Category: Tech Crunch

Just a few weeks after OpenAI said it would adopt rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to the systems where data resides, Google is following suit. In a post on X on Wednesday, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said Google would add support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, or MCP, to its Gemini models...

Billionaire Elon Musk has just been countersued by OpenAI, but that isn’t stopping his AI company, xAI, from making its flagship Grok 3 model available via an API. It has been several months since xAI unveiled Grok 3, the company’s answer to models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini.  Grok 3 can analyze images and respond to questions,...

The number of “operator VCs” — former founders turned VCs — in Europe in recent years. This is common in the U.S., where the majority of VCs are former founders. The reverse is true in Europe, where most come from banking or finance. Recent examples in Europe include Wise founder Taavet Hinrikus, Glovo founder Oscar...

Jeff Bezos is funding a secretive EV startup based in Michigan called Slate Auto that could start production as soon as next year, according to multiple sources and documents that link the billionaire’s family office to the startup. Slate, which took root in another Bezos-connected company called Re:Build Manufacturing, has been operating quietly since its...

Last week, details emerged about an application that fintech giant Stripe had submitted for a U.S. banking license. There was a lot of chatter on X about whether this meant Stripe — already the largest privately valued fintech in the world — would now be adding “bank” to the list of descriptions of what it...

A new company, Deep Cogito, has emerged from stealth with a family of openly available AI models that can be switched between “reasoning” and non-reasoning modes. Reasoning models like OpenAI’s o1 have shown great promise in domains like math and physics, thanks to their ability to effectively fact-check themselves by working through complex problems step...

Instagram head Adam Mosseri says the company is looking to improve the app’s search functionality, admitting this is an area where Instagram could do more to compete. The remarks, made on a recent episode of the “Build Your Tribe” podcast, come at a time when younger Gen Z users often turn to social apps like...

If you ever call 911 from an area that’s hard to get to, you might hear the buzz of a drone well before a police cruiser pulls up. And there’s a good chance that it will be one made by Brinc Drones, a Seattle-based startup founded by 25-year-old Blake Resnick, who dropped out of college...

Amid a morning of pandemonium on Wall Street, a popular news aggregator on X, known as Walter Bloomberg, posted a false report declaring that President Trump was considering a 90-day pause on his controversial tariff proposal. This news was not true, and yet, index funds like the Dow Jones whipsawed — rapidly rising, before reversing...

Amazon has upgraded its AI video model, Nova Reel, with the ability to generate videos up to two minutes in length. Nova Reel, announced in December 2024, was Amazon’s first foray into the generative video space. It competes with models from OpenAI, Google, and others in what’s fast becoming a crowded market. The latest Nova...