Author: TechBrunch
Engineer Ashish Nagar was working on the conversational AI team within Amazon's Alexa organization when he realized AI had the potential to significantly improve contact center productivity. “Frontline workers like customer service workers are the largest source of human capital in the world,” Nagar told TechCrunch, “so my idea was to augment the work of humans with ambient computing, an AI that you can just talk to and it can listen in the background.” In 2019, Nagar founded Level AI, which offers a suite of AI-powered tools that automate a variety of customer service tasks. The platform scores contact center…
In the world of app development, quality assurance is essential but often a resource-draining endeavor. According to Statista, 23% of companies' annual IT budgets are allocated to in-house or third-party QA and testing. The risks are high: A survey by QA software testing company QualiTest Group found that 88% of app users would not use an app that had bugs or glitches. Jon Perl, Laura Cressman, and Scott Wilson, three software developers and marketers, came up with the idea to create QA Wolf, a platform that would make QA for mobile and web apps easier by automating the aspects of…
Robotics startup Mytra has been working quietly behind the scenes to reimagine warehouse automation since its launch in May 2022. The company is a company with a strong track record, founded by automotive industry veterans from EV companies such as Tesla and Rivian. With the pandemic crippling global supply chains and the effects still being felt, warehousing/fulfillment has become a hot area for automation, and the sector is highly competitive, with big players like Amazon, Locus, and Zebra/Fetch making inroads, setting the stage for an explosion of interest in the bipedal humanoid form factor. The world has bounced back after…
Platforms like TikTok and Spotify have experimented with events on their platforms, but rather than focusing on concerts or large gatherings, events startup Posh is focusing on intimate gatherings of up to a few hundred people: friends, friends of friends, people you meet at parties. The company today announced $22 million in Series A funding led by Goodwater Capital with participation from FirstMark Capital, Companyon Ventures and Epic Ventures. The company has previously raised a total of $31 million from investors including Companyon Ventures, Epic Ventures, Day One Ventures and Pareto Holdings. With this funding, the startup aims to expand…
Adobe on Tuesday released a new Firefly tool for Photoshop and Illustrator, giving graphic designers more ways to tap into the company's in-house AI models. Adobe's new feature lets creative workers describe what they want in a short prompt and receive AI-generated textures and images that would normally take hours to create. Adobe is walking a delicate balance between its focus on AI and some loyal users who feel threatened by it. The company trains Firefly with the work of many creative workers and pays Adobe Stock photographers and illustrators an annual bonus for the privilege. In light of this,…
A school in the UK has been formally reprimanded by the UK's data protection regulator for using facial recognition technology without getting explicit opt-in consent from students to process their face scans. The news rekindles an ongoing privacy debate over the use of biometric data in school settings, particularly where children are involved. Last year, New York became the first US state to ban facial recognition in schools after AI companies stepped up their marketing efforts promising to make schools safer. Fingerprint technology has been used in UK schools for a variety of identity and authentication purposes for many years,…
Clio, a Canadian software company that aims to help legal practices work more efficiently with cloud-based technology, has raised $900 million in a Series F round, valuing the company at $3 billion. The valuation is nearly double the $1.6 billion valuation the Vancouver, British Columbia company achieved when it raised $110 million in April 2021. Clio describes itself as “the operating system for law firms,” and Clio founder and CEO Jack Newton says the company has been profitable (EBITDA positive) for several years, with ARR recently exceeding $200 million, up from $100 million in June 2022. The company is working…
LiDAR is the foundation for the autonomous vehicle and robotics industries, and while it has become an industry standard, the technology does have its drawbacks, the biggest of which is its high cost. Anand Gopalan, former CTO and CEO of LiDAR leader Velodyne, is well aware of the technology's pros and cons, so it's significant that the executive's latest endeavor has chosen to forego the technology altogether — in fact, Vayu Robotics is positioning LiDAR-free navigation as one of its biggest selling points. Vayu Robotics, which Gopalan co-founded in 2022, two years after taking Velodyne public through a SPAC, aims…
The European Commission announced a formal investigation into Berlin-based food delivery giant Delivery Hero and its Spanish subsidiary Globo on Tuesday, citing cartel concerns. The Commission will launch a thorough investigation into contracts between online delivery companies to check whether anti-competitive practices are taking place. “The Commission is concerned that prior to the acquisition, Delivery Hero and Globo may have allocated geographic markets and shared commercially sensitive information (e.g. commercial strategies, pricing, production capacity, costs and product attributes),” the Commission said in a press release. “The Commission is also concerned that the companies may have agreed not to poach each…
Singapore-based ride-hailing and food delivery company Grab is expanding its services beyond ride-hailing and food delivery as it focuses on Southeast Asia's competitive restaurant booking industry. Grab has confirmed to TechCrunch that it has acquired Singapore-based restaurant booking platform Chope for an undisclosed amount. Grab already offers a restaurant booking service in Singapore, having acquired HungryGoWhere in 2022. With 13,000 restaurants registered in Singapore and overseas on Choop (which operates in Hong Kong, China (Shanghai and Beijing), Indonesia (Bali and Jakarta)) Grab plans to significantly expand this business to differentiate itself from competitors and improve profit margins. A Chope spokesperson…