Author: TechBrunch

I've been playing around with OpenAI's advanced voice modes over the last week, and it's the most immersive experience I've had yet of an AI-powered future. This week, my phone laughed at a joke, handed it back to me, asked how my day was, and told me I was “having a good time” – all while I was talking through my iPhone, not using it in my hands. OpenAI's latest feature, currently in limited alpha testing, doesn't make ChatGPT any smarter than it was before. Instead, Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) makes ChatGPT more approachable and conversational. It creates a new…

Keychain CEO Oisin Hanrahan said most consumer brands are “totally disconnected” from the manufacturers who actually make their products. “They don't own anything except the brand and the marketing suite,” Hanrahan said. That's exactly what Hanrahan is hoping to change with the keychains: brands can use the website to search different products, see who actually makes them, and reach out to those manufacturers to potentially partner on future products. To demonstrate the platform, Hanrahan looked at the granola and yogurt I have for breakfast every morning. By knowing the source, he said, major retailers could work with them to create…

Copilot, Microsoft's initiative in generative AI to enhance productivity, continues to grow and expand alongside Microsoft's AI ambitions. There are now about a dozen Copilot-branded products that power various features in Microsoft software and services, including summarization in Microsoft Outlook and transcription in Microsoft Teams. This is in addition to the Microsoft-owned GitHub Copilot tool for code generation, and Copilot, which runs on Windows and the web, and acts as a general-purpose assistant like OpenAI's ChatGPT rather than a point solution. This article describes the different Microsoft Copilot offerings available and their features, highlighting the key differences between them. What…

A ransomware attack on UnitedHealth-owned medical technology company Change Healthcare earlier this year is likely one of the largest data breaches of U.S. health and medical data in history. Months after the February data breach, a “significant percentage of people living in the United States” have received notifications in the mail that their personal and health information was stolen by cybercriminals during a cyberattack on Change Healthcare. Change Healthcare processes billing and insurance for hundreds of thousands of hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics across the U.S. healthcare sector. As such, the company collects and stores large amounts of sensitive healthcare data…

On Friday, venture firm Andreessen Horowitz Tweeted the link A guide on how to “build your social media presence” offers advice for founders, including how to “find talent” and “how often to post.” The timing of the tweet was ironic, given the social media frenzy that erupted on Friday after founder Ben Horowitz posted on X. Horowitz was upset about a San Francisco Standard article about his family's political contributions, and he accused rival venture capitalist Michael Moritz, owner of the Standard, of orchestrating the story. (The Standard's editor-in-chief, Jon Steinberg, said he commissioned the story and that Moritz had…

OpenAI said in a blog post on Friday that it had banned a group of ChatGPT accounts linked to an Iranian influence operation that was generating content about the U.S. presidential election. The operation produced AI-generated articles and social media posts that did not appear to reach a large audience, according to the company. This is not the first time OpenAI has banned accounts with ties to state-affiliated entities using ChatGPT for malicious purposes: in May, the company blocked five campaigns that used ChatGPT to manipulate public opinion. These episodes are reminiscent of state actors' attempts to use social media…

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a weekly roundup of the must-reads from the startup world. I'm Anna Heim from TechCrunch's international team, and I'll be writing this newsletter from now on. Want it delivered to your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week we look at the process of starting a startup: how it gets founded, funded, closed, and acquired. This week's most interesting startup stories Image credit: Neon Money Club While one company has made stealth its way into the spotlight, several others have flown under the radar this week. Close call: Black Forest Labs is the name of…

While the ethics of AI-generated pornography are still debated, we can all agree that the technology can be used to create sexual images of people without their consent. One way to do this is through “undressing” sites, which generate fake nude versions of people from photos of them in normal clothes. As you can imagine, the potential abuses here are nearly limitless. San Francisco city attorney David Chiu announced at a press conference and in an interview with The New York Times that he would file a lawsuit to shut down 16 of the most popular of these sites. The…

We're into the final week of discounted rates for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Through August 23rd, you can save up to $600 on select individual ticket types. Join a vibrant group of over 10,000 attendees, startup founders, and venture capital investors from October 28-30 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Here are some great reasons to attend Disrupt 2024: Gain insights from top industry leaders Explore six industry-specific stages and learn from the best in your industry. Speakers are cutting-edge innovators and recognized experts in their fields. Google Cloud's AI Stage Builders Stage Fintech Stage SaaS Stage Space Stage by Aerospace…

As always, there's a lot going on in the startup world, and the folks at Equity had a blast analyzing it all. Kirsten Kolosec, Mary Ann Azevedo, and Devin Caldway kicked off this Friday's TechCrunch Equity Podcast by discussing WeRide, a Chinese self-driving car startup that is seeking a US IPO at a valuation of $5 billion. The company also recently received permission to test self-driving cars with passengers in California. The three then moved on to talk about EliseAI, which just raised $75 million in Series D funding, making it a unicorn. The seven-year-old company's chatbots text, email, and…