AI & Robotics — Latest News

How Meta got ahead of OpenAI in the AI agent race

Cal AI’s 19-year-old founder just raised $10M for his new AI startup

Zach Yadegari, the teen co-founder of popular Cal AI calorie tracking app, has launched a new personal AI agent startup that competes with Instinct, Muse and Bee.

5 days to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Don’t pay more at the door for your pass

The global tech ecosystem gathers at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 at San Francisco’s Moscone West on October 13-15. Get your pass now to save up to $100. Get a second of the same ticket type to save 50%.

DOE Explains...Artificial Intelligence

Google releases a new local-first Granola competitor

Google’s new AI Edge Foresight app takes on Granola with an offline meeting note-taker that can transcribe conversations, generate notes, and answer questions using on-device AI.

China’s Manus raises over $500M in first funding round since split with Meta

Boyu Capital and IDG Capital led the funding round, and existing shareholders Tencent, HSG (formerly known as Sequoia China), ZhenFund and others also participated.

AT&T Launches Flagship Collaboration with OpenAI to Transform AI-Powered Legal Services

Tell us: have you been monitored or assessed by AI at work?

We’d like to hear from people who have been monitored or assessed by AI at work and what they thought about the experienceFirms are increasingly using AI to monitor or assess their employees, leading to concerns about workplace surveillance.Instructors at tech training company Multiverse recently blew the whistle at their “remorseless” and “unnerving” AI monitoring system, while The Co-Op has used

‘System is rigged’: Democrat Sherrod Brown puts datacenter danger at heart of populist Senate bid

Ohio former senator attacks Republican rival as the ‘face of datacenters’ as he wraps AI concerns into pro-worker messageSherrod Brown, the Democratic former senator from Ohio hoping to return to office in November’s midterm elections, has spent the past year traveling across his home state explaining to voters about all the ways the “system is rigged” against them. Recently, he’s been telling peo

Sam Altman says AI will make ‘bad things’ happen. Exhibit A: needless death | Moustafa Bayoumi

AI is already implicated in violent deaths and nearly started world war three. Those bad things? They only happen to other peopleSam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, has some words for you about his company and the future of artificial intelligence.“One of the differences between us and some of the stricter AI safety people is that we believe that the world should accept some bad things happ

ICO secures changes from leading AI developers as scrutiny extends to AI agents

‘Dystopian’: Co-op becomes latest firm to put staff under AI surveillance

Whistleblower says recording and analysis of all probate calls in Co-op Legal Services is oppressiveThe Co-op has become the latest employer to place workers under AI surveillance with an automated listening technology that rates every phone call some of them make to customers.In a system described as “oppressive and dystopian” by a whistleblower, Co-op Legal Services is using AI models to record,

‘Someone else will do it for less’: Refugees in Kenya are powering tech for dwindling pay

Refugee gig workers for tech companies don’t know how much they’ll be paid – if AI hasn’t already taken their jobs In a portable building in Kakuma, a refugee camp near Kenya’s northern border with South Sudan, Grace used ChatGPT to research translations of Christian hymns in languages she doesn’t speak. She didn’t know the client, the purpose of her work or whether she would be paid, but as a ref

AI breakthroughs in robotics won’t change your life any time soon

The most interesting mathematical discoveries in OpenAI’s 722 new papers

USA Today becomes the latest publisher to sue OpenAI

Using AI to mitigate the growing environmental threat of data centers

By rethinking how large cloud computing systems operate, Associate Professor Christina Delimitrou seeks to make data centers more energy efficient.

OpenAI used AI to help write email warning Australian government AI had hacked its websites

Exclusive: Revelation comes after executive told parliamentary inquiry he did not believe AI had been used to write message, but was ‘happy to go and confirm’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOpenAI used AI to help write the email to the Australian government advising that its AI agent had hacked into key departmental websites, Guardian Australia can reveal.On Tuesday, one

AI chip boom pushes Samsung profits to record $80bn

The tech giant is also expected to get a boost from its latest folding devices that were launched in August.

Datacentre company Firmus’s high flying valuation may be coming back down to earth ahead of expected ASX debut

Sources say Firmus is slashing its price and may even shelve initial public offering altogetherGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe momentum behind Firmus Technologies’ high-flying valuation is showing severe cracks just weeks out from its anticipated ASX debut.Multiple sources briefed on the matter told Guardian Australia the AI datacentre company is slashing its valuati