI published: A running look — in reverse chronological order — at the bigger tech companies that have announced significant layoffs this year with AI as a stated factor.