Latest AI News
Sierra raises $950M as the race to own enterprise AI gets serious
Bret Taylor’s AI startup Sierra is raising a $950 million funding round led by Tiger Global and GV, the companyannounced Monday, pushing its post-money valuation above $15 billion. The raise gives Sierra more than $1 billion to work with — capital the company says it will use to become the “global standard” for AI-powered customer experiences. Like a lot of AI companies, Sierra has, smartly, been very proactive in touting its own growth in a crowded market. The company says it started with just four design partners a couple of years ago. Today it claims to have more than 40% of the Fortune 50 as customers, and says the agents running on its platform are handling billions of interactions, from refinancing mortgages to processing insurance claims, managing returns, and powering nonprofit fundraising campaigns. Indeed, the funding news follows a stretch of breakneck revenue growth as shared by Sierra, which first said it hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue in late November, then published another post in early February, saying it had hit $150 million in ARR. That pacing reflects both the urgency enterprises feel about deploying AI and the costs that come with it. Taylor, who also serves as chairman of OpenAI and was formerly co-CEO of Salesforce, has said that the best-case outcome for agentic AI is lower costs and higher revenue for clients, but before those returns materialize, the ramp-up phase can be pricey. That exactly scenario showed up in a conversation at one of TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC events last week. Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga put it plainly in conversation with this editor, saying that Uber “blew through our [AI] budget” soon after opening the door to agentic AI tools late last year. He also said the company is starting to see meaningful results. Across a staff of roughly 8,000 engineers and technical workers, about 10% of all code being produced at the company is now generated autonomously, he said, adding that “10% at our scale is huge.” As a proof-of-concept, Uber tasked one team with building a new hotel-booking integration using only agentic workflows. Work that would normally take a year was done in six months, he said. Sierra is also moving to expand what its platform can do beyond customer-facing agents. In April, the companylaunched Ghostwriter, an “agent as a service” tool designed to build other agents. Users describe what they need in natural language, and Ghostwriter autonomously creates and deploys a specialized agent to handle it. For Taylor, the tool underlines a broader thesis he laid out at the HumanX conference in San Francisco last month. Many enterprise software tools, he argued, are barely used. Employees log into Workday when they onboard and again at open enrollment, and that’s about it. The future Sierra and its investors are betting on is one where people never need to navigate complex systems at all.
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Inside the Mission to Boost AMD's AI GPUs
AMD is leaning on highly specialised startups like MangoBoost and TensorWave to make its chips enterprise-ready.
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Anthropic Mythos Isn't Out Yet, But It's Already Exposing India's AI Governance Gaps
India’s current legal architecture is insufficient to address AI-powered cybersecurity threats.
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Infosys Bags $500 Million GCC Deal From Truist, To Build 4,500-Employee Hyderabad Hub
The centre is reportedly expected to employ at least 4,500 people over time, making it one of the largest such engagements executed by an IT services provider.
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ChatGPT Allegedly Helped Student Plan Mass Shooting at FSU Last Year: Report
ChatGPT's conversations with the alleged mass shooter, Phoenix Ikner, have reportedly surfaced, revealing concerning details. Ikner, who is currently in custody and has been charged with the mass shooting at Florida State University (FSU) in the US, reportedly asked ChatGPT for critical information about handling a handgun and the number of deaths it would take to get the incident national coverage moments before allegedly killing and injuring multiple students. The new development is said to have arrived at a time when OpenAI is facing a criminal probe for the alleged assistance of ChatGPT in the heinous act.
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Gemini App Reportedly Gets Extensive UI Redesign on iOS With New Animated Interface
Google may be working on a major redesign for its Gemini app, and early glimpses suggest a more dynamic and visually rich interface. The reported changes include animated backgrounds, a cleaner layout, and easier access to tools. The update appears to focus on making the app feel more responsive while simplifying navigation. So far, the redesign has only been spotted on iOS, and even there, it seems limited. Android users may have to wait longer if these early reports hold true.
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AI Deflation is Beginning to Hollow Out India’s IT Revenue Engine
Artificial intelligence, by making the work faster and cheaper, is compressing contract values even before they are signed.
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Delhi Govt Looks to Partner With AI Startups to Enhance Governance, Public Services
The Delhi government will collaborate with technology companies, startups, and research institutions to develop AI-driven solutions.
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How India’s 50th Largest City Plans to Become a Global Quantum Hub
IIIT Dharwad’s CoE aims to bring quantum access, training, and industry links to tier-2 regions within months.
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Oscars Revise Eligibility Rules, Ban AI Actors and Scripts From Winning Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are tightening the rules for artificial intelligence (AI). New rules, released on Friday, specifically highlight that AI actors or screenplays written using an AI tool will not be eligible to be nominated or win the award starting next year. Additionally, the organisation behind the Oscars can also request more information from filmmakers about the usage of the technology and human authorship. The development comes as AI actors such as Tilly Norwood have gained popularity in the mainstream.
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How Neoclouds Are Finally Unlocking AMD’s AI GPUs
AMD is leaning on highly specialised neocloud startups like MangoBoost and TensorWave to make its chips enterprise-ready.
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Applied Materials to Expand Chip Packaging with NEXX Acquisition
The deal aims to strengthen panel-level packaging capabilities for AI chip production and accelerate the adoption of large-format technologies.
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