AI News
Recent AI news and official updates
Follow recent AI announcements and reporting with concise PopAIExplorer summaries and direct original-source links.
NSF renews support for MIT-led AI and physics institute, expanding a new model for discovery
MIT News AI published: IAIFI enters its second phase with increased funding, broader ambitions, and a growing community at the frontier of AI and fundamental physics.
Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is.
TechCrunch AI published: The California startup released the fourth-generation of its home assistance robot, Stretch.
The Download: AI-generated lawsuits and virtual power plants for data centers
MIT Technology Review published: This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How courts are coping with a flood of AI-generated lawsuits Most days in her chambers, Judge Maritza Braswell, a federal magistrate judge in Colorado, sifts through stacks of documents written by…
How courts are coping with a flood of AI-generated lawsuits
MIT Technology Review published: Most days in her chambers, Judge Maritza Braswell, a federal magistrate judge in Colorado, sifts through stacks of documents written by people without a lawyer. Many of them can’t afford to hire a lawyer, and others have cases too weak or too small to interest one. She reads each one carefully, mindful of how daunting…
Lovable signs multiyear deal with Google Cloud to up usage 5x, source says
TechCrunch AI published: Lovable and Google signed an expanded multiyear deal that involves a 5x expansion of Lovable's footprint on Google Cloud, and expanded access to Anthropic Claude.
Teaching AI agents to ask better questions by playing “Battleship”
MIT News AI published: MIT researchers use the classic game as a test bed for AI agents, finding a small AI model can outperform the biggest ones at 1 percent of the cost.
Alphabet’s record-breaking $85B raise for Google’s AI business is a helluva good signal
TechCrunch AI published: If Alphabet's record-breaking $85 billion stock sale signals investor appetite for AI-related offerings, we can see that investors are ready to chow.
Google’s Dreambeans, its weirdest-named AI tool to date, will turn your life into a cartoon
TechCrunch AI published: Dreambeans is a curated list of AI-illustrated "stories" culled from the personal data in your Google account.
Amazon will show AI product images when you search for some reason
TechCrunch AI published: Amazon will use visual search and AI to show AI-generated product images that match your search queries. The retailer says it will help guide users to products.
These two founders left Goldman and Meta to build voice AI for markets everyone else overlooked
TechCrunch AI published: The startup's own stack for Africa and Middle East is now handling more than 17,000 calls per day.
Publishers will be able to opt out of AI Search, thanks to new regulation
TechCrunch AI published: U.K. regulators are requiring Google offer a tool allowing website publishers to opt-out of generative AI search features. The option will be tested in the U.K. then rolled out globally.
Meta’s AI agent for WhatsApp Business is now available globally
TechCrunch AI published: WhatsApp will charge businesses for using its AI agent based on token usage.
Coralogix raises $200M on bet that someone needs to watch the AI agents
TechCrunch AI published: Coralogix is among a growing number of infrastructure firms betting that as AI systems move into production, demand will rise for tools that can monitor their behavior, troubleshoot failures, and provide the operational data needed to keep them running reliably.
The Download: Trump’s new AI order, and smart glasses for warfare
MIT Technology Review published: This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. 5 key points in Trump’s new AI order Less than two weeks after scrapping an executive order on AI, President Donald Trump signed a new one on Tuesday. Promising to promote…
MIT researchers teach AI models to interpret charts
MIT News AI published: The new ChartNet training dataset could improve the accuracy of vision-language models that help analyze business trends or interpret scientific figures.
Uber caps employee AI spending after blowing through budget in 4 months
TechCrunch AI published: Uber's cutback has occurred after the company had reportedly encouraged staff to use AI as much as possible.
New Microsoft tool lets devs spin up AI behavior tests using text descriptions
TechCrunch AI published: Microsoft on Tuesday took the wraps off Adaptive Spec-driven Scoring for Evaluation and Regression Testing, an open source framework for spinning up AI evaluations.
Martin Scorsese becomes the latest — and most unlikely — Hollywood voice for AI
TechCrunch AI published: The caveat is that one of the world's most famous living directors is using the tech solely for storyboarding.
Microsoft launches Scout, an OpenClaw-inspired personal assistant
TechCrunch AI published: Launched at Build, Microsoft Scout is a new AI assistant meant to bring the power and flexibility of OpenClaw into the Microsoft 365 system.
Microsoft offers devs a better way to control AI agent behavior
TechCrunch AI published: The specification lets developer, compliance, and security teams define their own policies for agents to follow in portable policy files.