Technology
Airbnb says its custom-built AI agent is now handling roughly a third of its customer support issues in North America, and it’s preparing to roll out the feature globally. If successful, the company believes that in a year’s time, more than 30% of its total customer support tickets will be handled by AI voice and…
The Securities and Exchange Commission closed its investigation into bankrupt electric vehicle startup Fisker last September, roughly one year after the probe was opened. TechCrunch learned the investigation was closed when the financial regulator responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in January. The SEC’s FOIA department said it had identified “approximately 21.7…
The Everett, Washington-based fusion energy startup Helion announced Friday that it has hit a key milestone in its quest for fusion power. Plasmas inside the company’s Polaris prototype reactor have reached 150 million degrees Celsius, three-quarters of the way toward what the company thinks it will need to operate a commercial fusion power plant. “We’re…
It still feels like a technological marvel: Waymo’s autonomous cars are now transporting passengers across six cities. Alas, this driverless future comes with its own set of problems. These vehicles can be rendered inert if a passenger accidentally leaves the door open. According to a Reddit post, one DoorDash driver discovered this issue when an…
It’s the middle of February, and the air is dry. There are fine lines emerging on my forehead, maybe because I don’t moisturize enough, but maybe as a harbinger of something greater: Each day I grow closer to my own death. Soon, I will be 30. I will never be younger than I am right…
Vincenzo Iozzo, a renowned hacker linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is no longer listed on the website of Black Hat, one of the largest cybersecurity conferences in the world, nor on the Japanese security conference Code Blue. As of Thursday, Iozzo does not appear on the official review board pages of Black Hat…
If you want to buy or sell a used EV right now, what’s the first step you’d take? A startup called Ever wants to be the answer to that question. The company, which bills itself as the first “AI-native, full-stack auto retail business” for electric vehicles, already has thousands of customers buying and selling their…
Modal Labs, a startup specializing in AI inference infrastructure, is talking to VCs about a new round at a valuation of about $2.5 billion, according to four people with knowledge of the deal. Should the deal close at these terms, the funding round would more than double the company’s valuation of $1.1 billion announced less…
On Wednesday, xAI took the rare step of publishing a full 45-minute all-hands meeting video on X, making it publicly accessible. Details of the Tuesday night meeting were previously reported by The New York Times, which may have influenced xAI’s decision to post the video online. The full video reveals significant new details about Musk’s…
OpenAI has disbanded a team that focused on — as the company itself described — ensuring that its AI systems are “safe, trustworthy, and consistently aligned with human values.” At the same time, the team’s former leader has been given a new role as the company’s “chief futurist.” OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch that the team’s…
