Author: TechBrunch

Last year, during the company's Q3 2023 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about leveraging AI to help business accounts respond to customer purchases and support inquiries. Today, Meta announced AI-powered capabilities for the WhatsApp Business app, including helping create click-to-WhatsApp ads and generating responses to frequently sent customer messages. Mark Zuckerberg announced the tools today at the company's Meta Connect conference in Brazil, where he said that in addition to building consumer-facing bots on the platform, Meta wants to build AI agents to help businesses talk to their customers. “Our vision now is not just to build a single AI…

To encourage users to spend more time on the platform and increase engagement, TikTok is testing out continuous playback similar to what's seen on Snapchat. TikTok confirmed that it is testing the feature but did not issue a statement on it. The company said it is experimenting with streaks in limited markets and with select users. The rules for getting a streak are simple: you need to send a direct message to someone for at least three consecutive days. Once you do, a streak badge will appear in your chat, along with the number of days you've posted in a…

New York-based Revel has made a lot of pivots since it first launched as a dockless electric moped-sharing service in 2018. The BlackRock-backed startup briefly ventured into the e-bike subscription business; it launched and currently operates several electric vehicle charging stations across the five boroughs; and it began offering ride-hailing services for its entire workforce, all with Teslas, to guarantee access to charging infrastructure. Revel, which discontinued its moped-sharing business in 2023, is now pivoting again and abandoning one of the key elements that made its ride-hailing service unique: The startup has laid off more than 1,000 drivers and is…

Google on Thursday announced new guidelines for developers building AI apps distributed on Google Play, aiming to reduce inappropriate or prohibited content. The company said that apps that offer AI features must prevent the generation of prohibited content, including sexual content or violence, and must provide a way for users to flag objectionable content they find. Additionally, Google said developers must “rigorously test” their AI tools and models to ensure they respect the safety and privacy of users. Google is also cracking down on apps that promote inappropriate use cases in their marketing materials, such as apps that strip people…

Google today announced that it has partnered with emergency responder platform RapidSOS to allow users to contact 911 through RCS (Rich Messaging Service). The company said it plans to begin rolling out the technology this winter to users in areas where text-to-911 functionality isn't available through RapidSOS' solution. Initially, the feature will only be available to Google Messages users. According to AccesSOS, a nonprofit emergency communications organization, only 54% of 911 call centers in the U.S. offer text-to-911 services. That's why our new feature will help users who are stranded in areas where they might not be able to reach…

Long before product-led growth became a buzzword, Atlassian offered free plans for nearly all of its productivity and developer tools. Now, that mostly means free access for up to 10 users and other limitations. For startups, this is a good way to get started with the company's tools, like Jira and Bitbucket, but you'll quickly reach the limits of what you can do with the free plan. For early-stage companies that need more seats and access to more advanced features, Atlassian today launched its “Atlassian for Startups” program, which offers companies with less than $10 million in funding free access…

Artists have finally had enough of Meta's predatory AI policies, but Meta's loss is Cara's gain: Cara, the artist-run anti-AI social platform, has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users in the past week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts. Instagram is a staple for many artists, who use it to promote their work and solicit paying clients. But Meta uses public posts to train its generative AI system, which is protected by GDPR law and only European users can opt out. Because the generative AI is so front and center in Meta's app, it's pushing artists…

Google has developed a new AI tool to help marine biologists better understand coral reef ecosystems and their health to inform conservation efforts. Developed in collaboration with Google Research and DeepMind, the tool, SurfPerch, is trained on thousands of hours of coral reef audio recordings and allows reef scientists to “listen to reef health from the inside,” track reef activity at night, and track reefs in deep or murky waters. The project began by inviting the public to listen to coral reef sounds via the web. Over the past year, visitors to Google's Calling in our Corals website listened to…

Just a few years ago, one of the hottest topics in enterprise software was “Robotic Process Automation (RPA).” These services, which attempted to automate many of our repetitive business processes, seemed to fall short of expectations. But the rise of generative AI may be the missing key to building such systems. Seattle-based Tektonic is one of the newer startups in this space: The company, which combines GenAI with traditional symbolic techniques, emerged from stealth today to announce a $10 million seed round of funding led by Point72 Ventures and Madrona Ventures. The idea here is to allow users to use…

There's been a lot of buzz about generative AI and its impact on business, but if you look behind the hype and high-profile deals like last week's OpenAI-PwC deal, you'll see that the world is already years into using customer-facing no-code AI tools to extract information and do work faster. Now, one of the earliest entrants in the space, contracting specialist Sirion Labs, is acquiring Eigen Technologies, an enterprise AI pioneer focused on analyzing documents to extract insights and data in industries including insurance, finance and law. The deal highlights not only the opportunity that comes with growing demand for…