Startups
Writer Claims Palmyra X6 Cuts Enterprise AI Costs by 50%
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Writer launched Palmyra X6 on Thursday, a flagship model the company says will cut customer costs by as much as 50% for...
AI Startups
Coverage of AI startups, funding rounds, and emerging companies shaping the industry.
470 articles
Startups
Databricks wanted $1B, got $15B in demand — so it raised $5B at a $190B valuation
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Databricks didn't plan to raise $5 billion. It planned to raise $1 billion. But when The Information reported in June t...
Startups
OpenAI's Ultrafast mode hits 750 tokens per second on Cerebras chips
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
OpenAI just answered a complaint that's been simmering since ChatGPT first went viral: the thing can feel sluggish when...
Startups
IBM bets big on OpenAI, will retrain tens of thousands of consultants
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
IBM is doubling down on OpenAI. The company announced Thursday that it's partnering with the AI firm to bring GPT-5.6,...
Startups
Anthropic: Claude agents launch 'turf wars' and self-replicating malware
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Give three AI agents access to the same codebase, each with incompatible instructions, and don't tell them about each o...
Startups
OpenAI's CRO exits after 9 months as Wiz COO Dali Rajic takes over sales
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
OpenAI's sales leadership just turned over again. Denise Dresser is out as chief revenue officer after only nine months...
Startups
Microsoft Kills Copilot's Mico, Deep Research in Major App Overhaul
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Microsoft is folding its consumer Copilot app into the business-focused Microsoft 365 Copilot app, a consolidation that...
Startups
Nvidia Promises $500B Backstop for Used GPUs, Spooking Bond Markets
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Nvidia just pulled off one of the more audacious financial moves in recent tech history. The chipmaker announced that A...
Startups
Apple's Siri AI Pay-Per-Use Deal Puts Nine-Figure Bet on Publishers
TechCrunch AI · Aug 13, 2026 · 2 min read
Apple's long-promised Siri overhaul now has a price tag attached — and publishers are being asked to bet on themselves....
Startups
Anthropic Now Watermarks Claude Text, and Reddit Is Losing It
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Anthropic has started embedding invisible watermarks into Claude's text output, a direct response to the EU AI Act's Tr...
Startups
Twitch admits opt-out AI training exists because 'nobody would opt in'
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Twitch is now feeding creator content to Amazon's generative AI models by default, and the company isn't pretending oth...
Startups
Cognition Eyes $40B Valuation Months After Hitting $26B for Devin
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Cognition is back in the fundraising conversation barely three months after locking in a $26 billion valuation. The mak...
Startups
Hinton, Li, and Ng clash on open-weight AI: 'That barrier has disappeared'
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Three of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence took the stage at the Ai4 conference in Las Vegas last...
Startups
Thrive Holdings raises $2B at $12B valuation to push AI into accounting, IT, and construction
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Thrive Holdings just pulled in $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation, with SoftBank, D1 Capital Partners, and Altimeter...
Startups
Mesh Brings Its Private CRM to Android, With AI That Mines Your Network
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Mesh, the personal CRM Automattic picked up last year, has finally landed on Android. The app — which lets you privatel...
Startups
Sandbar's $36M Ring Bet: Why Voice Wearables Keep Failing
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
The graveyard of AI voice hardware keeps growing — Humane's pin flopped, Rabbit's R1 disappointed, and yet another wave...
Startups
Lovable hits $13.3B valuation with $400M raise, 8 months after last mega-round
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Stockholm-based Lovable just pulled off something that would have sounded absurd eighteen months ago: a $400 million Se...
Startups
VideoVerse's $250M Exit Was a Mirage—Now Creditors Allege Forged Documents
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
The $250 million acquisition of Indian clipping startup VideoVerse by Minute Media has imploded in spectacular fashion,...
Startups
Sandbar's $36M ring bets push-to-talk beats always-on AI wearables
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
The AI notetaking hardware race has produced credit-card-sized recorders, lapel pins, and transcribing earbuds. Sandbar...
Startups
Google's Pixel 11 starts at $899 as Gemini learns sign language
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Google packed its Made by Google 2026 keynote with hardware refreshes and a clear message: Gemini is becoming the conne...
Startups
Blacksmith hits $550M valuation after 5,000 customers flock to code testing
TechCrunch AI · Aug 12, 2026 · 2 min read
Nine months ago, Blacksmith was a $60 million startup with 700 customers. Today it's worth $550 million and counts more...
Startups
Accel quietly closes $550M India fund despite $350M still unspent
TechCrunch AI · Aug 11, 2026 · 2 min read
Accel just closed a fresh $550 million India fund, an eye-catching move given that the firm is sitting on more than 55%...
Startups
OpenAI Finally Ships a ChatGPT Desktop App for Linux, Catching Up to Anthropic
TechCrunch AI · Aug 11, 2026 · 2 min read
The wait is over for a very loud corner of the developer community. OpenAI has finally launched a dedicated ChatGPT des...
Startups
Gemini hits 1B users but 63% just talk to it — voice is the real story
TechCrunch AI · Aug 11, 2026 · 2 min read
Sundar Pichai dropped a big round number on X: the Gemini app just passed 1 billion monthly active users. That makes it...