Latest AI News
Spotify, Universal Music to Launch Licensed AI Remixes and Covers
The partnership marks one of its first major licensing deals for mainstream AI-generated music creation.
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India’s AI Ambitions Face a Subsea Terabyte Bottleneck
India's geography is exceptional for a transit hub. Positioned between Europe and East Asia, flanking the Indian Ocean on both coasts, it sits astride the dominant trunk routes of global internet traffic.
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From lab to bedside: How AI-led consulting is closing the gap
ZS shows how AI-powered consulting is helping pharma accelerate innovation and improve care delivery.
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EY, Microsoft Launch $1 Billion Enterprise AI Initiative
The joint services will initially target core business functions such as finance, tax, risk management, human resources, and supply chain logistics.
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Zoom No Longer Wants to Be Just a Meeting Platform
Zoom is building a platform that can prepare users before a meeting, assist them during the discussion, and then convert the conversation into tasks, workflows, and follow-ups.
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LTM Wants to Acquire Randstad’s Tech and Consulting Business in Europe, Australia
The proposed acquisition, pegged at over $500 million in annual revenue, is part of a broader partnership between the two companies.
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Trump delays AI security executive order: ‘I don’t want to get in the way of that leading’
President Donald Trump has delayed signing an executive order that would allow the government to evaluate AI models before they’re released. Trump claimed he is not happy with the language of the order: “I didn’t like certain aspects of it,” he told the White House press pool. “We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that leading.” The unofficial reason: Not enough tech CEOs could make it to Washington, D.C. on short notice, according toseveralreports. And what’s an executive order signing without a photo op? The anticipated executive order would have tasked the Office of the National Cyber Director and other agencies with developing a process to evaluate AI models for security before their release. This is partly in response to concerns from the release of Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 Cyber — both of which can quickly find and exploit security vulnerabilities. One of the key sticking points in the EO’s language, perCNN, is a proposed requirement for AI companies to share advanced models with the government between 14 and 90 days ahead of launch. Trump said he was concerned that the EO’s language today “could have been a blocker.”
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Six search engines worth trying now that Google isn’t really Google anymore
Google is about to look really different, and if you’re not a fan of theAI Overviewsfeature, then you’re not going to like what’s coming. At theGoogle I/O 2026keynote this week, the company announced that it is overhauling Search to embrace a conversational, AI-driven approach, even inviting users to enlist AI agents to automatically notify them if, for example, their favorite band were to go on tour. “This is the biggest upgrade to our iconic search box since its debut over 25 years ago,” said Elizabeth Reid, leader of the Search organization at Google. Now, when you search on Google, you’re given the option from the start to use AI mode. Even if you opt not to use AI mode, you might get a search result with an AI Overview, which will now include a chat box for you to ask follow-up questions. Once you open the chat box, Google begins to look more like ChatGPT than the search engine that’s ingrained itself into our lives for decades. This announcement didn’t elicit the reaction that Google would’ve hoped for. Instead, many users see this as yet another example of a tech company squeezing AI agents and chatbots into everything it can, making it impossible to navigate the internet without encountering a chatbot. Especially after the rocky rollout of Google’s AI Overviews — remember when Google told people to stare into the sun? — users are not eager for another adjustment. On Google’s video announcing the Search updates, one commenter wrote, “this is the best advertisement for letting people know it’s time to get a different search engine.” They make a good point. The new Google Search, which Reid describes as “AI search through and through,” is sure to alienate users. Generative AI aside, some users have also grown weary of Google for its sheer dominance — a U.S. District Court ruled in 2024 that Google had acted illegally to maintain amonopolyin online search. If you’re curious about alternative search engines, you’re in the right place. Here are some places to start (or, embrace chaos and see whereOpen Web Enginetakes you). Before we were annoyed by Google’s AI Overview, we were annoyed by ads. Ads are non-negotiable for Google — that’s how Google Search makes money. But if a search engine were to operate without ads, could it still make money? That’s whatKagiis trying to accomplish. For $5 per month — or $10 for unlimited searches — you can access an ad-free search engine without AI overviews. Kagi isn’t just ad-free Google. The search engine also lets users customize their search experience by letting them filter certain websites and refine search results with “lenses.” If you’re in school, for example, you can use Kagi’s academic lens to find journal articles about a topic, rather than blog posts. If you find Google’s AI Overviews useful from time to time, then you can use Kagi’s AI-powered “Quick Answer” feature to summarize an answer to your search and include links to its sources. But if you don’t want these AI summaries, guess what? You don’t have to generate them. Maybe you don’t want to pay to search stuff online. That’s understandable.DuckDuckGooffers a free search engine that makes money by selling ads, but unlike Google, it doesn’t collect user data in the form of search, browsing, and purchase history. Instead DuckDuckGo chooses what ads to serve based on the topic of your search — so if you search for concert tickets, you might see an ad for SeatGeek. Like many alternative search engines, DuckDuckGo has an interface that’s reminiscent of Google — and like Google, it can display an AI-generated answer to a question in your search results. But if that bothers you, DuckDuckGo allows you to completelyopt out of AI featuresin the settings menu. While DuckDuckGo has its own separate search index from Google, Startpage is a proxy for Google. This means thatStartpageacts as a middleman between you and the tech giant. When you search for something on Startpage, the company strips personal data like your IP address from your query, sends it to Google via the cloud, and returns the information to you. So, it’s Google without Google knowing who you are. The downside is, well, it’s still Google. At least Startpage lets you turn off AI features. What if you took Startpage and made it simpler? The search engine&udm=14is named for the string of characters it appends to all of your searches on Google. If you add &udm=14 to your Google searches, you’ll get the same Google results, only without an AI overview. But doing that yourself after every search is pretty annoying. That’s why &udm=14 does it for you automatically. The developer even put the code onGitHubso you can run your own version of &udm=14 if that’s your thing. If you’re concerned about privacy, then you’d probably opt for Startpage over &udm=14, but both will basically get you AI-free Google. Braveoffers both a browser and a search engine. Since the browser is built atop Chromium, which is the same open-source base as Google Chrome, you can use Chrome extensions within the Brave browser. So, if you don’t want to use Google Chrome, but you can’t function without your LastPass plug-in, Brave could be for you. In terms of search, Brave allows users to apply certain third-party “Goggles” (not Googles!) to their searches, which curate the results. These include “News from the Right,” “News from the Left,” “Tech Blogs,” and some other more niche options, like “Hacker News/1k short,” which prioritizes common domains referenced on Y-Combinator’s Hacker News forum, but without the 1,000 most popular domains, so it omits more mainstream sites. Then, there’s “No Pinterest,” which is pretty self-explanatory (and funny). And yes, Brave does let you toggle AI features on and off. There’s no reason you can’t do this, Google. Like Brave,Ecosiaalso offers both a browser and a search engine, and it’s also built atop Chromium, meaning that your Chrome plug-ins should work on Ecosia too. As its name suggests, Ecosia’s main draw is that it’s supposed to be more eco-friendly than other search platforms. Ecosia makes money from ads, but it donates about 80% of its income to tree-planting initiatives around the world. Tree-planting can sometimes be ared flag for greenwashing, but Ecosia works with communities involved in local reforestation efforts, publishes monthlyfinancial reportsfor transparency, andblogsabout the actual impact of its efforts.
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Spotify and Universal Music strike deal allowing fan-made AI covers and remixes
Watch out,Suno. Spotify on Thursday announced it has partnered with Universal Music Group (UMG) to allow fans to use generative AI technology to create covers and remixes of their favorite songs. The tool will launch as a paid add-on available only to Spotify’s Premium subscribers and will offer a revenue share with participating artists for the AI-generated music based on their work. The company did not share pricing or a launch date for the new tool, only that the two companies had come to a licensing agreement. However, Spotify hadteasedits plans last year, noting that it was working with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin, and Believe to develop artist-first AI products. The AI tools would be created through “upfront agreements, not by asking for forgiveness later,” Spotify said at the time, an obvious swipe at other players in the space, like Suno. Among the principles Spotify outlined: artists and rightsholders should be able to choose if and how they participate in AI tools, and if they do, they should be fairly compensated. “Solving hard problems for music is what Spotify does, and fan-made covers and remixes are next. What we’re building is grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artists and songwriters that take part,” said Spotify co-CEO Alex Norström, in a statement about the UMG agreement. “Through each technological transformation, we have worked together with Sir Lucian [Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Group] and his team to evolve the music ecosystem into a richer, more beneficial experience for fans and a more rewarding outcome for artists and songwriters.” UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge, meanwhile, touted the development as a way for artists to deepen their fan relationships while also creating additional revenue opportunities. There’s no word yet on which UMG artists have agreed to participate. While services like Suno and Udio have been pioneers in the AI music space, they moved forward on shaky legal ground when building their AI music-making tools. Unsurprisingly, the major labels quickly sued. In November, Suno ended upsettlinga $500 million lawsuit with Warner Music Group, which came shortly after Universal Music Group (UMG) had settled its own suit with Udio. Today, Suno isstill facing copyright claimsfrom UMG and Sony Music,among others. Udio, meanwhile, hassettledwith Warner Music and UMG, but is still working to settle with Sony. Seeing demand for this type of activity from consumers, Spotify went straight to the labels for a deal of its own. UMG may be the first of many label partnerships to come, though the company didn’t outright say so. The news was shared amid a slew of Investor Day announcements from Spotify on Thursday, which also included anAI-powered audiobook creation tool,AI-powered features for podcasters, a desktop appto produce personal podcasts via AI, andreserved concert tickets for top fans.
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With aluminum prices up 20%, recycling startups bet on AI to cash in
Rising gas prices have been a recurring headline since the Trump administration started its war against Iran in late February, but it’s not the only commodity affected by the conflict. Around 10% of the world’s aluminum is made in the Gulf region, sopricesof the metal have reached levels not seen in thelast several decades. Even before the war in Iran, the U.S. government had flagged aluminum as a critical mineral. A large share of U.S. demand for aluminum is met by imports, and much of the metal the country does produce is recycled. For recycling startups, it’s a good time to be in business. “Aluminum might be 1% of the garbage stream, but it often trades for over $1,000 per ton,” Matanya Horowitz, CTO at waste sorting startupAmp, told TechCrunch. “It actually ends up being one of the most significant individual commodities.” Aluminum is one of the most recycled materials in the U.S., but even then, only about 20% is recovered, according to theEPA. Waste sorting startups have been pitching AI as a way to improve those figures. Sortera, a metals recycling startup, recently opened its second facility in Tennessee, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The new site doubles the company’s processing capacity to 240 million pounds, of which 90% to 100% is aluminum. That’s a sizable fraction of the4.3 million metric tonsthe U.S. used last year. The Indiana-based startupfocuses on sorting aluminum scrap. It uses a range of different sensors, including lasers, cameras and X-ray fluorescence, to feed AI algorithms that classify each potato chip-sized piece of scrap to identify the specific grade of aluminum. By separating the grades at higher accuracy, Sortera can make more profit per pound. Amp has taken a different approach, using anAI-powered sorting systemto sift through both recycling and general waste streams. This system uses sensors, including visible light and infrared cameras, to identify everything from wrappers to foil, and differentiate plastics from aluminum. As the waste stream flows through the system on conveyor belts, robotic arms and puffers pluck or blow the materials into different bins. Amp says its system is over 90% accurate at recovering specific materials, including aluminum. “Half of the aluminum in a metro area — in places with successful recycling programs — are just in the garbage, not even touching the recycling system,” Horowitz said. For the metals industry, recycling facilities like the kind being built by Sortera and Amp could bolster supplies of a critical mineral used through the economy. “These types of projects are some of the biggest sources of domestically produced aluminum that are coming online in a given year,” he said.
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Google is pitching an AI agent ecosystem to consumers who may not buy it
One of the most promising introductions at Google’s I/O developer conference on Tuesday was a new way for consumers to use the web: AI agents. Unfortunately, it was also the most confusing. Google took the wraps offinformation agents, a reinvention of the aging Google Alerts service, now infused with AI. These AI agents are designed to operate in the background 24/7, helping users stay up to date on topics they’re interested in, like market trends, price tracking, or inclement weather warnings. Then there isGemini Spark,a “personal” AI agent that can help younavigate your digital lifeby integrating with Google products, like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Workspace. The company says the assistant can handle everyday tasks like surfacing themes from newsletters, organizing your home inventory, and keeping track of what needs restocking, or helping you plan and manage a group trip with friends. Or, as Google showed off in a very engineering-minded example, you could use it to organize a neighborhood block party — as if that would require any management beyond a group chat or some emails. There’s also a name for how you track notifications from Spark: Android Halo. (Why an Android feature needs its own brand is beyond me, but a good guess is that Google’s internal product teams are fairly competitive and want to highlight their own work, even at the risk of confusing users.) Next, Gemini’s app is getting an AI agent that can compile a personalized digest from your Gmail inbox, calendar, and tasks, and provide anupdate called Daily Brief. Many of these products have not yet shipped, or at least won’t be available to the wider public right away. Instead, Google is targeting its heavier users for now: the “AI-pilled” subscribers of its new, only $100-per-monthGoogle Ultra plan. Google Pro and Ultra subscribers in the U.S. will get to use information agents starting this summer, and Spark will be available to Ultra subscribers “soon.” Halo will ship to Android users “later this year.” Daily Brief is rolling out in the U.S. to Ultra, Pro, and Plus subscribers. As a result of all these launches, we’ll soon have so many entry points for using AI agents that it may be overwhelming as to where to start. (Did I forget to mention the increasingly agentic Chrome web browser, too? Google showed off how you could talk to Chrome while shopping for cars online to configure the various options and trim levels you can afford without tapping on a keyboard and clicking around. Yay … I guess?) In a press briefing ahead of I/O, Google said it intends to bring its agentic features, including Spark, to free users “when the time is right.” But for the time being, the company’s more interested in iterating with a group of people, like the Ultra subscribers, who will push the limits of what Spark and AI agents can do. In the meantime, Google is furthering the divide between those who have already bought into (literally!) the promise of AI, and the average consumer using Google’s free tools, who’s likely distanced from the real-world improvements AI offers, likeagentic codingor AI-enabledcomputer use. Instead, consumers today largely think of AI as chatbots replacing traditional Google searches. They think of AI photo and video models not as impressive creative leaps, but as tools for making “AI slop” that now clutters their social feeds and result in unwanted data centers being built in their backyards. Google didn’t help its reputation on this front during the event, flashing goofy AI imagery between each presenter. It also played a corny AI-generated animation featuring Cinnamon Toast Crunch-esque talkingTensor chips. And in its Android glasses demo, Google showed how the devices — which will later support photo-taking — could use AI to transform photos users take into something else. This demo involved the presenter taking a picture of their view of the audience, which was modified to have a blimp floating overhead, and then sent to their Android Watch. Okay, neat, but is it worthsomeone’s home being torn downvia eminent domain to build new power linesfor a data center? People will need more than clever party tricks to accept such drastic societal changes. In previous years, Google introduced new consumer electronics devices, likePixel phones and Nest Hubs, alongside new Android features, like that restaurant-and-salon booking servicethat blew people away in 2018. Those pieces of technology were framed as attempts to smooth over some of life’s everyday hassles. Now the tech giant is showcasing its new models (butnot Gemini Pro 3.5, which wasn’t ready yet) alongside its developer platforms, and largely forgetting about who it’s building all this for: Regular folks. People who don’t want to think about whether it’s called Gemini or Spark or Halo or information agents, or where you go to use it. These people have real problems they want to solve. They struggle to pay bills and rent, or buy gas or groceries, as they try to find work in the face of AI recruiting systems that reject their résumés over smalltechnical details. They are people who are trying to balance stressful lives that have, of late, come to bear technology’s advances as burdens, especially with social media devouring screen time, addicting children, and turning social connection tools into a big, online shopping mall. Instead of tools to solve problems, the average tech-savvy consumer watching this year’s Google I/O saw a tech giant putting more AI into everything they use — from Docs and email inboxes to glasses and even Search,which is now more of an AI-first experience. If Google had tapped real consumer sentiment, it could have noted that AI agents would lower screen time usage. That is, instead of spending time researching, organizing, tracking, and monitoring information and news, agents could take over those daily tasks so users could go offline and live their real lives away from a computer. That’s a message that could resonate with consumers, particularly young people, who are today embracing nostalgic retro tech, adopting“old people” hobbies and craftsto de-stress, and rediscovering the power of real-life connections by ditching dating appsfor in-person eventsand experiences. In short, Google failed to sell just how cool AI agents are by not demonstrating any problems agents solve for everyday users and keeping these tools paywalled, limiting their reach. Meanwhile, messaging-first AI startups likePoke,Poppy,RPLY, andWingmanare presenting themselves as a way to interact more naturally with AI agents via a feature everyone uses daily: text messaging. Will you ever be able to message Spark? Reps at Google I/O vaguely said it will happen at some point in the future. This is such a different strategy from Google’s early days, when it introduced revolutionary products like Gmail, a free email service that vastly improved on existing options, or Google Search, which freely organized the early web and made it more accessible to everyone. Google I/O could have been a breakout moment when AI agents became available to everyone via a simple, free consumer product (with one brand name!). This product may even have people clamoring for the way they used to beg for Gmail invites. Instead, Google’s new AI agents — tools that can work for us and meet our personalized needs — remain largely out of reach for most.
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The Path, founded by Tony Robbins and Calm alums, hopes to offer safer AI therapy
When the founders of a mental health app for men called Mental saw that one feature — AI interactive audio — was resonating wildly with their users, they knew they were onto something. And so the idea for a new, and hopefully safer, kind of AI therapy app was born, which they calledThe Path, co-founder and CEO Anson Whitmer tells TechCrunch. Then famed author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins grew so enamored with this startup; he scooched in as a co-founder. The Path has now raised $14.3 million in seed funding led by Prime Movers Lab (where Robbins is a partner), with participation from speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, boxer Deontay Wilder, and Designer Fund. After Prime Movers invested, Robbins began chatting with Whitmer and co-founder Tyler Sheaffer on small stuff like branding, but as his enthusiasm and ideas for the app grew, they offered to bring him in as a co-founder. The author has since helped shape The Path into a therapy-plus-coaching app that taps into Robbins’ popular self-improvements methods. Whitmer, formerly an early employee at meditation app Calm alongside Sheaffer, says his pursuit of mental health tech was born out of tragic experiences: When he was 19, a beloved uncle committed suicide. That inspired Whitmer to get a PhD in psychology, and he planned to go into research after graduation. But while he was in college, a cousin left a voicemail. “I didn’t realize until it was too late. It was also a call for help, and he killed himself,” Whitmer recalls. That spurred a change of course towards work that could bring science’s findings to the masses. Working at Calm was a natural first step, as the research on how meditation improves mental health is solid. Still, after working at Calm until 2021, Whitmer felt he could do more. “Even though we did have a big impact, it’s not really a big enough impact,” he said. “The issue is, people’s problems are just too idiosyncratic. They’re too personal. They’re unique.” Plus, everyone will never have access to individual therapy or coaching. There just aren’t enough therapists in the world for that. Whitmer sees LLMs and AI as the bridge spanning that gap. “What’s exciting and game-changing is that, for the first time in my career, I’ve seen that there’s actually this possibility for every single person to have the personalized sort of access and care that they need to really get the help,” he said. In fact, such a thing is already starting to happen. OpenAI has said that at least900 million people use ChatGPT for mental health-related queries every week. However, the problem with using consumer chatbots for mental health is that they are “optimized for engagement,” Whitmer says, and that is the opposite of what therapy and coaching should do. Consumer chatbots try to solve problems quickly for users, and also engage in “reinforcement” of ideas, to keep users coming back for more. “But therapy/coaching doesn’t work that way. You’re trying to understand the problem deeply,” he said. The idea is to dig out assumptions and then help the person discover their own solutions. Whitmer says The Path’s AI is trained “to set up structure, so that later on, you can get to a place where there is resolution,” but from a place of understanding. To that end,Whitmer says the startup’sspecially trained AI model has scored a 95 on the mental health safety AI benchmark,Vera-MH.This compares to a top score of 65 for the consumer bots. “It’s meant to challenge you. It’s not just meant to agree with you,” he says. In fact, he says the app’s model is post-trained from open source models, so it doesn’t use the major consumer LLMs at all, meaning it is not simply a wrapper over them. The Path, which lets users choose from 11 virtual AI therapists and customize their preferences for directness and other details, is currently free as it gains users. Eventually, the startup plans to charge $40 a month.
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