Author: TechBrunch

Google's challenger in OpenAI is finally here. The company on Thursday launched ChatGPT Search, an evolution of the SearchGPT prototype it announced this summer. Built into OpenAI's ChatGPT platform, ChatGPT Search is designed to pull information from a variety of online sources and provide “timely answers” to questions, OpenAI said. Powered by a fine-tuned version of OpenAI's GPT-4o model, ChatGPT Search provides information and photos from around the web, including sports scores, news, and stocks, along with links to related sources. Refine your ongoing search by asking follow-up questions. ChatGPT chooses to search the web based on your questions. Alternatively,…

Google Maps is adding new features powered by Gemini, Google's generative AI model. The company announced Thursday an upcoming update that will allow Google Maps users in the U.S. to use AI to find new places to visit and answer questions about different locations. The platform also has enhanced navigation features that help drivers reach their destinations by highlighting things like which lane to be in. By bringing Gemini to Maps, Google will aim to position its navigation app to compete with Apple Maps and navigation startups. In other updates, Google Maps will now allow users to get ideas for…

Starting today, developers building AI-based services and bots using Google's Gemini API and Google AI Studio will be able to base their prompt results on data from Google Search. This should allow for more accurate responses based on more recent data. As always, developers can try grounding for free in AI Studio. AI Studio is essentially Google's playground for developers to test and adjust their prompts and access the latest large-scale language models (LLMs). Gemini API users must subscribe to a paid tier and pay $35 for every 1,000 grounded queries. AI Studio recently released a built-in comparison mode that…

The question on everyone's mind is: Are Gen Z workers actually different? TechCrunch set out to find out at this year's Disrupt 2024. We sat down with SignalFire's Heather Doshay, Comprehensive.io's Roger Lee, and CapitalG's Lauren Illovsky to discuss how to hire and retain talent. One of the topics was how young workers are very different from older workers. “It was the same with millennials, right?” Ilovsky asked on stage. “I remember baby boomers criticizing Millennials, and now Millennials were criticizing Gen Z. I love Gen Z too. How much they push the boundaries and think. I think they understand…

The question on everyone's mind is: Are Gen Z workers actually different? TechCrunch set out to find out at this year's Disrupt 2024. We sat down with SignalFire's Heather Doshay, Comprehensive.io's Roger Lee, and CapitalG's Lauren Illovsky to discuss how to hire and retain talent. One of the topics was how young workers are very different from older workers. “It was the same with millennials, right?” Ilovsky asked on stage. “I remember baby boomers criticizing Millennials, and now Millennials were criticizing Gen Z. I love Gen Z too. How much they push the boundaries and think. I think they understand…

WhatsApp makes it easy to organize the many messages that fill your inbox. The messaging app announced Thursday that it is adding the ability to filter chats into customizable categories. This helps you keep track of your conversations with family, work colleagues, college friends, etc. The “Custom List” feature is an enhancement to the chat filters that WhatsApp introduced in April. Previously, you only had access to three filters: All, Unread, and Groups. With the new update, you can now create your own lists so you can focus on your favorite chats at once. To create a list,[チャット]Tap the plus…

The European Union has thrown a spanner into chipmaker Nvidia's proposed takeover of Tel Aviv-based AI workload management startup Run:ai. The deal, announced in April, has a price tag of $700 million, according to our sources, and was completed by the EU side following a request from Italy's competition regulator under the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR). It will be considered. The proposed transaction does not meet the EUMR standard notification threshold. However, EU law requires national regulators to notify the European Commission of a transaction if they believe it poses a significant risk to domestic competition and could affect trade…

Anthropic's AI-powered chatbot, Claude, now has a desktop app. Anthropic is releasing the Claude app for Mac and Windows today in public beta. This, as Anthropic's blog post says, “brings the power of Claude directly into your preferred work environment.” To be clear, these features do not include Anthropic's recently announced computer usage features. This feature allows an upgraded version of the company's latest flagship model, the Claude 3.5 Sonnet, to perform tasks on your PC. The desktop app is available to both free Claude users and those subscribed to Anthropic's premium plan. Image credit: Humanity Anthropic also released a…

MealMe, an integration API that embeds food and retail ordering into consumer apps and websites, announced Thursday that it has secured $8 million in Series A funding. The new funding brings the total amount raised to $16 million. MealMe has undergone several changes since its launch in 2019. Initially, it was a consumer app designed to help people find the best deals on delivery from restaurants and grocery stores. It has since evolved to allow consumers to order food directly through the MealMe app. The company has now fully transitioned to a B2B model and provides an API for other…

In 2014, Ivan Krukov moved his family from Serbia to the United States as his startup Cubic.AI prepared to launch a Kickstarter campaign for a smart speaker. A week before the campaign was scheduled to launch, Amazon launched its Echo smart speaker, effectively rendering Cubic.AI dysfunctional. “It was a disaster,” Krukov told TechCrunch. “It just doesn’t make sense to compete with Amazon or Google. We ended up selling the company. [two years later]” However, this experience was not completely wasted. Moving the family from Serbia to the United States meant sending her daughters, who were used to speaking Russian at…