Lindsey Elliott is big into bolts. At last year’s Bolting Symposium — the 13th annual — she said the highlight was playing “Bolting Bingo” against the many self-proclaimed “torque dorks” who were in the room. A former engineer and planner at ExxonMobil, Elliott has spent years thinking about how to improve the infrastructure that moves … Read more
Last week, Anthropic confirmed that it was operating a wet biology lab in the Bay Area where it uses its AI models to run physical experiments. This week, the AI giant announced that this lab has already made what it believes is a big discovery: a new enzyme “system” that has certain “properties reminiscent of … Read more
Snorkel AI, a startup that helps AI labs and corporations build training data sets and simulated environments, has raised a $350 million Series E at a $3.5 billion valuation. The new round, which was led by Insight Partners and S32, valued the seven-year-old startup at nearly triple the $1.3 billion valuation it garnered when it … Read more
On Monday, OpenAI announced a new independent advisory group hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Called the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, the group is meant to give mathematicians more input into the company’s math-oriented research. “This group will serve as a bridge to the mathematical community and … Read more
Your window to save up to $200 is closing fast. Current ticket pricing ends Sept. 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. After that, prices go up. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, getting ahead means more than sitting in on great sessions. It means meeting the people you need to know, seeing what’s coming before it hits the … Read more
Embattled surveillance technology company Flock Safety unveiled a “generous” severance package for voluntary employee departures on Friday, according to a report in Wired. Flock reportedly expects a significant portion of its 1,500-person workforce to express interest in the buyouts, and said it will grant them to a majority of those who are interested. The company’s … Read more
Dario Amodei’s plans to put third-party safety evaluators inside AI labs are taking shape: Anthropic said that staff from technology consulting giant Accenture will begin working inside the company to scrutinize its models and staff. In a blog post, Anthropic said that Faculty, a company Accenture acquired in January to act as its AI division, … Read more
If AI lab PrismML isn’t on your radar yet, it should be — not because it’s raised gobs of money (it hasn’t yet, just a $22.25 million seed round), but because of the technical minds involved and the potentially industry-changing tech it’s developing. PrismML is betting that capable, high-performing, reasoning large language models don’t, in … Read more
Marketing platform Noise aims to connect brands with content creators at a much lower cost than hiring traditional influencers or running standard ad campaigns. That’s because many creators on the Noise platform are everyday people — anyone can download the app, regardless of follower count — and Noise presents them with campaigns they can join … Read more
Alongside news of its new AI-focused subscription plans, Meta announced on Tuesday that it will now allow AI agents of your choosing to set up and manage WhatsApp Business messaging, the service that allows companies to connect with customers through WhatsApp conversations. As Meta explains, this process was previously a bit more cumbersome, as it … Read more