Author: TechBrunch
Developers Max Brodeur-Urbas and Rahul Behal say AI has the potential to automate many business-related tasks, but many AI-powered automation tools on the market today are unreliable and expensive. We believe that this is the case. Brodeur-Urbas told TechCrunch that part of the problem is that users expect too much from AI. For example, users assume that they can handle highly specialized and niche workloads where accuracy is important. “If users want to use AI for enterprise purposes, the technology needs to have no margin for error,” Brodeur-Urbas said. “It is not realistic to completely delegate certain workflows to AI.…
CES 2025, the annual consumer technology conference in Las Vegas, is fast approaching. You can find all live updates here. Over the next few days, TechCrunch reporters will be on the ground bringing you the latest announcements and product announcements from Samsung, Nvidia, Toyota, Sony, and more. AI will likely be the focus of most companies' presentations, and we can expect it to be covered extensively throughout the event, from smart home upgrades to details on the hardware that powers AI in consumer devices. Beyond AI, robotics and transportation remain at the core of CES, and we may see some…
Social network X, owned by Elon Musk, announced today that it is rolling out labels to distinguish parody and satirical accounts from other accounts. In the past, users, including news presenters, have misinterpreted posts from parody accounts as genuine statements made by real people or organizations. The label will appear on both accounts and posts, according to the company's secure account on the platform. “We are rolling out profile labels for parody accounts to clearly distinguish these types of accounts and their content on our platform. “We designed this account so that it would not appear that the account belongs…
Hippocratic AI, a startup building AI solutions that can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks, has secured a massive $141 million Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins at a $1.64 billion valuation announced on Thursday. The funding comes nine months after Hippocratic AI raised $53 million from General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz and five months after it raised $17 million from Nvidia. The startup is less than two years old. While most healthcare-generated AI companies focus on reducing administrative burden, Hippocratic AI is creating agents that can perform simple tasks such as pre-surgical procedures, remote patient monitoring, and appointment preparation. By…
Nvidia unveiled a prototype AI avatar that resides on your PC's desktop at CES 2025. R2X, an AI assistant, looks like a video game character and helps you navigate apps on your computer. R2X avatars are rendered and animated using Nvidia's AI models, and users can run their avatars in a popular LLM of their choice, such as OpenAI's GPT-4o or xAI's Grok. Users can also talk to R2X through text and voice, upload and process files, and enable the AI assistant to see what's happening live on the screen and camera. Technology companies are creating a lot of AI…
ICON Technologies Inc., which uses 3D printing to build homes, plans to lay off 114 people, according to a warning letter filed with the Texas Labor Commission. A company spokesperson confirmed the news to TechCrunch, saying ICON “recently made the difficult decision to realign our team and team size in order to focus on our top priorities and continue to invest in our best growth opportunities.” issued a statement. ” ICON was founded in late 2017 and announced the first permitted 3D printed home in the United States during SXSW in March 2018. The 350 square foot house took about…
Defense technology startup Epirus has raised between $150 million and $200 million in a new funding round led by Joe Lonsdale's venture firm 8VC, Bloomberg reported. The round could value the company, which develops technology to intercept drones, at about $1 billion. If this is the final valuation, it would be down from the company's previous valuation of $1.35 billion. (Ipilus did not comment to Bloomberg.) Lonsdale co-founded the company in 2018 with Beau Marr, Max Mednick, Nathan Mintz, Grant Verstandig and John Tenet. The startup has already raised nearly $300 million from investors including DCVC and Bedrock, according to…
OpenAI is introducing new ways for users to customize their interactions with ChatGPT, the company's AI-powered chatbot. On Thursday, some users of X reported that ChatGPT's existing custom instructions menu on the web had been revamped with new fields. Users can now specify their preferred name or nickname, occupation, other things they want ChatGPT to know, and the “traits” they want the chatbot to have. OpenAI suggests traits like “talkative,” “encouraging,” and “Gen Z.” The updated menu now says, “Introduce yourself for a more relevant and personalized response.” Image credit: Tibor Blaho (Opens in new window) This reporter has not…
To accelerate the pace of AI development, Google is further streamlining the teams that build AI services, platforms, and tools. Logan Kilpatrick, head of product for Google's AI Studio developer platform, said Thursday in a post to He said he would move to . Google DeepMind, formed in 2023 by the merger of Google's DeepMind team and Google Research's Google Brain team, is the AI research and development arm behind many of Google's recent AI product innovations, including Gemini. “This move allows us to further strengthen our already close collaboration and accelerate research into our developer pipeline,” Kilpatrick wrote in…
Scale AI relies on an army of workers classified as contractors to perform critical AI tasks such as labeling images and evaluating LLM responses for Big Tech and others. But the AI startup, recently valued at $13.8 billion, faces growing legal challenges over its labor practices. On January 3, 2025, former Scale AI employee Amber Rogowitz filed a lawsuit alleging that Scale misclassified her and other employees as contractors rather than employees. The lawsuit alleges that the company's pay effectively equates to $15 an hour, which violates California's minimum wage of $16.00 at the time of her employment (currently $16.50).…