The Mandate
Accenture is tracking executives' AI logins and tying them to promotions. The evidence says AI intensified work rather than reducing it. The poster child had to rehire the humans its AI replaced.
Google rolls out Gemini 3.1 Pro, which it says is “a step forward in core reasoning”, for all users in the Gemini app; the .1 increment is a first for Google
In November, Google introduced Gemini 3 Pro in preview, with Gemini 3 Flash following a month later.
Inside India's AI Impact Summit: 300+ exhibitors, 500 sessions, 250K visitors, billions in investment, and entrepreneurs touting solutions to real-world issues
The event promised to be a global coming-out party for India's artificial intelligence aspirations.
India's AI Summit: Modi orchestrated a photo op with tech and business leaders holding hands in a line, but Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to clasp hands
Once a rival, always a rival. — As Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the busiest day of India's AI Summit in New Delhi …
Docs: DHS has signed a five-year, $1B blanket purchase agreement with Palantir, allowing agencies like ICE to skip the competitive bidding process
“If you are interested in helping shape and deliver the next chapter of Palantir's work across DHS, please reach out,” a Palantir executive wrote …
The Gates Foundation says Bill Gates will not deliver his keynote at India's AI Summit after “careful consideration”, amid controversy over his Epstein ties
Cherylann Mollan /BBC:
Sources: the US State Department is building an online portal at freedom.gov that will let users in Europe and elsewhere see content banned by their governments
The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned …
Inside the “gay tech mafia” that mixes social and professional lives, as investors, entrepreneurs, and executives detail gay influence in Silicon Valley
Gay men have long been rumored to run Silicon Valley. WIRED investigates. — No one can say exactly when, or if, gay men started running Silicon Valley.
Sources: Accenture told executives that promotions would require “regular adoption” of AI and it is starting to track some senior staff's weekly AI tool logins
Consulting firms use ‘carrot and stick’ with some senior staff less willing to use technology than junior colleagues
West Virginia's AG sues Apple for allegedly violating consumer protection law by not implementing tools like PhotoDNA to detect CSAM stored and shared on iCloud
The state's attorney general said in a lawsuit filed on Thursday that the company declined to use tools that recognize the material stored on iCloud.
Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model to make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana-generated cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages
The Gemini app now features our most advanced music generation model Lyria 3, empowering anyone to make 30-second tracks using text or images in beta.
Sony shuts down Bluepoint Games, the PlayStation subsidiary behind remakes of older games like Demon's Souls and Uncharted; ~70 employees will lose their jobs
The PlayStation subsidiary previously made remakes of games like 'Demon's Souls' — Sony Group Corp. is shutting down Bluepoint Games …
Sources: AMD agrees to backstop a $300M loan from Goldman Sachs for Crusoe to buy AMD AI chips, the first known case of AMD chips used as debt collateral
Chipmaker AMD is pursuing the same growth-driving strategy that has boosted sales at rival Nvidia: lending its financial support to upstart cloud providers buying its chips.
Meta says it is “explicitly separating” Quest VR from its Worlds platform, making Worlds “almost exclusively mobile”, letting it better compete with Roblox
Horizon Worlds is now going to be a platform that's ‘almost exclusively mobile.’
Toronto-based chip startup Taalas, which hardwires AI models into custom silicon to achieve faster inference, raised $169M, bringing its total funding to $219M
Toronto-based chip startup Taalas said on Thursday it had raised $169 million and has developed a chip capable …
Amazon dethrones Walmart as the world's largest company by revenue, reporting $717B in 2025 sales, compared to Walmart's $713.2B for the 12 months to January 31
Amazon.com Inc. has officially dethroned Walmart Inc. as the biggest global company by revenue, a milestone attesting …
Microsoft's Project Silica team details its laser-modified glass storage tech, saying tests suggest that it can preserve large amounts of data for 10,000+ years
“This will change the way we think about keeping data and archival preservation.” — Our knowledge of the past comes from stone tablets and old parchment.
CZ returned to the US for the first time since his 2024 prison release to attend a World Liberty Financial event at Mar-a-Lago with Brian Armstrong and others
Changpeng Zhao makes first return to the U.S. since his release from federal prison in 2024 — In an ornate ballroom in Palm Beach …
Workers describe a deteriorating culture at Jack Dorsey's Block as morale plunges amid rolling layoffs and a push to use AI tools to improve productivity
Workers describe a deteriorating culture at Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, where layoffs continue and employees are expected to use AI tools daily.
ZaiNar, a developer of a GPS alternative that uses Wi-Fi and 5G to provide location data, raised $10M at a $1B valuation, bringing its total funding to $100M
Over the last two years, investors and researchers have flocked to startups helping bring AI into the physical world …
Sources: Emerald AI, which develops software to curb data center energy demand, is raising a $25M seed extension at a ~$250M post-money valuation
Emerald AI, which develops software to curb data-center energy demand, is raising $25 million in seed extension funding, two sources familiar with the offer tell Axios Pro.
Atlassian's founders lost ~$7.2B in wealth in 2026, behind AppLovin's three founders, amid a SaaS rout; TEAM is down 45%+ YTD, the Nasdaq 100's worst performer
Michael Cannon-Brookes became a billionaire in his 30s and one of Australia's richest tech executives with the initial public offering …
Cleveland-based Eagle Wireless, which makes cellular modules used in IoT devices, raised a $30M Series B as the US seeks to reduce its reliance on China
Eagle Wireless, a cellular module manufacturer, raised a $30 million Series B from Asymmetric Capital Partners and The O.H.I.O. Fund …
Reddit is testing an AI search feature that takes community recommendations and shows matching products from its advertisers in the results
Reddit announced on Thursday that it's testing a new AI search tool that takes community recommendations and matches them with products …
US OPM Director Scott Kupor says tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Sam Altman will give talks to the US Tech Force, which is hiring ~1,000 software engineers
Programme aims to modernise digital infrastructure of US federal agencies — Tech billionaires such as Elon Musk and Sam Altman …
India-based Tata Group signs OpenAI as its first data center client, starting with 100MW of capacity, and plans to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise, starting with TCS
OpenAI has partnered with India's Tata Group to secure 100 megawatts of AI-ready data center capacity in the country, with plans to scale to 1 gigawatt.
Book extract: ex-Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton recounts his role in sparking North Korea's 2014 hack, one of the worst cyberattacks in corporate history
In an exclusive book excerpt, the former CEO of Sony Entertainment opens up about his role in unleashing one of the worst cyberattacks in corporate history.
New York pulls a proposal that would have allowed for robotaxi services outside NYC, a setback for Waymo, which wants to hit 1M paid weekly US rides by 2026 end
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has pulled a proposal that would have allowed for commercial robotaxi services outside New York City …
Apple Podcasts' fresh leap into video podcasts accelerates the podcast industry's shift from an audio-centric medium to a decidedly video-focused one
Apple Podcasts' fresh leap into video podcasts refocuses the audio medium on visuals — Welcome back to Soundbite.
Sources: OpenAI is close to finalizing the first phase of its record $100B+ round; its overall valuation, including the eventual funding, could exceed $850B
Sources and docs: the US “effectively gutted” the Internet Freedom program that dispensed $500M+ since 2016 to help build tech to evade state internet controls
Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat
FreeForm, which is building an AI native 3D printing system that uses 18 lasers to fuse metal powders into precision components, raised a $67M Series B
Tech investors haven't given up on the dream of making physical products with the same speed and ease as coding software.
Austin-based Ownwell, which helps homeowners appeal property taxes, raised a $50M Series B, including $30M in equity, bringing its total equity funding to $54M
Ownwell, an AI-powered startup that appeals property taxes on behalf of homeowners, has secured $50 million in financing …
Amsterdam-based Stacks, which builds AI software to automate accounting workflows, raised a $23M Series A led by Lightspeed, after a €10M seed in 2025
Stacks, which builds AI software to automate accounting workflows, raised $23 million in Series A funding, CEO Albert Malikov tells Axios exclusively.
ByteDance is currently hiring for nearly 100 US-based roles within its Seed AI team across San Jose, LA, and Seattle to develop LLMs, drug discovery, and more
Chinese tech giant ByteDance Ltd. is hiring in the US for nearly 100 open roles within its artificial intelligence division …
Mobile gaming company Scopely buys a majority stake in Istanbul-based studio Loom, maker of puzzle game Pixel Flow!; a source says the deal values Loom at $1B+
“It's been a privilege to have a front row seat to the team's rapid growth and success and see them become the latest Turkish startup …
Klarna reports Q4 revenue up 38% YoY to $1.08B and a $26M net loss, down from a $40M net profit in Q4 2024; KLAR is down 66%+ since its September 2025 NYSE IPO
Swedish fintech's shares have sunk since September's IPO — Klarna swung to a $26mn net loss in the last three months of 2025 …
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is on an apology tour to quell an outcry over privacy concerns after Ring's Super Bowl Search Party ad, calling it a “perfect storm”
Since the commercial aired, Jamie Siminoff has been trying to quell an outcry over privacy concerns with his doorbell cameras.
Sources: Uber is moving to bar drivers with convictions for violent felonies, sexual offenses, and child or elder abuse, after an NYT report in December 2025
The New York Times revealed in December that the ride-hailing giant approved drivers with many types of criminal convictions, including violent felonies.
Russian forces in Ukraine are facing communications issues as SpaceX restricts Starlink access and Telegram faces a crackdown, per pro-Russian military channels
Russian forces fighting in Ukraine are facing communications problems from the dual blow of restricted access to Elon Musk's Starlink …
How Lego's Creative Play Lab built the Smart Brick, its custom chip, sensors, and proprietary communication system to seamlessly integrate with existing sets
Lego's next release is a digital brick loaded with sensors that add new layers of interactivity to its play sets.
A study of 12K+ EU companies finds AI adoption increases labor productivity by 4% on average in the EU, with no evidence of reduced employment in the short run
Artificial intelligence promises to reshape economies worldwide, but firm-level evidence on its effects in Europe remains scarce.Forums:Hacker NewsandSlashdotForums:Hacker News:How AI is affecting pro...
Remitly co-founder Matt Oppenheimer steps down as CEO of the payments network and will be succeeded by Banco Santander executive Sebastian Gunningham
Nonprofit What To Fix says Facebook's content monetization program grew from under 3M to over 12M participants in just over a year; 8M+ accounts are in English
And Indonesian creators are leading the charge. — Facebook's new content monetization program is booming …
Apple's 40-day correlation to the Nasdaq 100 Index fell to 0.21 last week, the lowest since 2006, making it an appealing alternative to the AI-fueled volatility
It's been nearly 20 years since Apple Inc. was this untethered from its tech peers, giving investors an appealing alternative …
Venice, which develops identity security software, emerges from stealth after raising a $25M Series A led by IVP, following an $8M seed round
Indian digital payments company Pine Labs plans to embed OpenAI APIs into its infrastructure to enable AI-assisted settlement, reconciliation, and invoicing
As India pitches itself as a global hub for applied artificial intelligence, OpenAI has partnered with Pine Labs to integrate AI-driven reasoning …
A US judge rules former Palantir employees likely violated confidentiality and non-solicitation agreements in founding Percepta, but declines to halt their work
Selector, which offers an AI platform that promises to simplify network monitoring, raised a $32M Series B led by AVP at a $375M valuation
Network observability provider Selector Software Inc. today announced that it has raised a $32 million funding round at a $375 million valuation.
Samsung shares surged 5.4% to a record high after a report said the company plans to price HBM4 chips at ~$700 per unit, 30% higher than the previous generation
DoorDash reports Q4 revenue up 38% YoY to $3.96B, vs. $3.99B est., total orders up 32% to 903M, and forecasts Q1 adjusted EBITDA below estimates
Cogent Security, which aims to use AI agents to decide which software bugs to remediate, raised a $42M Series A led by Bain, taking its total funding to $53M
Austin-based Circuit, which is building an AI platform for manufacturing and service enterprises, raised $30M from a group of angel investors
Austin-based Circuit raises $30 million to tackle a growing manufacturing labor shortage — An Austin startup co-founded by former Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle …
Sources: Dylan Patel's SemiAnalysis is in early talks to raise hundreds of millions for a VC fund; Patel raised a $50M SPV toward Fluidstack's $700M fundraising
Cadence shares closed up 7.6% on February 18, after the chip design company reported Q4 revenue up ~6% YoY to $1.44B and adjusted EPS of $1.99, both above est.
Figma reports Q4 revenue up 40% YoY to $303.8M, above $293.15M est., and forecasts Q1 revenue above estimates; FIG jumps 15%+ pre-market
Efficient Computer, which is developing AI chips with a “spatial dataflow” architecture to minimize energy consumption, raised a $60M Series A
OpenAI hires Instagram's VP of global partnerships, Charles Porch, as its first VP of global creative partnerships, seeking to win over a skeptical Hollywood
Matthew Ball's State of Video Gaming 2026 report: global video game content sales grew 5.3% YoY to $195.6B in 2025 while job losses fell 40% YoY to 9,200 people
Study: X's feed algorithm favors conservative content, and switching to For You for seven weeks shifted users' views toward more conservative political opinions
The algorithm also doesn't like posts by traditional news media, the researchers found.
eBay agrees to acquire secondhand clothing app Depop from Etsy for ~$1.2B in cash; Etsy bought Depop, popular with Gen Z, in 2021 for $1.6B; ETSY jumps 5%+
The $1.2 billion deal comes as eBay looks to expand its appeal among younger users. — Secondhand clothing apps hit a stride during …
Google unveils the $499 Pixel 10a, with a Tensor G4 and 8GB of RAM like the Pixel 9a, Satellite SOS, an 11% brighter screen, but no Pixelsnap, shipping March 4
Google's midrange Pixels have been our top pick for budget Android phones for a while. They offer good cameras and most of what you need at a budget-friendly price.
Bluesky integrates Germ DM, an E2E encrypted messaging app built on the AT Protocol, making it the first private messenger natively available in the Bluesky app
Here's something that you've never seen on Big Tech social platforms: The decentralized open social network Bluesky has integrated …
Crypto lending firm Ledn sold $188M in securitized bonds backed by 5,400+ bitcoin loans, making it the first deal of its kind in the asset-backed debt market
Crypto lending firm Ledn Inc. has sold $188 million of securitized bonds backed by Bitcoin, making it the first ever deal of its kind in the market for asset-backed debt.
OpenAI and Paradigm announce EVMbench, a benchmark that measures how well AI agents can detect, exploit, and patch high-severity smart contract vulnerabilities
Making smart contracts safer by evaluating AI agents' ability to detect, patch, and exploit vulnerabilities in blockchain environments.
Sports-focused prediction market Novig raised a $75M Series B led by Pantera Capital at a $500M valuation; Novig is commission-free for retail traders
As the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket dominate the attention of investors and regulators, a sports-focused challenger called Novig …
The UK proposes requiring tech companies to remove nonconsensual abusive content within 48 hours, or risk being blocked and fined up to 10% of global revenue
PM says measure, also applied to deepfake nudes, is needed owing to a ‘national emergency’ of online misogyny
Sources: Meta has revived a previously shelved smartwatch project, now code-named Malibu 2, and plans to release it in 2026 with health features and Meta AI
Meta Platforms plans to release its first smartwatch in 2026, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Microsoft confirms a bug that let Microsoft 365 Copilot summarize confidential emails from Sent Items and Drafts folders, and deployed a fix in early February
Meta plans to spend $65M in 2026 to boost AI-friendly state politicians; filings show Meta started two super PACs, one backing the GOP and another for Democrats
Meta's biggest election investment aims to prevent state legislation that it fears could inhibit artificial intelligence development.
Audible launches an “immersion reading” feature that lets readers switch between ebook and audiobook versions of a title in their Audible and Kindle libraries
Only days after Spotify announced its foray into physical book sales, which included an audiobook feature that lets …
Social media addiction trial: Mark Zuckerberg says increasing engagement on Instagram is not a company goal and that Meta removes underage users it identifies
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back against the notion that the social media company made increasing time spent on Instagram a company goal.
Saudi-backed AI startup Humain invested $3B in xAI, becoming a “significant minority shareholder” in a deal that completed just before SpaceX's xAI acquisition
Texas AG Ken Paxton sues TP-Link, alleging it deceptively markets its products as secure while allowing the CCP to hack into consumers' devices
Texas is suing networking equipment company TP-Link Systems for allegedly allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to hack into consumers' devices …
Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $1B from Autodesk, a16z, Nvidia, AMD, Sea, and others to build its world models for robotics, scientific discovery, and more
World Labs, a startup from artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li, raised $1 billion in a new round of funding to pursue a novel approach to AI development.
Apple adds support for third-party voice-based conversational apps in CarPlay starting with iOS 26.4, letting CarPlay users access apps like AI chatbots
With iOS 26.4, CarPlay users will be able to use third-party chatbots with CarPlay. AI services like Claude, Gemini …
At India's AI Summit, Google announces the America-India Connect Initiative, which will build new fiber optic lines between India, the US, and other countries
eBay reports Q4 revenue up 15% YoY to $3B, above $2.87B est., GMV up 10% YoY to $21.2B, net income down 23% YoY to $525M, and forecasts Q1 profit above est.
Spencer Soper /Bloomberg:
Google expands Quick Share support with AirDrop to the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold, after introducing it on the Pixel 10 in November 2025
Abner Li /9to5Google: