Latest AI News
India Wants the World's Data, But Who Will Pay for the E-Waste?
As data centre server racks stack up, there’s a need to bridge India’s patchy e-waste recycling infrastructure, informal scrap networks, and policy gaps.
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Emergent Launches Wingman Agent to Automate Workflows Across Gmail, Slack and Messaging Apps
With easy sign-ins across various tools and the ability to save preferences over time, Wingman ensures users do not have to start from scratch.
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Google Chrome Updated With AI-Powered 'Skills' Feature That Lets Users Execute AI Tasks With a Click
Google integrated its Gemini AI chatbot in Chrome earlier this year to bring agentic AI capabilities to its browser, competing directly with Perplexity's AI-powered Comet browser. The new functionality was initially available in select regions and was later rolled out to a wider user base globally, allowing users to ask queries about the webpage they are on, conduct context-based research, or look for a specific product online directly from the Chrome browser. Now, the Mountain View company has introduced a new feature, called Skills in Chrome, which lets users enter preset queries and commands with a single click for frequently used queries, aiming to save time and user effort.
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Google Brings Personal Intelligence to Gemini in India
Personal Intelligence works by combining reasoning across multiple sources with retrieval of specific user data.
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OpenAI Fires Back at Anthropic Mythos with Powerful GPT-5.4-Cyber
OpenAI has trained the model to support defensive cybersecurity workflows such as binary reverse engineering.
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Gupshup Launches ‘Superagent’ to Drive Autonomous Customer Conversations at Scale
The new AI agent promises faster campaign execution, higher conversions, and on-device privacy with ‘SuperClaw’.
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Gemini Personal Intelligence Rolls Out in India With App Integration, Contextual AI Responses
Google on Monday announced the rollout of Personal Intelligence for Gemini in India. The feature expands the AI assistant's capabilities with contextual responses and improved app integration. First introduced in the US earlier this year, Personal Intelligence allows Gemini to connect with select Google apps and utilise that data to provide more accurate and detailed responses to queries. The Mountain View-based tech giant says its rollout is part of ongoing efforts to expand Gemini's functionality across services such as Search, Gmail, and Chrome.
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Anthropic’s rise is giving some OpenAI investors second thoughts
OpenAI’s $852 billion valuation is facing skepticism from some of its own investors as the company scrambles to reorient itself around enterprise customers and fend off Anthropic,according to the Financial Times. Anthropic’s annualized revenue jumped from $9 billion at the end of 2025 to $30 billion by the end of March, driven largely by demand for its coding tools. One investor who has backed both companies told the FT that justifying OpenAI’s round required assuming an IPO valuation of $1.2 trillion or more — making Anthropic’s current$380 billion valuationlook like the relative bargain. The secondary market tells a similar story right now, where demand for Anthropic shares has grown nearly insatiable while OpenAI shares are trading at adiscount. Altman has been here before. During his tenure leading Y Combinator,aggressive valuation inflationleft some portfolio companies financially stranded while others proved worth every penny and then some. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar pushed back, telling the FT that the company’s$122 billion raise— the largest private fundraising in history — was evidence of continued investor confidence. Not everyone is persuaded. Jai Das, president of investment firm Sapphire Ventures (who has no stake in either company) told the FT he saw OpenAI as “the Netscape of AI,” a reference to the once-dominant browser that was overtaken by Microsoft and eventually absorbed by AOL. Update: This piece has been updated to remove an investor quote published and later removed by the Financial Times.
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Google adds AI Skills to Chrome to help you save favorite workflows
Google is adding more AI capabilities to its Chrome web browser, the companyannouncedon Tuesday. It’s introducing a new feature called Skills, which will allow users to save and reuse their favorite AI prompts that can run across different web pages without having to type them in again. The feature ties into Google’s integration of itsGemini AI into Chrome, which arrived alongsidea slate of new competitorsin the browser ecosystem from companies like OpenAI (Atlas), Perplexity (Comet), and The Browser Company (Dia), among others. Gemini already allows users to ask questions about a web page, summarize its information, or perform various tasks. Skills will take it a step further by allowing users to create AI prompts that can be accessed time and again with just a click. For instance, Google suggests that if a user often asks Gemini to suggest vegan substitutions when looking at recipe websites, they can now save that prompt and use it across different web pages. To access the feature, save the AI prompt as a Skill directly from chat history. The Skill can then be reused in Gemini in Chrome by typing a forward slash ( / ) or clicking the plus sign ( + ) button. The Skill will then run on the web page that’s being viewed, along with any additional tabs that have been selected. These Skills can also be edited at any time, Google notes. In tests, the company found that early adopters used Skills in areas like health and wellness — for instance, to calculate protein macros in recipes — or for shopping comparisons or scanning and summarizing lengthy documents. To help users get started with Skills, the company is also launching a Skills library that will offer common tasks and workflows in areas like productivity, shopping, recipes, budgeting, and more. To use one of the pre-programmed Skills, users just add it to their saved Skills in Chrome. The Skill can also be customized to fit a user’s needs by editing the prompt. Like other Gemini actions in Chrome, Skills will ask the user for confirmation before taking certain actions, like sending an email or adding an event to your calendar. Skills will begin rolling out today to Chrome desktop users who are signed into their Google account. The feature will initially work only if your Chrome browser’s language is set to English (US).
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Max Hodak’s Science Corp. is preparing to place its first sensor in a human brain
Science Corporation, the startup from former Neuralink president and co-founder Max Hodak, has enlisted a top neurobiologist to lead the first U.S. human trials for its biohybrid brain-computer interface. Dr. Murat Günel, chair of Yale Medical School’s Department of Neurosurgery, has signed on as a scientific adviser after two years of discussions. His goal is to surgically place the first sensor for a future interface — one that will eventually combine lab-grown neurons with electronics — into a patient’s brain. Science, founded in 2021, completed a $230 million Series C fundraising roundlast monththat valued the company at $1.5 billion. Its most advanced product is PRIMA, a device for restoring vision in people with blindness caused by macular degeneration and similar conditions. Science acquired the technology in 2024 and has advanced it through clinical trials, with plans to make it more widely available in Europe once regulatory approval is obtained, perhaps as soon as this year. Hodak, however, co-founded the company witha bigger visionin mind: creating reliable communication links between computers and the human brain — both to treat disease and to establish a path toward human enhancement, such as adding entirely new senses to the body. He has dedicated his career to that proposition, from talking his way into a graduate neuroscience lab as a college student, to founding his first biotech computing startup, to building Neuralink alongside Elon Musk. Neuralink and other organizations have succeeded in using electronic sensors to detect brain activity in patients suffering from ALS, spinal injuries, and other conditions that sever the brain’s communication with the body. Users with implanted devices can control computers or generate words on a screen simply by thinking about them. However, thepath to a real marketfor these devices remains murky, given regulatory challenges and the relatively small number of patients with applicable diagnoses. For his part, Hodak concluded that the conventional method of influencing the brain with electricity by using metal probes or electrodes is the wrong path forward. While the technology can achieve remarkable results, Günel says these probes cause brain damage that is likely to undermine device performance over time. That limitation led the Science founding team toward a more organic approach. “The idea of using natural connections through neurons and creating a biological interface between the electronics and the human brain is genius,” Günel told TechCrunch. Alan Mardinly, a co-founder and the company’s chief science officer, has led development of Science’s biohybrid sensor with a team of 30 researchers. The final device will be embedded with lab-grown neurons. Those neurons can be stimulated with pulses of light and are designed to naturally integrate with the neurons in a patient’s brain, forming a bridge between biology and electronics. In 2024, the company releaseda working paperthat showed the device could be safely implanted in mice and used to stimulate brain activity. Inside the company, the focus now is developing prototypes of the device and working out how to grow neuron cells for different therapeutic applications that meet the standards for medical use. Günel will advise the team as it is preparing for human clinical trials and is already in discussion with the medical ethics boards that oversee experiments involving human subjects. The first step will be testing the company’s advanced sensor, without the embedded neurons, inside a living human brain. Unlike a Neuralink device, which is inserted directly into brain tissue, Science’s sensor will be implanted inside the skull but rest on top of the brain. Possibly because of that distinction, the company says it doesn’t plan to seek FDA approval for these trials, arguing the tiny device — which contains 520 recording electrodes packed into an area the size of a pea — poses no significant risk to patients. The team’s plan is to find patient candidates who already require significant brain surgery, like stroke victims who need a piece of their cranium removed to reduce the impact of brain swelling. In such a case, Günel expects to place the sensor on top of their cortex and evaluate its safety and efficacy in measuring brain activity. Günel believes the device could help address multiple neurological conditions if it proves successful. One early use could be delivering gentle electrical stimulation to damaged brain or spinal cord cells to encourage healing. A more complex application might involve monitoring neurological activity in patients with brain tumors, and providing early warnings to caregivers about oncoming seizures. If the full potential of these devices is realized, though, Günel wonders if they might provide more effective treatments for conditions like Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder that gradually robs patients of control over their bodies. Current treatment options includeexperimentalbrain cell transplants and deep brain stimulation with electricity, but neither has been proven to reliably stop the disease from advancing. “I imagine this biohybrid system as combining those two — you have the electronics, and you have the biological system,” he told TechCrunch. “In Parkinson’s, for example, we cannot stop the progression of the disease; in neurosurgery, all we are doing is putting an electrode to stop the tremors. Whereas if you can really put the [transplanted] cells back in the brain, protect those circuits, there’s a chance, and I believe it’s a good chance, that we can stop progression of the disease.” There is much work to be done before then, however. Günel says it would be “optimistic” to expect trials to begin in 2027.
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Anthropic co-founder confirms the company briefed the Trump administration on Mythos
Jack Clark, one of Anthropic’s co-founders who also serves as Head of Public Benefit for Anthropic PBC, confirmed that the AI company had briefed the Trump administration about its new Mythos model. The model,announced last week, is so dangerous that it’s not being released to the public, largely due to its alleged powerful cybersecurity capabilities. In an interview at theSemafor World Economy summitthis week, Clark explained why the company was still engaged with the U.S. government while simultaneously suing them. This March, Anthropicfiled a lawsuitagainst Trump’s Department of Defense (DOD) after the agency labeled the company a supply-chain risk. Anthropic had clashed with the Pentagon over whether the military should have unrestricted access to Anthropic’s AI systems for use cases that included mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. (OpenAI ended upwinning the dealinstead.) At the conference, Clark downplayed the administration’s labeling of its business as a supply-chain risk, saying it was merely a “narrow contracting dispute” and that Anthropic didn’t want it to get in the way of the fact that the company cares about national security. “Our position is the government has to know about this stuff, and we have to find new ways for the government to partner with a private sector that is making things that are truly revolutionizing the economy, but are going to have aspects to them which hit National Security, equities, and other ones,” said Clark. “So absolutely, we talked to them about Mythos, and we’ll talk to them about the next models as well.” His confirmation comes afterreportslast week that Trump officials wereencouraging banks to test Mythos, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. Clark also addressed other aspects of AI’s impact on society during the interview, including things like unemployment and higher education. Previously, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that AI’s advances could bring unemploymentto Depression-era numbers, but Clark slightly disagrees. He explained in the interview that Amodei believes that AI will get much more powerful than people expect very quickly, so he’s using that as the basis of his estimations. Clark, who leads a team of economists at Anthropic, said that the company is so far only seeing “some potential weakness in early graduate employment” across select industries. He noted that Anthropic is ready in case there are major employment shifts, however. Pushed to say what majors college students today should be pursuing or avoiding, as a result of AI’s impacts, Clark would only broadly suggest that the most important majors are those that “involve synthesis across a whole variety of subjects and analytical thinking about that.” “That’s because what AI allows us to do is it allows you to have access to sort of an arbitrary amount of subject matter experts in different domains,” Clark said. “But the really important thing is knowing the right questions to ask and having intuitions about what would be interesting if you collided different insights from many different disciplines.”
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How vibe-coding app Anything is rebuilding after getting booted from the App Store twice
Apple is taking a tough stance on vibe-coding apps as the company isblocking updatesor removing those apps from the App Store. Affected apps includeReplit, Vibecode, andAnything. While Replit and Vibecode’s updates were paused, Anything’s app was removed twice. The company is now looking for new ways, like offering a desktop version of its service, to let users build apps for mobile devices. Anything’s co-founder, Dhruv Amin, said in a conversation with TechCrunch that Apple removed its app on March 26. Since then, the company has been unable to get its app approved, despite a period where there was a brief reinstatement. “It’s been a long saga. We built a mobile app primarily to let our users who are building iOS apps preview their own app on their own device while developing it. [We] had no problems through December. Post December, we and everyone else in the category started getting our updates blocked,” Amin told TechCrunch. Amin noted that Apple told the company that the app was restricted or removed because of its developer agreement clause 2.5.2, which prevents apps from downloading, installing, or executing code. “The app markets itself as a mobile app builder for iPhone and advertises making native iOS apps with features like 1-tap App Store submissions, code export, and full source code editing,” Apple told the company, according to a screenshot of an emailshared by Anything on X. Guideline 2.5.2 – Gatekeeping – Vibes deniedwe haven't talked about this publiclyfor months we tried to resolve it privately with emails, calls, appeals, and four technical rewrites to comply with whatever Apple wantedhere's our truth, unfilteredon March 26th, Apple…pic.twitter.com/yJfjxonC41 Amin said that when the company managed to get on a call with Apple, the iPhone maker told them that the vibe coding app was removed because of the potential it could be used to download malicious code. In addition, Apple noted that a user could build a harmful app, sideload it on their phone, and then claim that it passed Apple’s App Review process. Anything’s appwas restored on April 3, but it was swiftly removed as Apple told the company that it couldn’t market itself as an app maker. TechCrunch reached out to Apple for a comment on these removals, and we will update the story if we hear back. Following the battle with Apple, Anything’s maker is looking for other ways to allow people to build mobile apps. Earlier this month, the company launched a feature that let users build apps using the iMessage platform. The company said it will also build a desktop companion app that lets users vibe code mobile apps on their computer. In addition, Amin said that the company may instead look at Google’s Android operating system for building its apps, as the platform is more open than iOS. Besides vibe coding app makers, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been vocal about Apple’s tactics. In a reply to Replit’s Amjad Masad on X, Sweeny said that Apple needs to “stop blocking development tools apps ASAP.” Apple needs to stop blocking development tools apps ASAP. This practice is abhorrent to the founding principles of Apple as expressed by Steve Wozniak, in which every Apple ][ computer booted to a programming language prompt and treated using and making software equally. Earlier this month,The Informationreported that thanks to AI-powered coding tools, Apple saw 84% jump in app submissions in a single quarter. This could force Apple to change its human-led review processes. Plus, as AI-powered coding takes off, consumers might demand that platforms like Apple allow them to create apps for themselves.
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