Startups
Poppy launches a proactive AI assistant for calendars, email, and messages
New app stitches together your calendar, inbox, and chats to surface reminders and suggestions; it raised $1.25M pre-seed.
Topic
Google & DeepMind
Coverage of Google, Alphabet, DeepMind, the Gemini models, and TPU chips.
70 stories · Updated 2026-05-13
More on Google & DeepMind
Big Tech
Google previews Gemini Intelligence, new Googlebooks laptops ahead of I/O 2026
Engadget rounds up Google’s Android Show announcements, including deeper Gemini integration across Android and ChromeOS and a new ‘Googlebooks’ laptop lineup.
AI
Google DeepMind demos an AI-enabled pointer meant to bring Gemini into everyday UI
DeepMind outlines interaction principles and shows experimental demos where a pointer can select on-screen elements and invoke Gemini without switching contexts.
AI
AI-assisted hacking is already here, Google warns
Google says it may have found the first known case of cybercriminals using AI to identify and exploit an undisclosed zero-day flaw.
AI
Thinking Machines wants to build an AI that actually listens while it talks
The Mira Murati-founded startup says its ‘interaction models’ can process user input and generate output simultaneously, aiming for more natural full-duplex conversations.
Big Tech
Google shuts down Project Mariner
The experimental tool that could complete tasks across the web has been discontinued, with pieces folded into other Google offerings.
Big Tech
Chrome's AI features may be hogging 4GB of your computer storage
Some Chrome on-device AI features can trigger a multi‑gigabyte Gemini Nano model download, surprising users on low-storage machines.
Big Tech
Google Search rolls out new AI Mode and AI Overviews link and context features
Google says it’s updating AI Mode and AI Overviews to surface more links inline, highlight subscription content, and add link previews and community perspectives.
Policy
US to safety test new AI models from Google, Microsoft, and xAI
The US Commerce Department will evaluate certain new AI tools and features ahead of public release under voluntary agreements with the companies.
Big Tech
Google Home's Gemini AI can handle more complicated requests
Google is upgrading Google Home with Gemini 3.1 to better handle multi-step commands, alongside new automation and camera features.
Policy
Google, Microsoft, and xAI agree to share early AI models with the U.S. for evaluation
The Wall Street Journal says the companies will provide early versions for government-led testing of capabilities and risks before public release.
Analysis
Google's AI architect lived rent-free in Elon Musk's head
A look at how Demis Hassabis and Google DeepMind shaped early OpenAI anxieties and strategy, via documents and testimony from the Musk–Altman trial.
AI
Researchers say they ‘gaslit’ Claude into giving explosive-making instructions
Security researchers at Mindgard told The Verge they used flattery and social manipulation to get Anthropic’s Claude (Sonnet 4.x) to produce restricted content without directly asking for it.
Policy
Google, Microsoft, and xAI will allow the US government to review their new AI models
The Commerce Department’s CAISI says it will conduct pre-deployment evaluations and targeted research with major AI labs to better understand advanced model capabilities.
AI
Image AI models now drive app growth, beating chatbot upgrades
Appfigures says image-model launches generate 6.5x more downloads than traditional model upgrades — but the revenue impact varies widely.
AI
Pentagon strikes classified AI deals with OpenAI, Google, and Nvidia — but not Anthropic
Defense Department greenlights several vendors for classified AI work while sidelining Anthropic over supply-chain concerns.
Policy
Top AI Companies Agree to Pentagon Deals for Classified Work
The Defense Department finalized agreements with major AI and cloud players to use their systems in classified settings.
Analysis
WSJ: Big Tech’s AI spending spree is getting expensive — and investors want payback
The Wall Street Journal argues that Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet are ramping capital spending for AI fast enough that depreciation is starting to bite, raising pressure to translate AI demand into durable profit.
Policy
Google's privacy maze: How Gemini traps you and your data
Ars Technica argues Google’s Gemini rollout across Workspace makes opting out confusing, even as Google stresses limits on how Workspace content is used for model training.
Chips
Google unveils new TPUs positioned for the ‘agentic era’
The company says the new TPU designs target faster frontier-model training and improved efficiency across the AI lifecycle.
Policy
Google signs a classified deal allowing Pentagon use of its AI models for ‘any lawful’ purpose
A report says the agreement expands DoD access to Google’s models, amid employee concerns about military AI uses.
AI
Google releases Gemma 4 open models and switches licensing to Apache 2.0
Google’s open-model line gets a major update, with a more permissive license aimed at broader commercial and research use.
Policy
Google expands Pentagon's access to its AI after Anthropic's refusal
A new contract expands Google’s AI availability on classified networks, following Anthropic’s push for tighter guardrails.
Big Tech
Google pilots an 'Ask YouTube' conversational AI search experience
The new YouTube experiment blends video results with AI-generated summaries and follow-up Q&A, initially limited to U.S. Premium users.
Startups
DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data
Former DeepMind reinforcement learning leader David Silver’s new lab says it wants to build a 'superlearner' that acquires skills without human datasets.
Big Tech
Google Commits Up to $40 Billion to Anthropic in Largest AI Investment Deal Yet
Alphabet will inject $10 billion immediately at a $380 billion valuation, with $30 billion more contingent on Anthropic hitting performance benchmarks.
AI
DeepSeek Previews V4, Its Biggest Open-Weight Model Yet, at Prices That Undercut the Field
The Chinese AI lab's V4 Pro model tops 1.6 trillion parameters, claims near-parity with frontier models on reasoning, and costs a fraction of GPT-5.5 or Claude Opus.
Analysis
Meta, Microsoft Job Cuts Push 2026 Tech Layoffs Past 92,000 as AI Restructuring Accelerates
With four of the largest tech companies planning to spend nearly $700 billion on AI this year, economists are questioning whether the jobs being eliminated will ever return at the same scale.
Chips
Intel Reports 7% Revenue Gain as AI Demand Fuels Biggest Beat in Years
First-quarter revenue of $13.6 billion topped Wall Street estimates by more than $1 billion, driven by a 22% jump in the Data Center and AI segment, sending shares up more than 20%.
Chips
WSJ: Google introduces a new inference-focused TPU chip as AI chip race shifts beyond training
The Wall Street Journal reports Alphabet unveiled a processor aimed at running AI models (inference), highlighting demand growth as companies deploy generative AI systems.
AI
OpenAI Launches Workspace Agents in ChatGPT, Succeeding Custom GPTs for Enterprise Teams
The Codex-powered agents run continuously in the cloud, integrate with Slack and Salesforce, and allow organizations to share and schedule automated workflows across teams.
Chips
Google's Eighth-Generation TPUs Split Training and Inference Into Two Purpose-Built Chips
The TPU 8t delivers 2.8 times the compute of its predecessor for model training, while the TPU 8i offers a 9.8-times improvement per pod for agentic inference — and both will be available from Google Cloud later in 2026.
Big Tech
Google Unveils Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and New TPU Chips at Cloud Next 2026
At its annual Las Vegas conference, Google consolidated its AI products under a unified enterprise agent brand and announced a $750 million fund to help cloud partners sell AI agents to businesses.
AI
OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Images 2.0 With Reasoning Capabilities and Sharply Better Text
The new model generates accurate multilingual text, high-fidelity marketing assets, and multi-panel comics — and is available to all ChatGPT users starting Tuesday.
Startups
Anthropic Commits $100 Billion to AWS Over Ten Years as Its Revenue Surpasses $30 Billion Run Rate
The sweeping new deal with Amazon, which builds on $8 billion in prior investment, turns Anthropic into one of Amazon's most significant cloud and chip customers alongside its role as a portfolio company.
Big Tech
Amazon Plans to Invest Up to $25 Billion More in Anthropic
The deal includes a $5 billion upfront commitment plus $20 billion tied to milestones, and requires Anthropic to spend $100 billion on AWS over the next decade.
Policy
Google.org Expands Digital Futures Fund to $35 Million to Study AI's Impact on Work, Security, and Governance
The $15 million addition brings in a new cohort of think tanks including American Compass, CSIS, the Urban Institute, and Chile's CENIA to examine AI's effects on labor markets, infrastructure, and democratic institutions.
Policy
US Officials Warn Wall Street That Anthropic's Mythos AI Could Usher In a New Era of Cyber Risk
Federal regulators and senior officials, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, privately cautioned bank CEOs about the potential dangers of Anthropic's restricted frontier model, as JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were permitted to test it for defensive security purposes.
Big Tech
OpenAI Projects $100 Billion in Annual Ad Revenue by 2030, Targets Global Advertising Duopoly
Internal investor documents reveal ChatGPT's early ad pilot crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks, with projections scaling to $11 billion by 2027 and $53 billion by 2029.
AI
Anthropic Signs Multibillion-Dollar Cloud Deal With CoreWeave to Power Claude
The agreement gives Anthropic a new tranche of Nvidia-powered data center capacity in the US, as demand for Claude continues to surge past a $30 billion annual run rate.
AI
Meta AI app rockets from No. 57 to No. 5 in the U.S. App Store after Muse Spark launch, with downloads up 87% in a day
The surge in installs suggests Muse Spark may have revived consumer interest in Meta's AI product, which has lagged well behind ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Chips
Intel secures multiyear Google commitment to use Xeon chips and customize Intel's infrastructure processors in data centers
The partnership gives Intel a crucial validation of its data center chip roadmap at a moment when the company is fighting to stay relevant against Nvidia and custom silicon.
Analysis
Meta's Muse Spark gives Zuckerberg a credible seat at the frontier AI table for the first time
Wired's analysis finds the model represents a genuine qualitative leap over Llama 4, but Meta's shift away from open-source by default marks a strategic inflection point worth watching.
AI
Meta launches Muse Spark, its first AI model from Superintelligence Labs, in a major reboot of its AI strategy
Built from scratch by the team Zuckerberg assembled after being disappointed by Llama 4, Muse Spark benchmarks favorably against models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in early evaluations.
Big Tech
Google quietly launches AI Edge Eloquent, a free offline-first AI dictation app for iOS powered by on-device Gemma models
The experimental app runs speech recognition entirely on-device without a subscription, competing directly with Wispr Flow and other AI transcription tools.
AI
Anthropic launches Project Glasswing cybersecurity initiative, gives Nvidia, Google, Apple, and Microsoft access to Claude Mythos Preview
The restricted AI model can autonomously find critical vulnerabilities across major operating systems and browsers — and Anthropic is keeping it locked away from the public for safety reasons.
Policy
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google join forces through Frontier Model Forum to combat AI model theft by Chinese rivals
The three competing AI labs are sharing intelligence to detect adversarial distillation — a practice where foreign actors extract proprietary capabilities from frontier models without authorization.
Chips
Foxconn parent Hon Hai posts 30% revenue surge as AI server demand holds strong into 2026
The Nvidia manufacturing partner's quarterly results signal that hyperscaler appetite for AI compute hardware remains robust despite geopolitical headwinds.
AI
Microsoft releases three in-house AI models — MAI-Transcribe-1, MAI-Voice-1, and MAI-Image-2 — in its clearest challenge yet to OpenAI
The MAI Superintelligence team's first commercial model releases beat competitors on key benchmarks while undercutting OpenAI and Google on price.
Big Tech
Meta, Google, and Microsoft race to lock up natural gas capacity for AI data centers — and risks are mounting
The three tech giants are committing to gigawatts of gas generation capacity to feed insatiable AI energy demand, raising questions about long-term resource and climate exposure.
AI
Anthropic acquires stealth biotech AI startup Coefficient Bio in $400 million stock deal
The acquisition accelerates Anthropic's push into life sciences, adding a ten-person team of computational drug discovery veterans to its health division.
AI
Google's March AI recap: Search Live goes global, Gemini gets personal memory, and a new audio model debuts
Google's monthly roundup confirms a Gemini platform that is becoming more deeply personalized, more globally accessible, and more competitive with real-time audio rivals like GPT-4o voice.
Big Tech
Oracle begins mass layoffs in the thousands as AI data-center investment strains cash flow
Oracle employees across the US, India, Canada, and Mexico received termination emails on March 31, as the company redirects billions toward AI cloud infrastructure at the cost of its headcount.
Big Tech
Apple bets on App Store-style AI platform model as it kills Mac Pro and defends hardware talent
Mark Gurman's Power On newsletter reveals Apple is reframing its AI strategy around platform ownership rather than model development, while paying rare bonuses to retain iPhone designers.
AI
Google's March Gemini Drop brings AI memory portability, Lyria 3 Pro, and global Search Live
Google's monthly Gemini update lets users import chat history from rival AI apps and introduces a new audio model fast enough to sustain real-time conversation in over 200 countries.
Big Tech
Apple opens Siri to rival AI assistants in sweeping chatbot-agnostic pivot
The iPhone maker will let ChatGPT, Gemini, and other third-party models plug directly into Siri, reframing Apple as an AI platform rather than a single-model gatekeeper.
AI
OpenAI Pivots Its E-Commerce Strategy Away from Instant Checkout Toward Retailer Apps
After Instant Checkout stumbled due to stale product data and limited merchant adoption, OpenAI is shifting to a model where purchases redirect to retailers' own websites via in-app browsers inside ChatGPT.
Analysis
TechCrunch Midpoint Report: The AI Stories Shaping 2026's First Quarter
From Anthropic's Pentagon battle to the data center construction boom and hardware price inflation, a roundup of the defining AI narratives through mid-March finds the industry at a pivotal inflection.
Chips
Meta Unveils Four Generations of Custom MTIA AI Chips in Bid to Reduce Reliance on Nvidia
The social media giant's accelerated silicon roadmap targets both ranking and generative AI inference, with all four chip generations deploying within two years at a pace far faster than industry norms.
Policy
Anthropic's Pentagon Battle Sets a Dangerous Precedent for Every AI Company With Government Clients
Silicon Valley is watching closely as the first-ever supply-chain risk designation against a US domestic company tests whether the executive branch can penalize firms for their AI safety positions.
AI
OpenAI Acquires AI Security Platform Promptfoo to Harden Enterprise Agent Testing
The deal brings automated red-teaming and vulnerability detection into OpenAI's Frontier enterprise platform, used by more than a quarter of Fortune 500 companies.
Policy
Anthropic Sues Pentagon Over 'Supply-Chain Risk' Designation, Calling It Unconstitutional Retaliation
The Claude maker filed two federal complaints challenging the DOD's unprecedented blacklisting of an American AI company, citing First Amendment violations.
Startups
Yann LeCun's AMI Labs Raises $1.03 Billion to Build AI That Understands the Physical World
The Turing Award winner's new startup, backed by Nvidia, Samsung, and Bezos Expeditions, is betting that world models will surpass large language models for real-world applications.
Big Tech
Oracle Plans Thousands of Layoffs as AI Data Center Expansion Strains Cash Flow
The job reductions will affect divisions across the company and may begin this month, with some cuts targeting roles Oracle expects AI to make redundant.
AI
OpenAI Releases GPT-5.3 Instant to Cut Down on Preachy, Condescending Responses
The update to ChatGPT's default model targets tone and conversational flow, reducing unsolicited emotional reassurances that frustrated users for months.
AI
Google Launches Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite for High-Volume Developer Workloads
The fastest and cheapest model in Google's Gemini 3 series launches in preview at $0.25 per million input tokens, targeting cost-sensitive large-scale deployments.
Analysis
Inside the Trillion-Dollar Race to Build AI Infrastructure: $700 Billion in 2026 Spending, Stargate Construction Underway
A comprehensive analysis of AI infrastructure commitments finds hyperscalers planning nearly $700 billion in 2026 data center spending, with Stargate construction underway in Texas and Oracle locking in $300 billion in compute contracts.
AI
Google's February Gemini Drop Delivers Gemini 3.1 Pro, Lyria 3 Music Generation, and Nano Banana 2 to Consumers
Google's monthly Gemini Drop update confirms the general consumer rollout of Gemini 3.1 Pro alongside a new AI music creation tool and an upgraded fast image model for Gemini app subscribers.
Chips
Nvidia Posts $43 Billion Quarterly Profit on Record $68 Billion Revenue as AI Chip Dominance Deepens
Nvidia's fiscal fourth quarter delivered its most profitable period ever, surpassing the quarterly earnings of Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet, with data center revenue surging 75% year-over-year to $62.3 billion.
AI
Google and Samsung Debut Agentic Gemini Features on Galaxy S26 That Apple Still Cannot Match With Siri
At Samsung's Galaxy S26 Unpacked event, Google demonstrated Gemini's ability to autonomously complete multi-step tasks — like analyzing group chats and ordering food through apps — a capability Apple promised for Siri in 2024 but has yet to ship.
