AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

PSA: You shouldn’t upload your medical images to AI chatbots

Zack Whittaker — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 21:20:45 +0000

Security and privacy advocates have long warned that sensitive medical data can be used to train AI models, and can expose personal data down the line.

Meta hires Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead new business AI group

Maxwell Zeff — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 20:33:07 +0000

Meta hired Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead a new organization building AI tools for businesses that use Meta’s apps to reach consumers, according to a LinkedIn post from Shih on Tuesday. Meta confirmed the appointment and the new Business AI group in a statement to TechCrunch. “I’m thrilled to share today that […]

OpenAI brings ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode to the web

Aisha Malik — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 19:45:41 +0000

OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode feature to the web, letting users talk to the AI chatbot right from their browser. The company’s chief product officer, Kevin Weil, announced the launch on X. The feature, which makes ChatGPT more natural to speak with, is rolling out to ChatGPT’s paying customers this week, which means […]

Google’s Gemini chatbot now has memory

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:10:47 +0000

Google’s Gemini chatbot can now remember things like info about your life, work, and personal preferences. As flagged by posters on X (and Google’s official account), a “memory” feature has begun rolling out to certain Gemini users, including this reporter. Like ChatGPT’s memory, Gemini’s adds context to the current conversation. For example, tell Gemini to […]

Collibra is bringing data governance into the AI era

Maggie Stamets — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:03:33 +0000

With the rise of AI, having accessible, accurate, and organized data is more critical than ever. When it comes to making informed strategy decisions or training a new LLM, having your information in order is the first step. This week on Found, we’re talking with Collibra CEO Felix Van de Maele, whose company is building […]

Codecrafters wants to challenge seasoned developers with hard-to-build projects

Ivan Mehta — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:00:00 +0000

There are plenty of online platforms for developers that help you learn new skills or get started with a new language, such as Codecademy, LeetCode, and CodeSignal. Some guide developers step by step through the process while teaching the basics, while others provide detailed video tutorials. Codecrafters is a platform that doesn’t want to show […]

Physical AI startup BrightAI bootstraps to $80M in revenue

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

When Alex Hawkinson was the CEO of SmartThings, the consumer-focused connected devices company he co-founded and sold to Samsung for around $200 million, he kept thinking that Internet of Things (IoT) technology could probably solve bigger issues. He left SmartThings in 2018 to figure out where connected devices could make the largest impact. He co-founded […]

Google Lens can now check prices and inventory when shopping in the real world

Aisha Malik — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

After building out Google Lens to help users shop online more easily, Google is now updating the product to help people shop when they’re in a physical store by offering product insights, price comparisons, and local inventory availability. Alongside this news, the company is bringing new shopping features to Maps, and adding more Google Pay […]

Database startup Neo4j embraces AI to supercharge growth

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:59:38 +0000

To make AI possible, you need to create connections between vast quantities of data. That’s where tech like graph databases come into play. Graph databases handle fast-changing, interconnected data more adeptly than traditional databases, which were designed to store rigidly structured information. Of course, graph databases need to be managed in order to be useful. […]

Microsoft will soon let you clone your voice for Teams meetings

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:19 +0000

Microsoft plans to let Teams users clone their voices so they can have their sound-alikes speak to others in meetings in different languages. At Microsoft Ignite 2024 on Tuesday, the company revealed Interpreter in Teams, a tool for Microsoft Teams that delivers “real-time, speech-to-speech” interpretation capabilities. Starting in early 2025, people using Teams for meetings […]

Microsoft brings together its enterprise AI offerings in the Azure AI Foundry

Frederic Lardinois — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:00 +0000

At its annual Ignite conference, Microsoft on Tuesday announced the Azure AI Foundry, a new offering that brings together a number of Microsoft’s existing AI services for enterprises under a single umbrella. Azure AI Studio, Microsoft’s hub for building generative AI-based applications, is the management console and portal for the AI Foundry. “Business leaders are […]

Selector automatically spots IT issues and recommends fixes

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:00:18 +0000

AIOps, short for “artificial intelligence in operations,” is a process that uses AI to automate IT tasks. More organizations are embracing it as AI commodifies, yet adoption is still lagging. According to a recent IDC survey, almost half of companies said that they were just getting started in AIOps, while a third indicated they had […]

Lightyear is on a mission to modernize network procurement

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Dennis Thankachan isn’t someone you’d expect would launch a digital procurement startup. After college, Thankachan went to work for Goldman Sachs as an investment banker. Two years later, he left for a hedge fund, PointState Capital, where he helped to manage equity investing. At PointState, which specializes in telecommunications, Thankachan said he encountered an unexpected […]

Itching to write a book? AI publisher Spines wants to make a deal

Ingrid Lunden — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 12:54:04 +0000

Generative AI has upended how we write things, or even if we write at all. Now a startup wants to be the main character in the next chapter of that story: AI that replaces the role of the publisher. Spines is a self-publishing platform that claims that — thanks to being powered by artificial intelligence […]

UK competition regulator clears Alphabet’s investment in Anthropic

Paul Sawers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 12:32:54 +0000

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has okayed Alphabet’s partnership and investment in AI rival Anthropic, concluding that it doesn’t qualify for investigation under current merger rules. The announcement comes a month after the CMA revealed it was launching a formal “stage 1” probe into Alphabet’s various investments in Anthropic, a 3-year-old San Francisco-based […]

Indian news agency sues OpenAI alleging copyright infringement

Manish Singh — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 07:56:51 +0000

One of India's largest news agencies has sued OpenAI in a case that could set a precedent for how AI companies use copyrighted news content.

Sagence is building analog chips to run AI

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Graphics processing units (GPUs), the chips on which most AI models run, are energy-hungry beasts. As a consequence of the accelerating incorporation of GPUs in data centers, AI will drive a 160% uptick in electricity demand by 2030, Goldman Sachs estimates. The trend isn’t sustainable, argues Vishal Sarin, an analog and memory circuit designer. After […]

Socium doubles down on Francophone Africa after $5M seed round

Annie Njanja — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 03:00:00 +0000

Demand for HR tech solutions in Africa is growing, and Senegal’s Socium is out to tap the opportunity in French-speaking countries on the continent. Since 2021, Socium has built HR solutions that target users within the 21 countries of Francophone Africa and plans to continue narrowing its focus on the region, where it is enjoying […]

Ben Affleck tells actors and writers not to worry about AI

Maxwell Zeff — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 00:43:52 +0000

Unions representing Hollywood actors and writers went on strike last year to secure protections against AI systems taking their jobs. But Ben Affleck says that actors and screenwriters shouldn’t worry about AI because it’s not capable of doing either job today, and likely won’t for a long time. “Movies will be one of the last […]

Justice Department reportedly pushing Google to spin off Chrome

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 23:41:46 +0000

The Department of Justice is reportedly pushing to force Google to spin off its Chrome browser business. That’s according to Bloomberg, which reports that the Justice Department is also planning to recommend to a federal judge that Google face antitrust requirements related to AI and its Android mobile operating system. The enforcement actions are the […]