TechCrunch Daily Crunch
Today’s biggest tech headlines in a flash from TechCrunch.
Episodes
Trump admin proposes axing brake-pedal requirement for AVs in a boost for Tesla
Plus - Apple raises Mac and iPad prices, spares iPhone for now
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Slate Auto’s radically simple electric truck starts at $24,950
Plus - If you want to cut your screen time, just get a Brick
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Meta debuts new, cheaper smart glasses under its own brand
Plus - Fika Jobs raises $4M to build a video-first hiring platform where AI agents interview candidates
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Lucid Motors’ new CEO cuts 18% of staff to ‘simplify the company’
Plus - Instagram looks to take on streaming services with longer-form, episodic and live formats for its TV app
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Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them from driving into highway construction zones
Plus - Mivo’s new app takes a mindful approach to managing screen time
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Only 16 percent of Americans think AI will have a positive impact on society, a new study shows
Despite the fact that AI increasingly dominates our economy, most Americans are not particularly optimistic about the technology’s long-term impact on the country, a Pew Research study reveals.
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Uber will bring its premium robotaxi service to Houston in 2027
Plus - DeepL acquires Mixhalo for live-event audio streaming and translation
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Threads adds new personalization and community features as it reaches 500M monthly users
Plus - ChatGPT’s market share slips below 50% for the first time
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Fox to acquire Roku in $22 billion deal
Plus - As AI agents become employees, NewCore emerges with $66 million to give them identities
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SpaceX opens at $150, an 11% pop for the most anticipated debut in history
Plus - Cheaper, faster, and culturally aware, Avataar’s video AI is built for India’s scale
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Opendoor’s India exit is fueling a bigger conversation about AI and outsourcing
Plus - DoorDash’s new AI chatbot lets you order with prompts and photos
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Pinterest bets on creators with Amazon Storefront integration
Plus - Warner Music acquires AI attribution startup Sureel AI
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How an e-scooter founder raised $5 million to build space data centers
Plus - Evotrex raises $30M to build the RV that doesn’t need a charging station
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Eventbrite and Vimeo owner Bending Spoons files to go public
Plus - Amazon now lets you design custom merch using AI
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Google and FBI warn of ransomware group that sends fake IT workers to hack victims in person
Plus - Supabase doubles valuation to $10B in 8 months
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Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is.
Plus - Cash App launches a wand for tap-and-pay
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Meet Wander, a StumbleUpon-inspired tool for discovering the ‘small web’
Plus - TikTok launches TikTok Pro Events, an app for cultural moments like the FIFA World Cup
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Meta tests ‘Series’ for episodic Reels on Instagram and Facebook
Plus - Anthropic scales Claude Mythos to critical infrastructure in 15+ countries
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Strava declares war on scrapers ahead of IPO
Plus - Unastella, a South Korean rocket startup that launched from home, raises $24M
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This chip startup just raised $135M on a bet that AI’s biggest bottleneck isn’t compute — it’s memory
Plus - Anthropic raises $65 billion, nears $1T valuation ahead of IPO
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Google engineer charged with insider trading after making $1.2M on Polymarket
Plus - Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, launches its iOS app
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YouTube will now automatically label AI videos
Plus - Robinhood now lets your AI agents trade stocks
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Spotify now lets you stream narrated magazine articles, too
Plus - Amazon fulfillment competitor Stord raises $250M at $3B valuation
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Spotify’s AI bet: more of everything, less of what you want
Plus - Smart ring maker Oura files to go public
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Meta quietly launches Forum
Plus - Waymo expands pause to four cities
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Spotify takes on Google’s NotebookLM
Spotify will reserve tickets for top fans of an artists in a bid to drum up engagement; Spotify launches an ElevenLabs-powered audiobook creation tool
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Youtube adds ‘Ask YouTube’
Plus - AI search startups are blowing up; Intuit to lay off over 3,000 employees to refocus on AI
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Google Search as you know it is over.
The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over
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Amazon’s new Alexa+ powered feature can generate podcast episodes
Plus - If you’re giving a commencement speech in 2026, maybe don’t mention AI; Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
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YouTube viewers watch 2 billion hours of Shorts on TVs each month
Plus - Even GoPro is pivoting to defense
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Spotify to adopt Apple’s new video podcast tech
Plus - Cisco cuts nearly 4,000 jobs to spend more on AI; Instagram’s new ‘Instants’ feature combines elements from Snapchat and BeReal
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Anthropic now has more business customers than OpenAI
Amazon launches an AI shopping assistant for the search bar; WhatsApp adds an incognito mode in Meta AI chats
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TikTok launching TikTok GO
Plus - Amazon launches 30-minute delivery across the U.S.; Spotify launches a Wrapped-style recap of your entire listening history
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Venmo’s biggest makeover in years comes at a very interesting time
Plus - TikTok launches an ad-free subscription plan in the UK; Bravo is creating unscripted microdramas for the Peacock app
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Disney looking to make a unified ‘super app’
Plus - Lime, the Uber-backed micromobility company, files for IPO; Airbnb says AI now writes 60% of its new code
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Spotify wants to become the home for AI-generated personal audio
Kalshi doubles valuation in 5 months, hitting $22B; Jeff Bezos rep leaves Slate Auto’s board
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The AI boom pushes Samsung to $1T
Plus - The AI boom pushes Samsung to $1T; Bumble’s paying users are slipping as it bets on an overhaul later this year; Marc Lore says that AI will soon enable anyone open a restaurant
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Threads finally brings messaging to the web
Plus - Pennsylvania sues Character.AI after a chatbot allegedly posed as a doctor; Etsy launches its app within ChatGPT as it continues its AI push
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Doordash adds new AI tools
Plus - A TikToker rallies pledges to buy Spirit Airlines after its abrupt weekend collapse; In Harvard study, AI offered more accurate emergency room diagnoses than two human doctors
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People are finally using Reddit’s search
Plus - ChatGPT Images 2.0 is a hit in India; Apple was surprised by AI-driven demand for Macs
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Netflix wants you to watch its TikTok-like vertical video feed ‘Clips’
Plus - Spotify introduces verified artist badges to help distinguish humans from AI; Meta says its business AI now facilitates 10 million conversations a week
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Uber is in the hotel business now
Plus - Jack Dorsey-backed Vine reboot Divine launches to the public; Google Translate now lets you practice pronunciation
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YouTube is testing an AI-powered search feature
FTC reports consumers lost $2.1B to social media scams in 2025; Snapchat brings AI-powered conversational advertising to its app
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Spotify’s next frontier: Fitness content
Plus - Data center demand drives 66% surge in natural gas power plant costs; Amazon’s new podcast strategy is Monetize everything
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Google to invest up to $40B in Anthropic
Plus - Bob Iger rejoins Thrive Capital as advisor after Disney exit; Meta signs deal for millions of Amazon AI CPUs
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Meta is revamping its cross-app management system
Plus - X is shutting down Communities because of low usage and lots of spam; Microsoft offers buyout for up to 7% of U.S. employees
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Google Maps is about to get a big dose of AI
Plus - Meta will record employees’ keystrokes and use it to train its AI models; Amazon Music partners with Bandsintown for concert listings
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Who is John Ternus, the incoming Apple CEO?
Plus - YouTube expands its AI likeness detection technology to celebrities
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NSA spies are reportedly using Anthropic’s Mythos
Plus - WhatsApp is testing a premium subscription; Robots beat human records at Beijing half-marathon
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Uber will now pick up your returns from your doorstep
Plus - Google’s AI Mode can now help you find products in stock nearby; Netflix plans to add a vertical video feed, use AI for recommendations
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Google is now targeting bad ads over bad actors
Plus - Google now lets you explore the web side-by-side with AI Mode; AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1
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Anthropic’s rise is giving some OpenAI investors second thoughts
Plus - After sale of its shoe business, Allbirds pivots to AI; Snap is cutting 1,000 jobs, 16% of its workforce.
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YouTube livestreams will now hold back ads during peak engagement
Plus - Instacart acquires Instaleap to expand its enterprise platform internationally; Google adds AI Skills to Chrome to help you save favorite workflows
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Microsoft is working on yet another OpenClaw-like agent
Plus - IBM pays $17M fine to end DOJ suit over DEI programs; Booking.com confirms hackers accessed customers’ data
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France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech
Plus - Stalking victim sues OpenAI, claims ChatGPT fueled her abuser’s delusions and ignored her warnings; YouTube Premium and YouTube Music are getting more expensive
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This founder helped build SpaceX’s most powerful rocket engine. Now he’s building a ‘fighter jet for orbit’
Plus - Collide Capital raises $95M fund to back fintech, future-of-work startups; Waymo robotaxis are tracking potholes and sharing that data with Waze users
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X is rolling out automatic translation and photo editing powered by Grok
Plus - Google quietly launched an AI dictation app that works offline; Intel signs on to Elon Musk’s Terafab chips project
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Chrome is finally getting vertical tabs
Plus -Binge is a movie tracking app that warns you of jump scares in real time; Google Maps can now write captions for your photos using AI
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OpenAI's vision for the AI economy
As governments grapple with how to manage the economic fallout of superintelligent machines, OpenAI has released a set of policy proposals outlining the ways wealth and work could be reshaped in an “intelligence age.”
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Meet the Facebook insider who has been building content moderation for the AI era.
When Brett Levenson left Apple in 2019 to lead business integrity at Facebook, the social media giant was in the thick of the Cambridge Analytica fallout. At the time, he thought he could simply fix Facebook’s content moderation problem with better technology. The problem, he quickly learned, ran deeper than technology.
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Microsoft takes on AI rivals with three new foundational models
Plus - Beehiiv expands into podcasting, taking aim at Patreon; NASA astronauts prove that sending an email really is rocket science
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An AI-heavy makeover coming to Slack
Plus - OpenAI raises $3B from retail investors in monster $122B fund raise; Go play this secret game in your TikTok DMs
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Airbnb is introducing a private car pickup service
Roku launches a standalone app for Howdy, its $2.99 streaming service; Whoop’s valuation just tripled to $10 billion
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Meta starts testing a premium subscription on Instagram
Plus - Uber is buying Berlin startup Blacklane to bolster its ‘Elite’ offering; Why OpenAI really shut down Sora
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Netflix confirms it’s raising prices again
Plus - Rivian gets another $1B from Volkswagen; You can now transfer your chats and personal information from other chatbots directly into Gemini
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Google is launching Search Live globally
Plus - WhatsApp can now draft AI-generated responses based on your conversations; The AI skills gap is here, says AI company, and power users are pulling ahead
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Spotify tests new tool to stop AI slop
Plus - Amazon just bought a startup making kid-size humanoid robots;
Spotify tests new tool to stop AI slop from being attributed to real
artists; Meta launches new initiative to support entrepreneurship, drive
AI adoption
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TikTok ads are about to get a tad more disruptive
Apple Music partners with Ticketmaster to power its concert discovery
feature; Roku’s $3 Howdy subscription service launches on Prime Video
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Fusion startup Helion in talks with OpenAI
Plus - Elizabeth Warren calls Pentagon’s decision to bar Anthropic
‘retaliation’; DoorDash introduces relief payments for drivers
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Blue Origin enters the space data center game
Plus - Amazon working on new smartphone with Alexa; Amazon acquires Rivr, maker of a stair-climbing delivery robot
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Uber taps Rivian to build robotaxis
Plus - Meta has rolled out new AI content enforcement systems; DoorDash launches a new ‘Tasks’ app; Uber taps Rivian to build robotaxis in deal worth up to $1.25B
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Gemini-powered features in Google Workspace that are worth using.
Plus - The latest in startup business news
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Google’s Personal Intelligence feature is expanding to all US users
Plus - World launches tool to verify humans behind AI shopping agents; Meet Vurt, the mobile-first streaming platform for indie filmmakers embracing vertical video.
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Apple quietly launches AirPods Max 2
Plus - Shopify is preparing for AI shopping agents to change everything; ByteDance reportedly pauses global launch of its Seedance 2.0 video generator.
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Peacock expands into AI-driven video, mobile-first live sports, and gaming
Plus - Substack launches a built-in recording studio; Apple drops commission rates in China without a fuss
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Netflix may have paid $600 million for Ben Affleck’s AI startup
Plus - Disney+ is rolling out its TikTok-like ‘Verts’ short-form video feed; Bumble to launch an AI dating assistant, ‘Bee’
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Amazon expands program that lets customers shop from other retailers’ sites
Plus - Amazon launches its healthcare AI assistant; TikTok now lets Apple Music subscribers play full songs without leaving the app
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YouTube expands AI deepfake detection
Plus - Zoom introduces an AI-powered office suite, says AI avatars for
meetings arrive this month; Adobe is debuting an AI assistant for
Photoshop.
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DOJ isn’t going to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster
Plus - OpenAI acquires Promptfoo to secure its AI agents; OpenAI and Google employees rush to Anthropic’s defense in DOD lawsuit
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X is testing a new ad format that connects posts with products
Plus - Claude’s consumer growth surge continues after Pentagon deal debacle; Nintendo sues the US government for a refund on tariffs
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